Lesa Tran

Dr. Lynda Haas

Writing 37
4 March 2015
Reflection Essay
As I reflect upon this quarter, I realize that I have grown as a writer and as a person.
Before class started, I was fearful of Writing 37 because it would be the first college level writing
class I take. Writing, alone, terrifies me; so you can imagine how much more terrifying a college
level writing course, with the course name of intensive writing, was to me. Dubious about
whether or not I could handle the workload, I signed up for the course regardless. I knew that I
would eventually have to take this course so why not take it now? I encouraged myself to be
open minded and persistent to everything that comes my way. With that mentality, I walked into
the class. The mentality that I initially had was belittled very early into the course. On the first
day, Dr.Haas introduced the topic of the class: animals. The moment Dr.Haas introduced the
topic, my smiling face immediately shifted into a discontent face. I, initially, am not a huge fan of
animals. For the most parts, I am indifferent about animals so it would propose quite a dilemma
for me. However, I attempted to keep that mentality strong. Then, Dr.Haas continued to make
me anxious by stating all the information and requirements of this class. I was definitely
overwhelmed and my mentality crumbled into many pieces. I began to fear that I will not be able
to accomplish all the requirements. I feared that my writing abilities was not at a satisfactory
level, and that I would be struggling to keep up with everyone. Despite my fears, I continued to
pursue this writing course and hoped that my efforts will be enough to pass this class.
Throughout the assignments: Literature Review Essay , Rhetorical Analysis Essay, group
projects, Connect assignments, and Peer review, I began to rebuild and develop myself into not
only to better writer but also a better person.

Our first main assignment was the Literary Review Essay. The literary review essay was

a fairly challenging assignment in my opinion. It was the first essay I have written in a months. I
was not sure how to approach this style of academic writing because I have never written a
Literature Review essay. In preparation for this Literature Review essay, Dr. Haas had us do a
group presentation on various topics about animals. My groups presentation was about the
scientific experiments done on non-human primates. This was my first real exposure to doing
research about animals. One habit of mind, openness, is shown through my willingness to
research about animals, specifically non-human primates. To my surprise, I enjoyed it greatly.
This research sparked a hidden innate curiosity for the topic scientific experiments imposed on
non-human primates. I found the topic to be extremely engaging as I found more information
about how non-human primates were treated restrained. It amazed me to see scientists support
and oppose certain types of restraints and housing. In reflection of how my group, consisting of
Ellen, Ericka, and myself, collaborated, I felt the collaboration amongst us was satisfactory. I
contributed to the group when as directed. I was very shy initially and was afraid to voice my
opinion. There were also points where I felt the collaboration amongst the group was
unorganized. For instance, we were unable to meet up as a group to practice the presentations
due to unexpected circumstances. Despite not being able to rehearse the presentation, this taught
me to be more flexible and to adapt to the situation. From this collaboration with Ellen and
Ericka, I felt more comfortable and confident when in participating in groups and presentations. I
hope to apply this newly gain confidence to future presentations and projects. Looking back to
the group project, there was an indirect lesson about rhetoric. Most of the pictures used in our
presentation represents an non-human primate who is subject to some extent torture. By showing
these pictures, we enabled the audience to have an emotional appeal towards the non-human

primates. After working on the group project, Dr.Haas mention that we were able to use our
project as the topic of our Literary Review essay. However, I have never written a literature
review essay so I,initially, thought it would be easier to do a literary review on We3, a graphic
novel we read prior to this group presentation. The graphic novel was a new medium of text as I
have never read a graphic novel. To be honest, I had no idea how to approach reading it. In fact,
half the time I was reading it, I wasnt sure if I was reading it correctly. So I had the curiosity to
search up how to properly read a comic. It turns out that I read it backwards so I had to be
persistent and reread all three novels that I had already read. With that persistence, I wrote the
literature review essay while attempting to figure out how to write the essay. To no surprise, my
peers and Dr.Haas mentioned that my literature review was not truly a literature review. Instead,
my literature review was merely a summary with various grammatical errors. I expected this as
I had no concept of how to write a literature review. However after the peer review sessions, I
have a better understanding as to how a literature review should be written. A literature review
should include sources that converse with each other to prove or argue a certain point. In fact, it
is a presentation of what credible sources says, rather than what I think and say. Upon this
realization, I intend on editing my first paragraph and thesis for this essay, I chose to edit the
thesis and a paragraph for this essay because I felt I grasped the understanding a literature review
significantly better than a rhetorical analysis. Before my edit, my first draft lacked the essences
of a literature review. It lacked specifications on ideas, a conversation between sources, and an
emphasis on literature review. Before, the thesis of the essay was Doing so, authors Morrison
and Quitely enables the work of literature to become influence because readers with similar
values, are able to sympathize for the animals. After the edit, my thesis is Morrison and Brady,
experts in the field of human-animal relationship sympathize for the animals in the graphic

