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Melody Wang
Professor Haas
Writing 39B
June 1, 2014
Reflection Essay
Throughout the quarter, I have learned a lot of things in all different aspects of writing in
Writing 39B. It is a very intense but extremely helpful writing class for college students to
improve our writing skills. In general, the basic purpose of all writing classes is to learn how to
write better academic essays through the process of revision. As for our writing class, we mainly
focused on analyzing mystery genre and context. During the last 10 weeks, we have finished one
literature review essay, one rhetorical analytical essay, several group presentations, and the RIP
Seminar. There is no doubt that I can always learn something from what I have done in this class.
Through this writing 39B class, I can now write better academic essays through the
process of revision. One thing that I have developed is analysis in writing texts. This skill
benefits not only my reading ability, but also my writing skill in the future. I could learn plenty
of things from other writers writings, such as sentence structures, vocabulary choices, and
descriptive details. One of the most essential methods to improve my academic essay is the
process of revision. Every time before I started to write an essay, I would make a detailed outline
with all important points I will include in the essay. Then I will write my very first rough draft of
the essay. After reading through all suggestions from my peers and Professor Haas, I would
revise my essay with respect to both their and my own opinions. Revising is always able to fix a
great number of mistakes I cannot find in the first place, such as inappropriate wordings, vague
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expressions, and grammar errors; also, the essay that has gone through the process of revision
must be more well-organized and well-developed.
Additionally, I have learned a whole wealth of knowledge about our class topic, which is
mystery genre and historical context in the Victorian Era. For example, I know that one of the
most influential reasons of the bloom in detective stories was incompetent police system. In
mostly detective stories, the author would make the police detectives ignorant and inefficient in
solving criminal cases; so someone extraordinarily intelligent is exactly what the society needs.
Moreover, talented detectives are usually from middle class so that the stories attracted lots of
male readers in the middle class in the Victorian Era. All those knowledge will definitely be
useful when I will be asked to write essays about the mystery genre in Victorian Era or read any
article about detective stories in that historical period in the future. Curiosity is one of the Habits
of Mind that I have developed since all those new and interesting knowledge made me have the
desire to know more.
For the final ePortfolio, I decided to take a final draft of RA Essay. One the one hand, I
think I can understand about how the RA Essay works much better than I do about the Lit
Review Essay. Therefore, my RA Essay must more obviously show what I have learned
throughout the quarter. On the other hand, essay about modern-day context could help me
improve one of the Habits of Mind, openness, since we have to consider new ways about the
world which is always changing along time. If I had more time to work on this essay, I would try
my best to find more ways to connect the cinematic elements to what I am making the point
about and how these elements draw the audiences attention to something within each scene.
Also, I should keep working on my transitions. Besides, I choose the first development
paragraph in the Literature Review Essay to revise. This paragraph is about the extraordinary
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genius of a consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, who was created by Conan Doyle in the
Victorian Era. The reason why Ive chosen this paragraph to revise is that this paragraph can
basically represent what we have been working on throughout the quarter; and it is also a typical
paragraph which can show what I have learned about the mystery genre and literature review.
During this quarter, I was quite enjoying working with my first group since we are all
pretty nice, easy-going, and also, in my opinion, somehow hilarious people. We all put our best
effort into the project. Besides, nobody seemed to be unwilling to do anything. All of us didnt
really mind doing extra work. The method we used most often to communicate with each other
was texting. We were barely able to meet others in person because of all different schedules.
However, text messages are fast and convenient enough for us to share our own ideas and
thoughts with other group members. I think one thing that we should do is to begin early so that
we will get more time to get familiar with the content from the parts of others and to practice the
presentation together. For the Habits of Mind, responsibility is the one which played the most
important role throughout the project. This was our first group assignment in this quarter so the
first essential thing we need to learn is responsibility. In our group, we were all responsible for
what we were supposed to do. Another one of the Habits of Mind that I have got developed in
group presentation is persistence. I persisted in practicing the group oral presentation every
single time before class and held on the confidence that we will do well. Finally, I got many
good advices from my peer reviewers as well. They would give quite different opinions from
Professor Haas would but their advices are very helpful too.
