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Kasandra Velasco
Lynda Haas
Writing 37
3 March 2015
My Journey Through WR 37
January 5th was the day this all started. I had signed up for this class
mid-December because I wanted to get it out of the way and I remember
being super nervous because it was a six unit class that required me to be in
class for two hours at a time. It was also quite terrifying since this class was
titled as intensive writing which is not something that I was comfortable with.
After the first day of class, I realized that this was going to be a tough class,
and that I was going to need to be persistent with all of my assignments to
get improve. In the end I knew that I would learn valuable writing skills and
that it would be manageable if I put in the effort. Over the last nine weeks I
have learned what the word rhetoric means and how it has been used I every
text that we have read even if the mediums used are different. I think after
doing two group presentations, two essays and the Connect assignments I
have gotten stronger as a writer and I have learned a lot.
One part of this class that has helped me improve on my writing,
language and grammar skills are the Connect assignments. These weekly
assignments have helped me to identify my weaknesses which were

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paraphrasing, summarizing and wordiness. I know wordiness was a certain

topic that I especially needed help on because on both my essays that has
always been mentioned by reviewers. With the connect assignment it
showed that 67% of the time I knew the answer and the other 23% of the
time I thought I knew it but was wrong. I was able to see examples and I
realized that some of these sentences sounded like what I would write. Also, I
thought I knew the difference between summarizing and paraphrasing but
seeing as how the report indicated that this was my most troublesome topic I
wanted to focus on it to improve. I knew that this skill was important
especially in both my essays because I needed to be able to summarize and
paraphrase what my sources were saying for my literature review essay and
for my rhetorical analysis essay I needed to summarize the stories that I was
investigating and throw in my two sense about the topic.
Throughout this class we have been exposed to many different texts
and each one required a different approach to reading it. We started the
class off with reading We3, a comic by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
which I was quite curious to read because I never had the opportunity to
analyze a comic. I thought it would be interesting to push myself and see
how much different it was to get the ideas that the author and illustrator
were trying to convey instead of something conventional like a book or
essay. I was also surprised when I heard that we were going to watch the
documentary, Blackfish, and analyze it to see which rhetorical appeals were
strongest in this film. For some reason, I thought that not all mediums had

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the ability to effectively inform, persuade, or motivate their intended

audiences. My favorite story we read in this class would have to be the
Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling because there were many rhetorical devices
in his short stories that helped convey his messages to us. The fact that the
characters in Rikki Tikki Tavi were a metaphor for British Imperialism I found
fascinating since without this class I would have continued to think to think
that this story was just about a mongoose protecting a family from snakes.
Thats why Im grateful that I was able to become better at being a critical
reader.
After going over the syllabus for the quarter I was quite surprised to
find out that we were going to be doing a lot of group work since it is not
something I was quite used to. These projects really taught me how to be
responsible and flexible. Instead of just focusing on myself I had to make
sure that I was helping out the whole group because not doing my part would
not only hurt me but two other people. Both, the wiki and psa, required time
outside of class that we work together. This meant that we had to make
ourselves available and be able to dedicate a couple of hours to our project
so we could produce the best product. For our wiki presentation my group
and I just kind of settled on the topic of military dogs since it was one of the
few good ideas we had suggested. We came up with the topics that we
wanted to talk about for our presentation and we decided to split them up
between the three of us. We then went our separate ways and researched
our topic on our own and just updated each other on our process during class

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or over text messages. We then came together to put our presentation

together and again to practice presenting it that way we could have the
timing down. Then for our public service announcement our group decided to
make a video about how UCI students should adopt from shelters instead of
pet stores. Again we each did our own thing whether it be collecting images,
music, or facts for our video. We then met up after class to view the finished
product and give any input and then we presented it to the class. Working
together with groups will help me in the future with other classes because
know to pull off these projects you have to be fully engaged in what you are
learning about. If you are not then you will not have any idea on what is
going on with your project and also you will never have any motivation to
push yourself and do your best.
When I was writing the literature review essay I was extremely nervous
since this was my first big paper of the school year. I didnt really know if I
was going to be able to pull off a paper where I couldnt put in my opinion
and I had to focus solely on what the scholars and sources thought about the
topic. My essay was on the psychiatric use of service dogs which was a topic
that a group from the other class presented and I was excited to learn more
about the topic. I decided to fully revise this paper mainly because it was my
stronger paper out of the two, which I think has to do with the fact that I was
genuinely excited to learn more about these dogs. The main things that I will
need to change for the final draft will be making my introduction stronger,
having a clear thesis, and work on showing how the different scholars had

