And One More Thing...

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Here are some Christmas-y sentences for you all!


"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas; deck the halls!"

"Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow--I'm dreaming of a white Christmas."

"Baby, it's cold outside; but I'm dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh!"

"I'll be home for Christmas, and I'll have chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

"It was a silent night, but up on the housetop, I heard the bells on Christmas Day."


Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! God bless us, every one! Bah, humbug! And every other assorted, obligatory Christmas cliché ever concocted! This is Davis Lee, signing out for the last time! Goodbye, everybody!

Thank You, and Good Night!

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To everyone in ENG 109H,



Thanks for everything!



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:)

To My Future Self (In Case Doc Brown Makes DeLoreans): The Grand Finale

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Dear Future Me,

     This is you x days from the past (I don't know when you'll be reading this; just know that this was during the last few days of your first semester in college), and I don't know how you are doing whenever you are reading this. I wanted to write this letter to encourage you and to motivate you when the tough times come since, you know, we tend to mope a lot when they do come.

     Just know that, if you are struggling or barely keeping afloat in your homework or your grades, there is always a way in the end. The fact that you might be performing worse than you thought you would does not mean that you cannot find other alternatives to achieve your dreams. And even if you can't find any other way, that means that there must be something else that you were meant to do in the world. 

     Also, enjoy every moment you spend in college, including the bad ones. Going to college is a once-in-a-lifetime experience (unless you want to go back to college again, for some unknown reason), and many wish that they could have the chance to pursue higher education. Be motivated when you receive less-than-okay grades: that means you can improve. Be still motivated when you receive great grades: there's always higher! Whatever happens, do not be discouraged--that is the worst thing you can be.

     Last, keep doing your best, no matter the odds. The worst thing to do in college is knowing that you could have tried harder to obtain better grades. As long as you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you did everything in your power (and then some) to get what you have, then you can continue with no regrets.

     You can do it! 

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Sincerely,

Your Old Self

To My Past Self (In Case Time Travel Becomes Possible)

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Dear Younger Me,

     This is you approximately 101 days into the future. No doubt you must be wondering how your college classes are going to be, and you must be trying to figure out if it is going to be just like high school. You also must be wondering how the English class you enrolled in is. Trust me, I know this stuff. I am YOU, after all. (Then again, I suppose it cannot be helped--over-stressing and pessimism were always a huge flaw in our personality.)

     Well, I'm just writing to give you some heads-up advice and to confirm some speculations that you might have in case man ever finds a way to "Saitama" Einstein's theory of relativity sky-high (look him up, and you'll know what I mean).

     First, regarding the English class, it is going to be challenging; but it is also going to be incredible fun! You will learn how to create blogs, structure public arguments, analyze controversies, study videos, and even return to familiar things like rhetorical analyses. You'll learn that the many news articles you read online, the forums debating about topics, the videos on YouTube, and even photo blogs all have specific relevance to SOAPSTone and are presented in such a way to achieve the maximum amount of effectiveness to their audiences. If you think about it, even conversations are conducted as such: we analyze our situation, our environment, the person that we are talking to, the tone of voice, and the words spoken to generate the correct responses! And all of this--ALL of this--you will learn in ENG 109H.

     Second, I want to give you an essential piece of advice that I wish I knew before: you must be aware that there is no such thing as an audience of the "general public." Everything you write--letters, reports, essays, texts, Tweets--always has a specific target audience, and every argument you make will influence certain people more than others. I know you think there is always a way to have the general public as your audience, but it will degrade the effectiveness of your writing because you are too busy trying to appeal to everyone when you could focus on one group of people. There will be a project that will require you to be very mindful of what I told you. Analyze everything--logos, pathos, and ethos--and be sure to include every single one of them into your writing.

     Finally, on the subject of writing, remember your high school grammar, but forget high school writing. This be college, foo! It's another league entirely; so do not be surprised if you find that you might not be doing as well as you initially thought you would do. However, keeping good grammar is an excellent way to start college-level writing--without good grammar, you can't make good arguments, essays, paragraphs, or even sentences. Brush up on some diction rules and vocabulary, and you should be good to begin!

     Don't worry about the difficulty of college. With college, it's just a matter of growing and adapting, learning how to build your skills and go beyond your potential. You will find disappointment, long nights, and even longer homework assignments, but fight through them! Seek to learn from each challenge you face, and you will be rewarded with far more than just a letter grade!

