Introduction

Going in to this course I was not sure exactly what to expect from it. I
had taken an AP class when I was in high school but frankly it was
horrendous. The teacher was oddly cynical and wasnt helpful when I had
questions in class. It seemed like no one really enjoyed the class and
everyone had some sort of trouble with the it. After that experience I became
much less interested in writing and it began to feel more like a punishment
to write a paper rather than a learning experience. I began to put off writing
assignments because I dreaded doing them, and when I finally finished them
they ended up being mediocre. I wasnt sure how I felt about writing
anymore.
When I came to the first day of this writing course we started out with
a small game that was meant to get to know everyone. I learned a lot about
my class the first day and I got an overall positive vibe of the class. As the
weeks went by I felt more relaxed about the class and slowly began to feel
more comfortable with writing. I realized that there are different ways to go
about writing a paper depending on who you are as a person and that made
me want to learn more about writing. The rest of this paper is meant to go
over the general assignments Ive done and show what Ive learned after
entering this class.
Whats it Like to Be You? Essay

Starting of this essay was not an easy task for me. Ive thought about
the question Whats it Like to Be You? before but I wasnt really sure of the
answer. I dont always find it easy to express myself or show others how I
feel so it was hard to put into words what it means to be me. Due to this I
had a hard time communicating with the reader in the first draft. I started my
draft off with a lot of confusing rhetoric questions and repetition (go to FEED
BACK). Looking back on the first draft it is easy to see that there are a lot of
issues.
After the first revision of my paper it was much easier to see what had
to be done. During peer review we read our papers out loud to each other
and revised as we went. This was very helpful to me and I learned that
reading my writing out loud helps me see what sounds right and what should
be fixed in a convenient way. So when I did my second draft I made my
revisions and then afterwards read it out loud to make sure it made sense.
The major issue with my second draft was that I forgot to add a poem,
song, or writing quote. I realized that I need a quote that expresses learning
to know yourself as an individual and looking forward to the future. I picked a
passage from the poem Individual by Lorraine Eley.
Time passes quickly, I'm moving on,
To live my dreams, before they've gone.
I have a voice, with which to speak, I am real,
This life is mine, alone, to live and feel.

After revising this paper, I learned better tactics to review my writing

and revise it more carefully. Overall I am very happy with the final product of
my What its Like to Be You? essay and really enjoyed looking over it with
my group members.
Annotated Bibliography
I have never done anything with annotated bibliographys before so
when we first started learning about what they are I was very confused. To
me the examples looked very complex and I wasnt exactly sure how the
format was for this assignment. However, once I started I learned how
helpful annotated bibliographies are.
At first it was weird to look for the sources before I even start writing
an essay, but in the end it was really helpful. I started off looking for my
sources on UNCCs library website and writing them all down in the first
column. After that I read them one by one and put a summary and comment
for each article I felt I had a good understanding of my topic and my sources.
This made it much easier to write my essay because I already had a good
idea of what I wanted to do.
After revising my annotated bibliography, I saw that I should try to find
sources from different fields, which I wrote about in (Blog Post #4). My topic
was the effects of social media on the development of adolescents, so I
decided to find sources which examine how popular social media is, the
statistics of positive and negative effects on social media, and also the brain

development of teens and their ability to make good decisions. This process
taught me that there should be a variety of sources that should be
considered when analyzing a topic.
Overall this was one of the most helpful concepts that we learned in
class because it makes us dedicate time to researching and understanding
our topic before we even write the first sentence to our paper. I definitely
think the annotated bibliography was a helpful writing tool for me and I plan
on continuing to use it before writing a research essay.
Multi-Genre Essay
Starting off the Multi-Genre Essay I wasnt sure exactly what I wanted
to do to show my research. My subject was the effect of social media on the
development of teens and I wanted my audience to be teens as well.
Because of this I thought I should stick to keeping my project very digital and
easy to understand.
The first part of my multi-genre essay was a video with drawings and
pictures that depict information of scenes as a read through a small script
that talks about the effects of social media on teens. I thought this was the
best way to rhetorically appeal to my audience because it is an easy to
watch video that can keep teenagers attention and state the information in
a simple way.
I had a lot of information gathered from my bibliography and when I
began writing a small essay it became lengthy pretty quickly. I wasnt sure

how to display everything I wrote in a concise way that would be easy for my
readers to understand. When I meant with my professor and my classmate
Cynthia they suggested that I make a separate website for the information
that can be linked through the video I published on YouTube. This proved to
be the best solution for me and I decided to use this method.
After putting together all the components of my essay I was pretty
pleased with the outcome. I felt like both pieces of my multi-genre essay
connected fairly well and that it was a good way to appeal to my audience. I
feel like I gained a thorough understanding of my topic due to the annotated
bibliography and this made completing the multi-genre essay much more
simple.
Key Concepts
The first Key Concept I thought I caught on to fairly well was Rhetorical
Knowledge and how to recognize rhetorical situations or utilize this
knowledge for myself. I feel I began to recognize these situations in Blog Post
#3 where I examined what David did when he came for the author visit, I
think David has a way of doing things that is supposed to be meaningful in
more than one way. For instance, when he first came into the class room he
shook everyones hand and introduced himself to everyone individually. I
think he wanted to not just introduce himself to everyone but also make a
small connection individually with every student. This seems to influence a
lot of Davids behavior and it seems that he really wants everyone to feel

included in situations. I think being able to recognize small things like this
shows that I was learning how to identify rhetoric in more than just writing.
The second Key Concept that I think I have learned very well is Critical
Reflection. I think Ive learned how to review my writing without being too
harsh or too easy on myself. In my Whats it Like to Be You? essay I messed
up a lot on the original first draft. However, after the workshop with my
group I learned how helpful it is to read you work out loud and it became
much easier for me to revise my work. Now when I look over my paper I read
it out loud and think to myself if the paper has a good flow and gets my point
across in a sophisticated way.
The last concept that I feel I have learned well is Making Connections.
This concept seemed to catch on for me pretty easily especially after I
learned more about rhetorical knowledge. I feel like with my Multi-Genre
Essay I connected both of my pieces in a coherent way that is easy for the
readers to access and understand. I feel like I am more cognitive how to do
my projects now and how they should connect together in a way that is easy
for the reader to understand. This is a skill that I think will be very useful
after I finish the course and can help me in different subjects.
My Grade
Overall I feel like so much has changed from the beginning of the
semester. I feel so much more confident in my writing and I am beginning to
enjoy it again. Writing papers doesnt feel like a pain anymore but instead a

challenge. Ive learned a lot about how to find credible research for my paper
that examines different viewpoints. Ive also learned how to revise my paper
with positive self-reflection. Im much more knowledgeable about rhetoric
and how you need to consider the audience when writing a paper or making
a project.
Not only have I absorbed a good amount of information in this class
but I also have kept up with almost every assignment and made sure to turn
my work in on time. I gave this class a lot of effort because I really enjoyed it
and felt like I was progressing in my writing skill as the semester went by. I
feel like overall my performance has been fairly good in this class.
I feel like my overall grade should be above a ninety because I have
seen myself progress so much in writing this semester and I feel like Ive
learned a lot of different concepts that I didnt know before that I can utilize
in the future. I dont think I ever slacked off very much in this class and was
the majority of the time trying my best. I have taken away a lot from this
class but the most valuable part was probably being able to feel comfortable
with writing again.