Susli Leon

Zack De Piero
Writing 2
June 9, 2016
Reflection

It was not love at first sight. Writing and I have always had a love/hate relationship.
Sometimes its nice and healthy, and other times it makes me want to pull my hair out. For this
reason, I was really hesitant about taking the writing requirement classes. To start off, I was
placed in writing one which instantly brought my self-esteem down. I felt stupid and ashamed of
my writing. In addition, I detested writing one so you could imagine my amusement moving
forward to writing 2. My fear was that writing 2 would be the same as writing 1, but to my
surprise things took a shift to the right. From the teacher to the content, writing 2 instantly
foreshadowed a better experience.
On the first day I stepped into the classroom I was scared by the setup of the desks and
chairs. It seemed so small, confining, and social. As someone who deals with social anxiety, I
had already decided this was not going to be the best environment for me. I was petrified!
However, then someone very vibrant and full of excitement came in my writing 2 professor.
Your energy and non-judgmental characteristics surprisingly eased my social anxiety. It did not
by any chance change the fact that I still feared the social interactions that were to come, but I at
least now was re-assured that I was in a safe environment. Not only did you not force anyone to
participate if they did not want to, but the anonymity we had during journals and in-class
assignments welcomed me to feel safe to engage in the class. In addition, because of your get to

know each other ice breakers, and welcoming environment I was able get comfortable with the
class very quickly.
The second day of class, I started catching on to how the setup of your class was going to
be. The country music and horror movie assignment we did to learn about conventions
showcased the freedom and learning strategies you would use. I personally love the independent
work, as well as when professors give the foundation of material, but then provide activities that
force students to teach themselves. You did plenty of that with all the group google docs
activities. One example of this was when you assigned each group a word to define and to teach
to the class. Before this assignment I was really confused about what moves were and how they
differed from conventions, but by learning the word through different point of views I was able
to clarify the meaning of moves. In addition, having to look up my own examples of the words
forced my brain to actually learn the word, rather than just listening to a definition without any
context.
These assignments not only gave me a better understanding of all the vocabulary, but also
helped me when writing my WPs by providing me with a better understanding of the readings.
For example in WP1, it was all about being able to show that you understand genres and
conventions. The activity on horror movies did just that and more. That day I not only learned
what conventions make up a genre, but how even with in one genre conventions change. For
example, the conventions you see in Paranormal Activity supernatural, creepy music, things
popping out, death, etc are not the same for a movie like Scream where there is more blood,
weapons, creepy music, and psychos. Both of the movies are creepy as heck, but they are creepy
in different ways. Without this activity I would have not known that conventions differ even
within one genre, and thus my WP1 would have sucked because of the lack of comprehension.

In addition, the in class activities also contributed a lot with my ability to complete WP2.
Out of all WPs I think WP2 was the most challenging to complete because of all the complexity
in the thesis. There were so many questions one had to fulfill for this WP that coming up with a
thesis that made justice to all the information that was going to be on the paper was difficult.
However, the activities we did in class to prepare for WP2 really helped to clarify the purpose of
this paper. For example, the example essays we analyzed in class helped me figure out what we
were supposed to do with the prompt. Before coming to class that day, I didnt even know how
in the world we were supposed to answer this prompt, but the sample essays showed me that this
essay was about prioritizing. I did not have to thoroughly answer every question from the
prompt, but focus on those most important ones, and then ease the rest of them wherever they fit
best in my main arguments.
The tricks to tackle down essays were also very helpful during my WP2. The use of
dashed, although initially I used them incorrectly in my WP2, made my paper easier to read. It
separated the things that were important from the extra information that was not as important.
The use of ______ as a way safe a space for missing information was my life saver in WP2.
Because of the difficulty of WP2, I found myself getting writers block quite often and it stressed
me out. Then I began to use these space holders to maintain the flow of my essay. Whenever I
found myself stuck on the topic of my essay I simply used the space holders, and moved on to
the next topic By doing so, I limited the time I would waste just staring into the soul of my
computer screen instead of writing.
The last, but most important thing that helped me through myWP2 was the reader. The
readings in the reader was another reason that my mindset changed about expectations of this
writing class. They were not dry good for nothing reading like those I read in WP1. These

readings had life. The balance between articles and comics increased my motivation to actually
read the assigned reading. Because of this I was able to contribute a lot of my knowledge of the
readings in my WP2. The weird thing about this was that I did not realize how important the
readings were to the WPs until after I finished my essay. At the end of my WP2 I was so excited
that I had finally finished, but then I remember I had to incorporate the reader. With a very
unpleasant look in my face I went back to the beginning of my essay to re-read and see where I
could add this extra information, and that is when I realized my essay already had so much
information from the readings related to WP2. It was very shocking to notice that without the
information I had from the reader my essay would have one not have answered the prompt, and
two would have not made sense. For example, one of the main focuses of my WP2 was to
analyze how the authors used moves to support their claim. Unconsciously throughout the entire
essay I was incorporating information from the They Say I Say reading as part of the moves
for my authors.
Our last WP, WP3, was very different from the rest. Quite honestly, this is where
everything we learned in class played its part. In order to transform an article to a different genre
you had to know the conventions of that genre, and thus choose your own specific moves and
style to completely achieve the transformation. In my case, I decided to turn my article into a
biblical passage. In order to do that I had to know the conventions of the biblical passage which
revolved around the appearance, the tone of voice a biblical passage contains, and the purpose of
it. After figuring out the conventions of the biblical passage I wanted to create I had to come up
with moves. One of my moves was as simple as in the canvass I wrote it in. I could have used a
neat new book, but instead went for a more antique, wrinkly, and yellow pages look. The most
unique part of this was that while creating WP3 I did not realize that I was using all the

knowledge from this quarter. It was not until I stopped and analyzed what I had done that I was
like whoa!! I actually did learn something.
At first, I can honestly say that I did not think this class was helping me. I was enjoying
the course, but I did not think that my writing was improving. You know when you really dont
feel any different. Before Writing I struggled writing essays. I took forever to complete
something so simple, like 2 pages. The weird thing was that at times I end up completing two
pages at the same I would finish a 6 page paper. Now that the quarter is over, I still do the same
thing, and if it is even possible I feel like I have gotten worse something is definitely wrong
with me. What I have noticed is that during writing 2 to present time writers block has increased
for me when writing essays.
However, after receiving my eight page paper from my history class I also realized
something else. Although (for some crazy reason) I now have a harder time completing essays, I
can now see my writing skills have changed drastically. During my first year before take any of
these writing classes, I would turn in essays or my essay midterms and would not receive
anything greater than a C not matter how hard I tried. During this quarter however, things
changed. Not only did I get am A- in my essay midterm for my history class, but also got a B on
my eight page paper. Something that I am truly proud of myself for. Even though these writing
classes can sometimes be a huge drag, I now know they are very effective. For this
accomplishment, I thank you for all the hard work you put to genuinely help me and every other
student improve their writing. Your honest comments, freedom, and energetic attitude are truly
the reason why writing 2 has had such a positive impact on me.