Bryant 1

Shateanu’ Bryant

English College Writing 101-45

Professor Bailey Maple

December 5, 2019

Critical Reflection

I did not write a lot in high school. The most I had probably ever written was 500 words.

When I first came to UNC Greensboro and learned that I would be taking College Writing 1, I

panicked. All I could think of is how unprepared I was. I had no clue on how to write on the

collegiate level and thought that I would not enjoy any aspect of the course. With all of the

writings I have done in this class, I learned many valuable lessons. Practice makes perfect,

though I am not a perfect writer yet. I have become more familiar with the realization to enhance

my writing to its maximum potential.

Writing has always been a bit of a struggle for me and I feel that I have grown to a great

extent. Being in this class has made me more open to noticing the flaws within my writing and

process. I have learned to look at just more than one perspective when writing and to put myself

into the reader's shoes and use that to my advantage. The more I wrote the more content I began

to come up with to signify my purpose and profundity my meaning. I changed my style (the way

I group sentences) of writing between paper to paper to have more control over my writing. I did

not have a writing process before joining this class. Going along, I realized that there were

certain things that I had to do to make my writing process better, easier, and faster. I always ate

dinner first and took a shower. I then made sure I was isolated from everything and everyone and

instead of sitting in my dorm, I sat in my hall lounge. I realized that sitting in my dorm only

leads to procrastination and sometimes I start doing other things such as watching tv, taking a
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nap, etc. I started outlining every paper which gave me a place to start. In the beginning, I did not

follow them as strictly as I did in the end. When I feel ready to work, I sit in front of my laptop

and begin filling in my outline, then tapping out whatever comes to mind.

In my portfolio, I constructed the pieces in chronological order of the SLOs (1-6). Appealing to

ethos, I used a different excerpt for each one so that the reader can see multiple examples of my

writing. I did this to show that I am intelligent and can be trusted. For some, I even used more

than one excerpt as an example so that the reader can see the difference in my writing for each

SLO individually. I made sure that I included some of my worst and best work so that you can

see the growth in my writing. Even though you may get to my best works in some parts before

looking at my worst, seeing my portfolio as a whole will show you my growth as a writer and

even my writing process. Progressing through the semester becoming a more logical thinker, I

learned that my audience is very important. I observed and analyzed reactions and feedback and

then based my work on that input. I wanted to make sure that you saw exactly how I meet each

SLO without reusing examples to give you a variety. I demonstrated well that I understand the

SLOs and can meet the needs of those reviewing my portfolio. When going on my website you

can see that I used a lot of logos by making my points clear and straight to the point, to appeal to

the audience intellect. I thought about what would make more sense to them and used that to help

build my proof that I have met the SLOs in this course. I tried to incorporate pictures at times to

keep the page interesting, while still supporting my argument. With my website, I proved myself

by demonstrating that I understand what I am arguing only using my writing pieces to support

the claim and being confident in the pieces chosen.

Moving to the revisions within my essay, it was a bit more complicated than I thought. I

chose to revise my Persuasive Project because I knew that I rushed through this paper and did
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not have the chance to go to the writing center. I also knew that I could make the most revisions

to it. I first reread the paper and saw that I had a lot of sentences that didn’t make sense. I

highlighted things that I could change, areas that I could add things to, and places where I could

delete. I then referred back to my peer reviews to include some of their points and went over my

outline to make sure I had included everything from it. I then thought about the audience I am

trying to reach out to with this paper. I wanted it to be easy to read for anyone interested in the

topic of marijuana. In the beginning, I had to add words to make it easier for the reader to read

and flow better. I replaced some words that were past tense to relate the situation more to the

present. In some of my blockquotes, I realized that I just dropped them in without introducing

them. I had to go back and add words such as “in fact,” to help move into the quotes better that

provided more detailed information to what I said before. I added a semicolon to connect the

sentence fragments. In the middle of the paper, I had to move some sentences around to make the

flow of the paragraph better. I also added sentences to replace unnecessary ones. Trying to

appeal to pathos, I communicated with the reader personally and asked about their loved ones. I

put myself in a reader’s position and tried to determine the purpose of each sentence. If it did not

support my argument, I took it out. Appealing to logos, I made sure I put facts from reputable

sources and a real-life scenario of someone close to me. I did not want to change my audience

because I was not just targeting one specific group of people. My biggest goals when revising

where to better the flow of my paper, take out unnecessary sentences, and to add things that

would better my argument.

Overall, I am very proud of all the papers I wrote this semester. Whoever knew that I

could write a 5-page paper? As I got closer to the end of the semester, I realized that with

writing, I could do anything I put my mind to with effort and practice. I feel that I, as a writer,
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have grown for the better. I have enjoyed the challenge of writing different styles of papers and I

only plan to go up from here. I fully intend to go to be great and flourish!