Espinal 1

Jeziel Espinal

Crystal Matey

ENG 101.13

24 November 2018

Critical Reflection

Coming from high school to a college level writing class was quite challenging for me

because I have noticed that English is not my strongest area. With that said in this college writing

class has given me the chance to improve in my writing. In high school I took a college level

writing class and it helped me with my writing skills and I try to continue to use my skills as well

as new ones learned this semester. In my academic career I have never had an “A” paper, I

mostly would get C’s or B’s and that is mostly on my part for not trying my best. This college

writing class gives a twist to text it includes technology and other mediums to express a form of

text. I feel like this curriculum has helped me improve my writing including: video, infographics,

social media, and formal writings. These mediums of text helped me with my skills that I had

before without having to the normal writing. Despite through the semester my writing has seen

worst where it needs improvement, but I have acquired new skills that will help me become a

better writer.

In the first assignment I felt like I could have improved in my figurative language. This

was brought to my attention during the rough draft whenever my peers reviewed it. This

assignment felt like it went through the most revision because there were so many steps and in

each step there had to be revision in order for the digital narrative to come out excellent. In my

first rough draft of the script “We got to the airport and waited at the ticket counter for 30

minutes. Checked all of our bags and went onto to TSA. I hate security they check everything
 Espinal 2

especially when they pat you down. Once out of the TSA we searched for our gate, C5.” I found

this to be redundant in my script because I keep repeating myself throughout. I realized that there

were no visuals at all so that is where I had to include the visuals from when flying in the plane.

Personally, with adding this visual to my script it gave my audience an image of what I was

seeing. “We got to the airport and checked in. Once on the plane we took off into the cloudy blue

skies, the clouds looked like big fluffy cotton balls, the bright sun hiding in the horizon.” The

revision of this quote improved my script by adding to rhetorical triangle, evoking emotion and

enforcing trust with the reader. In the digital narrative gave me new skills that helped me achieve

that my digital literacy. Being digital literate is important because it opens up for a new way to

interpret text. I never thought that text could have many mediums and use in an English class.

Throughout my writing I have worked to show rhetoric. While working to implement all

my knowledge of the rhetorical triangle, but I just need much more improvement on it. In high

school for my AP English Literature class I wrote a rhetorical analysis on Hamilton by

Shakespeare and had a format similar to CDC that helped me a lot and really hoped I still had

that format. I personally like the CDC better because it is much more concise and self-

explanatory. With that said in my rhetorical analysis it is evident that I tried using rhetoric but

not very well. I lack a claim in every paragraph but pleased to see how Dr.Matey said that my

commentary in the first paragraph is good. Here is the commentary for my data about a journal

that talked about the #MeToo campaign “Largen states that the campaign #MeToo establishes the

truth about these powerful men. Many women are afraid to speak up and sometimes women

speak up just to avenge for their allegations. With that said the same is seen with the Kavanaugh

case. Largen points out in his journal that women are not just an object but have feelings.” I
 Espinal 3

explained the data and tied it to what the topic of my essay was, the explanation gave the rhetoric

of appeals to logos because it gives me credibility.

As stated in the previous paragraph about the rhetorical analysis I believe that assignment

was my least successful because of how I used rhetoric to analyze the topic of my essay for

further explanation. I needed to have a claim which was not present as Dr. Matey said as well as

in my other paragraphs I need to have a more in depth commentary of my data. Now, my

conclusion was not very thought out and need more work I felt like I left my audience hanging

because I did not wrap up my essay correctly. I personally think I did not have any successful

assignments more like satisfactory assignments especially with my digital narrative assignment I

needed more showing instead of telling, which I found evident in the video I tried using imagery

to make vivid images as well as clips and pictures in order for the narrative to be good.

In my digital portfolio I will include my rhetorical analysis because despite it being less

successful it actually demonstrates how I somewhat have an understanding of rhetoric. As well

as my digital narrative script as I revised to focusing on adding imagery and putting in new

thoughts for well-developed script. After remediating my past assignments it is clear of that I

only accomplish satisfactory instead of successful because yes, I understand the material but

when it comes to using those skills in writing I just goes down ill. By looking back those

mistakes or even rereading through the essay I can point areas of struggle.

In conclusion, my writing continues to improve little by little it will take me time to

become a successful writer which will eventually make better at writing. The new skills learned

in this class will help me further broaden my knowledge in order to become a better writer. The

semester in College Writing I has shown me I have potential in writing and that I should give it
 Espinal 4

my all in order to improve. Looking at these assignments and seeing my growth as a writer has

shown me how my understanding is so far and how the rhetorical triangle is important in writing.