In this semester, I took the course English 210 Writing for the Humanities and Arts. In this course, I have learned and achieved more Course Learning Objectives than others. This semester started well for me in this course in particular, and right when I was starting to get comfortable, the epidemic came in and things got shaky for me shifting to online classes. With this course, my perception on what writing is have changed. Writing was one of my weaknesses that I didn’t know how to overcome. With this course, and the assignments that came with it, I was able to figure out the steps for it to almost be my strength.

The course started off with introducing the Rhetorical Situation, where I discovered the factors to write a good essay. In this time, I was also introduced to Toni Morrison, being a female writer was able to change the world with the use of her art of writing. Then I wrote an Arts Review, where I chose to write about the song “Sight”. In order to accomplish this task, there were various assignments that had to be done. That is where I read on two different pieces of art called “Be the Cowboy” and “Wicked” reviews. In class, we went over these two different styles of the reviews that helped me to figure out my style on writing my review. Due to these readings, I realized an important factor that had to be in mind doing the review is audience. Having in mind a specific audience that I want to reach out to is important in order for me to share what I have to say in a specific topic.

After the Arts Review, the next big assignment that I had to accomplish was the Opinion Editorial essay, or Op-Ed. One of the Course Learning Outcome that I achieved was “Enhancing strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment.” A strategy that I used for reading was annotating. For the readings that were given, annotating was a good way for me to look back easily in the articles and texts. In the past, I would usually be given a date for the final paper to be given in, however, drafting, revising, and editing has been helpful for me. For the first drafts, we brought our printed copies to class and set in groups and rotated our papers so they can all be read and revised by each of us. After I read all of my group members’ drafts, we talked and gave feedback on their papers. The feedback my group members gave to me was helpful because they all pointed out that I needed to include my opinions in my paper. Therefore, I also achieved the Course Learning Outcome of “Develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.” This class activity made us aware on what we were lacking with the help of others reading our paper. Then I was able to get assistance from my teacher. The feedback that I got back, I took into consideration and fixed my errors. For example,

The first image to the was my draft, where my instructor gave some feedback on, then I revised and fixed my errors for my final paper in the second image. For my final draft, I also had to include a reflection of my thought process for the paper. Another Course Learning Outcome that I was able to achieve was “Formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing.” Having an argument, or stance, in my Op-Ed let my audience know what was my point of view. For the Op-Ed, I had to have a Works Cited page because I was using different sources to support my argument. I also had to think on who or what type of audience it can address to and what I wanted to prove.

Next came the Visual Essay. After being introduced, things started to be shaky because that was our last lecture in a classroom environment. While doing the Visual Essay, my stance was the same as the Op-Ed. A Course Learning Outcome I achieved was “Negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation.” I was able to create my Visual Essay in a genre that I believed was most effective on persuading my audience.

I was asked how my perceptions have evolved regarding the question, “What is writing?” As I mentioned before, writing has been a weakness of mine and I would not know how to answer this question. Now, after taking this course, I would say that writing is a way for someone to express themselves and to connect with their audience. Within these assignments, I feel like I wanted to connect and share with my audience something that was important to me. Making these major assignments personal, I felt like my own thoughts and ideas were being heard.            

Due to certain circumstances, I was not able to complete the Conference Paper assignment. Therefore, I was not able to complete the Course Learning Outcomes of “Acknowledge your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility”, “Engage in general analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond”, and “ Strengthen my source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources)”. However, as the semester reaches to its end, I realize that I reached the other outcomes without even knowing it and I feel that those helped me become a better writer and a better me.