Hello,

My time in English Composition 3 has left me quite a memorable experience. In high school,
writing always came in the form of essays that grew from a prompt, as if the essay was pre-
written. However, in English Composition 3, I was given the flexibility to analyze writing in my
own way and being able to create my own Rhetoric-in-Practice project at my own will. This
granted me a much more malleable, personal form of writing, which let me write from my heart,
rather than from the top of my head.

On the final draft of my Rhetorical Analysis essay, I made multiple revisions in which I changed
parts of my essay based on my judgement. After my first draft, I broadened the scope of my
thesis; since my first thesis was incredibly specific, my essay was restricted to an analysis of the
comparisons in Tony Perrottets Fine Wine and CaviarMade in China? and his contribution
of his opinion into the controversy of the label Made-in-China. I had very little to write about
and thus I had too little with which to prove that [Perrottet] encourages his Western audience to
try Chinese novelties. I also filled in gaps in logic that I had not originally considered in my
first draft by providing more concrete evidence that either implied or supported my claims. To
further improve my essay, I made my language more concise where I believe my essay required
more rhetorical strength. My Rhetorical Analysis essay could have used stronger rhetorical
language; though I argued my thesis logically, I did not do so well convincingly. I also should
have included more personal input in my essay. I treated all of Perrottets words as effective
though an analysis of his choice of words and usage may prove otherwise.

Writing my Rhetoric-in-Practice essay was challenging. The most difficult part of writing that
essay was to analyze my own work, because when I wrote it, I found it difficult to see my own
writing through an objective rhetorical lens. I also found the amount of content in my project
with which I gave myself to work was limited, so it pushed me to look much deeper into my own
piece to find more to discuss in the essay. I learned how to analyze my own work through a
rhetorical lens as well as how to write about my content objectively.
I believe that I participated frequently during small group discussions. I often contributed
constructive feedback or opinions in my in-class conversations. Through these discussions, I
learned from my classmates that I do give plenty of constructive criticism but I tend to focus
heavily on errors that need to be fixed rather than what was done well in my peers essays. I also
learned that I tend to judge other peoples constructive criticisms of my work without putting
much thought into the judgement. In class discussions, I do well contributing ideas and opinions
in settings with few people, in groups of two or three people, for example. When it comes to
much larger groups or the whole class, I reserve my thoughts for closer interactions as my peers
and I did occasionally.

For the in-class activity where we did a rhetorical roulette in which we were put in groups of
four and given an example of each piece of the rhetorical triangle and put it all together. My
group was assigned to write a poem to the rest of the class to convince our peers to convert to our
religion. In this activity, all of the group members contributed ideas on what to include in the
poem as well as thoughts on how the poem should be constructed. Though the poem was short
and could have had a stronger effect on the audience, I believe my group did well given that we
were only given a few minutes to complete the task.

For my first week reflection, I wrote about how and what I wrote in the past and my hopes and
expectations from English Composition 3. I did well noting how over the summer I began
recording my memories and how doing so was my true first experience of personal writing. I
detailed why that project was significant and how I had the motivation to start that project. I also
wrote how I hoped that I would come to enjoy the travel writing genre through the class. At that
point in time, however, my writing came straight from the top of my head, but it came out as a
confusing mess of a story and lacked in an answer to the prompt.

Most of all, I learned about my own creative writing process. For me, much of the heavy lifting
happens between the first and second drafts. My first draft is just a set of my initial ideas on the
paper without too much thought, while the second is usually a refocusing and reorganization of
the first. If I am satisfied with the layout of the second draft, I revise the essays body
paragraphs individually. I first fill in gaps of logic so that my essay is more cohesive. After that,
I change the rhetorical nature (if need be) of my language to strengthen my arguments. The final
draft is the last set of finishing touches that I believe would make the essay complete.

The texts used in English Composition 3 were relevant to the travel writing genre. They all
exhibited different ways to fulfill the criteria that qualify travel writing while stretching those
criteria to different extents. Understanding the ways these pieces stretch the definition of travel
writing allowed me to retain an open mind regarding the travel writing genre when considering
my own work. For example, my Rhetoric-in-Practice project pushes what it means to explore
otherness as Iris Smyless piece Ship of Wonks does. These pieces shaped how I view travel
writing; travel may not necessarily be literal movement through time and space and exploration
of otherness, but could be some other interpretation of the word travel. As a student studying
travel writing, I find it important to keep up with the evolution of the genre.

Best Regards,
Lyndon Liang