final reflection

ENC 2135 has taught me a lot. I came into Florida State with the notion that I was a horrible writer. Mat’s class helped me understand, grow, and become more confident in my writing. With Project 1, I was not nervous. I wrote a narrative in my dual enrollment class in high school and received a 97, so I was not worried. I easily wrote my Project 1. I met with Mat for my conference and left feeling even more confident about my paper. Then, I received my grade. I wondered why I got an 85 on the paper, but I realized that there is always room to grow. We had not yet covered detailed text analysis before I met with Mat, so I had to go back and add to my paper. I submitted revisions to hopefully boost my grade.

Then, there was Project 2. I was extremely nervous for this project. Was it a research paper? A narrative? A genre analysis? I still don’t really know. After writing my “shitty first draft” and my real first draft (which was still shitty, if you ask me), I brought it to my conference with Mat. I was not sure where to fit the research in, but Mat assured me that I did not need to worry about the actual research. The research was mostly left in the Annotated Bibliography. I told him about how I struggled with sounding overly didactic in writing this paper, since I wasn’t entirely sure what genre this paper fit in to. In the end, Mat told me to approach this paper like a narrative. Thinking back to my Project 1, I remember him mentioning that it would make a good Project 2, so I tried to structure and write them similarly. After the conference, I went back to Project 2 and added much more description about my club’s first meeting, my club in high school, and my critiques of both organization. I inevitably tried to make it as personal as possible. I felt like I was heading in a better direction, but was still pretty confused on this paper.

Little did I know, I had written a great Project 2 and received a 93 as my grade. I decided not to revise it. Project 3 came easier for me. Off the bat, I was not sure what to do because I decided to leave my community. Project 2 helped me to realize that I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to be a part of the organization I had chosen to join. With the advice of Mat, I chose to alter my community, but not change it entirely. Before, I was a member of Empowering Women Globally, a discussion club for women’s issues and feminism. After, I was a freshman woman interested in getting involved with women’s issues and feminism. This would prove much easier for me to circulate my genres.

For Project 3, my three genres include a podcast about my experiences getting involved at FSU with women’s issues, a Pinterest board of inspiring feminist images and quotes, and a SurveyMonkey to gauge underclassmen and high school students’ interest in getting involved with similar clubs and organizations in college. I think these genres exhibit my experience in this community extremely well, while also inspiring other who may also be interested to try and get involved.

I think that this class has helped me grow a lot. The non-traditional text presentations have helped me better understand genre and text in the everyday world. Some presentations have even opened my eyes to issues or topics I was unaware of. The discussions surrounding some of the presentations also helped me understand certain aspects of argument or genre that I may have missed on my own. I hope to apply this knowledge in my studies of art history, as text analysis is an underlying skill that is very useful in this major. I also loved that we used blogs and a Wixsite to keep up with the class. It was easy to use and understand. I also liked how it was customizable for each student.

I think I am most grateful for learning about shitty first drafts. In the beginning of the course, I came in as a nervous writer. I had always struggled with the first draft or introduction of an essay. The lecture on shitty first drafts is something I will carry with me throughout college. Getting all of your ideas out and on paper so that you can further organize and revise them is so important. No matter what the prompt or type of essay I will have to write, I think that it will be useful to me. I thoroughly enjoyed ENC 2135 with Mat, and I hope that this course can have the same effect on other students as it did on me.