Dear Alanna,

I’ve been in college for two years and my main struggle of dealing with organizing ideas

has continued to linger throughout my career as a college student. However, I've learned

different study methods to combat my weaknesses in those areas during the course. For example,

one of the methods I used was taken from free writing, where students had to write for ten

minutes straight without editing. I used the timer technique, except it applied when I had writer's

block when working on the writing projects. I would also use the ten-minute timer in other areas,

for instance, when I needed to take notes on the articles. After the ten minutes ended, I would

take a five-minute break and increase the time for when I started writing again. I get easily

distracted, so all my writing had to take place on my computer rather than on my phone, which I

would throw to the other side of the room. Writing two has been an essential part of my college

career because, unlike other classes at UCSB, it managed to push me out of my comfort zone as

a writer.

For writing project one, there was an emphasis on my ideas being great, but the

organization needed work. Therefore I saw it necessary to pull apart my essay, reconfigure some

of it, and remove unnecessary parts. Additionally, I deleted my thoughts on Coleridge from the

overview and centered my focus on Wordsworth. Then I implemented Wordsworth's ideas about

poetry to represent the rustic human instead of passionate and overly emotional language, which

was Coleridge's style. The dramatic changes consisted of me editing out some words in my

poem, such as "labyrinthe," and replacing them with words I would use when talking to another

person. I wanted to work mainly on ideas from Wordsworth, who focused on the ordinary

instead of Coleridge and Wordsworth. As a result, my language would need to be more to the

point, and it provided the perfect explanation for why I would use quotes such as "you're wrong"
because I was supposed to use language from the rustic person. You also brought to my attention

a need for a third poem to fill in the blanks for what the other two ballads lacked. I expressed in

that poem that there were three participants, and I attempted to define social and individual

voices by stating, "social voices are learned from another," and "Individual voices are taken from

creative instinct." I wanted to represent the difference in how people learn social voice from

conversation, conveying the "learned from another" and the individual voice, found from inner

thoughts, meaning the words "creative instincts."

Another way I narrowed my focus was by defining the terms ballad and lyric and then

conveying how they worked together to create the subgenre of lyrical ballad poetry. Defining

these terms was in the feedback I was given, and it was constructive for me because I could track

the terms that I explained to the audience so that I could expand on them. For example, I

expanded on how lyrical ballads were written by defining the terms quatrain and envoi. Other

feedback I received helped me find the direct quotes from articles. I felt my ideas were all over

the place when I brought in evidence from articles and explained why I was translating

Lancaster's article into a specific genre. I brought in a quote from Kerry Dirk's "Navigating

Genre," which said, " recognizing the rhetorical situation of your action and choosing to act in a

manner that would result in the outcome you desired." Using the direct quote helped me

understand why rhetorical knowledge was an essential part of my process because, like Dirk

said, if you know the context and implement it correctly, you can get the outcome you want from

your audience. Overall, this project showed me that I need to narrow my focus in writing so my

ideas can evolve appropriately and be organized.

I believe my focus on the activities for the writing projects was another factor in my

learning about the projects. My favorite activity was the HouseBoat on the Stix, where my group
mates and I explored a conversation about Scrutiny in the Media and How it Affects Musicians

involving musicians who were alive and dead. We needed to examine the different scandal

articles to connect our talking points and make the artists sound genuine. I was familiar with the

language Mehgan the Stallion used because I'm a fan of hers and my comfortability with her in

this process taught me to discuss a topic I was comfortable and knowledgeable about using. This

activity led me to write about disabilities considering I have dyslexia and am versed in the

criteria. I was working with a limited time frame, so I needed to understand what I was talking

about and the depth of the question I needed to ask. Learning about the different techniques

educators used to help students with disabilities piqued my interest doing writing project two was

my favorite project I worked on this quarter because I was working with content that resonated

with me.

I, unfortunately, hadn't received your feedback for writing project two, but I was able to

look back at the peer review, and I took notes on areas I struggled with on the project. One of the

most important things I noted was that I needed to break down my sentences properly. An

important piece of feedback was that I mentioned a lot of writers along with their credentials in

my reflection. So it was important to introduce each writer along with their motivations and

feelings towards the conversation. I used examples of the writer's feeling of the conversation by

changing why I felt it was appropriate for Carolyn A. Denton to make a joke about her students

being disruptive. Then, I clarified why I felt Nadine Gaab would criticize the humor of Raija

Pirttimaa, adding a joke about why she was glad she worked with older students.

I broke up paragraphs five and six because they were looking to be longer than needed.

My peer review clarified that my transition sentences could use some work. My transition into

reflection is what I found very important, so I needed a hook and decided to use my personal
experience as a student with a disability. I added some of the learning strategies I obtained to

transition better into why I wanted to look more at learning strategies for students with learning

disabilities who struggle with reading comprehension. I also fixed the transition for paragraphs

five and six. For instance, when I talked about engagement at the end of paragraph five and

paragraph six, I continued with that topic and then moved on to encoding and decoding.

Ultimately, it created an organized set of paragraphs that I can be proud of after finishing the

course.

I enjoyed creating the portfolio and the freedom we were given when putting in the

photos and naming the documents. I could put in images that I felt were either relevant or color-

coded to the translations of my projects. I believe the portfolio shows how I've been able to

reconstruct my essays. The first writing project shows how I can keep and add new ideas without

the essay looking unorganized. The second writing project shows my ability to work with

limitedfeedback, but make drastic changes. My belief is that I will take the study method of

writing for ten minutes, I will also take with me the aspect of narrowing my focus by defining

terms and using direct quotes when I’m quoting an author. I used to be a writer who had to

completely start with a new idea if she needed to rewrite a paper. However, as I’ve learned by

revising writing project one, I can hold onto old ideas and connect them with new ideas. I’m

really excited for what I will learn as a writer, and my hope is that I will become the writer I

want to be when I finish undergrad.

Sincerely,

Niableu Correal