Growing Learning and Adapting

The Beginning
The first adventure I had with writing was at the young age of 5. I was in kindergarten at the Montessori School of Maui, and had been practicing my letters for weeks. Using sandpaper letters, I had mastered the sounds and shapes of the entire alphabet. After that, I learned the difference between uppercase and lowercase letters. The process had been tedious and challenging for my kindergarten self, but I knew I was ready to write. When I finally wrote my first sentence, I couldn’t believe the huge accomplishment I had made. I was proud and excited to show everyone that: “The dog ran.”

The Next Step
As the years went on, my interest in writing decreased little by little. Instead of being a fun new challenge, writing was now an agonizing process. The teachers taught me little about grammar and syntax, and instead expected me to write papers without any help. It wasn’t until 6^th grade when I switched schools that I finally started to receive help.

At that time, I started to go to a college preparatory school. The classes were challenging and the workload was much more than I was used to. The teacher’s were preparing us for the many assignments we would be writing in the future, and introduced us to the five-paragraph essay. They were not difficult intellectual works of rhetoric, but they were more structured than anything I was used to.

This continued throughout high school, and eventually I had the five-paragraph essay stuck in my mind. I learned to P.E.E. in every paragraph (point, example, explanation), and always have a strong thesis statement. We worked in different mediums, however, they instilled in us that the five-paragraph essay would be our key to success.

Since I’ve been at DU, this knowledge that I have learned over the years has adapted into something more flexible.

The Rhetorical Situation
Every paper that I have written has started with an inspiration. It is usually something that I am agreeing or disagreeing with, thus giving an overall theme to the paper. This is key to have a strong piece of writing with a flow to it. It was not until WRIT 1122, however, that I knew the terms that go along with this idea.

I had never learned about the rhetorical situation and the terms that accompany it. It made so much sense to me that every piece of writing has a situation that has sparked its creation. I had always written for the same audience, my teacher, thus I did not have a lot of practice adapting my writing to fit another group of people. My writing aired on the more academic side, and being in this class really helped me learn how to know the correct way to write to a certain audience.

Every situation requires the proper audience in order to be appropriate. You wouldn’t wear a snorkel mask to school would you?

I had another moment in which I went “Ah-hah!” when we discussed the ideas of genre. I had never thought of a piece of writing, other than books, to have a genre. In my mind, an essay was an essay, and it was difficult for me to see it as anything else. The idea of writing an article for school that was not academic at its core was baffling to me. At first, I had no idea how I would address this, but after writing the 2^nd mini assignment, I realized that it made complete sense. Writing an academic paper on Miley Cyrus seems outrageous, but writing an article about her felt fun and natural.

Before this class, I had never heard of egos, pathos, and logos. I soon found, however, that their impact on rhetoric is tremendous. Through employing the three terms, authors are able to make their writing more successful. They can make their writing appeal emotionally to the audience or use facts in order to sway the audience’s opinion. With the terms, a piece of writing can become stronger than ever before. I learned this first hand, by using pathos in my piece on Miley Cyrus. I addressed the emotional impact her music video will have on its viewers and how it could potentially be bad. Without this emotional appeal, I feel as though my article would’ve been more flat and uninteresting.

Making Writing Interesting
Being in this class has made writing fun again, for it employs different methods than just the normal five-paragraph essay. Although I am a big fan of the five-paragraph essay, I believe that it is important to understand how to take the techniques you use for it and apply it to other genres.

Through using sources in the media, and writing blog posts about various readings, I have learned how to apply my knowledge in new and interesting ways.

I have come a long way since my early days of writing three word sentences, and I believe that through what I have learned in this class I am a much more diverse writer.

I have had many “Ah-hah!” moments, and foresee that there will be many more to come. Sometimes I miss being able to write in the format that I have used so many times before, but I know that the new knowledge I am gaining is only going to make me a better writer. I will try to take the new skills I have gained and use them in order to write in new and interesting ways. I can honestly say that although writing still proves to be a challenge for me, I am gaining more confidence and interest than I have ever had before.