My Writing: Lizzi Perkins

This semester I learned so much about the writing process. As an advertising major with an English minor I thought, I’m not going to have to write any more literary criticism in college again! But what I didn’t realize was that this class would help me in a lot of other aspects beyond literary criticism.

On the literary front I learned a lot about what a thesis statement is supposed to be and what it is supposed to do for a paper. Granted, I still have a lot of work to do there (my theses are interesting to me but I still have to work to take them in a more controversial direction so my paper has more umph), but now I can recognize a good thesis. Overall, I am still not an outstanding literary critic, but I am better than I was (sometimes I focus too much on the style and research and lose the importance of the primary text).

On that note, I loved doing research! I learned a lot about effective ways to research and I loved getting into the library! Too often I find myself doing all my research online; I forgot the allure and beauty of the library (which sounds weird but is real!). My research really improved as I explored more methods of gaining insight.

But what I improved the most in was learning creativity and drafting skills. I loved in class assignments with partners (I loved getting feedback and learning different styles of doing things) and I loved all the different ways we attacked the drafting process. In other areas of my schoolwork I have applied some of the different methods we used (stickies, drawing pictures, handwriting) and it has made a big difference in the caliber of my ideas and brainstorming. 

I really enjoyed this class and learned a lot! I'm glad I got to know all the other students and learn so much about my own writing process and how to improve it! In the future I plan on getting feedback from a peer (especially in the drafting stages) to get ideas and focus my paper down. I also plan on continuing to give myself more than a night to write a paper; taking the time to write, wait, and fix my essays made a huge difference in the quality of my writing and in my enjoyment of it.

Thanks so much Dr. Burton!

My Writing: Sage Madsen

This semester... wow! It's been one of the hardest semesters ever, but thankfully I had a lot of really amazing experiences despite the all-around difficulty. This class has been one of those amazing experiences. I'd never studied John Donne poetry before, and I ended up studying him in other classes this semester as well... alongside all his intense poetry, I came to understand life a little more, too. 

My Writing: Rebekah Hartshorn

I did it!!! I've been procrastinating this class for as long as I could and turns out that my trepidation was well placed. However, I'm really grateful for Dr. Burton's help this semester.

My Writing: Kayla Nelson

So, this class made me realize how much of a mess my writing process was and helped me figure out a more effective way to write. 

The first post was a really fun experience for me! It opened up my eyes and had me realize how much I rely on literature and writing to live a fulfilled life. This was the last time I wrote an essay with my original writing process. 

Another blog post that was enlightening to my writing was when we had to do a preliminary analysis on a Donne poem. This forced me to find at least 10 different points of possible direction. This process gave me a start for any future essays! 

The most helpful of any exercise we did in class was the hour limit of writing. It helped me put a lot of my ideas on paper. 

These exercises helped me understand that lengthening the writing process can be EXTREMELY beneficial to me and my writing! 

It was super interesting to me to see how online and technological sources could be a help in writing. My facebook posts concerning my writing were met with many comments, questions, and ideas from friends I hadn't anticipated hearing from. It really aided my writing process to be able to reach out to an online community. I joined a Harry Potter community discussion group on facebook that had a lot of fun ideas I hadn't considered for my research paper. 

The social aspect of the class was fantastic! It was so great to have peers to talk to about the assignments. I loved sharing my methods for writing prep and process. And I really enjoyed seeing everyone else's methods as well. It created a community of writers that were all working toward similar goals. 

I loved this class and I loved getting to know all of you! WRITE ON!

My Writing: Nicole Ratliff

Whelp. It's over. I guess this class was not what I was expecting to say the least, although now that I think about it, I don't even know what I was expecting to be honest. I think in all reality I thought that this would be just like my AP English Language and Composition course where I wrote my first 15 page paper on The Grapes of Wrath... I even chose that to be the same book I would write my final paper on for this semester! But this class was wayyyyy different! Yes, there was structure. Yes, there was a goal. But I really felt that I was constantly being pushed out of my comfort zone. Although not everything I wrote was perfect, I feel that every thing I did this semester improved my writing and now I know what I enjoy as well as what I don't as well as I think I am really beginning to understand myself as a writer.

Although this first post isn't necessarily anything important, I feel like this was the first time I really expressed my love of writing to others through writing! And throughout the semester I used this piece as inspiration and a reminder of why I am an English Major especially when I didn't do as well as I would have liked and felt discouraged.

