Looking back at each of my works, the ways in which I have grown as a writer are clear. My first essay for this course was supposed to be the easiest. I was expecting it to take me a short amount of time, especially as someone who journals frequently. After having trouble forming my ideas on the topic and creating my story, I realized that I was lacking strength in the ability to Compose as a process. I was unable to intuitively write in a creative way that somehow also generated the points I had to arrive at within my essay. As I wrote more in this class, not only did the time I worked on my essays shorten, but creative thinking became more accessible to me. I was able to create meaningful works as well as adapt them to my peers’ and teacher’s critiques.

Furthermore, especially when dealing with triggering or ‘taboo’ topics, I found the ability to compose with an awareness of how intersectional identity, social conventions, and rhetorical situations shape writing. This understanding allowed me to not only embark on more serious and complicated topics but do so in a respectful and aware manner. I was hesitant to delve deep into matters such as sexual asssult, as I did in my third essay ‘The Inability to Seperate art from the Artist.’ What gave me confidence was my new found knowledge on expression within writing. As long as I kept my audience in mind, an important rhetorical technique, I could clearly contort my thoughts into digestible and respectable writing.
Demonstrate in your writing an awareness of how personal experience, our discourse communities, social conventions, and rhetorical considerations of audience, purpose, genre, and medium shape how and what we write.

My analization of texts has also improved immensely. I didn’t know what rhetorical analysis meant before this class. Since learning about the analization method, live consciously implemented it into two of my writings. Especially during my third essay, my ability to engage with credible sources and find multiple perspectives within my own writing, as well as a source’s, has improved. Identifying sources through multiple lenses also allows me to adapt my own writing to tailor towards a specific audience. Based on my audience, my purpose shifts. This course has confronted the importance of communication as well as the different mediums it can be represented in. Through all the techniques I’ve learned and insights I’ve gained, I am now not only a better writer, but a better communicator.