One of the most important things we have done for this writing class was a RIP Seminar
on Thursday of week 9. I didnt need to perform any responsibility on Tuesday as part of the
seminar since our groups final product for this presentation is a video. No one in our group
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needs to present or talk in the seminar on Tuesday, except that our group leader, Andy, has made
a short introduction to the video. For the preparation of the RIP Seminar, I have contributed what
I am supposed to do. What I have done for my group is that I selected some clips which are more
interesting, useful and convincing from all the clips my group members had found. After getting
those clips together, I put them in a reasonable order; then what I had also done is cut the videos
from episodes or films into little clips which related to Watson. When I got those short clips, I
just sent them all to our group leader and he put them together and edited it into the final product.
After Andy shows our first rough product to Professor Haas, Professor Haas told us that we need
a better ending since the original one was too abrupt. Then, I was responsible for finishing the
new ending with a credit page which includes everyones name in our group, the television
shows name, and the movies name. In general, I think our classs presentation went pretty well
in the RIP Seminar on last Thursday. One of the things about our presentation that I think went
really well was, at the very beginning, Marissa did an overall introduction for all three groups of
our class, such as, throughout the quarter, what we have been working on, what we have learned,
and what we are going to present. This neat introduction just lets our following presentation
make more sense to our audiences. Another thing we have done a really good job is the video
from the second group, which is our group. The selection of scenes is extremely successful since
the video always made the audiences laugh. Besides, the editing has been done quite
professionally. Lastly, I think our classs presentation is very various and it includes three totally
different parts. All three of them led the audiences into what we have learned about mystery
genre step by step. However, one thing we can do better for the first group is to make the
presentation shorter since long PowerPoint presentation is easy to make the audiences feel bored.
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Moreover, for the third group, it would be much better if all of the performers can remember the
lines so that they wont need to hold the script in their hands.
Basically, another classs presentation was also pretty good and I have learned the
fundamental concept of horror movies and several different types of horror movies. One of the
most impressive parts of their presentation is the horror clips that they showed to us. They are
pretty intense and scary. The presentation of the first group has gone extremely well since every
presenter from their group were very passionate and they are trying to keep the audiences
engaged all the time. The last groups introduction to the video they make by themselves was
helpful to make us more clearly understand what is going on in the video. However, what they
can do to improve their presentation is to keep their time limit better. For the second group, it
would probably be better if they had done a short introduction to the video made by their own.
Lastly, for the PowerPoint presentation, they could have been more prepared so that they
wouldnt just read off the slides.
What I have learned is how to work within a group better since I think our RIP Seminnar
group collaboration has been working pretty well. Responsibility is one of the most essential
things that are necessary for a good, helpful team member. For example, everyone has done their
part on time and all of us have put our best effort into the project. Another habit of mind that we
have practiced as part of doing the preparation of the RIP Seminar is flexibility. Due to all totally
different schedules that everybody in the group has, we can hardly find a fixed time period when
everybody is available. So we have to work more flexibly. What we did was split everyone into
two groups, which are a group of clip finders and a group of editors. This way, we can focus on
our own parts at first. Therefore, we can do better into the details. Also, everyone has their own
part of jobs so that everyone will feel engaged in this project. Finally, what I realized was that
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creativity, one of the Habits of Mind, is extremely important for the presentation. If ones
presentation is not creative or unique, it is easy for audiences to get bored and to lose their
concentration.
In conclusion, I feel that the most important lesson I have learned from this writing class
is how to analyze classic literature and modern-day text much better. In addition, I have become
a better social communicator throughout this quarter. In the future, what I still need to keep
working on is my writing skill and reading ability.