Ho 1

Vincent Ho Professor Lynda Haas Writing 37 15 March 2014 Uncovering the Mysteries of Writing I was terrified I had the feeling of butterflies in my stomach as I sat down and waited for Professor Haas to enter the room. It was my first day of Writing 37 and I felt hopeless looking at the next ten weeks in this class. As I let out a deep sigh, a woman walked in. At first, I did not think that she was my writing professor because I had pictured someone old, but then reality hit me as she spoke to the class and introduced herself. I listened to every word she spoke despite the dreadful feeling that was hanging all around me. I was not a big fan of writing in fact, I hated writing. That was my first day of Writing 37. Nine weeks had passed since that day and all I can say is that this class has been an unforgettable experience for me. Throughout this class, I have learned the skills and techniques to become a better writer and communicator. The most important concept that Writing 37 has helped me with is the process of writing an academic essay. Academic essays are mostly about an analysis of some sort whether it is analyzing the text of a book or a scene from a movie. Before taking Writing 37, I only had a vague idea of what analyzing meant. The trouble I had in writing an academic paper was that I always stated the obvious or I just summarized an event instead of analyzing it. My classmates and I read the 1890 novel, The Sign of the Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle. In a scene from the novel, Sherlock Holmes states Yes,a queer mongrel, with a most amazing power of scent. I

Ho 2

would rather have Tobys help than that of the whole detective force of London (Doyle 43). Before understanding how to analyze a text, I would state that Holmes statement infers that Holmes despises the police force. Through taking Writing 37, I was taught that to analyze a text, I must break that text down into parts. After having a better understanding of analyzing a text, I can say that through the use of diction in Holmes statement, the readers can infer that Holmes despises the police force. I can then support this argument that the word queer used to describe Toby has a negative connotation, but Holmes would still prefer the dog over the London police. After practicing how to analyze all quarter long, my metacognition skill has improved. I am now able to step back and look at my own writing to see how I can improve upon it. Throughout the quarter, the main focus of Writing 37 is to analyze the mystery genre. By analyzing the mystery genre, I have learned that there are conventions to this genre and that the conventions are always updated to fit in with the modern-day audience. This concept is true for all different types of genres. I have also learned about the four stages of genre development: primitive, classical, parodic, and revisionist. The first stage is the primitive stage. In this stage, the genre is first developing and there are no expectations from the audience yet. The next stage, classical, is when the genre begins to gain popularity and its conventions are established. After that, during the parodic stage, the genre is laughable and parodies are made. The last stage is the revisionist stage. In this stage, the conventions of the genre are updated to adapt to the current audience. Both of the Doyles novels I have read, The Sign of the Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles, are mystery novels written during the late Victorian Era when the mystery genre was at the classical stage. The people of the late Victorian Era had expectations to the mystery novels. When I analyzed the modern-day Holmes TV series, Elementary, I recognized that the

Ho 3

mystery genre is now in the revisionist stage of the genre development. I recognize this because in Elementary, the mystery genre conventions are updated to fit to the 21st Century audience. For example, the sidekick from Elementary, Joan Watson, is a female as opposed to John Watson from the Doyles stories, who is a man. This update symbolizes that women in the 21st Century have the same equality as men. From learning about the mystery genre and its stages of development, I wrote two essays. The essay that I fully revised is my Rhetorical Analysis (RA) essay. I chose to revise this essay because I have more interest in the prompt and because I believe my analysis in this essay is strong. I was also more curious with this my RA paper because it deals with a modern-day text. For this essay, I wrote about how the mystery genre convention of the sidekick is updated and portrayed in the modern-day TV show Elementary on CBS. My greatest strengths of the final draft of my RA essay is that I can clearly analyze a scene to explain how the convention of the sidekick is portrayed in modern-day text and my hook to get the readers attention. When wrote the hook for this essay, I had to use my creativity to capture the readers attention. When it comes to analyzing text, I feel like I have made a huge improvement in my writing. I have transitioned from simply summarizing a text, to analyzing it by breaking it down into parts. One of the things I believe I need to work on is my incorporation of support through quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. When I use support from a text, I often just quote my support. I need to vary this approach by paraphrasing or summarizing so my essay will not be repetitive. The other essay I wrote was the Conan Doyle essay. For this essay, I chose to revise only one paragraph for my final draft. The paragraph I chose was my second body paragraph, which is an analysis paragraph about the convention of Holmes scientific approach to criminology. The

