A writer develops differently with the environment and situations given. As almost every student in NYC and in other parts of the world including me attend college remotely it can really hinder their learning performance. In this essay I will be using papers I have written throughout my first semester as a college freshman including a research paper, rhetorical analysis essay, and written literacy narrative to explain in which categories and course objectives I have grown in as a writer and in which I still have space to improve. 

Throughout the four phases of this course I feel like I have grown tremendously as a writer as I developed better “reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing” strategies. First starting the semester my writing was already okay, it wasn’t the best nor worse but there was clearly a load of room for improvement. I was told by peers and my professor that I had many run-on sentences throughout my writing and also lack of vocabulary as I was using extremely bland words repeating them over and over again. Drafting, revising, and editing my essays gave me time to actually start noticing where I could place a better word. I began to look for synonyms to replace simpler words or where to end a sentence by realizing where ideas ended a bit better. 

Being taught the ”role of language attitudes and standards in empowering, oppressing, and

hierarchizing languages and their users” by my professor also added to my growth as a writer as it really opened my mind to the acceptance of other “languages and cultures”. I understood that everyone has their own writing styles and also their own type of English as everybody speaks differently and this is where I felt like my attitude towards writing really changed and made me feel free in a sense. I would begin to create my writings unique to my own “English language” instead of trying to turn it into something that is not me. 

Collaborating with the professor and other students was and still is the most difficult objective and part of this course as it also ties into the other objective of being able to “engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes” because of how we were attending classes, remotely. Not being in a physical learning environment where you can walk up to the professor or turn your head to the side to be able to instantly talk to a peer made it tremendously hard to be able to collaborate with peers. We do have a Instagram group chat but it was nowhere close to effective as it would be in a real classroom as other students would take long times to respond to each other questions as they were living their day to day lives which was very understandable but this made it very difficult to be able to engage with other students to talk about writing assignments.

The first phase of my semester included a Written Literacy Narrative. When I first began to write my narrative, I was excited. Not being the biggest fan of writing or reading as I have always struggled with it, I was really excited for this narrative as my writing could actually help people.

At first it was a little nerve wrecking writing to/for all these people I have never met in my life except for when I sat in a zoom call with them, twice a week for an hour and thirty minutes. Overtime, I started to feel more comfortable and a connection formed as we all started to share our writings which made me want to finish my writing even more.

Writing my Narrative was the first paper I had written while attending class remotely so it was distinctly a new experience that would bring new challenges. One of these challenges being able to “understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences.” Firstly, I struggled and still do with understanding exactly who my audience is. I just imagine I am writing for everyone when in reality, I am not and it’s just a specific group that I tend to not be able to recognize until my essays are read by someone else. The technology aspect of reaching my audience was also hard at first as it was something new to me but living in such a technologically advanced time period it was very easy to catch up and learn how to properly use digital technologies.

In the second phase I had to write a rhetorical analysis essay. I would say this was probably the easiest writing I had to do for this course as I had experience writing rhetorical analysis from high school. Something straight from the beginning that I struggled with was beginning my essay. As a writer I have always wasted a tremendous amount of time contemplating on how to start my writings, but this quickly changed. I remembered on my previous writing assignment mentioned, the Written literacy narrative, that if someone is struggling to start a writing to just jump straight into the body, and that is exactly what I did. It had taken me a couple hours to take my own advice but I finally started to get words down. 

Writing this rhetorical analysis essay, I feel like I was shown my true capabilities either being my strengths or weaknesses when it comes to analyzing a text. I have fulfilled the class objective of exploring and analyzing a variety of genes and rhetorical situations because I was able to compose a well written rhetorical analysis essay. Being told by peers and my professor that my essay accurately rhetorically analyzed the text, “Mothers Tongue” by Amy Tan, just reassured me that I had properly analyzed the text. Even Though I did properly complete the assignment it was clear that there was still room for improvement. As this essay also taught me how to use rhetorical terms and strategies throughout my writings more effectively, I believe that I could have composed better papers if once again I was able to understand the audience better. Either being in the reading, “Mothers Tongue”, or in my own writing I have struggled with properly identifying the audience being addressed or that I am trying to address which I feel like negatively affected my writings to some extent.

For my final assignment, the research paper, I combined the previous “tips” that I got from teachers and peers to try and make the best paper I possibly could. Never having written a research paper before so this was my first, I can safely say that this paper has been the hardest one I have written so far in my whole writing career. The prompt and what was required for me to do was extremely clear and easy but just executing it and doing the work wasn’t. The topic I chose kind of reflects what I struggled with writing the paper itself as I go in depth talking about student procrastination, lack of motivation, and at home distractions that ultimately for me made this paper much harder than what it could’ve been. 

Never having written a research paper before it was very difficult being able to “locate research sources”  that were accurate, credible, and properly supported my writing. Struggling to find the proper sources was the hardest part for me for the assignment as I did not understand how to properly use the school’s library database, even though my professor went over it in class. It was until I met up with my tutor where he showed me how to properly use the database to find the most accurate sources I could. This being the hardest part it was tremendously easy for me to be able to write my essay as soon as I found the sources I was going to use. Told by my professor and peers I effectively transitioned from source to source explaining its importance while also connecting it to my topic was a relief as I struggled trying to mix such different sources and connect them all to one topic.

In conclusion my three main struggles at the beginning of the course were run on sentences, lack of college level vocabulary words, and trouble starting the writing assignment. I feel like I tackled all three of these challenges to an extent on my final assignment. First for the paper I instantly jumped straight into the body. I already knew exactly what to write so with no time to waste I had my body paragraphs down in the first hour and a half then throughout my writing I obtained ideas for my introduction and conclusion and easily got them down in 30 minutes. Secondly I noticed vocabulary words that could sound a little better and searched up synonyms to replace them with which overall for me brought my paper to a whole new level. Lastly the easiest one was noticing where sentences needed to end or pause. I would read my paper out loud and notice where the topics would change or where I could actually separate them into different paragraphs. For me the last paper was the ultimate test that challenged all of my skills to see what I learned, and what still has space for improvement. To begin I procrastinated too much. At the end of the day procrastinating can really hinder how great your paper could’ve been as you are rushing to write it. Luckily I gave myself enough time on the final day to be able to take my time and get all my ideas down on paper. Also struggling with the format of my papers as I would call authors by their first name instead of last, or improperly citing the articles used, these are little things which add up and can really take a big toll on your paper. Now I know what I need to work on and like I fixed my run on sentences and previous challenges, these are new challenges that overtime I will get over and become an even better writer.