Besides the first blog post I feel that the first time we tried writing our essays in an hour which can be seen in this post, "Flashback, Flashback!" Giving myself only an hour- a productive hour to write- really helped me to focus on the important themes and concepts that I wanted to address in addition to creating an outline that would make filling in the rest of my paper much easier! I learned that I really like this way of writing in addition to the ways that we built upon it aka being accountable to someone else in class and helping others in their writing process. It was amazing to see how much talking to others really helped me flesh out my ideas for my papers and really understand what I was writing about and why! In my future writing I would love to take more of a social approach, including posting more on facebook and other platforms and really understand if my "why" is important to others!

Although I do have to admit that I am not the best writers of literary criticism, I learned a lot about how to improve my formal writing as well as what kind of writer I am. I am extremely lengthy and sometimes my writing is as complicated as I am! I love to bask in the creative aspects of the writing process and enjoy looking at my work feeling accomplished because of the improvements I have made as well as the successes I have had. I like to compare stories and love to see how to bridge the gaps between generations. I am glad that I was able to learn social aspects of writing as well as improve my formal writing habits. This class was another way I could develop myself as a writer, and I enjoyed it!

Happy End of the Semester! Idk about you guys but I'm ready to hit the beach!

My Writing: Veronica Whelan

This class was amazingly beneficial to me. It allowed me to learn how to actually write a paper in a way that had really never been broken down for me before, and showed me a lot of things that I really needed to learn how to do properly, as well as letting me see what I was already good at. Previous to this class, my abilities to really break down and analyze something were close to nonexistent, and while they are definitely still in need of a lot of work, I have seen an infinite improvement in the way I approach the task of "writing a paper." I have learned how to really divide up my tasks and put an equal effort into every aspect, rather than rather hurriedly trying to shove as much into words as I could, and subsequently losing a lot of meaning and depth in my writing.

While it may not be evident to an outside reader, writing this post really caused a breakthrough for me in terms of creating a solid thesis. Before this specific assignment, I really was at a loss when it came to this basic skill, because I really didn't understand the mechanics of a "thesis." This assignment really forced me to teach myself how to break down an idea and then rebuild it in an exact pattern.

Another assignment that really sparked me was this one. The entire process that we worked through with our W;t essays really had an impact on me. I have to say, this may be one of the very first, proper rough drafts I had ever written in my life. And this is from someone who really, really loves to write. I literally didn't know how to write a draft. This was honestly a huge impact on the way I think about writing papers. It was actually kind of incredible.

Receiving feedback from fellow students as well as our instructor was, while at first a little strange, actually very helpful. It allowed me to see a lot of random perspectives, rather than a single person's. Also, it seemed that every comment had a different suggestion or compliment than the previous one, which helped me to see smaller aspects of my writing that were or were not helping my overall goal.

All in all, I enjoyed this class immensely. I know that I am not supposed to gush too much in my writing (sorry, professor Burton), but this is a response, not an analysis. This is possibly the most useful class, as far as my writing is concerned, that I have ever taken.

My Writing: Jonah Byers

Before this class, my definition of "research" was looking up sources online specifically by title, then skimming for meaningful quotes. No understanding of the source, no actual learning from them and application to my writing, just "go in, get the quotes, get out." I realize now that my first attempt at researching sources for Nicole back in February was much like that; I wasn't so much looking for useful information as I was just trying to find sources that sounded like they were useful. However, the more I tried, the more I realized that just skimming wasn't going to cut it. After that, my research was so much more in depth (literally, in some cases, as I found myself lost in the depths of the HBLL a few times), but I emerged with a much better knowledge of what makes a research paper and how sources are used within it.

I will admit, I still need to work on thesis statements, but at least I understand what makes a good one now. I may not have participated in the different theses assignment (that was the day my computer broke and took the Apple Store most of the day to fix), but reading everyone else's and understanding the differences between them was incredibly helpful for any future writing and criticism I may write.

The most glaring improvement I've made in writing is the use of scheduled drafts. All through high school, I was very much the student who was so confident in their writing ability that they never do more than one draft. I'd write an essay and turn it in without any kind of drafting process, proofreading, peer-editing, or any other kind of revising. I shudder to think of what my grade would have been like for this class if I'd taken that approach for the final paper. The first time we did an in-class drafting assignment really opened my eyes to how actually reviewing and planning my writing improved it so much.

Finally, peer critiques as well as just discussing works with friends really helped me understand where I could go with the assignments. Rebekah and I were just idly discussing different concepts in our papers and, while I can't speak for her, just that discussion really helped me figure out where to go for the final draft. Having a friend or classmate read through your work and drafting was an important step that, as a full-fledged socially anxious introvert, I never wanted to accept, but now, I don't think I'll ever submit another essay or paper without having someone else read it first.