ear

reader,

In the first week of writing class this

quarter, my professor asked the class to write
two things on a three by five card he provided
us. We were to jot down something
about ourselves (easy) and then write down what our
theory of writing was (not so easy) by using three key
words. I had never really put much thought on what I
thought defined writing and if Im being honest now, I
actually never put much thought on many topics I
encountered in this class during the quarter. Well I
just wrote the first three words about what writing was
that came to mind:
1. Creativity
2. Fluidity
3. Emotional
My reasonings were pretty basic. Writing is creative
because one has the ability to use words to describe
different settings. Im still not sure what I meant by
fluidity but Im going to assume I meant that writing
follows a flow of pattern that is understandable to a
reader. Lastly, writing is emotional because one is
able to express their thoughts on paper through words.

I personally believe these descriptions were dull but

as the weeks went on, I developed a better
understanding of this type of art humans describe as
written work.
Now fast forward nine weeks and Ive developed a
deeper meaning of writing. Here it goes. Writing is a
revelation of dynamic thinking that serves a purpose.
My new three keywords: Revealing, dynamic and
functional.
When I say writing is revealing I mean it in
connection with the writer. When a written project is
published, a person is in a sense exposing themselves
to the reader. You expose your style of writing and
reveal your thought processes on given situations. In
short, I use this word because writing has the ability
to illustrate you as a person. Writing is undoubtedly
dynamic. The process of writing requires constant
change in many different ways. A writer does not use
the same style of writing every time; it constantly
changes with different targeted audiences. Thirdly,
writing always holds functionality (In this case, we
will use purpose and function interchangeably). For
example, receipts function to tell the consumer what
was purchased. The purpose of a speech is to engage an
audience with a central idea. This cover letter is here
to let you know what Ive actually learned in class
this quarter and so on. Whatever it is, these different
genres that possess writing hold an important
functionality that we use in our everyday world.

These three words as well as my new attitude on

writing were developed from my accumulation of readings
and experiences in my Writing 2 class. A required
text, They Say I Say, provided me with the templates
that proved to be necessary in essays like summarizing
an authors work and then connecting it with my
thinking. Levys Meditations on a Receipt convinced me
that receipts arent just a waste a paper that is left
crumbled at the bottom of my purse; they hold a
distinct moment in history. Mary Jo Reiff in her
article Rereading Invoked and Addressed Readers
Through a Social Lens showed me that I should take note
of more than one audience when writing. Weekly in-class
discussions with partners and project feedback allowed
me to find flaws in my current work and also provided
me with new ideas on how to approach my writing. The
up-shot of all this is that this class left me with an
improved knowledge of writing.
My website design choice is pretty simple. My
personal ways of thinking seem to reflect this. I dont
like to overthink too much, and I enjoy the simplicity
in things. I choose to use a basic layout and used
different pictures to make my site look polished. I
chose to use my own pictures I took of the ocean all
her in my home of Isla Vista. The reason I chose the
ocean is because I simply love the ocean and nature in
general. Its beautiful. When Im at the cliffs
overlooking it, I go into deep thought about different
things, as I am alone with just my thoughts. When I

write, I also try to immerse myself in deep thought to

express genuine work.
You will find the title at the top of each page. I
titled it Finding the Flow as I felt that this
writing course was a process in finding my appreciation
for writing. The three tabs above consist of an About
page that has a short and sweet paragraph about me and
what my website is all about. Then we have this page
that includes this lovely cover letter you are
currently reading. The last page includes all the
assignments I completed throughout the quarter. Under
the Assignments tab you will also find a sub-tab that
says Revisions.
These revisions include one of my biggest projects
for quarter. For this assignment, I just clarified a
few points in the research paper that werent as clear
and also fixed a bit of formatting and rewording. The
second revision dealt with propositions and questions I
came up with in the beginning of the quarter. I
initially left the questions too vague so I specified
these more to get a more clear research question that
could be more clearly addressed.

That about sums it up. Thanks for stopping by.

-Vanessa Vaquerano