Before this course, I felt relatively confident in my writing abilities. I had taken both AP Language and Composition and AP Literature, so my writing was put through intense training. I also had a difficult teacher in those classes who really made me push the envelope of my writing.  

An example of something I have improved on that has been applied to a later paper in the class was deepening my analysis in journals. Instead of stating my thoughts on the readings in a way that only reached the surface level of the work, I deeply analyzed the readings and wrote nuances behind certain moments or pages within a book.  Some skills and strategies from his class that I have utilized in another class is the use of ethos, pathos, and logos in my writing. Especially the use of logos has been useful because I have used statistics and graphs to examine information.  Two examples of critical thinking and thinking practice from the portfolio are my first two visual memoirs. In the visual memoirs, I have analyzed a sign and a piece of art on campus and how they use different forms of rhetoric to convey their message. Being able to identify types of rhetoric and interpret how persuasive/telling the art or sign can be a significant skill used in effective writing because of how it makes one think. Identifying and analyzing rhetoric will be useful in my career because marketing focuses on targeting a specific audience and analyzing the ways to get consumers to buy or participate in certain goods and services.  

One change in the way I think about college level reading and writing strategies is that when reading or writing/discussing an argument, I am more aware of logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are arguments made that are used to appear stronger, but in reality, weaken the argument at hand. Now, I can review an argument differently and go about it by identifying the specific fallacy and forming an argument that counteracts the fallacy and makes the argument stronger.  I have learned that the writing process is not meant to be smooth and done in one session. When writing, there is a lot of information to research, develop, cite, and analyze. Therefore, it takes time and patience to write a paper that is not only worthy of a good grade, but your best work with all the information you feel is needed to include. Two examples of this are our research paper and our first journal. With the research paper, we must create a proposal, bibliography, and first draft before handing in our final copy. For our first journal, we needed to do peer review on our analysis of a painting and listen to our peer’s feedback before writing the final copy. In both cases, there is at least one additional stage before the final product. This process has helped aid in making my writing stronger as well as being aware of my grammatical errors and mistakes.  In current time, I would consider my strengths as a writer that I can develop and clear and defensible thesis, developing and supporting my thesis using discription, evidence, and explanation, and meaning in achieving my purpose. Some areas that need more growth are conventions and citations. Sometimes I have trouble with spelling errors that the computer may not pick up on and since I rely on technology too much to fix the errors, it goes unnoticed.   

Upon completion of this course, I feel very prepared regarding college writing expectations and other professional contexts. My attitude towards wiriting has not entirely changed, but I feel more confident in my wiriting style as well as my writing abilities. Now, I believe I can carry my knowledge and abiltiies into other classes as well as grad school and in contexts outside of college.