Kassidy Clark

Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1102-007
25 April 2016
Final Reflection
1.

Choose a song or musical composition that communicates your

experience with writing and UWRT 1102. Consider including a video of

the song. Explain your choice.
If I had to choose a song to describe my experience in UWRT 1102, I
would choose Livin on a Prayer by Bon Jovi. The chorus goes Whoa,
were halfway there. Whoa, livin on a prayer. Take my hand, well make
it I swear. I feel that this is an accurate description of my time in
UWRT 1102. Many times while I was writing, and especially while I was
working on my thesis, I was wondering how I was going to finish. It
always seemed that once I finished one project, there was another
right behind it! I would always tell myself Youre almost there! Just
keep working, and honestly thats how I completed all of this writing.
2.
If you were to teach this class, what ideas would you emphasize?
If I were to teach this class, I would emphasize the importance of
sentence structure and the organization of the paper. I feel that this is
extremely important, especially with large papers such as the thesis.
When there is a lot of information that has to be discussed, it can be
easy to go off on a tangent and then jump straight into another idea. I
feel that, as both a reader and a writer, that the layout of the paper is
critical to understanding. Not only does it make for an easier read, but
a more enjoyable one as well. This means that the reader is likely to

gain more insight from your paper because they are actually absorbing
what you are saying and not spending their time trying to figure out
what topic you are talking about.
3.

Explain how your understanding of rhetorical knowledge has

changed over the course of the semester using at least three

examples from your writing. Ex. Did you shift an assignment to better
fit a particular genre like a proposal?
Rhetorical knowledge is the ability to format your writing while keeping
your audience and the purpose of your writing in mind. At the
beginning of the semester, I had never heard of rhetorical knowledge,
but I have learned through my work in this course that it is crucial to
effective writing. When constructing my thesis, I had to keep my
audience in mind when choosing the context of my writing and how it
was presented. Since I wanted my writing to address a larger
population than just my classmates, I decided to write my thesis in a
more formal tone while still including basic information about divorce
that the common person may not know. Another example of my use of
rhetorical knowledge involves my inquiry proposal. When I first wrote
my inquiry proposal, it had a more argumentative tone and wasnt
exactly a proposition of my thesis question. After meeting with my
peers, I realized that I needed to tweak my paper to better fit the genre
of a proposal. Rhetorical knowledge is also applicable to my e-portfolio.
When constructing my portfolio, I have had to really keep my audience
in mind and ensure that the layout of the website as well as the text

that I include is thorough enough that all audiences will enjoy and gain
insight from my website.
4.

Explain how your critical reading has improved during the

semester. Ex. In what ways did you read across texts for connections
and patterns in your inquiry?
My critical reading skills have greatly improved over the course of the
semester. When conducting my research for my annotated
bibliographies, I had to carefully pull out the information that was
pertinent to my thesis, since it would have been impossible for me to
use it all. When searching for a source to use, I would look for keywords
that were relevant to my topic. I would also use keywords when
reading multiple texts. A lot of the sources that I used, especially the
peer-reviewed articles, were quite lengthy. By using keywords, I was
able to quickly locate the information that I needed in the source.
5. Discuss your composing processes. Ex. Did you conduct additional
research while revising or after consulting a colleague? Provide at least
three examples to support your assertion.
When composing my paper, I began my gathering all of the pertinent
information from my annotated bibliographies. I then tried to form a
general idea of how I wanted my paper to be organized. Once I
completed a rough draft and met with my peers, I conducted additional
research and re-organized my thoughts to make my paper more
thorough based on their suggestions. My professor, Mrs. Thomas,
suggested that I delve more into the history of divorce. I felt that this

was an extremely good idea since it would provide a strong

introduction to my paper while adding length to my thesis. After I
received this advice, I conducted more research regarding this topic
and added that information to my thesis. In addition, she suggested
changing the order in which the information was presented. Where my
paper was originally going to address the positive effects of divorce
first and then the negative effects, I changed it to be the negative first.
As she said, most dont consider the positive effects of divorce, so it
adds a bit of a shock to put the positive effects after discussing all of
the negative things that people most commonly associate with divorce.

6. Provide at least three examples of your knowledge of conventions. Ex.

Sentence level changes, MLA citations.
Through the completion of my writing projects throughout this course,
my knowledge of conventions has improved drastically. The book They
Say, I Say, by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein was incredibly helpful
when constructing my thesis, as it provided me with sentence
templates for any and every writing situation imaginable. Through the
use of these templates, I learned how to better construct sentences
based on the situation (introducing a quotation, disagreeing with a
claim, etc.). This is something that will improve my writing in the long
run. In addition, I learned how to properly format MLA citations. Before
writing this paper, I always used a bibliography generator to format my

citations. When we were discouraged from doing this, I had to learn

how to do it on my own. While tedious, this is an important skill to have
and will benefit me throughout my academic career. Finally, I learned
how to correctly format a professional paper. While I had a general idea
of how to do this before, I now know little things like you shouldnt
underline your title and your source page should be titled Works
Cited, not Bibliography.

7.
A)

Critical Reflection:
Explain the importance of reflection in learning processes.
Reflection allows you to think about the work that you have crafted
and the job that you have done. For me, reflection was a vital
aspect of my composition process. When I reflected on a first draft,
it really forced me to think about the strengths and weaknesses of
my paper, which is something that I would not think about
otherwise. This allowed me to make improvements on my
subsequent drafts. At the end, reflection is a good time to think
about the work that you have put into the project as a whole. While
there are no changes that you can make at this point in the
composition process, reflection can help improve the quality of
future papers that you may have to write by making you aware of

your skills as a writer and areas that you could improve on.
B)
Explain what you think is important in providing commentary on
others work and receiving commentary on your own.

When providing commentary on others work, it is important to

realize that their paper is not your paper and you cannot change the
layout of their paper without consulting them first. Also, while being
critical it is important to remain respectful. You are just a reader,
and while you may think your advice is exactly what that person
needs to do with their paper, they may be thinking of taking it in a
different direction! Overall, receiving commentary on your writing is
very helpful. When you read your own writing, it isnt so easy to
catch mistakes or vagueness in your paper because you know what
points you are trying to convey. When you allow another student to
read your paper, they are able to catch these little errors that you
may not be aware of and are able to give you advice as a reader to
help you make your paper more thorough and understandable.
C)
Provide at least three examples of your nuanced use of
commentary in your writing projects.
When consulting with my instructor and peers throughout the
semester, I received a lot of valuable advice. Whether it be a
suggestion about a new voice that I could possibly include, a
different area of research that I could look into, or advice about the
organization of my paper and sentence structure, my peers helped
me a great deal throughout the semester to complete my writing
projects. There were, however, some pieces of advice that I took
into consideration, but ultimately decided against. This was most
commonly because these ideas would take my paper in a different

direction than where I wanted it to go. For example, my peers

suggested I include some information regarding custody and living
arrangements or personally interview a child of divorce. I ultimately
wanted to focus on the effects of the divorce itself on children and
not so much on minute details. While it would have been nice to
include, there was simply not enough space in the paper, so I had to
really pick and choose what advice I applied to my paper.