I had already felt pretty confident in my critical writing abilities entering Writing 5, so I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of growth. Despite my prior ability, I felt I have grown dramatically in terms of my writing process during this class, which I will explain in terms of the objectives. I felt the objective I grew the most in is the following:
"Support your claim with an evidence-based argument, choosing the best evidence, organizational structure, and rhetorical strategies for that argument." (Syllabus)
Writing can often be intimidating for me, since it feels like there's so many pieces you have to do well all at once and there's no exact formula for good writing. Towards the end of high school I began to approach my writing with more of a narrow focus on argument, but I really did that to a greater extent in this class. I've found for my writing that focusing very specifically on my structure and the overall logical process as my main goal for a piece is extremely helpful. If I approach my argument in terms of "Okay, what's the first thing I need to tell the reader? If this is true, then what?" and come up with a few overarching steps for the essay, I can sort my structure accordingly, and the rest of the essay often falls into place. I've especially noticed when I do peer reviews for other people that I can get lost in their argument's steps, so I know that in my drafts others probably feel similar and I make sure to work on that.
For example, for my research project, I came up with a step process by which I would describe a sample of science fiction in which mind uploading technology was demonstrated and then analyze it further in depth with a scholarly lens discussing death anxiety (often as it related to science fiction), and then repeat so that my lens texts built on each other through these different pieces of evidence. I attempted to connect the dots by adding lines like, "This statement seems to match with Becker and Agroskin's argument" but the problem was the aforementioned argument had been mentioned so far previously that my readers felt lost. As a result of this feedback, I reordered the texts so all the lens texts were built together and then the evidence came after.
One objective that I feel I am still striving towards is the following:
"Participate in an academic conversation with both peers and scholars by engaging with, responding to, incorporating and appropriately attributing the ideas of others." (Syllabus)
I've attempted this objective with mixed success. Again, I will use my research project as an example, because that project required the most interaction between various academic works. I did compare and discuss the relationship between texts to a certain extent. For example, I had one piece of evidence about Terror Management Theory (TMT), which had evolved from "The Denial of Death" which I had mentioned previously. While introducing TMT, I acknowledged this relationship:
"Terror Management Theory takes Becker’s death anxiety and elaborates as to how individuals defend against this fear." (Research Project)
However, when it comes to confronting contradictory or differing academic texts, I still have a hard time playing them off each other and fully demonstrating their relationship. In future classes, I plan on dedicating one stage of the process (ex. a specific draft) to making sure I include this academic conversation, as well as add to it.