Evaluative Essay

Evaluative Essay

I was never a strong writer, and as of today, I am still a poor writer. Grammar is one of my biggest struggle in writing, and it’s extremely challenging for me to write fluently with poor grammar and punctuation. But after taking English 120, I was challenged to move out of my comfort zone, and write in ways I’m not fully familiar with. At the beginning of the year, we focused on free writing and getting our creative thoughts onto our paper. I enjoy free writing a lot because I feel like it’s the most flexible writing option, where I don’t have to worry about the context of my writing, or organization. I was always afraid to show people what I wrote because I always feel ashamed about my bad writing skills and the poor quality of my paper. But after reading Peter Elbows Excerpts about writing, I feel a connection with him right away. He urges you to accept your own flaws instead of being ashamed about it. He makes you feel like it’s nothing to be ashamed of because nobody is born to be a good writer. It’s all about the process of writing. I  learned that we shouldn’t always be held back by guidelines and structure. In other words, instead of having a rigid frame creating boundaries on what you can write, we should always write down as much as we can until we come down to something we are passionate about. The first discovery draft was really difficult for me because there was a wide range of topics we can talk about. It was hard to pick on a subject that is interesting to me, and can build a strong thesis question. I was never good at coming up with a thesis question, so it was a pain to compress all my ideas into one solid thesis question. However, after the process of writing a discovery draft, a middle draft, and then a final draft, I was able to polish my writing and throw out any unnecessary clumps. And with the whole process of cutting, adding, and editing, I was able to limit my writing to one final thesis question. Throughout the process, I struggled with creating a concise thesis question, and getting my ideas to be organized. However, the opportunity to write my paper in three different drafts really helped me get my thoughts clear and precise. If it was a one draft paper, I wouldn’t have the chance to have my paper peer reviewed by another pair of eyes to catch what I need to change in order to make my writing better. Writing F1 really helped me learn the process and growth ideology. In the middle of the semester, we learned a lot about rhetorical devices and how we media and writing use rhetoric to manipulate their audience. The visit to the Frick Museum was one of the most inspiration way of developing an idea on how rhetoric is used on artwork. I find it really useful to understand how rhetoric is being used in our everyday lives because we are not fully aware of the impact rhetoric has on us. Just like the advertisements we watched in class, I was stunned by how much we can pick up on just one short ad.

I am not sure about whether or not I’d made improvements in writing throughout the semester. But by comparing my writing with what I wrote a few years ago, I’m sure there is a slight difference. Since the course required intense writing, It was a great chance for me to practice writing. The more practice, the better. With all these writing we had to do in just half a year, I am for sure kind of proud of myself. A few years ago, I was always afraid to write. But after taking this course, It demands you to write and after all of the writing, it requires you to polish it until it comes out nice and legible. I am glad I actually learned all these things about process writing and growth because without being educated on how to become a better writer, I wouldn’t have written all of these pieces of writing.