Noah Shanklin

ENG 180
Prof. Chapman
6 December
College Composition English Reflection

This semester in my first college English class I developed my writing process to a more
sophisticated level. Starting with understanding that a paper no longer needs to be broken down
and cut into your generic introduction, body, and conclusion paragraphs. But instead the main
emphasis on making a good college paper is communicating a point effectively without causing
distaste in your readers. Finding your readers is the next step in developing as a writer at the
college level. The paper the student writes should target a specific discourse community, large or
small. The paper you write about the discourse community can either be describing the discourse
community and its features much like something we did with the group power point presentation.
Or on the other hand your paper can explore a problem within a discourse community much like
what we did in our final paper. However one of the challenges for me when writing these papers
was understand how to effectively communicate the point I wanted to make. In order to find any
sort of success doing this I needed to apply rhetoric which I understand to be the way and tools
used to communicate something effectively. In a sense rhetoric is the art of persuasive speaking.
The tools that rhetoric communication uses are logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos being the
demonstration of fact to communicate an issue statistically. Ethos appeals to ethics and tries to
convince the readers that there is a problem by persuading them with making a morally right
decision. And finally pathos which appeals to emotion and attempts to tug at the heart strings of a
person.

In my own writing this year I have seen improvement more on the side of communication
than on the technical grammar side. I know in high school we didnt focus as much on
communication and making your writing being able to flow effectively instead it was more on
grammar and writing a proper sentence. We started off our English class this semester with
reflecting on our personal history as a writer and how we feel about writing in general. I wrote
about my dreams and aspirations in the field of writing, thinking I would receive a high grade, I
was wrong. I got a low B which at the time was totally ok because it was my first college English
paper and I didnt know how I would do even though it was a relatively easy assignment.
According to the comments that were left in my paper I understand I struggled with keeping
focus on whatever subject I had chosen. And I can see that in my first paper because I was trying
to keep several storylines going at once and I couldnt make it flow. Even though I scored highly
on the reflection on this paper I wanted to make a better grade on the next paper which would be
the visual essay. Well I didnt score any lower or any higher. And after reading the comments and
seeing the submitted version of the paper I understand that. I used a lot of sarcasm in this paper
and I did in on purpose. I believe that today writing in a formal manner is an underestimated skill
and people, especially kids in college, dont understand its value and therefore dont want
anything to do with it. However it didnt work out like I wanted it too and I didnt score any
higher, but I think I became a better writer because as long as youre writing youre becoming a
better writer. My third artifact was my reflection of my visual literacy paper where I scored much
lower than I did on my first reflection, honestly I have no idea why because the instructions are
virtually the same for the reflections. My fourth artifact is my annotated bibliography for my
exploration of a problem paper which I developed my skill as a researcher and reader of
information. I had only done two annotated bibliographies before and I struggled with them each

time. And at first I struggled with this one, especially differentiating the summary and analysis
parts. That is when I took my first trip to the writing center where I know I learned a lot and I
hope I was able to apply to my revision of my annotated bibliography. Even though I havent
received the grade back for it I know I will score higher because I understood more of what I was
trying to do. My fifth artifact was the final big project for the class and took up the largest grade.
Everything I had learned in the class was ready to come to fruition. I had my discourse
community, my writing process had developed by practicing writing and I had my research and
reading dont with my annotated bibliography. My critical thinking was the only thing left and
that is what the exploration of a problem would cover. Even though I didnt score as high as I
would have wanted I am satisfied in having done it, because I enjoyed doing even though time
was giving me an issue with our football season extending into the playoffs. The subject I chose
is something my mom is really passionate about and I liked talking to her about it as well as
researching it.
Overall I might not of had the greatest semester in English from an academic standpoint
but I know I learned a lot whether it be about English or just general life lessons. It was one of
the best English classes I have taken and I genuinely mean that. Thank you Mrs. Chapman!