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David Zapata
Professor Haas
Writing 37
8 March 2015
My Experience in Writing 37
To be completely honest, I came into Writing 37 absolutely terrified. Writing has always
been my weakest subject, as I am more of a math/science type of person. However, as the quarter
progressed I began to lose that fear and became more comfortable with the subject as a whole.
My openness to learn more about writing made me embrace the class as the quarter progressed,
as opposed to my experience in high school where I was unwilling to consider writing as an
important class. My experience in Writing 37 has improved my writing skills through the major
presentations, essays, group work, and Connect assignments that called upon and improved my
ability to use rhetoric, collaborate in groups, and critically analyze texts.
The first major assignment in the course was the class wiki research project. This
assignment had the class split into groups and research information about a specific topic related
to animals. Each group then had to compile a list of sources and use information from each
source to create a presentation. One of the great things about this project was the fact that we
could choose our own topic, which gave me a sense of engagement in the class. I felt more
involved with the topic when it was one that I could choose, as I was more invested in the subject
of the research than if I had been forced to research a topic I had no interest in. The topic my
group chose was the treatment of cattle in the beef industry, a subject which we all agreed would

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be interesting to find research on. The class wiki project also improved upon my skills with
group collaboration. My group and I worked together as a team to compile our list of sources and
put together our works cited page, which consisted of our top ten sources that we used to present
our research topic to the class. Our collaboration was vital to the gathering of the sources, as we
had to make sure each of our sources was credible enough to be used in our presentation. If one
person used an unreliable source, it would damage our group work as a whole, so we made sure
to work together to support each other. My responsibility to the group was shown by my
ownership of the contributions I made to the group, and to understand the consequences of my
contributions. I made sure to use credible sources in my section of the topic, so that the group
benefited from my sources rather than be weighed down by an untrustworthy site or news article.
Overall, the class wiki group project improved my ability to collaborate in groups and find
reputable sources to use in research.
The next major assignment in the class was the Literature Review essay. The main
objective of the essay was to synthesize the arguments of many sources about a particular animal
topic and discuss what each source had to say about the topic. To find the sources on the topic, I
used my curiosity to find out more information about the treatment of cattle in the beef industry,
as my desire to know more about the topic drove me to find more effective sources. I went into
even greater depth in each of the sources than I did in the class wiki project. With this essay I
was introduced to the method of literature review as a convention of academic writing. I learned
the difference between synthesis and summary, as I had to create a controlling idea in my essay
to bind together the sources in my literature review. For example, the controlling idea for my first
body paragraph was too broad and needed to be focused so that the argument of each source
would be clearer. In my revision, I changed the focus of the paragraph from the broad discussion

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of feedlot conditions to the more specific topic of cattle feed. The revision process helped me
understand how important it is to be more specific when writing a paper, rather than write in a
broad manner. This was also the first time in the class that I received peer reviews from my
classmates. In this case, each of my group members from my class wiki project gave me
feedback on my literature review essay that helped me improve ideas and overall structure. For
example, both Carlos and Kyle pointed out that my topic sentences needed to be more specific,
which led me to the revision I stated earlier. Overall, the literature review essay taught me how to
combine and compare the arguments of various sources in a cohesive manner.
After the literature review essay, the next major project was the persuasive public service
announcement, or PSA. For this project, the class was assigned to new groups and we were given
the objective to create a PSA that would rhetorically persuade the UCI audience for a specific
animal cause. This project called upon the use of creativity, as our group had to come up with a
creative way to persuade our audience to support our cause. We did this through the use of many
rhetorical appeals in a video PSA that called for the stop of puppy mills. With this project I
learned the importance of rhetorical appeals in academic writing, particularly for the use of
persuasion. I learned that pathos in particular is one of the strongest of the rhetorical appeals that
could be used for persuasion, as most PSAs used pathos as the primary rhetorical appeal and
with great success. We used pathos in our project through the melancholy music in the
background and the heart-breaking images of abused dogs in puppy mills. For this project, my
role was to compile all the images that would be used in our video and also find the appropriate
songs to use. However, the roles for my group member and I changed due to the departure of the
group member in charge of film editing. My remaining group member and I became flexible to
adapt to the situation, as we had to learn how to use film editing software that we had little to no

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expertise in. It was a great learning experience in the end, as we got to learn more about film
editing, a skill that is sure to be useful in the future.
Following the PSA, the next major assignment in the class was the Rhetorical Analysis
essay. For this essay I had to critically analyze a text for rhetorical appeals and how those
rhetorical appeals are communicated to the audience targeted by the text. I chose the film
Blackfish and its use of ethos as my focus in my essay. This essay improved my ability to
critically read a different type of text than the standard book: a documentary film. I learned that
for a film, the message is portrayed in a different way than books, as the audience is persuaded
by visuals and sound rather than words. I incorporated this knowledge into my essay to explain
how the rhetorical appeal of ethos is used to persuade the audience against SeaWorld. I
specifically analyzed the scenes where videos of the whale trainers are alternated back and forth
with the present day trainers to establish their credibility. In my first draft, I did not have textual
analysis as I simply summarized what the trainers were saying in a generic way. In my revision, I
added a specific scene and analyzed how its presentation established the credibility of the
trainers. This process helped me learn the difference between simple summary and textual
analysis. Overall, the rhetorical analysis essay taught me how to critically analyze different
types of texts and how to use rhetoric (particularly ethos) to persuade an audience.
Throughout the entire course we were assigned various Connect assignments. These
modules were small, weekly exercises that helped improved our grammar and writing skills by
focusing on specific techniques and areas that would be helpful to us in writing essays or
conducting research. The weekly nature of these assignments improved my persistence, as each
set of weekly modules would keep me focused on improving my grammar and writing
techniques by practicing constantly. Based on the data from the Connect website, the topic that

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was most challenging for me is the integration of sources into a writing project. This is also
shown in my essays, as many of the comments I get in peer reviews point out that I need to focus
more on improving my integration of sources in my essays. For example, Leticia pointed out to
me in class that many of the sources I used in my rhetorical analysis essay were not integrated
properly, which disrupted the flow of the essay. I took this advice into consideration for my
revision and benefited from it. I believe that finding out my weaknesses is half the battle, so I
think it is good that I know what areas to focus on in my writing.
Although Writing 37 was very intimidating when I first signed up for the class, most of
those fears dissipated as the quarter progressed. The structure of the class and the emphasis on
group work taught me a lot about writing, reading, and communication. The grade contract is one
of my favorite aspects of the class, as I am not stressed out constantly over grades throughout the
entire quarter. The blogs were also very helpful by encouraging me to use metacognition, as I
can use the blogs as a way to reflect on my work and improve on my mistakes. In the end,
Writing 37 has improved me overall as a student and the skills that I have acquired in this course
make me feel prepared to take on argument and research in Writing 39C.