novel, We3. by authors Morrison and Quitely.. By comparing these two thesis, the final drafts
thesis has a more effective controlling idea because it is specific idea that refers to the authorities
being reviewed in the essay. Through this reflection of the literature review and group project,
metacognition is engaged to assist me in understanding my improvements in this class.
Aside from the literature review essay, Dr.Haas had us do a Rhetoric in Practice Project.
This project was to create a PSA about a chosen topic. This PSA exhibited my knowledge and
understand of rhetoric. This is because to create an effective PSA, one must employ all of
Aristotelian appeals: ethos, pathos, logos to strengthen a claim. My groups chosen topic was
about saving the polar bears by informing the UCI audience the effects of global warming and
oiling drilling in relation to the polar bears. This project, has one of the main reasons as to how
my views about this class changed. I found this project to be extremely engaging. In chemistry
class, we discussed the effects of CFC and global warming in relation to the polar ice caps. I was
extremely fascinated with that topic so I highly encouraged my group to do a PSA on saving
polar bears. I was hoping to interview Dr. Blake, an atmospheric chemist and professor at UCI.
However, that was not done until the final draft. This project really displayed my engagement,
responsibility, and flexibility. I was engaged from the beginning to the end. I was researching
about global warming, polar ice caps, and polar bears. I found some interesting information and
pictures for the slides. I had the responsibility of collaborating with my groupmates, Kassandra
and Sara when organizing the video for the first draft. For the final draft, I had the responsibility
of interviewing Dr. Blake and editing the video. When reaching out to Dr.Blake, he was
extremely busy that week because of midterms. He, unfortunately, was not able to talk for long
so I was flexible with the timing. However, I made the best with what I was able to receive from
him. Then, upon editing the video, my computer crashed multiple times, I was unable to upload a

high quality file, I was also unable to put the video I had of Dr. Blake. So, I was a bit creative by
adding a picture of Dr.Blake on the video. Despite all the problems that arose, I was gave it my
best effort and made it the best that the PSA could be. To say the least, I was patient and
persistent when editing the PSA. This PSA exhibited various rhetorical device such as pathos,
logos, and ethos. Logos was shown through the statistics of the polar bears. Pathos was shown
through the picture of the polar bears on a small area of ice surrounded by the ocean or dry land.
Furthermore, ethos was shown through the #greenpeace, Dr. Blake, and Climatepedia. In high
school, I learned about this for at most a week. I never understood it then, but now, after the
PSA, I was able to understand it better through the application of Aristotelian appeals in the PSA.
In fact, I understand how authors and producers use it to strengthen and relay a message as we
did in our PSA.
Our final project was the rhetorical analysis essay of any of the material that has been
covered. I chose to my rhetorical analysis paper on the two of the Molwgi stories. Molwgi
Brothers and Tiger! Tiger!, by author Rudyard Kipling. I chose to do it on this because I
found it practically interesting how Kipling uses the rhetorical device of anthropomorphism.
Unfortunately, in my first draft I did not relay how the rhetorical devices relay the message of the
author as said my various peers and Dr.Haas after the first peer review. The peer reviews in this
class has taught me that there is a deeper meaning behind its to give than to receive. The peer
reviews allows reviewers to assist other in improving their essay. During this process, reviewers
may catch mistakes that he or she could have made in their essay. Aside from that, it enables to
reviewer to interpret the topic in a different point of view. This not only relates to essay but also
this relates to life as well. In life, people have different perspectives on given topics. By being
able to understand their perspective enables one to become wiser. After reader Claudias

rhetorical analysis of the rhetorical device, anthropomorphism, I had a deeper understanding as

how what a rhetorical analysis is. Through metacognition, I also noticed from the beginning of
the class to now is that, I dont struggle as much when I am trying to relay a point. I noticed how
far I have progressed because at the beginning of the course, I found it difficult to express my
thoughts to others: advice, ideas, etc. However, in the last group activity of deciding which
essay to revise completely, I found it significantly easier to explain my recommendations and
thoughts. Through this last group activity, I had decided to edit my final draft for the rhetorical
analysis completely. In this edit, I focused on making this a rhetorical analysis. I included
rhetoric signaling words such as emotional appeals, rhetorical, and rhetoric.
I also specified on how the rhetorical analysis affects the audience to show rhetorical analysis.
Also, when editing my paper I fixed the grammatical errors I have made with the knowledge I
have gained through the connect assignments. Some connect modules that attributed to my
improvement in subject- verb agreements. I found it to be ironic that I did fairly well considering
the amount of incorrect subject verb agreement in my essays. I noticed when I did my connect
assignment, I majority of the time pressed the think so option even if I knew that was the
answer. I think through this it just shows me that I should have more confidence in myself, of
which I did gain throughout the course of this class.
As rhetoric is one of the main focus of this class, I have learned so much about rhetoric. I
am able to see how it is used in everyday lives. If I am completely honest, I believe that this class
is the most valuable writing class I have had. This class has encouraged me to look at things from
various viewpoints and to be open to new things. Essentially, this writing course has encouraged
me to constantly use the habits of the mind: curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity,
persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition. I believe this class did much more than

improve my writing abilities. This writing course has taught me many life lessons such as to be
confident in myself. If there is one thing I learned from Dr.Haas, it would be that if you are
passionate about what you do, then everything else will come easy. I hope to take everything I
have learned from this writing class and apply to to my future. This class to say the least is a
memorable experience.