LaRonde 1

Leandra LaRonde
Professor Olivia Rines
UWRT 1101-002
26 February 2015
My Writing Experience: A Midterm Reflection
In the sixth grade I was assigned to write my own autobiographical collection of short
stories and essays about my most poignant life experiences. In this assignment is where I feel my
writing journey began. At this time I had never really had to put much effort or thought into my
own writing but from that point on I feel as though my writing has improved vastly. As I
progressed throughout high school I grew as a writer academically. It became second-nature to
write in an academic setting because the tools I was provided such as the five-paragraph method
and formats like MLA and APA. Through using those methods I have gained a lot as a writer but
in the same breath I feel as though it has hindered me in some ways because Ive never really
learned anything outside of that.
This course has been quite challenging for me at times because writing about my feelings
and thoughts or just conversational pieces as a whole have not always been my strong suite. I
think that doing the forum responses on Moodle have been essential part in my growth. In these
assignments, such as the Genre by Stephen Bax post, I have has the chance to synthesize
information and give an educated response on my thoughts and feelings.
The first assignment where I had to put a major amount of effort forth was the Genre
Analysis. When I first received this assignment I saw it as the most daunting task. Although I

LaRonde 2

had a decent understanding of what Genre was, I did not anticipate how hard it would be to
gather a good amount of information about my topic and synthesize it. I believe having to take in
such a complex amount of information and write about it in a way that could be readily
understandable by people who didnt have as much knowledge about genre helped strengthen my
writing skills. In my first draft I dont think I wrote as good as I could have because I
underestimated the amount of work that I would have to do on it and when I finally began it I
had no idea how to start or organize my ideas without the five-paragraph format. My second
draft was a great improvement because I gave myself more time to give an honest effort. It was
easier for me to elongate my ideas and talk more fluidly about the topic which was probably due
to the fact that I already had a basis to expand upon.
My writing process throughout this course has definitely changedfor the better. Before
this course I didnt take all that much time to gather research and actually read the information I
wrote about for a long period of time. Although I read the information, in past experiences I did
most of the reading while actually writing the paper. Looking back, I can definitely see how
ineffective this method was. When I wrote my genre analysis, I took about a couple of hours a
day to find and read information which proved to be quite helpful. When forming an outline for
my papers before this, I usually just used the five-paragraph format to help form a basis of what I
was going to talk about. When I had to write a paper for this class I realized that outlines werent
as essential as I thought. It was surprisingly easier to write without having an outline that I felt
like I had to stick to. The article that we read in class titled Shitty First Drafts by Anne Lamott
rang more true for me than I thought it would. Like Lamott stated, Almost all good writing
begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something
anythingdown on paper (Lamott, 7). In my first draft I spent less time with the stylistic

LaRonde 3

aspects of the paper and focused more on getting content down. After I did that, I was able to
focus on improving my ideas, adding more information from my sources, and making my paper
more appealing to read. I think that this is a really productive process is because it allows for
reflection and an opportunity to improve your paper in ways you may not have thought of
originally.
I have a learned slew of different things about writing from genre, to discourse
communities, to the actual writing process itself but I would most like to learn about is how to
improve my writing and ways to make my writing stand out. I think that this will help me in my
efforts to make my writing more personal. I also think it will help me in writing essays for
internship opportunities and other classes outside English and writing. I believe that I deserve a
high B in this class because although I have had a few screw-ups so far, I have made an honest
effort to complete all my assignments and turned in work that I feel is worthy of at least a B. At
this point I think a B is an appropriate but by the time I have completed this class I want to have
an A. To achieve this I will need to manage my time for completing the assignments better and
work on turning things in correctly on time.
So far, this class has been a pretty enjoyable learning experience. I like being able to
discuss my opinions and write about interesting, thought-provoking topics in my daybook. I
know I have learned a lot because it has been reflected in areas outside of this class like in my
psychology class where we have discussed schemas. I have been able to make connections with
concepts I would have otherwise not known unless I took this course. I hope to learn so much
more and really expand myself not only as a writer but as an individual.

LaRonde 4

Works Cited
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor, 1995.
Print.