A Semester in Review
What I’ve learned from the first half of Writing 121
Myself
Throughout all of the writing classes I’ve taken, there has always been a focus on revising and editing my work, but none of that compares to what we learned in Writing 121. This semester, I realized just how valuable many rounds of peer review from many different people could be for my writing. For our narrative essay project at the beginning of the semester, I was striving to create an excellent essay since I was using it for my college applications. I chose to write about the most memorable night I spent doing astrophotography, one of my favorite hobbies. At the start of the writing process, I was worried about standing out and creating the perfect narrative, like many students applying to college. As the semester progressed, we went through at least five different rounds of peer revisions, and with each one, I grew more confident in my essay. In the past, I had gotten maybe one or two people to edit my work, but this year I made it my goal to get advice from every person I could. The result was an essay I was proud to put on my college application and one that I thought conveyed the pure feelings of wonder and passion I had on that night (the picture from which is shown here). In my future writing, I will take what I’ve learned from this class and get as much review as possible so I know I’m putting forward my best writing.
My Writing
Although I love peer review, if you asked me what skill I found most valuable from Writing 121, I would have to say flash drafting. Flash drafting was a vital part of my writing process for both the essays I’ve worked on this year, and I’ve even been able to apply it to work outside of class. While writing some of my college essays over the summer, I struggled with my drafts, frequently starting over and trying to get my message across just right. After I had outlined my modes essay, I looked at my thesis and asked myself, what do I want the reader to take away from this? Why am I writing? Although the question seems simple, thinking about this before I started my flash draft was incredibly helpful. By doing so, I could focus the writing in my flash draft around my main message, making my rough drafting much easier. I’ve found all sorts of processes that can benefit from “flash drafting” since the start of the semester, even non-writing activities. One such example is from my most recent photography project. When I was working on the concept for the picture, I decided just to try what came to mind and not think about crafting the perfect image on the first try, like how I wouldn’t worry about grammar and punctuation in a flash draft. When I used this process, I was thrilled with the outcome and went to work refining the other parts of the picture, like the background and lighting. What I got out of the process was a picture I’m delighted with and one that my brother (the drone pilot in the picture) now uses for a profile picture.
A concept picture (a flash draft if you will) from my most recent project
The “final draft” of this photo after some reworking
My Academic Self
I enjoy writing, but I’ve always found book analysis and what we’ve done in previous classes to be dull. With the broad scope of our projects in this class, I was allowed to expand my horizons and work on writing that was fun for me. I wrote essays about photography and cycling, which I spend a lot of my time doing, and I discovered that writing about things I am interested in is much more fun. In my freshman year, we would do literary analysis of books such as Animal Farm and Night, which was very enlightening, but crafting an essay about those topics felt like drinking a milkshake through a coffee straw. My modes essay aimed to teach someone all they needed to know to ride their first century (100-mile) bike ride. In contrast to analyzing Animal Farm, a book I have very little connection to, writing about cycling was mind-blowingly simple. When I wrote, it was like the words just fell onto the page; I barely had to think about what I was writing. Of course, not all writing will be about topics I want to write about, but I know now that I can make learning a lot more fun if I relate it to the things I am most passionate about.
The World
It’s not just learning that can be more fun when I do what I’m interested in; that philosophy also applies to my whole life. As I wrote about my favorite subjects in this class, I got to think about what matters most to me. There are so many problems in the world and so many other things that I could be doing with my time that it sometimes gets overwhelming. When I was thinking about essay topics, I got the chance to look back, and I saw that the most significant differences I had made and the happiest moments in my recent memory were when I stopped worrying and did what was fun for me at the moment. I threw myself into photography this past year, and since then, I won a national award for this photo here, started my own photography business, and had a lot of fun in the process. Writing my essay made me think back, and I saw just how far I’ve come in the seven years since I first picked up a camera. In every part of my life, I know I will find the most success if I tune out the world's noise and ask myself, what do I want to do next?