Mackenzie Clark

English 111 BL

Matthew Weinkam

December 10, 2009

Semester Reflection

Throughout the semester, I think I learned a lot, but I also “unlearned” quite a bit also. In

terms of everything as a whole, I definitely got worse. In high school, just about every paper I

wrote got an ‘A’ and that definitely does not hold true now. As we wrote more papers, my

grades went down. Without counting my first final copy of my rhetoric paper, I went from an

‘A-’ to a ‘B+’ to a ‘B.’ I am personally not happy with those grades at all because I am not used

to getting these grades on papers (especially the B’s). I always considered myself to be a good

writer, but after writing these papers, I feel like my ability to write has gotten worse. Now in

terms of writing areas individually, I feel like I have improved on some, maintained a constant

ability on others, and completely gotten worse on some aspects of writing.

As for things I have improved on, I would say I am better at rhetoric, logical fallacies,

changing my writing based on the audience, and setting up and explaining quotes. Before this

class, I did not even know what rhetoric was. It was something completely new to me so

obviously I had to improve on it throughout the semester. My improvement is specifically

evident in my rewrite of my rhetorical analysis paper. My first draft received a ‘C+’ because it

was not convincing and was not done very well. I was able to fix it in a week and receive a ‘B+.’

Just by doing that revision, I found that I had improved not only my knowledge, but also my

ability to convince the audience to believe one thing by using rhetorical devices. I never really

knew what logical fallacies were until we did this final project, but I believe I have a better

understanding of them now. While I unintentionally used logical fallacies in my papers, I did not
notice them until I reread them for this project. When we were told to check for logical fallacies

in our papers, I had to find out what they were, and when I did, I went through my papers and

found that I did actually have some. On my comment pages of this project, I pointed out where I

noticed them, so I think I gained knowledge on what they are, how they are misleading, and how

I should not use them.

The third thing I believe I have improved on is how to change my writing technique

depending on who the readers will be. For the argument project, in which my group did

abortion, I came to the conclusion that the project would not be the same had we been talking to

50-year-old men. Talking to college aged girls (to whom it could actually happen) is a lot

different than talking to elderly men that it does not even involve. So our video was centered

around a college girl and her complications, but had we been talking to old men, it would have to

be something like his wife being raped. It would be a lot harder to do, but it would be possible

and it would have to change a lot. Before this project, I always considered the audience to be the

teacher, since that was the only person reading it, so it was interesting thinking about the

audience not just being the person grading it. The last thing I think I learned over the course of

this semester was how to set up and describe quotes. Prior to this class, I basically just put down

a quote, described what it was saying, and then connected it to the thesis statement. Clearly that

is not necessarily wrong, but of course it could have been done better. This class helped me

realize that there are better ways to describe quotes, especially by using rhetorical devices. Now,

every time I think about describing quotes, I think about using emotional or logical support

rather than just a general description.

Now there are some abilities of mine that I do not believe have changed by any degree,

including my capability to organize and revise my paper. Organizing and structuring my papers
just the right way has always been one of my best writing abilities. Ever since I started writing

papers, I have always known when to include the most important and least important facts. As a

result, I believed I have carried that ability over to this class and have been able to use it

successfully, especially in my rhetoric analysis paper. I remember writing in my writer’s memo

(for that paper) to really focus on my structure because I thought it was well done, and you

agreed. I have always done it well so I do not think it is an improvement in any way. The other

thing that has not changed much has been my aptitude to revise my own paper as well as other

student’s papers. In high school, my dad and I always worked together to edit my papers and so

I picked up a lot of tips from him that I brought with me to this class. Seeing as the structure and

organization of my papers are the same as they used to be, editing them was pretty similar as

well. I know where to put certain paragraphs and how to make sure sentences and paragraphs

flow together. In class, we never really learned much about editing so it would be hard to better

my editing ability.

Lastly, there are areas of writing that I believe I got worse at, especially my ability to

write a thesis statement, introduction paragraph and concluding paragraph. In this class, I barely

even wrote thesis statements, and when I did, I felt they were either weak and monotonous or

worded terribly. I remember being taught how a thesis statement should look and what it should

include, but looking back at the papers I have written in this class, I do not even know how I

would make a strong thesis statement out of them. I do not know if that is because I did not

write the paper correctly or I just cannot remember how to write them properly, but nonetheless,

I feel as if my thesis statements are no good anymore. Since thesis statements are the last

sentence of the introduction paragraph, I went back to my rhetorical analysis paper and

ethnography to check what my “thesis statements” actually were. The last sentence in my
rhetorical analysis’ introduction paragraph was “But regardless of the critic’s political views,

most articles were full of emotional and logical statements.” This thesis is very bad, but at least

it contained the two ideas I was trying to get at in the paper, which were the use of pathos and

logos in each article. Even though it had those two ideas, it was lacking an opposing point, like I

usually put in. Typically I would write a thesis statement by stating “Even though (opposing

point), this can be seen through (reason), (reason), and (reason).” I like to point out to the

audience that I am not trying to make them believe that my paper’s topic was the best thing ever,

so I try to add in a contrasting thought. Too bad my rhetorical analysis paper did not even have

one of those, though. Anyways, looking at my ethnography’s “thesis,” I found that “thesis’” can

be worse! In place of its thesis statement, I had this: “They learn just about everything related to

their KNH major within the walls of the newly refurbished Phillips Hall.” That sentence is in no

way a thesis statement, meaning I completely just did not put one in, making it hard to tie any

body paragraphs to it.

As for my introduction paragraphs, I feel they have gotten worse because they do not

seem to fit together like they used to. I always used to write my introduction paragraphs like a

funnel, going from very broad to very specific, and then putting my thesis statement at the end of

the paragraph. Ever since my first paper in this class, my introduction paragraphs were just

random facts and statements put together in a way that flowed, but did not necessarily fit the

funnel technique that I used to use. As for my concluding paragraphs, they seemed fairly

nonexistent in just about all of my papers. Rather than summarizing the introductory paragraphs

and all the body paragraphs, I just made my concluding paragraphs a mix of previous points as

well as new ideas. These new ideas should have been put anywhere but within the concluding
paragraph, so that was always a bad idea. As a result, instead of having a dynamic closure, I

always had a pathetic, unsupported one.

All in all, this class has definitely changed my writing abilities whether it was for the

better or worse. I did ultimately learn more than I “unlearned,” which is good, but I still got

worse at one of the most important aspects of writing – thesis statements!