Madeline Whetten April 7, 2014 English 1010 Pd.

2A Word Count 1036 Self- Reflection Paper

Whetten 1

When looking back on my previous writing assignments for this semester there were three that I felt were particularly beneficial to my development as a writer. The first was a free write that was assigned for the essay, Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor. This assignment forced me to think about my personal feelings about the ethics of humanitarianism. I had never thought of the problems that the author talked about and it was good for me to compare and contrast my views with the ideas presented. This assignment taught me how to argue my point of view and strongly back up my information with facts and use ethos to get my readers support. The second assignment that benefitted my progress was a response to Deborah Tannens articles on agonism. Throughout the essay I had to identify the rhetorical strategies the author used while using those strategies to write my essay. After completing the essay I realized I had learned how to effectively explain the different rhetorical strategies in a formal essay. The third assignment was the personal narrative. This has been my favorite assignment to write so far because of the great emotion I feel toward the subject. I was able to completely open up about a wonderful memory that I had while learning how to use imagery and different sentences to better create the picture. This was the first time I had ever written like that and I was

Whetten 2 surprised about how easily I was able to use the different types of figurative language and sentence beginnings. That was an assignment that broke me out of my shell and I find it much easier to put my feelings and thoughts into writings that I do. There were a few specific writing strategies that I used to complete the response essay. I relied heavily on personal views and views already presented by the author. I provided many examples and tried to be as specific as possible. I believe expanding on the ideas already presented by the author was the most productive strategy I could use. This worked for me because I did agree on most of the views she presented and was able to relate with ideas of my own. The biggest problem that I faced writing this paper was definitely trying to back up my negative part of the paper. I just couldnt seem to make my argument as justifiable as I did for the other points that I made. My biggest strengths in the paper came from the ideas I was most passionate about. The article was on feminism and unfair advertising so I was able to draw from personal experiences I had being a women in the media driven world today. My weaknesses were definitely tying everything together to create an easy to follow essay without having my ideas all over the place. By writing this response paper I learned that my success with a paper is truly determined on how personal I can make it and how interested I am in the subject. I can really get into things I care about and writing about them becomes enjoyable. I am a better writer when I can put myself into the context and really explore what I am writing about. I did learn that digging deeper into writing can require hours of thought that I had not previously experienced before. I

Whetten 3 found myself thinking more and more about the subject and carefully choosing what I would write. That is a skill I believe I learned by completing the response paper. My subject was extremely temperamental as it dealt with gender-based issues and equal rights. Some of the ideas the author had about men were extreme and did not appeal to me very much. I personally do not get very involved with the gender equality issues that my author faced so it was hard for me to see her point of view in some of the subjects. As a result of writing this paper, I was able to open up my mind to different ideas about the subject and come to terms with the authors opinions. I did not have an opinion on gender and advertisement issues but after being forced to share an opinion, one was developed and now I feel for the subject. I am more aware of the issues now and I hope that some-day real equality can be reached. In writing my response essay, I imagined my audience to be readers who knew nothing of the issue or the author. I tried to give sufficient background to make the essay relatable and easy to understand. I added many personal opinions without seeming harsh or completely biased. Imagining a wide audience helped me refine my ideas into ones that were realistic and completely backed up. I wanted my audience to take away a greater knowledge of the issues and have reasonable evidence about what is truly going on with our society. I feel gender equality is an important concept to understand and be conscious of. My voice in this paper mainly stays informal as I add in light personal experiences. I try to write my opinions as if I am actually speaking them which always seems to help me get my point across. The rhetorical strategies that pleased me the most in my paper were the examples of pathos that I was able to write about. By writing about my personal issues with advertisements

Whetten 4 and adding stories, I could bring the reader in and make them more emotionally involved in the subject. I liked how I was able to do that right from the start with a personal, relatable story. While writing this paper the only risk I feel like I took was adding such a personal voice. There were times where I was sarcastic and I dont think I have ever done that in a response paper before. Although it was out of the ordinary for me, I liked the spin it put on the paper and it made the subject easier to handle.