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Kurtis Wragg March 10, 2014 Writing 37/ Lynda Haas Final Reflection Essay As a student of the Writing 37 class, I learned how to further my skills of analysis and become a better presenter through the essays revision process and the group presentations that we did weekly. Personally, I focused on the BBC's interpretation of Sherlock Holmes and its differences for the modern text analysis essay and on the conventions that the Baker Street Irregulars revealed about Holmes for the Conan Doyle essay. Because Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, provided the foundation for the mystery genre, we analyzed his genre conventions that dictated the conventions of all mystery stories that followed as well as the context of the stories that describe the Victorian Era. As a mechanical engineer major much of my writing is black and white. I am a very factual and number orientated guy who rarely was asked to analyze a text before walking into this class. Much of my high school writing experience was purely summary and factual. One the first day I remember we were told to have a speech ready for the following class meeting that would let everyone in the class get to know who you are. After that day, I knew that this writing class was going to incorporate a lot more public speaking skills that would prepare me for the professional field. Leaving this class Im proud to know that when someone asks me to analyze a text I will know how to approach that essay. Due to the great feedback I received from Lizzete and John I was able to create a solid second draft of my Modern Essay that effectively showed the film techniques. I now realize one should chose one element of the text and focus on the analysis of it in order to prove a point. My academic writing has now incorporated more elements of a professional writer.

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Two weeks into class I transferred into my teachers earlier class in order to attend the engineering 189 class that conflicted with my original scheduled time for writing 37. I was put into a new group but maintained the same focus on the BBC Sherlock series. We worked well together and our presentation on the genre convention of the police force. We reenacted a couple scenes from The Sign of the Four and then explained the significance they all have to the development of the mystery genre. We presented to Bob and the rest of the class and tried to have an engaging presentation that kept everyone interested. With respect to analyzing genre specific texts I will now look at each of my future assigned readings in a different way. I looked at Conan Doyles text, The Sign of the Four, and analyzed the convention of Holmes unbiased view of the Irregulars. Through the peer feedback and Lyndas comments I adjusted my essay to become more focused on the effects of the genre convention and how the reader interprets Holmes. In the future I will look at what stage of genre development it is in as well as the conventions that are represented in each of the stages. These conventions will help me interpret the importance of different aspects of the novel and allow me to focus on them. I chose to revise my essay on the genre convention that the Baker Street Irregulars created for the mystery genre. In this essay I analyzed one of the genre conventions of Holmes that was illustrated through his interactions with the irregulars. This essay needed more work than the other essay that I wrote. Its lack of analysis of Holmes behavior and convention left the reader confused so I need to change the focus of my essay to the genre conventions of Holmes. I think I choose a very interesting topic and have good evidence of what I was proving and my essay has the ability to become a very strong essay. This essay has a lot of potential while my other essay really cant be made significantly better than what it is.

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In my other essay I analyzed the rhetorical situation of both the modern and classic Sherlock Holmes and was referred to as our Rhetorical Analysis essay. I will be revising my body paragraph that focuses on the modern techniques of the BBC Sherlock TV series that are used to display the conventions of the classic text. I feel this is weakest point of my essay because it lacks analysis of why they use these techniques and how effective they are. I did a good job listing the techniques of the modern film interpretation of Sherlock Homes including their use of lighting, sound, and camera positioning and just now to explain their importance. I have learned a lot due to my peers throughout this quarter. They have exposed me to their way of thinking and allowed me to open up my range of analysis to an even broader range of possibilities. The group I worked with throughout the quarter for our presentations kept me from procrastinating. We created a GroupMe chat where we could all ask general questions on what was due that week as well as what they were doing in terms of the major essays and projects. The peer review and feedback that I received on my essays greatly helped me understand where they felt lost as well as where I forgot to answer one of the prompts questions. All of the feedback that I received was used to make a better essay for my second draft as well as my final draft. Most often times I needed to either give a lead-in into my analysis or expand my thoughts to insure the reader understood the point I was trying to make. One major thing I realized when I read my own work was my tendency to look over facts that seem obvious to myself. I need to state them so that the reader doesnt get confused. In terms of the topics covered in the Connect Modules the most challenging for myself was the critical reading section. This reminded me of the SAT tests that I absolutely despised. These modules required you to read chunks of texts and look for ways to paraphrase or summarize it as well as define its overall meaning. Not only was this section one of the longest,

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it was the one that I had submitted the most wrong answers for. I believe these two sections should be further divided into more parts so that students wont lose interest and walk away from the computer as I did. I still need to continue to better my skills of defining the overall meaning of a text. I have always struggled with this topic and feel it would be beneficial to have a solid understanding for my professional career. Although I believe that the majority of the modules were review, I feel I now have a better understanding on all of the topics. These topics are the foundation of the English language and need to be mastered by college students in order to have a successful career path. For the RIP presentation I was responsible for playing Sherlock Holmes in our modern play write that I also helped to edit and create during its making. Overall, I think our presentation was extremely effective. Our two part presentation was both factual and interesting. As a group we worked well together when going through the play and when someone forgot there line we worked through it and altered the script to adjust for the change. One mistake I made was referring to the evidence left behind by the murder as a corsage instead of Boutonniere. I didn't realize a corsage referred to a woman's flower; not a mans. This confused the audience about who the killer was, but there was still evidence to lead them to the killer. I believe that detective Dangers lines were written very well. We established the detectives role in the detective genre: a man with little understanding of deduction and who often jumps to conclusions. My lines in scenes one and two established Sherlock Holmes' eccentric attitude as well as his amazing observation and deduction skills. The introduction group's slides flowed well along with the presenters and the visuals keep the audience interested. The other group's presentation was very professional. They gave out flyers that helped with the outline of each presentation. The group responsible for going over why zombies have become so popular had a very engaging

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presentation. Most of the other presenters tended to read off of their slides so it was a little distracting. I lost interest in some of their presentations because of their lack of interactivity. They either played too long of a video clip or gave no lead in which left me guessing as to what the movie was about and what its significance was. No groups asked us any questions, they only asked if we had any at the end of the presentation. All in all, their presentations were factual and lacked the interactivity ours had in order to keep the audience engaged. I developed many skills throughout writing 37 including: openness, creativity, flexibility, responsibility and finally metacognition. I opened my eyes to the possibilities of our presentation during the third week when one group used a puzzle game in one of their presentations. Their presentation was out of the ordinary and taught me there are many teaching styles. My creative side helped develop a script that would mimic the popular Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of the Four, in our own personal play that we acted out in our presentation. I felt responsible to my group members to memorize my lines so that the presentation would flow smoothly. Finally, my metacognition skills dramatically improved. We laid out our plan for our presentation in order to insure the audience would understand what we were trying to teach them. I need to become even more outgoing. With all of my classmates help and feedback I was able to create a far better essay than I would have been able to do had I done it by myself. I need to use the analytical skills that I strengthened and built upon during this class in order to be a more effective writer. This class has definitely taught me more about writing than any other class I have taken. It enveloped the standard topics covered by the Connect Modules, the complicated structure of analysis and essay development, and finally the world of presentations.