Sincerely,

Your Older Self

Reflective Essay: Organizing Idea and Thesis

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     For my reflective essay, there are five different organizing ideas and themes that I could use. Each one of them will change how my thesis is worded and, ultimately, what my essay becomes.

1. "Focus on a specific assignment, experience, or concept."

     

     Thesis: From opening a blog to searching for forums; from opening my first social media account to making a presentation of my argument in my blog not only to my classmates, but also to all of the Internet, I learned in this extensive project and now assert that, to make the optimal public argument for any topic, audience, argument, and occasion must all work hand-in-hand, lest the failures to align those three aspects will weaken the argument, muddle its purpose and significance, and even jeopardize the credibility of the arguer for his seeming incompetence in forming a coherent argument.

2. "Compare your experience writing in this course to past experiences."

     Thesis: When I wrote in high school, I always thought that it was possible to write to a general audience--that everyone can be affected (if not immediately, then eventually) by any arguable or influential topic; but in college, however, I learned that that was a mistake: for every argument, there is always a target audience, never a "general public." By holding on to that principle, I discovered that my writing became more focused, more precise, and more impactful than it ever was before.

3. "Reflect on strengths and weaknesses."

     Thesis: Over the three months that I have delved into unique genres of writing and confronted their individual sets of problems to solve, I realized that I may be skilled in forming grammatically sound, well-structured paragraphs with smooth transitions, in synthesizing outside information within my own rhetoric, and in creating logical arguments based on data and facts; but all of those mean nothing if I cannot overcome my greatest weaknesses: neglecting and forgetting who my audience is and why that audience should mold how I write.

4. "Focus on course objectives."

     Thesis: Because of this English course, I discovered that rhetorical analysis and awareness can do more than give insight into an author's eccentricities and nuances in writing: it can extend beyond the book and stretch into the real world in work and in everyday conversation, and it can very well determine whether or not your argument or your viewpoint will successfully reach out to others or fall prostrate in the dirt, as I found out in my public argument.

5. "Focus on your writing process/self-perception as a writer."

     Thesis: After working on three major projects, all of them placing me and my classmates in unique rhetorical situations, and after writing multiple papers and essays before in high school as well, I realized that my tendency to act as a "heavy planner" may be great for the short term, but crumbles in the long term; therefore, for this class, I sought to break away from that tendency and to begin embracing attributes of the "heavy reviser" to counter my planning proclivity and to reduce my "burnout" for correcting the mistakes in my first draft.

   

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     I believe that the third thesis would be the most effective, interesting way to organize my essay because it deals with a problem that I had and still have. It is something that seems easy to ignore and to cast aside, thinking that you can get away with having the "general public" as the audience; but, if you and I do that, it actually muddles our arguments and makes our purposes unclear. Since I, the speaker, have that problem, I can make authoritative statements for others who may have that same problem or even other problems that they are struggling to eliminate. For my audiences (my professor and my classmates), this topic is very relatable: certainly my professor has seen this problem again and again in her many years of teaching English, and my classmates know the struggle of trying to correct their faults, even if it is not the same as mine. Therefore, by complementing those facts with a conversational tone, I can fulfill my purpose to prove that yes, I did improve my writing and actively sought to identify and be constantly aware of my audience, but also to show that that problem still persists in my writing and that I am still trying to improve more and more everyday. It is a message for the everyman in writing.


Note: I commented on Michael's and Cati's blogs. 

Audience and Invention for Reflective Essay

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Now that I discussed a little bit about how my writing process has changed over the semester, it is time to start working on a bit of pre-writing. This should help me keep in mind what I should cover in my essay and how I should tailor my tone and evidences for it.

1. What topic do I want to discuss with my readers? What do I want them to understand about the topic?

     The topic for this self-reflection in English 109H is, believe it or not, my experiences of writing in English 109H! I want to discuss how my writing style has changed from being a stalwart "heavy planner" to being a combination of both the "heavy planner" and the "heavy reviser," how I did this, and why I thought that this was the best way to change my writing style. By explaining these things to my readers, I want them to understand overall how I overcame some of the looming struggles of my writing that I have had for the past several years and how I have grown not only in linguistic skill, but also in character.

