My writing has gotten exponentially better over the course of these past few months. Not because I acquired a new vocabulary, or became an expert on grammar. Instead, it is because I became better at making MY OWN argument. Upon signing up for Writing 101: Storybuilding, I assumed we were literally going to primarily write traditional, fairy tale style stories for the duration of the semester. But instead, I found myself drawing comics and sketching ballrooms. What did I learn from it all? That formulating a legitimate, unbiased argument is telling a story. The ability to take your reader through the journey of educating them on the issue, entering a conversation on the topic, and making a claim to back up is a skill, an art that often goes unnoticed. This course is what helped me realize the existence of this skill, and the secrets to it. When I first started this course, I was so hesitant to voice my own opinions that I literally copied the template that we were told to use word for word into my opening paragraph. I had been taught to avoid using I in argumentative essay, even when asserting a claim/thesis. To me, no “I” meant no personal anecdotes, originality, or experience. But one of the first things that I was told during peer review sessions for my essay was that my writing was very smooth and cohesive, however it lacked conviction that my claims needed to hold substance. My professor, and classmates both agreed that the best way to fix this was to bring my own voice, and my own experiences into my writing more often to help validate my arguments. So, with that in mind, I went back and talked about my use of Quizlet online as an educational tool, and from then on my writing improved substantially. I also learned how scholarly writing is entering a conversation with other scholars. You are almost never the first person to write about a topic or discuss it. So researching, educating yourself through your predecessors work, and then mentioning these articles, books etc. in your piece is essential in preparing your argument and thesis. So that started to show itself in my second essay talking about Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, “Fun Home.”Such knowledge will help me continue to improve my scholarly writing for future courses and beyond. One thing that I plan to explore more in the future is the ability to place your thesis into different places throughout your essay based on the points or arguments you are trying to make. It has been an unexpected pleasure to take this course in my first semester. I hope to build upon my knowledge as I continue to grow as a writer.
Link to all Posts:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kqzMeTF1jvDyPrTwwawMBc0j6YkIzK3pJ8ZF8TUTQXQ/edit
Link to comments:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mf3hj2iIo1qOr-WU3D43iM6m-g2WtzN5irk4bO1KE1s/edit
