Alfonso 1 Michelle Coleen S. Alfonso Dr.

Lynda Haas Writing 37 10 March 2014 Final Reflection Essay For the past ten weeks, being placed in Writing 37 has taught me a lot of things. I was a little worried about this class before we even started because I thought that it was just going to be the usual writing class which tends to be boring but I immediately realized that I was wrong after the first day of classes. What made it more awesome was that our theme for this quarter was Sherlock Holmes. I had fun throughout the whole quarter because it just kept getting more interesting as I learned more about the nature of the mystery genre. This class did not just help me become a better writer but also a better communicator since we always had presentations almost every week. Public speaking and expressing my thoughts in front of people has never been easy for me ever since thats why it is always a challenge for me to stand in front and present whenever we had to. I always get nervous and I just blank out and could not help but look ar my note cards all the time. I've been trying to better myself but it is still really hard for me to just get out of my comfort zone. On the other hand, I was glad that we were doing various presentations as part of this class because at least, in a way, I was able overcome my weakness and at least become a better communicator. Writing 37 helped me improve my writing skills overall. I learned that writing effectively is not just about mere summarizing what happened from anything I read but analyzing its structure, conventions used and the reason why it was written the way it was. We focused on closely reading texts in several types of writing and media which mainly included rhetorical and

Alfonso 2 textual analysis. Since we cannot learn fully just by reading or writing essays, the class was also conducted with a workshop atmosphere where our full participation in various activities was significantly important. The class was divided into four main categories namely: Class Community Assignments (Connect Assignments, Class Presentations, Reflection Writing, Peer Editing and Working Bibliography), Critical Reading Response Paper (Genre Essay), Rhetorical Analysis Essay, and the Rhetoric-in-Practice Project that had activities dedicated for each said topics. Participation was very important in this class because it consisted mostly of presentations and in-class discussions. During the first week of class, we introduced ourselves to the rest of the class and were placed into groups who are going to be analyzing different modern-day texts about our classs theme which is Sherlock Holmes. Before diving into the modern-day texts, we started with analyzing the time period when Holmes became popular which was during the late nineteenth century which was also known as the late Victorian Era. My group was assigned to do a presentation about the Victorian Empire Culture and we decided to divide the topics among the four of us. We made a group chat as our way of communication as we have conflicting class schedules. On our second presentation, we were given a chance to choose a genre convention about Holmess character where we decided to talk about how Holmes approaches a crime like a scientist. In the same manner, we communicated and divided the work to get things done faster as a group. Our presentations were not as good as what I expected and I know we could have done better but because most of us kept looking from our note cards and did not have enough confidence, we lacked audience interaction with the class. I also learned how to be more open in receiving comments from my peers after hearing all the constructive criticisms about our groups performance because I know that it will surely help us improve for the next presentation. I found

Alfonso 3 the theme of Sherlock Holmes really interesting which kept me interested and curious about it. One habit that I further developed is my curiosity. I wanted to learn more his methods of crimesolving and how he always come up with the smartest conclusions compared to others. Another habit that I further developed is my sense of responsibility. Being in a group requires equal amount of effort but due to our different class schedules, it became impossible for us to meet up and talk about what we have to do. I learned that I cannot slack off and neither my group members because if someone slacks off, then everyone will suffer the consequences which I think is not fair to the others who worked really hard. Expressing my thoughts in different ways played a great role in my learning process of intensive writing. My class was assigned to write blog posts and do grammar modules from Connect every week to keep us on track of our works which also served as our review to basic fundamentals of writing which we sometimes forget. Reflection blogs also enabled me to put my thoughts into words regarding the activities that we had to do. I also liked the idea of having peer editing for our essays because the feedbacks that I got from my classmates really helped me a lot. It also made me realize that in writing academic essays, specifically that of writing textual analysis, it is important to find the deeper meaning or what the text is trying to convey and analyze the material more and lessen the writing of the basic summary of the story. Having the expertise on this writing technique will be really helpful for me throughout my college career here in UC Irvine as I will still be doing a lot of analyzing texts and essay writing for my future courses. Another thing that I learned from this class and I know is essential in becoming an effective writer are the analysis of the genre conventions used in the texts that we focused on. These conventions are the elements that make the genre unique and it is important for textual analysis.

