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Nevaeh Lanter

Ms. Castro

ENGL 1301

11 December 2023

The Rearview Mirror

I love to drive my car. If you ask anyone that I know, they will tell you I love my car

more than myself. They will also tell you that my life is never boring. That’s why I like my car

so much. Driving a car is just like living life. The objective is always to move forward. You

can see in front of you; you plan according to what you see in the moment, but the further you

go, the more new things you see. Your plans are always changing. Then there is the rearview

mirror. It is used to protect you. You see what you have passed and what could be coming. The

view in the rearview mirror is the past. You learn from the past and it helps you plan for the

future. On top of that, you can just look and analyze the past. This semester was nothing short

of eventful. A lot has happened to me, but this English class was one of the normal things this

semester. I learned about the writing process, analysis, and what the revising process can do for

a piece of work. I was also faced with things that are challenging and not challenging;

furthermore, I was asked to communicate course content through a website. All in all, all of

these things have prepared me to continue in my journey in academic writing.

This course is designed to teach students about the writing process. This semester course

has definitely taught me a lot about that process. I came into this course only knowing the basic

concept of the writing process: brainstorm, draft, gain insight, and revise to complete. Now that

I am leaving, I know that it is only a guideline. With brainstorming there is more than just

thinking about what to write. You have to know and understand your rhetorical situation; who
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are you writing to, what tone, language, and approach will you need to use, in what time are you

writing this paper in, where are the people you are trying to reach at and what are they going

through, and why is the paper being written in the first place. Then you have to find a way to

pre-write that will give you the best results to achieve your goals in writing your paper. The

drafting is about the same, the only difference is the new brainstorming process. The draft for

me was just writing words down, but now it is practicing the language and tone while testing

your knowledge of the rhetorical situation. The very first essay, the genre analysis, really helped

me understand this. By taking a piece of literature and breaking it down, I learned that there is a

lot more to a piece of work than just words. Taking each rhetorical component of one piece of

work to create another has opened my eyes to see the true purpose of writing. I also never really

saw the point in getting any feedback; yes you got someone’s opinion on your work, but

ultimately it is your work. I learned that it is important to have more than just your eyes on a

paper. They find missing components and can help you with your flow and language. They find

things in your paper that you can’t see because of the knowledge you have on the subject you are

writing. I thought all of this was found in the revision step, but I was wrong. The revision is

used for that, don’t get me wrong, but it is only something that can be caught by someone who

hasn’t gone through the steps leading to the revision. Furthermore, the revision is used to

smooth out the wrinkles in your work. You look for grammar and flow to complete your paper,

or so I thought. The revision is to take a step back from being the creator and step into the

audience. You read through your paper to see if all of your knowledge leaves your mind and

goes into the readers’. I was only able to realize this through peer reviews, professor

conferences, and ACE visits. Those assignments have shown me that feedback and revision
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work together. You can not have a complete revision without having feedback. Overall, I

learned that there is plenty more to the writing process than what meets the eye.

Analysis is another aspect of writing that I overlooked. Analyzing something provides

you with more understanding. Whether that understanding is of a piece of work or for your own

piece, it is still knowledge that can not be gained unless it is sought for. When you have this

understanding, everything you are trying to accomplish is suddenly more obtainable. Doing a

visual analysis, I learned that there is always more to something than what is being presented.

Nothing is done just to be done; there are many steps, thoughts, and aspects to everything in the

world. From a seemingly simple picture, a message was being sent. Yes the picture said

“PROTECT OUR RIVER”, but from what and what river. If I didn’t search and analyze the

mural, I would have never found what I was looking for. I would have never been able to write

that paper. Through analysis, one can learn so much more on the topic at hand. To be a

successful writer, you have to be a successful analyst.

As mentioned before, the writing process has a step for revision. Being the last

step to complete a paper, it serves a very important role; with that being said, revision has a

process of its own. I went through the revision process on a final draft, weird right, but from this

I learned that a paper can never be perfect. I chose my last paper to re-revise, the rhetorical

analysis. One thing that I notice in doing so is that I lacked a strong topic sentence for my

paragraphs. To fix this, I looked over what was being said in the paragraph and formulated a

sentence that will properly prepare the reader for the context of each paragraph. In doing so, I

learned that not only do you have to step in the shoes of the audience, but you have to step into

the shoes of the professor. You have to read the paper as the audience, then as the professor

grading, then as the audience again. Furthermore, you have to read the paper as the creator as
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well. Another thing I found is that the purpose of the article my paper is analyzing wasn’t clear.

Through revising, you must make sure that your point is clear; this was an easy fix through

altering the explanations given on the evidence and the article itself. Through re-revising one of

my final drafts, I learned that a perfect paper is impossible because of all the ways you need to

read the paper. The possible points of view on your paper are endless and it is impossible to read

your paper honestly in each point of view. I learned that when you are revising your paper, you

need to focus on the points of view of the audience, the creator, and the professor at the very

least.

Having the perfect paper as my goal, it was challenging to find flaws in a final draft.

