Hunsucker 1 Ben Hunsucker Dr.

Jones Letter of Reflection 5 December 2013 Revising Beyond the Academy When I started this class I felt as if I was in over my head. My only writing backgrounds were that of literary analyses and assignments from freshmen comp. One can just imagine the shock I felt when our first assignment caused for creative writing. After that assignment came the synthesis paper. I struggled trying to grasp the purpose of this assignment. Was I supposed to create an argument, or was I supposed to describe one? Finally, our third assignment was an analysis paper; this helped me feel more at home because it was in the same ballpark as the essays from my previous courses. Each assignment called for its own unique style. The genres were vastly different, and it was important to write for the correct audiences. In exploring my assignments from this class, one can see that my writing as emphatically progressed, and I can now write a good paper, no matter the genre. The first assignment was the This I Believe paper. This was a creative writing assignment that only allotted the writer 500 words. My mind was going crazy. All I could think about was, How can I write what I believe in only 500 words? As if that was not enough to ponder, finding a topic was even more arduous. I spent weeks trying to decide a focus for my paper. Eventually I landed on The Power of Laughter. I chose this topic because I felt that if my paper was going to be creative, then it should at least be comical. When writing my first draft, I was so concerned about the word count that my prose was

Hunsucker 2 bland. I did not show the reader my actions, instead I just told them. I received a comment from one of my peers that read: I want more description though like how did the poop feel in your hands? What did it smell like? Look like? When he refers to the special moment of laughter shared between him and his brother I want more description there. As a result, I revised my paper and included sentences like: I stuck out my hand, and in it he placed a small brown, damp, disgusting, sordidly smelling, piece of puppy poop. and We shared one of those special moments of side bending, tear provoking laughter that shows teeth. I learned that this genre was not about simply telling a story about something you believe; it is about actually showing the audience why you believe it. The second assignment was the Synthesis paper that required me to read at least two recent (in the past two years) academic articles on a particular topic, and offer a synthesis of these articles for a lay audience that explains the relevance of the research to a wider audience. To say that I struggled with this assignment would be an understatement. I chose the topic of concussion awareness in football because it is relevant to my future profession, a high school football coach. Though I found the topic interesting, I found it extremely difficult to compel my audience. My first draft was horrendous because I included numerous quotes instead of summarizing the information. Chanel wrote, I almost felt the quotes were too over powering and took up most of essay. In addition, this was not the only problem with my paper. My transitions were entirely too abrupt, and my paper appeared more like a report than a synthesis. You commented on my paper saying, This feels more like a report on concussions than an

Hunsucker 3 overview of new concussion research The middle paragraphs switch between pro and high school athletes somewhat randomly. In order to fix these flaws, I took on the assignment as the role of a journalist instead of a reporter. I reorganized my entire paper in logical order from high school to the NFL. Also, I added more information about previous concussion evaluation. These efforts helped make my synthesis more captivating for the reader and better informed the lay audience. The third assignment was the Analysis paper that called for us to choose a local business, group, or non-profit organization and write an analysis of their website. I chose the group East Ridge Parks and Rec. I was not a worried about this assignment because I was well informed about the group, and I had written analyses in previous courses (although they were literary analyses). However, I did have a few problems when writing my first draft. This first problem I had was in finding my argument. Thankfully you helped me out by highlighting it in my paper. Also, found it difficult to describe their website in a word document. As a result, in my final revision, I incorporated pictures and more of the textbooks vocabulary to give my audience a visual and better understanding of the topic. Before creating my portfolio, I felt as if my best work was the Analysis paper. However, now that I have completed final revisions of each one, I think my top product is the Synthesis paper. This is because I believe it shows how far I have progressed as a writer. The first draft was nearly impossible to write. I did not know how to write for a wide ranged, lay audience, and I did not know how to synthesize two articles and put them into one. When I started this assignment I was stressed; however, as the semester moved along I became more comfortable with my prose. The comments from my peers

Hunsucker 4 and professor helped as well. I learned that in order to create a good revision, one must be brave. I took a large step as a writer with this paper, not because I learned how to write for purpose, but because I learned how to rewrite with a purpose. The Synthesis is my best work because it displays my development as writer.