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Emily Ramirez
Professor Haas
Writing 37
March 14, 2015
My Experience in Writing 37
Each experience in a writing class is different for each individual, you can learn different
techniques or discover that writing a 5-page essay with 4 different sources isnt as difficult as it
may seem. But thats just my experience. I have never considered myself a strong writer, and it is
still something I dread to do. When I realized that I would be taking an intensive writing class at
the beginning of the quarter I was immediately discouraged. How could I take an intensive
writing class? I dont even know what semi-colons mean! A million different thoughts were
running through my head. However once I finally got to class and Professor Haas introduced
what the class would consist of I began to feel more confident in the class. Now, after a quarter
of presentations, peer review and connect assignments and using metacognition, which all
pushed me into different writing forms and lead me to improve my writing skills; I can say that I
feel like a stronger writer than when I first began. Through different writing samples and topics, I
learned how authors use methods to communicate with their audience through the usage of
rhetorical and literary analysis. This class has helped me realize my strengths and weaknesses to
understand how to critically analyze how authors can use rhetoric appeals to get across a
message through different mediums and various ways to improve my own personal writing.
The first substantial assignment in this writing class was the Literature Review Essay,
which I used to focus on We3 in showing how the humans in We3 closely resemble the humans in
the real world. We3 was different than reading another scholarly article or book because We3 is a

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graphic novel. Understanding the message was different than just looking for the thesis or the
main point; it required looking in between the lines to fill in the missing frames to realize the
main point. Another thing that stood out about We3 was that the story was told from the animals
perspective. Although it was hard to understand at first once I realized the different perspectives I
realized why there were certain different frames making one big picture and why the story was
shown from a lower angle.
The literature review was challenging for me because it was something that I had never
done before. The reviews I would usually write would consist of my own personal opinions and
what my position was on the topic. This literature review was a test to my flexibility because it
was different in that it was based off of what the leading authorities said about the topics. The
most troublesome part for me was making the different sources come together into one single
conversation. However I did struggle with other pieces of writing for example, my topic sentence
for the first body paragraph did not give insight into any of the sources and was not clear in
stating the main point. We3 gives different depictions of certain humans one of the main humans
in the story is Roseanne. I learned from this assignment that I needed to involve the literary
critics and focus more on what their opinions are on that certain topic rather than putting my
argument. The literature review was confusing and I involved my voice more than I realized.
After reading my peer reviews and reading other essays I saw that my literature review needed
more work and I chose to edit only the thesis and a paragraph for the literature review. When
revising my literature review my main focus was removing my voice and adding credibility to
the sources. I learned that writing in a different format that one isnt used too takes practice; the
more time and effort that you put into something the better the result will be.

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The literature review was the first stepping-stone into the different types of essays that I
would be completing throughout this class. One of the most important things I learned from this
class was how meaningful peer reviews can be. They help not only the person who is receiving
the review but it also helps the person who is giving the advice. When it was my turn to peer
review my fellow group members work, I found that the advice that I was giving them also
coincided with the things that I needed to work on for my own essay. For example, during the
peer review for the literature review I gave a group member the advice of having each paragraph
include two different sources and to mention them in that order to make it more cohesive and in
turn I was able to use that advice for my literature review. Working with others allowed me to get
different ideas and understand how to revamp my own writing pieces.
The assignments that required collaboration took more responsibility than all of the
others because I had to consider how others get their tasks complete. I realized that I needed to
take responsibility for my part of the project to show my group members what I was capable of
rather than not turning something in and letting down the group. Although it was easier to come
up with different ideas to make stronger presentation for the Wiki, my group needed to work
outside of class to ensure that we were completing the Wiki. Our Wiki was based on
Anthropomorphism based on the book Animal Farm by George Orwell. Although it was tedious
at times to work outside of class, the result I think was well worth getting together. My
contribution to the presentation was making certain slides based of the research I had done.
The group project I participated in that I felt was the strongest was the PSA group. This
project was very creative due to us finding ways to make a short clip that not only captured the
attention of people but would also leave them with a clear message. My contribution to this
project was coming up with different ideas that could make the PSA more rhetorically appealing

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by finding pictures and facts. Our PSA was about dogs in hot cars and after watching the other
PSAs like the dogfighting PSA from the class it sparked my curiosity to know more about their
topics. The most important thing I will take away from collaborating is that an exceptional
presentation it is not completed overnight but it requires dedication.
Blackfish was another big part my experience in Writing 37, seeing how a documentary
can use the Aristotelian rhetorical appeals in a different way than We3 was intriguing. This was
the first time that I used rhetorical appeals, seeing how this film was able to use Logos, Pathos
and Ethos to get people to put an end to marine zoos. It was interesting to compare We3 and
Blackfish I was able to see that although they are different mediums they both use similar tactics
to leave their audience with a message. The usage of violence and gore could leave the audience
in disgust as to what humans have lead animals to do. While We3 would show different frames to
catch the readers attention, the documentary showed clips of the orca whales to reach their
audience. The topic of Blackfish and how the orcas suffer from not only physical but also
emotional suffering is what I based my rhetorical analysis essay on. I chose to revise this entire
essay because I felt I had a stronger understanding of what the prompt was asking for. Once I
was open to peoples comments and went over the peer reviews and instructor comments, I
realized that the main focus in revising my essay was to focus on analyzing rather than
summarizing what happened during the scene and being able to explain how that scene appeals
to pathos especially in my topic sentences. Being open to different perspectives and views
allowed me to see different ways to improve my writing. Through the rhetorical analysis
assignment I learned how to focus on the rhetorical appeals and how that can affect an audience.
The Connect assignments helped me learn different techniques that helped my grammar
and my researching skills. The assignment that was the most challenging for me was integrating

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source material into a text, which took me the longest to complete. This assignment was
challenging for me because it was hard for me to separate which sources are a more general and
which sources can be used for a higher educational purpose. When I began I thought that an
encyclopedia would be a good source, but it resulted in being a general source. I believe that my
self-assessment was accurate 58% of the time I was conscious that I knew the answer, 17% of
the time I was aware that I didnt know the answer and 13% of the time I was unsure of the
answer but got it right and 12% of the time I thought I was right but got the answer wrong. I
believe that this shows that for the most part I can realize whether or not I understand something,
but I also dont know everything. This self- assessment helped me become conscious of my
strengths and weaknesses and I believe that with practice I can become a stronger writer.
The most important lessons I will take away from this class are how to engage with your
audience using rhetorical appeal, how to read different types of text, and how to become more
engaged. As I wrote my rhetorical analysis essay I felt more engaged than when I was writing
my literature review and as a result I felt that my rhetorical analysis compared to my literature
review was a vast improvement. Although I did improve throughout the quarter, I need to
prioritize making my essays follow the prompt and become more cohesive. I need to improve
making the thesis explain my point as well as the body paragraphs and topic sentences need to
flow well with the thesis to get the message across to my audience. This class taught me not only
that being engaged and responsible will affect the results of your work but also reflecting on
what you have written and getting various opinions can greatly affect the end result of your
writing. The most important thing I learned however is, that your first draft will not be the best,
but as long you are persistent and work to improve your writing that can make all the difference.
Practice does not make perfect but it makes you better.