2. Who is my primary audience? Who is my secondary audience?

     The primary audience for this essay will be my instructor Dr. Bell. She has seen and graded every single one of my projects and will be the one most aware of any changes that she may have seen in me. My secondary audience will be my classmates--although they may not be as aware of my changes as Dr. Bell will, our interactions within our blogs will, I hope, convey some evidence that I have grown during the semester.

3. What do my audiences already know or believe about the topic?

     As I mentioned before, my instructor will know how much of this is true from the essays and projects that she graded from me, and my classmates will know by the blogs that I posted. How much they saw or detected, however--that, I do not know.

4. How will I organize and develop my ideas to make them convincing to these readers?

     To develop my ideas, I have to show my audience how using the "heavy reviser" approach in conjunction with my "heavy planner" proclivity greatly improved my writing. Therefore, I will have to use my drafts from the three projects I did over the semester and create comparisons and contrasts between certain selections within those drafts. I could even explain my own personal process of combining the two for my public argument and how doing so proved to be an essential part in making the argument clear and effective.

5. How will I establish my ethos (relationship and tone) with my readers?

     I need to be aware that I am working with two audiences: my instructor and my classmates. My instructor would want some formality in my writing, but my classmates would prefer a more conversationalist approach more likely than an uber-serious approach. Thus, I would need to use a semi-formal tone--not too casual, yet not too grandiloquent. Also, I would have to tell some relatable stories that apply to both my professor and my classmates to maximize my connection with my readers. Perhaps stories of the pains of revising will work the best, since both audiences have experienced revising papers before.

Discovering My Writing Process (Or, Rethinking My Semester)

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     After finishing Project 3 last week, I have now made it to the final project for ENG 109H: the self-reflection. For this project, I will be looking back on the three to four months that I have attended this English class and will consider how I have grown from all of the projects that I have done so far. Thus, to begin, I will observe how my writing process changed over time.  

     Even during my years in high school, I always was a heavy planner when it came to writing. I always spent excessive amounts of time looking for the perfect sources and examples to use for my papers, spent even more hours thinking about how I was going to outline my points and my evidences for them, spent EVEN MORE hours writing each sentence down and making sure that each sentence and paragraph flowed smoothly, and spent usually one more hour proofreading to ensure quality. Therefore, because I already poured so much time into preparing that one draft, hoping that, for my second and third drafts, I did not need to make too many revisions, I would often tire of looking at my draft when I do have to revise it; and I often do not want to make another draft, lest I repeat the same process as before. 

     To counteract this tendency of mine, I tried to combine my attributes as a heavy planner with the attributes of a heavy reviser to find the right balance in my writing. Especially in my most recent project, I looked back at my blog posts and figured out which paragraphs were too weak, erased them, and rewrote them while keeping aware of the errors I made before. I was willing to hear advice from my peers and worked with the advice, making the necessary alterations, no matter how drastic. I was going to revise my things sooner or later; so why not now? By combining both attributes, I was able to see the mistakes I made in my first draft, the draft that I often think is perfect the way it is, and correct them; and I also gained the patience to go a little bit further when it came to revising. 

     I would dare say that Project 2 definitely changed how I approached writing rhetorical analyses. With many of my writings, I always wrote as if I was referring to the general public. However, after learning that even the most "general" things have a certain audience, I had to completely change my perspective on things. Especially with Project 2, I had to analyze how a certain commercial appealed to its target audience and why exactly the commercial appealed to them instead of assuming that everyone would be affected by it. I also had to dig deeper into the strategies that were used in the commercials--in other words, I had to draw not only observations, but also inferences. I could not just identify the logos; I needed to also find the pathos and the ethos of the argument as well. In a sense, you could say that my approach to writing was simultaneously narrowed and broadened. 

     My writing process is still mostly the same today as it was before: begin with sources, generally outline the paper, find evidence for those points in the sources, consider how I was going to mold those evidences into a coherent paper, and write the first draft, making sure to stay grammatically correct. Today, though, I now include revising during and after writing the first draft to ensure quality in each paragraph and a little pre-writing as well. I follow the same strategy, regardless of what paper it is. 

     Over the course of the semester, there were two things that helped me a lot while writing: the observations-inferences chart (to help with looking for the deeper meaning or reason for a certain rhetorical strategy's presence in a medium) and the cluster graph (to make connections concerning who is speaking about a topic, what they are saying about that topic, how they are saying whatever they wanted to say, and why they chose to say what they said). I will definitely try to implement these two pre-writing tools in other papers that I may have in the future.