Wendy Ramirez

Professor Monterrey

English 5-74

17 July 2021

Theory of Writing

This English course is an academic literacy course where I am expected to demonstrate

anything so far that I know about literacy. No matter how much I know, I am expected to meet

the four learning outcomes that this english course requires. The four learning outcomes of this

course are, 1. Develop awareness of how communities shape reading, writing, and research, 2.

Explore a writer's identity in relation to the politics of language, 3. Engage in reflective and

metacognitive processes, 4. Compose rhetorically effective texts, informally and formally, in a

variety of mediums and genres. If I am being honest when I heard I had to meet these certain

goals, I didn't think I was capable of doing so because I wasn't confident in myself nor in my

writing. Now that I am more than halfway through this course I do think that I have met these

goals, maybe not completely but I do think I've met part of each goal which I think is pretty good

since this is a five week course and everything is fast paced.

In the beginning of this course I wasn't very confident in my writing as it had been a

while since I had written an essay. Throughout high school my writing wasn't the best because I

struggled so much putting my ideas into words. If I am being honest I still struggle with it but I

definitely think that I have made some improvements. Some of the improvements I have made

that have helped me in my writing are knowing when to use a quote, paraphrase, and summarize.

This has helped know which word I can use to help me phrase my ideas. As I learned how to do

annotated bibliographies I believe that it's important to know how to do them as it will help
improve my writing skills. It helps me improve my writing because doing annotated

bibliographies, we have to do a summary of what the article was about. I feel like summarizing

other text helps the brain work harder as we have to think on how to rephrase the text and if we

can make connections to it. Thi

One of the current struggles I have when it comes to writing is sticking to one main idea

throughout each paragraph. As I have trouble phrasing my ideas I like to just write whatever it is

that is in my head so I wont forget those ideas. I do this without realizing and paying close

attention to whether or not what I wrote goes along to the idea that I had previously written. I

didn't quite realize this until I received feedback from my literacy autobiography essay. Instead

of denying this or ignoring it, I am glad that I am now aware of it because just by fixing this

could really improve my writing. I realize how important it is to stick with only one main idea to

each paragraph because it helps the reader follow along easily. I also sometimes don't realize that

I am including more than just one main point in the paragraph which is why I have decided to

reread every paragraph to make sure that it's sticking to only one main idea.

The introduction paragraph to me is the hardest paragraph to write no matter how much I

understand the topic or not. I always seem to struggle on the introduction paragraph because I

don't want to give too much information about my essay to the reader. Not only do I not want to

give away too much information but I feel like it's the most important paragraph because it's the

one that grabs the reader's attention as you are also informing them what the essay will be about.

To be more specific I struggle with my topic sentence as well as my thesis, these two sentences

are what makes an introduction paragraph powerful. A strategy that I have been doing on my

essays is writing all my other paragraphs first and lastly doing my introduction. This strategy has

helped me not give too much information away as I am able to come up with a sentence that
explains the overall of the essay. I recognize now that this is similar to the strategy of referencing

except I am referencing my own work.

As for my accomplishments in literacy I have understood many of the different

components that make a good essay. I have been able to fully understand that as a writer it's

important to know who the audience is. Knowing who the audience is is important because it

helps you figure out what the genre of the writing will be. I learned that before we start writing

we must know what kind of writing we are doing, like if it is a report, an argument, or an

evaluation. This is important because it helps the author determine how to write the ideas so that

it helps the reader navigate throughout the writing. Being able to understand these concepts that

take to become a good writer was an eye-opener to me because I didn't think that writing had its

own process. In the first week of this course I learned that writing is a process of and reflection,

and I can agree because after all the articles that I have read have provided what the process of

writing is. I believe that being able to understand these components of literacy means that I have

partially met the four learning outcomes.

Learning how to properly peer review made me realize how important it is as a reader

and a writer. After doing some reading I was able to fully understand why giving critical

feedback is important for a writer. In high school I sometimes felt shy and didn't want to come

off as rude if I had to tell a classmate that their writing didn't make sense. Now after reading

these articles, I feel more confident in being helpfulful to my classmates when revising their

writing because like the article said, we should all be able to take critical feedback. I learned that

when doing revisions of either a peer’s writing or even your own we need to figure out the

context to the writing, the main focus, and the writer's voice. Answering these questions during

revisions partially meets one of the learning goal outcomes, which is important for this English
course. In one of the articles the author mentions that when revising your own work, it's

important that you are reading as a reader, meaning to pretend that you are reading someone

else's work. It's important that as the reader and writer you give yourself critical feedback but not

too critical. When peer reviewing the reader should be able to give an even amount of critical

and praise comments. Also, as the writer it's important that the reader is able to make

connections to the writing because it means that the writer was able to target the audience, which

is important in writing.

There is a significant difference between a rough draft and a final draft. The difference is

that a final draft can offer more information and details that enhances the writing whereas a

rough draft is just all the ideas of a writer splattered on a piece of paper. A rough draft is

nowhere near the final draft. A rough draft is only the start of this long process of writing. There

are many steps that are to be followed in order to finalize a paper. Some of those steps are

knowing who the audience is, what genre to use, the tone, how organized the writing is, etc. In

my rough drafts I make sure that I have all my main ideas written where as in my final draft I go

into depth and make sure that each paragraph is clear for the reader to follow along and that my

writing is from grammatical errors.

I can use all the information that I have learned in this english course in a future

workplace and or class. It's important that I continue to practice all these strategies in my future

classes because it would only help me improve in my writing. Like I have previously mentioned,

writing is a process and revision, meaning that a piece of writing will never be perfect and there

will always be room for improvement.