Well, it was easy to find flaws, but it was challenging accepting that there were flaws in one of

my final drafts. A final draft to me is a perfect paper, but that is never the case. It was hard for

me to find ways to edit this paper because I worked hard and tried many ways before. I had

trouble coming up with new ways to rewrite things in a way that is understood and

communicates my point. Reading it myself, I saw no problem, but in reality, there was a

problem. On the other hand, the least challenging part was my confidence in what I was trying

to accomplish. I already accomplished what I was trying to accomplish before, so now I have

even more confidence in my work. This may seem like an invalid statement; you may be

thinking, “What exactly does this have to do with revising your essay a second time?”, but for

me, it is something that has always been lost in revision. Each time I would revise a paper, I

would read it and lose all of my confidence in myself because I saw my paper at a poor quality. I

could never find the right words, but in re-revising this paper, I realized that I can find the right

words and I can write a successful paper. I learned that one thing that a paper needs is for the

creator to believe in what they have created. When you read a paper you can tell if there is
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confidence or not. Revision is important, it can even help to re-revise, and with that there are

always challenges and things that just come naturally.

One thing that has alway come naturally to me is explanations. In my portfolio website, I

had to explain course content. I did this by putting an ‘about’ section to lay out an overview for

each page. In this overview I discussed the assignment, the requirements, the process, and why it

was important. For example, the ‘about’ section on the genre analysis page explains how all the

students were to find a piece of literature to analyze the genre. It also explains what all the genre

takes into consideration. This is one of many examples where I act as if the audience was not in

the class and has no understanding of the assignment. Other examples are the labels. There are

headers for each thing on the page. This is an overlooked component of a website. It is a given

for headers and labels to be on a website, but if they weren’t there, then no one would know what

anything is. By putting headers in my website to label what is being seen, anyone who reads the

‘about’ section will know and fully understand what is being presented. The ‘about’ section and

the headers work in harmony to fully communicate the content of the English 1301 course.

Despite the explanations, no one really knows the challenges that this course has

presented throughout the semester. The most challenging aspect of this course was choosing

what to write about. In the Genre analysis, I visited three different hotels to find the brochure

that was the right fit for me; in the visual analysis I knew I wanted to use a mural, but I found

myself wandering aimlessly to find one to write about. Even the rhetorical analysis was hard. I

looked over five different articles; it may not seem like a lot, but some of them were twenty or

more pages. That is a lot of reading for someone who doesn’t like to read. Not only was it hard

to even find something to focus my papers on, I didn’t know where to start to gather the

information I needed for the essay. In the Genre analysis, I found it hard to figure out just what
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genre it was, let alone finding evidence to prove that. I sat down with my professor, Ms. Castro,

and she helped me break down what genre it was and why, but it was up to me to turn that into

an argument. The rhetorical analysis made me think outside the box and dig deeper into the

article to find where the information was to formulate my paper. I had to read and reread each of

my materials in order to find and understand what I was to write. My struggles are mine, but I

know I wasn’t alone. This course pushed all of the students into territories we were not familiar

with, and it proved to be a challenge.

On the other hand, there were aspects of this course that were not challenging, and it

ultimately balanced out the flow of the semester. For me, the least challenging part of this course

were the reflection essays. We always had a prompt that asked us specific questions and the rest

was up to me. These papers allowed me to be as creative as I wished, and it was a relieving and

fun thing for me. English has always been my weakest subject, but through this course –

especially the reflection essays – I have grown and strengthened my writing. Because I found

the true meaning of the writing process, I knew how to better go about writing an essay. I had

three times to practice this in a specific way. I went from not knowing what a rhetorical situation

was in the genre analysis to knowing and breaking an entire article for the rhetorical analysis.

Once I found the evidence, explaining it was no problem by the third essay. I did learn that my

vocabulary could use some work, but my sentence variation is strong. Furthermore, I have

strengthened my understanding of the reason for writing a paper to begin with.

With all the knowledge I have gained through this course, I can proudly call myself a

member of the academic writing community. I am in college, but as we all know, there is always

something that will click. There is a threshold you have to cross to truly be apart of something.

This course has truly prepared me for my future in this university. English 1301 taught me many
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new things and gave me an opportunity to practice them. As an athlete, I know that perfect

practice makes perfect results. To practice something perfect, you have to know the foundation.

The foundation for writing a paper is the writing process, and the foundation for the writing

process is the rhetorical situation. I had no idea what the words rhetorical situation were until

this class. Now that I know what that is, I am confident in my work. Through practice and the

teaching of this course, I know how to properly recognise rhetorical situations and then execute

the writing process, and anyone who has that, is a rightful member of the academic writing

community.

English 1301 has prepared me to be a member of the academic writing community

through many teachings. I learned that there is more to each aspect of what I thought the writing

process was, and in order to have a successful paper, you have to be a successful analyst;

furthermore, you have to be successful in reading your paper from the main points of view: the

audience, creator, and professor to revise your essay. This course also showed me where I

struggled and gave me the materials needed to strengthen them. Through practice found from

writing three essays, I figured out how to find and use information. On the other hand, a balance

was formed through the reflection essays that allowed me to be as creative as I wanted to be. I

was comfortable behind the wheel creating balance to the people in the world that were not

blessed with the ability to drive like me. English 1301 was one of many rest stops on the

highway of life, but now it can only be seen in the rearview mirror.