Dan Marsh English 1010 10/24/2013 Self-Reflection Paper

Three writing assignments that I feel were beneficial to me were the childhood photo, the magazine add analysis, and the tattoo work. In the fist one mentioned the childhood photo I realized that I kept using the word was over and over again. In this paper I was able to revise it and use other creative words in its place. The second paper about the magazine add also presented its challenges. In this paper I took my thinking to a deeper level looking at what exactly I saw from the add and also what I felt. I saw the angles add companies use to grab our attention. I had to analyze what it was about the add that made me look at it. It did play on my emotions of sex appeal. The last paper about the tattoos helped me with some quick thinking and response. In this paper I had to think out how I felt about tattoos and also how the public perceived the idea of it. ****2- My response essay was Speech Codes on campus. The writing strategies The biggest problem I faced in writing this paper was re-reading the article over and over again to obtain the correct information. I had to continually look for statements I remembered in the article. It challenged me to keep going back and looking at the article. I knew there was information in there I wanted to use I just didn't know where exactly. I ended up reading and marking the paper about three times at least. My strengths in the response essay included factual information about the author. It also included quotes used from essay. I feel that my weakness came in lack or using information better with my own words. I wanted to say what the author mentions in my own words but the most logical wording seemed to come directly from what the author wrote or quoted himself. As a writer I learned that I certainly could use a lot more practice with sentence structure and writing in general. It has been years since writing papers. Each class has taught me a little. This english class has been good for me to learn and develop more.

The ideas of the author were solid and presented well. As I read through some of the examples I started to quickly form some of my own opinions on the subject. I felt some tension as I read about the black and jewish clubs calling for censorship. They seem to always be part of the picked on community that never goes away. In our current times I

do feel there is some racism in pockets of our country. There also is some anti-racism as well. I remember as a child I could not qualify for any summer work programs because I was not black, hispanic, handicap, a criminal, ect. I was just an average american white teenager with no problems or a darker skin color. Because of this I did not qualify.This article brought back some of those feelings and tensions inside of me. In writing this paper I took my own opinion on speech codes. The paper gave me an opportunity to sway from what I previously believed in or take my own stand on the matter. I feel that we should have the freedom of speech. There is so much time spent on restricting ourselves. We are entitled to a point of view and should be able to express our feelings in what ever manner we feel appropriate. That being said. I agree with the fact that we should censor ourselves but not have an overall code on campus about it. Writing about this subject taught me that we as humans need a lot of help on how we interact with each other. Society continues to make laws and boundaries around our lives. They are intended to protect us true. Adults should be able to interact better among each other without all the codes in place. Children need guidence when it comes to manners and speech. A child needs teaching about how to treat others. Obviously if we have to deal with speech codes then there are immature children out there calling each other names. These children are college students and professors. I am not saying all but yes some of these people need to just grow up, be adults, get some education, and speak to each other professionally in a college and life setting.

The audience I imagined in writing my response paper includes mainly colleges students and my peers. I thought what would I like to say to them? Are there points I want to make? This influences my writing giving me the bold feeling to say what ever I wanted. Ironically I did not want to be censored or shut up in the paper. I did find I have a strong opinion on adults needing to be mature no matter what age they are. At the point of college its the grow up level of life. I wanted to scold the audience in a small way about this very subject. I would like the readers to see what the original author of the essay was pointing out. I wanted readers to have examples of professors opinions. At the end of the essay I was hoping that each reader would be a little better informed to be able to make their own judgement on the subject. Although I did reveal I had some firm opinions on certain things I feel I took a passive voice in the paper. I only made a few statements on how I felt. I shared more on what the author and others felt.

The rhetorical strategies I used most were Ethos and Logos. Ethos was used to persuade the audience with claims from credible professors. Ethos was also used stating facts and examples from college studies. I feel there is always a risk in writing a paper. Will the teacher like it seems to be the biggest question. I tried to stay within the guidelines and examples that were given for us. I feel the biggest risk I may have taken was having too much information in the paper. I did include a lot of background and facts about the author.