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Hieu Nguyen Ms. Haas Writing 37 9 March 2014 Final Reflection Essay One of the most important skills every individual needs to become successful in today's society is the ability to write. Writing is used in everyday life regardless of profession. An engineer must write plans or letters explaining codes, while an assistant must write letters and notes to clients and employer. It is idealfor a highly educated person to have proper grammar usage, vocabulary, and diction. Basically, one can make his or herself look extremely intelligent or awfully unintelligent through his or her skills as a writer. Before I attended the University of California Irvine, I was required to take a writing placement test. Although I didn't quite pass, I didn't fail either. I was placed in Writing 37, a combination of two classes: Writing 39A and Writing 39B. Instead of a normal fifty-minute class, Writing 37 is an hour and fifty minutes long. The class focused on many aspects in improving students' writing abilities, such as grammar, reading, analyzing, and presenting. Consequently, the class did not only raise my ability as a writer, it also raised my ability as a public speaker, a group member, and a reader. Writing 37's textual analysis essays, group presentations and collaborations, and reading assignments have greatly improved and expanded my blurred vision of writing. On my first day of class, I was extremely nervous because English was one of my worst subjects in high school. I was afraid of being bombarded with essays as my peers previously warned me. As I entered the class, Professor Haas announced that the class will be expected to

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present. This statement further hindered my spirits. Not only do I hate presenting, Im terrified of it. The reason I didnt drop this class on the first week was because of my group. On the second day, we were able to choose 3 other people to form a group. My group featured Dan, Michelle, and Elysia, each person bringing their own strengths and weaknesses to the table. Dan is a very creative person, and his knowledge of House M.D. greatly helped us on our presentations. Michelle is great at Power Point, creating and editing most of our slides. Elysia is a very hard working individual, always completing her tasks before its due and always helping us with ours. These amazing individuals taught me what teamwork meant. Each persons strengths were perfectly able to mask the others weaknesses. My group made me decide to stay in the class, a decision I do not regret because Ive learned many great things. Writing 37 has helped me further understand what it means to write an academic essay, especially the essays involving textual analysis. Academic essays differ from high school essays in that scholars play the role of the audience. Academic essays always have a purpose; it is the author's goal to either argue about that purpose, or further inform their audience about it. Academic essays focus on what the author of it thinks. However, it requires the writer to know the difference between his or her opinions and known facts. A big branch of academic essays is focused on analysis essays. Analysis writing requires you to read through a certain text and thoroughly understand it. From there, you must seek and explore a main idea and break it down into components where you analyze each one and go above and beyond summarizing and describing it. The author of an analysis essay must not only go into detail of certain components of the text, they must understand what is going on in the mind of the audience of that text as well. In Writing 37, I wrote two analysis essays, one analyzing a genre convention of Conan Doyle's books and a comparison essay on how a certain convention has changed over time and

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carried its way into our modern day texts. In the process of writing the two, I realized that my high school writing was not enough to satisfy the requirements. I had to go above and beyond what I already knew and understand what is already obvious. In my final portfolio, I have decided to fully revise the Conan Doyle essay because I am not an expert on modern day text and I feel like it would be difficult for me to support my claim in that essay. Through reading and writing these essays, I understand that every genre has its conventions and that these conventions are what make the genre unique.I can apply this to future readings by spotting basic plot formulas and writing conventions to further understand and relate to each reading. Unlike other writing classes, Writing 37 did not solely focus on writing essays and reading books; we also focused on presenting in front of class. I've heard that public speaking is one of the biggest fears of humanity, ranking next to death. That being said, this task is not easy. Effective public speaking requires the presenter to have eye contact, speak at an even pace, and get through ideas thoroughly and clearly. Doing all this while having tens or even thousands of eyes staring at you is not my idea of being comfortable. In almost all of my presentation assignments, I was allowed to use a Power Point presentation as my backdrop, which assisted with getting my ideas across. Through this class, I learned that it is ineffective to bombard your Power Point slides with words because they are not appealing and will be useless in the eyes of the audience. To make the slides effective and useful, I placed more pictures than I did words. By presenting pictures, it helps appeal to the audience and gets my points through clearly and quickly. Although I knew how to effectively present through all the projects I had in high school, I still didn't compare to some of my classmates. Even though I've drastically improved in public speaking, I still lack confidence when I'm up against a group of people, and that causes me to blank out and lose eye contact.

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One of the main final projects of the class was the RIP seminar, a presentation that featured the whole class, each person with their own contribution. We decided to make a Google Doc so that everyone can work on it whenever they want. The main purpose of the project was to explain to another writing class what it is that we have been doing the whole semester. We decided to first have a fifteen to twenty minute presentation of what the theme, goal, and main focus of the class. Then, we composed a play featuring the basic plot formula of Conan Doyle's novels of Sherlock Holmes. The class split into groups, one group would work on the script, the other on pictures for the PowerPoint, and another would assist the actors. I was a part of the script team and wrote the script for the basic plot formula and genre conventions. In addition, I was in charge of the sounds for the play. I tried to add a little comedy to make it more entertaining. From the RIP Seminar, I was able to pull out what it means to work in a group. For me, it highlighted flexibility and why it's so important. I'm not just talking about having the time, but about being in my comfort zone. At first I wanted to be in the PowerPoint group, but since there were too many people, I switched over to the script group. Furthermore, since no one wanted to do the sound, I volunteered and alone managed the job. I finally understood how significant flexibility is in a group project. Just like a Lego set, sometimes you need a piece that can be put anywhere in order to complete it. Writing 37 is one of the most dynamic classes I've ever taken. At the beginning of the quarter, I thought that it was purely writing, hence its name, "Intensive Writing". But to my surprise, Writing 37 included a lot of presenting, reading, socializing, and collaborating. Through its analysis essay assignments, I've learned the difference between high school essays and college essays, or "academic essays". Through its presentation assignments, I've learned to become a better public speaker. Through its RIP seminar, I've learned the importance of

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teamwork and flexibility. I believe Mr. and Mrs. Haas, the instructors of the class, have done a great job in preparing their students for their future writing endeavors. After all, writing is the primary basis upon which your work, your level of education, and your intellect will be judged.