Hezaway 1

Donya Hezaway

Allison Bocchino

Writing 2 Section 3600

11 December 2019

My Journey Through Writing 2

Honestly, as much as I tried to fight it (and for no good reason, might I add), this course

did make me a better writer. I had decided on day one that this class was going to be useless and

a waste of my time; I thought it was just going to be a repeat of AP English Language, which I

took my junior year of high school, and in which all we did was rhetorical analysis. That was it.

So, understandably, I was sick of hearing about it and even sicker of doing it. From week 1 until

about week 9 of the quarter I didn’t really apply myself. I barely did any of the assigned

readings, and if I did even open the reader I just skimmed over the main ideas. I had this really

dumb mindset that the readings were pointless busy work and that I could do fine in the class

without them. This was somewhat true, since I got an A on the first writing project with minimal

effort. Then I made the mistake of thinking the rest of the class would be that easy, but along

came writing project 2 and it fully kicked my ass. I just felt like I didn’t know enough to even

come up with an idea of what to write. So I didn’t. And I suffered. It wasn’t until this portfolio

assignment that I grinded out from 6 P.M. Tuesday night until 8 A.M. Wednesday morning that I

actually sat and went through a few of the readings and learned that they’re actually quite

helpful. Once I resolved to sit down and get some work done, it didn’t bother me that I had to go

through a bunch of readings because I was learning from each one I read. Overall I truly gained

more from this class than I thought I would.

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Considering how little work I did throughout the quarter, I’m surprised at how much new

information I learned just from osmosis I suppose. I learned that genres are not at all what I

initially thought they were and that there are people who dedicate their academic careers to

analyzing genres (Lord, have mercy on their souls). This class also taught me 100% of what I

now know about revision since I’m a master procrastinator and have never once revised any

assignment in my life. Typically I’d just wait until a few hours before an essay was due, grind it

out in those few hours, and just turn in whatever I’d written without even reading it over. The

most “revision” I ever did was using the spelling and grammar tool on Google Docs. So

naturally, I was mortified to have to revise two essays for a grade. However, the prompt for this

portfolio, along with the “Revision Strategies” and “Reverse Engineering/ Deconstructing a

Paper” worksheet and all the style readings on Gauchospace really helped me out, especially

those style readings. I always knew some of my sentences sounded awkward and bad but I never

knew exactly why it was that way or how I could make it better. Little did I know it was as easy

as truncating the end, moving unimportant information to the left, and moving new and

important information to the right.1 The moral of this paragraph is that the way I learned best in

this class was by reading the articles and worksheets on my own time and applying them to my

own work. Although, I don’t know if that’s the way I learn best in general because it’s not like I

tried out different learning methods and found which one worked best for me; I was forced into

this method by my own procrastination and lack of willpower. Maybe in the future I’ll reach my

actual learning potential, but then again, probably not.

1
Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup, Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace (Pearson, 2015), 51.
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As for the portfolio itself, I decided to revise WP 1 and WP 2. I was originally going to

do WP 1 and WP 3 since those were the two I actually did and would have less to revise on, but

when I thought about revising WP 3 it actually seemed harder than just cranking out the WP 2

that I never fully did, so that was the rationale behind my decision. Most of the issues I revised

were related to language and style. In WP 1 especially, I felt like my content was already pretty

solid, and the only feedback I received was to explicitly state the audience. I ran with that one

comment a bit and reorganized my first body paragraph for more clarity and logic, but then for

the rest of the paper most of my revisions were style-related. I used the style reading on

emphasis to end most of my sentences with the word or words I most wanted to emphasize.2 For

WP 2 I basically had to write a new essay altogether since my first draft wasn’t a real essay, so

that took a lot of work. There was very little for me to “change” in terms of revision because I

had barely written anything to begin with, so most of my revisions were just adding. I kept the

introduction paragraph mostly the same since I did put effort into that part, but everything after

that is completely new. I wrote four new body paragraphs, each with its own subthesis and

textual support. A change I made in both writing projects was adding Chicago style footnotes

and bibliography entries for the course readings that I integrated, as well as in-text citations for

the four genre samples in WP 1. The ideas and types of feedback that were most helpful when

revising were the comments from the teacher, although I only had one of those to work with.

Besides that, the articles in the class reader and on Gauchospace helped me the most since I had

nothing else to base my revisions off of. What I like most about my work in this portfolio is that

I actually did something. I’m not sure if it’s my best possible work, but it’s my best work given

2
Williams and Bizup, 52-53.
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how late I started on it. I still managed to improve my WP 1 which I already got an A on, and I

managed to write a decent WP 2 for the first time. I’d still like to improve on not procrastinating

so I can see the true potential for my writing skills.

The work in this portfolio reflects what I’ve learned this quarter pretty well. I applied

what I found to be most useful and relevant from the readings, integrated, and cited them. I also

applied my now proficient knowledge of genres to my WP 1, using all the key terms and

whatnot. I don’t think I’ve changed as much as a writer as I have a reader. The only thing I can

think of that’s changed or improved is my ability to fix some language and style errors. Despite

my sometimes awkward wording though, I think the strongest feature of my writing is to clearly

and directly get my points across without adding fluff or talking in circles.

There’s a lot I learned in Writing 2 that I can apply to future writing and thinking. I think

one of the most useful and universal things I learned was from Bunn’s “How to Read Like a

Writer.” I basically can’t read anything nowadays without questioning the rhetorical choices

behind it, whether it be a random street sign or a book I like.3 I also think “Reading Games:

Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources” had a lot of tips that will help me later on in my

academic career when I have to extract the meaning of dense, boring scholarly articles that seem

impossible to read, like always reading the title, abstract, and introduction first to get a roadmap

of the rest of the essay.4 To conclude, this class was not a waste of my time and I got a good

amount out of it.

3
Mike Bunn, “How to Read Like a Writer,” Class Reader (2019): 17.
4
Karen Rosenberg, “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources,” Class Reader (2019): 48-49.