Ho 4

reason I revised this paragraph was because towards the end of the quarter, I have learned how to analyze a text better and I wanted to go back and improve my analysis on this paragraph. After revising the paragraph, I feel that the strengths of it is the analysis and the textual evidence. Before revising this paragraph, I stated that the convention of Holmes scientific approach to criminology is seen through his keen observation. I supported this with a passage from The Sign of the Four where Holmes observes the crime scene at Bartholomews lab. After the final revision of this paragraph, I broke down the passage from The Sign of the Four and focused on Holmes character. I then explained that his character has keen observation which means that he examines all the evidence and clues to come up with a logical explanation to what has occurred at the crime scene. I concluded that because Holmes examines all the evidence, he has a scientific approach to criminology. Revising a paragraph from my Conan Doyle essay has helped me improve my metacognition skill. Once again, I am able to reflect upon my writing so that I can become a better communicator. Writing 37 has not only taught me writing techniques, but also teamwork and collaboration. Before taking Writing 37, I used to work independently. Despite having to do a lot of work, I chose this method because I got things done my way instead of relying on others. From past experiences, I have always been the guy to do everything when it comes to group projects. However, Professor Haas made it clear from day one that in Writing 37, I have to work with others. At first, I did not like this idea because I do not like to rely on others when it comes to my schoolwork and my grades. As the quarter progressed, my view on this changed. Through collaborating with my colleagues through group work and peer review, I have opened up and adapted to working with others. I have learned that they can help share the workload as well as

Ho 5

help me with my own work. Each of the group projects that my group and I did in Writing 37 contain a lot of information. However, with the help of my group members, I only had to focus on a specific part of the presentation while they did their parts and then collaborated with me. The peer reviews that I have done with my colleagues were also very helpful to me as they provided insightful comments on how I can improve my essays. Some of these comments included hints on how to analyze a text better or how to transition between paragraphs. Through group presentations and peer reviews, I have opened up to the idea of working with others so that we can help one another. Throughout this quarter, I had to do Connect Grammar and Language assignments. These assignments have taught me many skills that I have incorporated into my writing. This online grammar website can look overwhelming at first, but it is really straightforward and easy to use. Every week, I have grammar and/or language modules to complete on Connect. When I work on those modules, I have to start out with examples problems. Then I read about a certain topic that module is about. Finally, I have to work on more practice problems until I get a 100% completion for the module. These modules are very helpful to teaching me the little grammar and language details that make my writing better. Looking back at these modules, I have mastered my skills in grammar, but I still need to practice my critical reading. Critical reading involves more reading, but through practice I will become better. These modules also help build my responsibility because I have to complete them every week. One of the biggest projects of Writing 37 was the Rhetorical in Practice (RIP) Seminar. My class and I have studied the mystery genre all quarter long and this seminar provided us with the chance to display our knowledge of what we have learned to another writing class. For the

Ho 6

RIP Seminar, I was the assistant director of the introduction, the director the first four scenes of the Murder Mystery, one of the script writers, and one of the criminals in the Murder Mystery. I wrote the outline for the introduction that my classmates were going to do. The outline was lacking details so my classmates and I revised it. After the introduction was done, I began writing one of the scenes for the Murder Mystery. During the process of writing the scene, I displayed my creative skills as well as my engagement. I used my creativity to create a scene that has some of the mystery genre convention in it. To do this, I first looked at a passage from The Sign of the Four and then carried the conventions from that passage over to the scene I was creating. I went through a few drafts of that scene before I finalized it. My engagement really helped me stay on task while preparing for the RIP seminar. When the final script for the Murder Mystery was put together, I had to run rehearsals for the actors of the scenario. While holding these rehearsals, my flexibility improved as I was faced with constant challenges. Some of my classmates had to switch roles in the presentation and I had to adapt to the situation and made sure that everyone knew what they were doing. I thought that my classs presentation was pretty good. We covered the main points of the mystery genre and the stages of genre development. We also interacted with the audience to give them a hands-on experience of the mystery genre. The other class did a good job with their presentation as well. It was very informative, but I believe that they could have done better if they interacted with their audience instead of covering all the material they had put on their presentations. After the RIP seminar, I realized that my persistence has improved. The preparation for the seminar was a lot of work, but I was able to get everyone to work together to finish this long project.

Ho 7

Overall, this class is the best writing class I have taken so far in my life. This class has transformed me from being the scared, unexperienced writer to a confident writer as well as a communicator. This class has taught me all the little details of writing and the techniques for effective analytical writing that I will carry on for the rest of my life. This class has also improved my public speaking and presentation skills. I learned that a horrible thing to do while giving a presentation is to read off of any visuals that you may have such as a PowerPoint, a Prezi, or a poster. This class has taught me to keep an open-mind when approaching something and always keep trying my best to improve upon it. Even though I have improved as a writer, I will always continue to improve my skills in language and grammar to better my writing. As time goes on, the standards and norms in writing change to adapt to society at that time. The skills that I have learning in Writing 37 will help me to overcome the challenges that I once feared to be a better writer and communicator.