Bridgette Soto

English Comp

Professor Buchanan

Phase I

My writing journey for this composition class has been a difficult and rewarding journey.  It’s a love / hate relationship with my writing because hate the writing process however, when I read the finished essay, I feel very accomplished.  In the first phase we were asked to write a “Multimodal Language and Literacy Narrative,” I decided to write my narrative on “Urban English” ebonics to be exact.  I particularly enjoyed writing this essay the most because I can relate, I was born and raised in the Bronx.  There’s no way to escape it, “IT’S EVERYWHERE” in the hood the dialect is easy to learn albeit the vocabulary is constantly evolving the language of urban decay.  Writing this essay, I was able to utilize idioms, ethos, and pathos techniques in my rhetorical analysis in addition to presenting it orally to audience of my peers adding a Power Point to illustrate my narrative effectively .

Phase II

            The second phase of my writing journey is elevated in difficulty and a different writing perspective is introduced.  This phase called “The Rhetorical Analysis” I wrote a rhetorical analysis on a peer’s language and literacy narrative. I interviewed my appointed partner to compose an analysis and cover page.  Which briefly summarizes my peer’s text and describe which rhetorical strategies he used.  “Piece of cake” lol…  Although a challenging topic, I realized how important selecting the perfect descriptive text for your essay to persuade and inform an audience.  I was fortunate enough to have an articulate peer who was able to captivate my imagination to ancient Arabia in Minaj’s journey learning the Arabic language and his pilgrimage to Islam.  Minaj used “Pathos”, “Ethos” and idioms strategies to inform and engage his audience (me) about the language of his religion and his experience of his journey. I feel the professor’s strategy in this phase was to pair us up with writers who can help each other in the writing process with techniques as well as exchanging views on the diversity of language and culture.  This eased the writing process of this essay because most of the information in the essay was provided by your peer. By the end of this phase I started noticing the improvement in my writing process and reading but still lacked the ability to extend the length of my paper

Phase III

            “The Researched Essay” was the most difficult of all the phases because it targeted areas of my biggest weaknesses, content extension and citation.  I was required to propose, introduce, and synthesize 2 sources in my draft.  Location of the Citation has always been tricky for me because I get confused in where to insert.  Extending the content of my essays is an ongoing struggle of mine however, I feel I been making progress.  I identified in this process has helped me re-examine and revise my essays before and after submission.  I selected a social injustice issue of the only existing colony in the world today Puerto Rico and how the United States affects women’s reproduction there.  In my essay I identified  through colonial and documented history how the United States deliberately orchestrated a sterilization champaign especially targeting Puerto Rican women in poverty-stricken areas through the use of powerful propaganda champaigns which propagated solutions of fertility control to improve social and economics issues.  I feel while working on this project although I had excellent resources and I had good content in my essay it was lacking content, and I was at a loss on creativity.  I submitted the assignment but dissatisfied with my submission nevertheless I look forward on the professor’s feedback and making the necessary edits to make it an exceptional reading material.

Phase IV

            The final phase of my writing journey “The Digital Portfolio and Self-Assessment Essay” was the easiest to write, however I had some issues creating my digital portfolio.  In this phase I noticed a significant improvement in my writing, vocabulary, and creativity.  Now I just need to improve on target dates lol.  The reading materials provided by Professor Buchanan had techniques on source gathering as well citing tips that were extremely helpful tools.  This final phase as well as the previous phases has assisted in revisions of the previous papers on each phase assisted the prior leading to the final which for me was the easiest to write because it’s a reflective collaboration of everything learned and written utilized to improve writing, reading and vocabulary techniques.

  The take aways of this class were more than I anticipated.  One of them being the materials provided by Professor Buchanan were definitely big factor in aiding the improvement of my creativity, vocabulary brainstorming and writing.  I felt a little exploited throughout the process with the heavy amount of reading and writing required by this class but in retrospect the outcome were exactly my intentions.  To be a better writer communicator and furthermore to improve my vocabulary, attributes that I will definitely need going forward in life.