Final Reflection
What have you learned about yourself as a writer this semester?
I feel like i’ve learned a lot about myself as a writer, in the idea that I actually really love writing. I’ve always sort of liked writing and making up stories and such, but I think now I’ve just gotten better at it and more experienced with it and I think i’ve developed a better appreciation for it. I also never thought anyone liked my stories and I think I’ve learned a lot through the feedback that I’ve gotten and I feel a lot more confident about what I can do as a writer.
Discuss your experience with independent reading this semester.
I’d say my experience as an independent reader this semester was great. I was able to finish a series I had been dying to read in an amount of time I never thought I could. It only took me about a month and a half (maybe 2) to read three books, all of which were somewhere over 600 pages. After finishing those three, I was still able to finish about 3.5 more books. So I think I did pretty well. I did start to miss reading time at the beginning of class as the semester went on and it got to be less and less. I think if we would have stuck with that I possibly could have bumped up my total of 6.5 book for the semester to at least 7, maybe even 8.
Discuss your response to writing poetry and/or analyzing lyrics.
I didn’t really love the poetry project or the lyrics analysis project, especially since they were both being done at the same time. For the poetry project, I just found it hard to come up with things to write about. For the lyrics analysis project, just picking the song and analysing it on my own was fine, but knowing we had to present was nerve racking. That also made it harder to pick a song because it’s hard, at least for me, to find a song that I liked, that I think other people would like, that also has a deeper message, that I also felt comfortable sharing with a class of people (regardless if I knew them or if they knew me well or not).
Have your feelings about reading to the class changed over the semester?
My feelings about reading in front of the class hasn’t really changed. I feel like i’m a pretty good public speaker and I don’t usually feel uncomfortable talking in front of a group of people. I feel like, if anything, getting to read my stories in front of the class just helped me to get better at doing that and I feel like I got less and less nervous every time I went up to read, even though my initial nervousness wasn’t really that much.
There is a lot of freedom in this class-- in how you use your time, what you write about, when you turn things in. Did that freedom help you or hinder you? Explain
I think the freedom of this class was very effective for me. I really liked being given an idea and then being told to take it wherever I wanted. It made it easier than starting from square one and having to narrow down an idea on my own. It also challenged me to try different things because sometimes I would get an idea right away and go with that and sometimes I would really have to think in order to fit all of the elements I needed. In the idea of time I also think it helped because it was easy to get everything I needed in this class done in the time we had so I didn’t have to worry about it outside of class time very much. As long as you stay focused and have a passion for what you’re writing it’s really easy to get things done.
How could we have done this better?
I think overall the class went well. I was able to finish everything I needed to get done when I needed to. I do wish we would have done a bit more practice with the tricks of the trade because I don’t think I exposed myself to them as well as I should have. For the most part I would usually just write my story and weave in the 5 tricks that I needed for the assignment, so I think if we had practiced them more I would be less nervous for the final exam.
I feel like i’ve learned a lot about myself as a writer, in the idea that I actually really love writing. I’ve always sort of liked writing and making up stories and such, but I think now I’ve just gotten better at it and more experienced with it and I think i’ve developed a better appreciation for it. I also never thought anyone liked my stories and I think I’ve learned a lot through the feedback that I’ve gotten and I feel a lot more confident about what I can do as a writer.
Discuss your experience with independent reading this semester.
I’d say my experience as an independent reader this semester was great. I was able to finish a series I had been dying to read in an amount of time I never thought I could. It only took me about a month and a half (maybe 2) to read three books, all of which were somewhere over 600 pages. After finishing those three, I was still able to finish about 3.5 more books. So I think I did pretty well. I did start to miss reading time at the beginning of class as the semester went on and it got to be less and less. I think if we would have stuck with that I possibly could have bumped up my total of 6.5 book for the semester to at least 7, maybe even 8.
Discuss your response to writing poetry and/or analyzing lyrics.
I didn’t really love the poetry project or the lyrics analysis project, especially since they were both being done at the same time. For the poetry project, I just found it hard to come up with things to write about. For the lyrics analysis project, just picking the song and analysing it on my own was fine, but knowing we had to present was nerve racking. That also made it harder to pick a song because it’s hard, at least for me, to find a song that I liked, that I think other people would like, that also has a deeper message, that I also felt comfortable sharing with a class of people (regardless if I knew them or if they knew me well or not).
Have your feelings about reading to the class changed over the semester?
My feelings about reading in front of the class hasn’t really changed. I feel like i’m a pretty good public speaker and I don’t usually feel uncomfortable talking in front of a group of people. I feel like, if anything, getting to read my stories in front of the class just helped me to get better at doing that and I feel like I got less and less nervous every time I went up to read, even though my initial nervousness wasn’t really that much.
There is a lot of freedom in this class-- in how you use your time, what you write about, when you turn things in. Did that freedom help you or hinder you? Explain
I think the freedom of this class was very effective for me. I really liked being given an idea and then being told to take it wherever I wanted. It made it easier than starting from square one and having to narrow down an idea on my own. It also challenged me to try different things because sometimes I would get an idea right away and go with that and sometimes I would really have to think in order to fit all of the elements I needed. In the idea of time I also think it helped because it was easy to get everything I needed in this class done in the time we had so I didn’t have to worry about it outside of class time very much. As long as you stay focused and have a passion for what you’re writing it’s really easy to get things done.
How could we have done this better?
I think overall the class went well. I was able to finish everything I needed to get done when I needed to. I do wish we would have done a bit more practice with the tricks of the trade because I don’t think I exposed myself to them as well as I should have. For the most part I would usually just write my story and weave in the 5 tricks that I needed for the assignment, so I think if we had practiced them more I would be less nervous for the final exam.