Reflection

Cameron Renaud                                                                                                                                            Renaud 1                                                                                                      

Mr. Bullock

WRD 110 Section 29

10 December 2012

               

Coming to the University of Kentucky at the beginning of this semester I was more worried about taking English than any other class on my schedule. Writing has always been one of my major weaknesses as a student, and all I heard coming into college was how much I was going to have to write. On the first day when I went through the syllabus and realized that my writing would have to be over topics that I have never done before, like a space analysis and a life changing moment, I was even more stressed. The fact that they had to be on a blog as well made the entire situation even worse.

                For the first project one of the hardest parts for me was thinking of an instant in my life that changed me as a person. Once I finally figured out what I wanted to write about trying to relive the experience and reflect on it was equally as hard. To add to the struggle I didn’t know much about rhetoric strategies to convince the reader to believe what I was saying. Doing small projects such as analyzing the presidential debates around this major wring piece helped me to understand how to be a stronger more convincing writer by getting a better understanding of logos, pathos, and ethos. Also is this first project I have never had to record myself and post it to a blog before. When I first found out I had to make a recording of me reading I thought it would be very easy, but to my surprise it was very difficult.

                The second project was also a very new type of writing for me. I have thought about what goes into a space before to make it appealing the customer, but I never really thought about the factors that aren’t very obvious. Going into my space and analyzing it in depth was a very interesting experience for me. Along with going to my space I have never really had to get primary sources before for my paper. Setting up an interview and taking notes on it was an interesting new experience for me, but while writing my paper I realized just how effective and more convincing primary sources are.

                Setting up the blog for this class is something that I have done a couple times before; however, in the past all I had to do for the blog was just post what I did on it. I never worried too much about how it looked or how effective the layout of the blog was. Looking at examples of the blogs in class and reading about them in the textbook really helped me to better understand them. Before this class I would have never thought about how the text fount or the colors can totally change the tone of the blog, and now I feel that I am able to send the tone I want much easier.

                After taking WRD 110 I am much more confident in my writing skills along with skills I never thought I would learn from an English class such as interviewing people or blogging. I feel these skills have really prepared me for WRD 111 and future assignments.