Over the course of this first semester, my writing has changed only for the better through my FYS. We have read pieces full of controversy and problematic themes, which has broadened my writing style. I learned how to properly incorporate counter arguments as well, which is something crucial to an essay with a claim to show why someone else’s viewpoint is wrong instead of solely focusing on why mine is more logical.
Something about my writing, which I feel has been a strong suit for me since middle school, is being descriptive and thorough. My middle school English teacher always made sure we had elevated vocabulary in our essays along with numerous supporting details that would back our thesis along with being focal points for body paragraphs.
There is always room for improvement; in my writings, I would like to get better at keeping my thoughts nicely organized by fully formulating them prior to writing. A lot of the time, I get more ideas as I write and then need to add them into what I have already written. This is good in the way that new ideas emerge; however, it is not great for organization and can lead to too broad of a claim. I also want to work on having more specific claims as well. To work on my organization and claim-making skills, I could annotate my work after writing in order to more clearly see if I am missing anything or making too broad statements that could cause readers to lose focus of my main point in a piece.
There are many writings in my Writing Portfolio that I feel are fairly strong and well-written. One of the first posts made this year was “The Great Allentown Fair.” I really enjoyed rereading this, as I felt the memories come back to me due to the vivid imagery I utilized. “Thoughts on Disney’s Aladdin” was one of my favorites because it was my real first introduction to writing about a controversial topic. In the “Paraphrasing” post made, I feel that I did a good job revising the passages, as I still kept them with the exact context as the original. In “Summarizing: Irwin, ‘The Dark Side of The Arabian Nights,’” I summarized the passage by touching upon main points and accurately explained the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing. In “Representing the Orient,” my claim was strong and I used images from the film to support it. “Reel Bad Arabs vs. The Help” has good comparison points and an idea for the awareness of “Reel Bad Arabs” to get across but in a more light-hearted manner. In “The Power of Images,” I chose a fitting image to write about that included much detail. The “Said Passage” and “Our Claim of Said’s Article” both have good interpretations and annotations of a tough read. Lastly, “Rereading Said” talks honestly about how rereading has helped my annotation and summarizing skills.
There are also some pieces that I would definitely consider rewriting in my Writing Portfolio. The “About Me” tab has no content, which I should have done. In “Me as a Writer,” I would expand upon what I said and now say how I enjoy writing pieces that bring light to controversial issues. In “Reading with the Grain: A Sympathetic Reading of Ernst,” I could have done better at correctly identifying the claims being made. My writing on “Reel Bad Arabs” could have contained more examples from the film. When reading “The Orientalist Photography,” I had a difficult time understanding the article, so I’m not sure how accurate what I wrote in “Introductions – Behdad’s ‘The Orientalist Photography” is. Lastly, my post on “The Thief of Bagdad” could have made better comparing and contrasting statements between “Aladdin” and “The Thief of Bagdad.”
During this course, my writing process has changed in the way that I do not wait till the night or two before an essay is due to begin working on it, as I always felt I wrote better under pressure. Instead, I now write over the course of a few days so that I can get ideas down and formulate my thoughts in a more effective manner. I also have begun to reread passages and annotate like how we did with Said; this helps me to understand what I am reading better and determine what claims truly are.