Alfonso 4 The essay that I have chosen to fully revise is the modern day text analysis. I found this essay easier to write because I have a better grasp of its information compared to my first essay about Conan Doyles original stories of Holmes. After receiving constructive comments from my peers and professor, I realized that I still have to revise some parts to improve and make it better. I analyzed it but it was not specific enough and instead I did a generalized episode approach but overall, I felt like I did a better job in analyzing modern-day texts because I was able to understand it better as they were made to appeal to the modern day audiences. If I had more time to revise this essay, I would really analyze a specific scene instead of the general overview. On the other hand, the essay that I decided not to fully revise is the Conan Doyle essay as I was not that confident for this unlike the other one. Although I did not choose this for complete revision, I chose the part where Holmes uses the three qualities of a perfect detective in detective who could have been the writer of the letter because I misplaced most of the actions under the wrong categories. I wanted to clear the list up and show the differences of the observation he did, the application of his knowledge and the use of his great deductive reasoning. After revising it, the information included are now accurate and are clearly differentiated from each other. The Rhetoric-in-Practice Seminar showcased everything we have learned and studied about Sherlock Holmes along with the different mystery genre conventions that were used and gave them an update of all the conventions that are still being practiced in modern-day adaptations of Holmes. During the RIP presentation, I was part of the props and visuals team who assisted in organizing and staging the props. Even though I didnt have a speaking part during the presentation, in preparation for this, I was assigned to be one of the directors for this whole performance. As a director, I worked on the revisions and improvement of scene five until eight. I sent out e-mails as a reminder for them to get their parts done as soon as possible so that

Alfonso 5 we can already move on and just rehearse in the next class meeting. I kept in touch with my presenters and performers, and also updated the RIP outline and Introduction PowerPoint as changes were being made from time to time. On the other hand, as part of the visuals team, I gathered information and pictures about the role of police and clues for the introduction segment of the seminar. I gathered pictures for all the modern-day adaptation shows such as House, Psych, BBC Sherlock and put them into the Google Doc that we usd. I wrote the script for the 3rd scene (Deduction of Emma Stone) of the murder mystery scenario portion and listed the staging of the characters, their gestures/movements and facial expressions. After inputting all the information assigned for us on the outline, I started going over the presentation as a whole to see what can still be revised and what not, what to add and what to remove, and if there are still scripts that are still missing. I also made another Google Doc listing all the props/visuals that will be needed during our presentation and as well as the backdrops that were used during the murder mystery scenario. It was pretty overwhelming for me but I can say that it was really fun working with my classmates and actually sharing our ideas on how to make everything better because I felt closer to the whole class. I developed how to be open as I accepted a lot of ideas coming from my peers during the scriptwriting and directing process of the whole presentation. I also developed my sense of responsibility as I was given more things to do as a director and as a part of the visuals team. Finally, I learned how to be flexible in keeping connected with my classmates. Overall, it was really a big responsibility but I am really happy that we were able to pull it off and I can say that we had a successful RIP Seminar for our Writing 37 class because of everyones contribution of their hard work. I have always had the idea that every writing class that I will take are going to be boring but being in this Writing 37 class changed my views and insights. This class taught me how to

Alfonso 6 not just take it on the literal level or stating what is obvious but instead searching for its deeper meaning of what it is trying to say. I also learned how to work with different kinds of people with different working habits because in life, we will eventually end up working with different kinds of people and are obliged to adjust to what kind of person they are. For the past ten weeks, I know that my communication skills improved even just for a bit given the fact that I really do not like presenting in front of people, I know, that it will be helpful to me throughout my college career and my future.