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either similar or different ideas about these service dogs. I also have to work
on being more specific on my points and reduce my wordiness which is
something that I need to work on both essays. Once I fix those areas I feel
that my essay will be a very strong piece.
When told that we had to write a rhetorical analysis essay I knew that
it was going to be a challenge for me because it was going to test what I
knew about rhetoric which was the main idea for this writing class. When I
was trying to decide on my thesis I decided that I wanted to focus on the
stories from the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling because those were the
stories that were getting less attention from the rest of the class. I finally
decided to go with the example thesis and discuss how anthropomorphism is
used in Kiplings short stories to convince the readers that we need to have a
closer and kinder relationships with animals. I wanted to use Rikki Tikki Tavi
as one of my stories because I was comfortable with the story since I had
read it multiple times during middle and high school. Next, I then decided to
use Kaas Hunting because I thought it did a good job of showing us the
loving relationship between Mowgli, Baloo, and Bagheera. For my revision I
decided to only edit one paragraph from this essay because I felt that it was
my weaker essay of the two and I felt like it would require me to just delete
the whole essay and start from scratch. My main problem with the essay was
that I decided like many classmates to break up my essay into the two
stories and not combine them into one paragraph when talking about a
certain rhetorical device. The paragraph I would have to change would be

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the first paragraph or even my second paragraph because they both need a
lot of work. My introduction needed to more specific and I needed to signal
that I was writing a rhetorical essay and not wait till the last sentence to do
so. This is a rhetorical analysis though so I feel that I should show that I know
how to do so by fixing the second paragraph that way everyone can see that
I learned and retained this information. If I were to fix this paragraph I would
have to focus less on summarizing what happens in the stories and put in my
two sense about how anthropomorphism is used and I also need stronger
sources to integrate into my story. This revision I feel will be the most difficult
because I am going to have to go back and get creative with how I approach
this because I am going to have to go back to the beginning and reanalyze
these two texts.
Something that I have never been fond of in school has been peer
review because it was usually just a time when you gave your friends your
paper to read and they made comments on your paper that basically meant
nothing. When I heard that we would be doing peer review often I had to
become an open person and accept that this was for my own good. Peer
review gave me the chance to get feedback from a fresh pair of eyes. This
showed me that everyone has a different way of thinking but every time we
did these reviews I always got thoughtful comments that I will take with me
to my final revisions. I was most shocked to find out that reviewing other
peoples essays actually help me with my own essay because I see what
mistakes they made during their essay so I know now what I need to fix and

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what to also avoid when writing my essay. Looking at the rubrics makes me
actually think and see how their papers hold up against it. This technique will
certainly be helpful in my future writing classes because I have always tried
to fight having people read my essays but now I see how beneficial it is to
everyone involved.
Throughout these ten weeks, I have had to write blog entries which has
certainly helped with my metacognition because I am able to see my
growth over this quarter. Even setting up my portfolio and looking at my
various drafts has shown me how much I have improved. This class and Dr.
Haas have taught me many lessons that have improved my reading, writing
and communication skills. I have learned that my first drafts will never be
close to perfect and thats fine but I need to make sure to revise it and to get
peers to read my papers so I have a fresh pair of eyes. I have also learned
that my wordiness needs to be worked on since it distracts the reader from
what I am trying to convey. Lastly, I have learned that rhetoric is able to
effectively be used no matter what genre or medium. I cant wait to improve
even more but this class has been a great stepping stone and I cant wait to
learn even more in college which will definitely help me improve.