Monday, December 7, 2015

Letter of Encouragement to Me

Dear future me,
Hello, if you couldn't tell from the title, this is past you. Now, if your reading this I assume that you need encouragement of some sort, so I'll give it a go, but no guarantees, we both know this isn't my strong suit, spades have always been our strong suit. Joking aside, not really, if you need encouragement, it means your probably stressed about school, that seems like the thing most likely to stress you. In which case, I will remind you that you we are a very intelligent person, so if you just buckle down and keep up with the work, you will be 100% fine. If in the likely case that you are stressed because you have 20 hours of work due in 2 hours, then drink some coffee, relax, prioritize and work faster than a Roman orchard slave, told you the jokes wouldn't stop, and you'll be relatively fine. If the situation is the homework equivalent of the Hindenburg, then I highly suggest bot caring, its work pretty well for us before, so why not try it again?
If your stressed/upset/losing confidence about something other than school, then I probably can't be of much help because, as I'm sure you know, I have no idea what twists and turns have happened in your life and even less idea which one you fell off of, though if I had to guess I'd say it probably involves one of your ideas that only you understand, take note of that warning future me, or that Skynet has taken over, in which case FIND JOHN CONNOR. But, if its not those things, just sit back, and read this letter, enjoy the jokes I have put in here, we like those, and get back on track. Remember the only thing standing in our way of ruling the world is ourselves......... and our current lack of a Deathstar.
hoping you can fix my future,
Past you.
 P.S. We are the not Delorean featured below in the past, this is just a picture that fits the time travel theme of this letter.
Image result for back to the future
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeLorean_time_machine

Content of Letter to my Former Self

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hillbillyholiday/Tabloid_Terminator

If I could write a letter to my former self before the beginning of this semester, I would stress the importance of not procrastinating. One of my greatest weaknesses is my tendency to think, "I can do it later," when confronted with any sort of work. This tendency has always been a part of me and was problem throughout the semester; I ended up writing several important papers at the last second and the grades I received reflected this. Unfortunately, being practical and cynical as I am, I think it would be unlikely that former me would take such a letter seriously and would probably say something like, "Time travel isn't real so this letter is obviously not from future me and therefore not important." Which means, that even if i were able to send a letter into the past to past me, it would have little to no effect on my semester.

Reflective Essay Oragnizing Idea and Thesis

1.My growth as writer can be seen through the changes I made in my QRG in order to improve the organization, conventions, and analysis present in the assignment.
2. I was able to improve as writer this semester because the difficulty and complexity of the assignments in this class forced me to alter my writing process to improve my writing.
3. This semester I learned that my strengths as writer were prewriting, and rhetorical analysis while my weaknesses were my writing process and my word choice; these strengths and weaknesses determined the course my writing took throughout the semester.
4. This semester my writing was forced to change by the course objectives if this class, which helped to develop me as writer.
5. during the course of this class, my writing process developed because of the mandatory prewriting and the complexity of the assignments; this change in my writing process caused me t develop into a better writer by increasing the organization and the quality of the content of my work.
Image result for sprouting plaNT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedling

I believe that reflecting on my writing process will be the best organizing idea for my essay. This organizing idea lends itself most to analyzing instead of summarizing the changes that I have made during the semester. Also, the biggest change in my writing that i experienced during the semester came in my writing process, which makes this the most logical organizing idea for me to use.

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Audience and Invention for Reflective Essay

I want to discuss how I have improved as writer over the past semester. I want my audinece to understand how I have improved as writer and what i have learned about myself as writer.

My primary audience is my professor; my secondary audience is myself.

My audiences already know what my writing looks like and how it has changed throughout the semester.
Image result for mirror
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sky_Mirror,_Nottingham.jpg


I will probably outline a point about my writing and then support the point with evidence to convince my readers about what I am saying.

I will establish my ethos by writing passages that reflect my ethos in the essay.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Discovering my Writing Process

I consider myself to be a strong technical writer but one with erratic process and a procrastination problem that limits how good my writing can be.
Image result for indiana jones
https://www.flickr.com/photos/28154346@N07/8077848448


I have changed my approach to writing this year because I have been forced to pre-write and draft for this class. Otherwise, I would not have changed my process.

The rhetorical analysis assignment caused me to change the way I look at writing rhetorical analyses which changed my approach to writing them.

My writing process usually looks like me furiously typing the first ideas that come to mind the night before an assignment is due. This changed this year because of the pre-writing and drafting that this class required.

I ended up having to try an organized approach that didn't involve doing entire assignments the night before they are due because of the structure of the class. I believe that this a more effective process than the one I had been using, but realistically, I will probably end up going back to my previous method whenever possible.