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Kyle Dahlin
Lynda Haas
Writing 37
4 March 2015
Intensive Writing Reflection
I began the course with one strong goal in mind: to better my writing
and my writing techniques. The class had a strong focus on quality of writing
over quantity and I was going to use this concept to improve my writing as
the quarter progressed. Writing 37 is a class designed to expose the student
to many elements of writing and literature that are present in the world
outside of school. The assignments were designed to have the student
analyze many works and go beyond what was apparent and obvious. At this
point in the class I believe I have achieved my initial goal to be a more
critical reader and writer. My writing has improved substantially when
comparing my newer papers with those I wrote at the start of class. When
looking through my blog posts done throughout the quarter I can tell I have
improved at analyzing my own work and critiquing myself. The two big
essays, two group presentations, and the Connect assignments all helped
me to become all around better in the aspects of my critical writing
repertoire.

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The first assignment that helped me improve tremendously was the

first group project. My group decided to analyze how cattle is treated in the
food industry in America. My group members and I decided to split each
section of the topic into thirds with each person being assigned a part of the
cattle's life cycle. This project taught me many things about collaborating on
a project and finding sources for any piece of work. There were many times
were I would find a source that seemed perfect for my presentation. In high
school I would have not hesitated to use a source similar to his one in my
scholarly presentation. This class made me question every source before I
decide to incorporate it into any of my work. Looking at collaboration, I feel I
am coming out of this class with better time management skills as I have
gotten more dedicated and organized as the class had progressed. I still
think that I can improve on communicating my ideas to my group or team
and perhaps developer my skills in leadership a bit farther. Group work and
collaboration has improved my ability to work in a more dedicated and
efficient manner.
After the group presentation we transitioned into the literature review
essay. My first draft of the literature review essay met all the requirements of
the rubric but it did not feel like the best essay I could have produced. The
peer review process helped me improve my draft and my group members
suggested several areas that could be improved between drafts. One of the
first things I changed was the beginning of the first development paragraph.
Originallly I had started the paragraph with " Many authors argue that power

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over nature and animals is a catalyst for relations to form between humans
and animals. Grant Morrison is an author and playwright who has spent parts
of his life as an animal activist and animal rights advocate. When asked what
his feelings are regarding animal rights Morrison replied" (Literature
Review Essay). I felt that the word was somewhat unclear and the connection
to the thesis to be lacking. I changed this section to " Some scholars and
experts believe that some humans choose to bond with animals in order to
assert a form of dominance. Grant Morrison, an author and playwright, has
stated several times that this theory has some merit. In one interview he
stated that as humans" (Literature Review Essay). The wording and the way I
introduced the theory was clarified so the reader knew precisely what I was
going to discuss. Hopefully the revised version helps the reader to
understand what I am trying to get across by presenting this theory. For this
essay we analyzed scholarly texts such as If You Tame Me by Leslie Irvine.
The assignments on Connect helped me to organize myself when analyzing
one of these texts and taught me many ways to go about reading them. I
believe my annotating and ability to find key points in one of these texts is
much sharper and more beneficial when looking for concepts.
The third big assignment in the class was the group PSA. My group
chose to discuss pet adoption and how adopting is more beneficial than
buying from a pet store. We chose to use all of the Aristotelian rhetorical
appeals evenly and create a balanced PSA that did not favor one approach
too heavily. After presenting the PSA for the first time it was clear what

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appeals the audience did not immediately connect with and those we needed
to alter. My job in the group was to edit the video and make sure all of our
points come off as smoothly as possible. I have done many group projects in
the past, both in high school and college classes so this process was familiar
to me. I did everything in this class in the same manner I always have and
my group and I was able to finish our PSA in an efficient manner.
The last big learning assignment of the class before was the Rhetorical
Analysis Essay. I chose to analyze Blackfish, a documentary about orcas in
captivity. I decided to focus my paper on how the film chooses to use logos
and ethos to appeal to the audience. I revised parts of my paper based on
the advice of my peer review partners. The main feedback I received was
related to certain elements that were not closely tied to the thesis. Many of
these elements were not specific to film as a medium, which was one of the
key areas of the rubric. The end of one of my development paragraphs was
"The film argues that SeaWorld and other marine parks do not have the right
to separate these animals from their families and break them away from
their natural familial order" (Rhetorical Analysis Essay). My revision partners
were able to show me that there was not enough analysis behind this claim.
After the aforementioned sentence I inserted " Through multiple video
instances in the film the viewer is able to witness killer whales acting
unnaturally and draw conclusions similar to those presented in the
documentary" (Rhetorical Analysis Essay). This concluding sentence better
connects the audience to how the appeals are being incorporated and

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connects the essay to the rubric more directly. It was through my group
members that I improved in checking my own work to make sure it was
following the guide lines more closely.
Intensive Writing has helped me to improve on all of my writing and
reading skills. Throughout the class I have discovered ways to better improve
my analysis, observation, and annotating of texts and scholarly sources. I
have learned to approach a piece of work from a scholarly perspective
instead of the perspective of a student. Writing 37 has taught me to go
beyond the normal level of a reader or writer and instead think critically
when doing anything with a piece of literature.