In the beginning of the school year, when I walked into this Composition class, I was acutely aware of the change that was about to unfold. I only knew I was going to be challenged as a writer, and forced to write outside my comfort zone. Watching my classmates speak so articulately, I knew I was in a room filled with brilliant writers and creative thinkers. My classmates are the people I would credit with pushing me to write the way I did this semester. They made me work harder in my revisions, Blackboard posts and even the exercises we would complete in the beginning of class. Their vulnerability allowed to work harder, and dig deeper in all aspects of my writing.

One of our first exercises in the beginning of the semester was a “How-To” exercise. This exercise was introduced to us very vaguely, but that allowed my creative mind to roam free. At first, I wanted to write a recipe on how to cook a pot of white rice. I just thought that would be an easy way to get the exercise done and over with. But upon further reflection of who I was, I wrote a poem that I believed was more fitting, “How to be a Bad Bitch”. To be honest, I thought it was a very daunting move for the beginning of the year, but I wanted to be true to myself. When the time came to read my poem out loud, the line “Love yourself, I know in this day and age, it’s easier said than done, but it’s essential. What I do is that I look in the mirror and say positive affirmations about myself over and over again. Eventually you’ll start to believe in yourself”, I noticed I received many words of encouragement from my classmates. This behavior can fit into the Course Outcome: “Develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of the writing processes”. The verbal feedback from my classmates allowed me to see that the line I wrote was good, and was able to effectively reach my target audience. This feedback encouraged me that I can be my authentic self in this class. Further in the year, we wrote an exercise titled “It’s okay if..”. This exercise came a perfect time. The weekend I had was not one I wanted to remember, and I was left with a lot of mixed emotions. This exercise allowed me to reflect on what I was feeling and allowed me to sort out these feelings. For the first time in a long time, I let my raw emotions, and what I was feeling at that particular moment guide what I was writing. In the margins of my notebook I wrote, “It’s my fault… after all the damage…” . Even when I am reading it over, I can see how the course outcome of “Generate self-reflective writing for student portfolios” is shown in my writing. I was attentive to how I was feeling and I knew that this was going to affect my writing at that time. I noticed that the strategy of repetition was a strong writing device that was used to sharpen my focus on what I really wanted to write about. These exercises were crucial in building my confidence as a creative writer, as they allowed to explore the type of writer I am, and these exercises helped when I was crafting my essays for the semester.

The “Outsider Essay” was the assignment I found that I had the most difficulty writing. There was the internal struggle of wanting to write something that was raw and real, and not wanting to overshare certain details with my classmates. The Peer Review was the part of the editing process that I feared the most.  In my Outsider Essay reflection I wrote, “I was kind of nervous to share my outsider essay because it’s basically the complete opposite of who I am. I thought it would change people’s perspective of who I am, which is something I shared when we were asked what we anxious about when it came to Peer Review”. No one likes to be judged harshly by their peers. Deciding I was going to write about a period in my life when I was severely depressed was a big step for me, not only as a writer, but for myself. This was a period of time in life that I usually did not talk about. My opening lines, “I had lost 10 pounds in three weeks. My face, once round and plump, was becoming angular, my jaw becoming more defined. My arms and legs full of muscle I worked so hard for in dance class, looked weak”, were telling right away of the kind of piece that the essay was going to be. This was the first time I felt like I was writing a piece of work where I was openly allowing myself to be transparent with my peers. The Course Outcome, “Explore and analyze in your own and others’ writing a variety of genres and rhetorical situations”. This essay gave me the chance to analyze my writing in a different lens. As I was reading one of my peers essays during peer review, I realized that I was not the only one that decided to be vulnerable and honest with themselves. My classmates essay was especially memorable, as she wrote about a realization she had, and that realization caused her to become aware that she was an outsider in her own city. She wanted my genuine feedback, and although I gave her good writing feedback, such as rearranging paragraphs and grammatical fixes, I encouraged her to keep writing such authentic work.The Course Learning Outcome that we both practiced during this moment  was “Create positive group dynamics that engender student cohesion”. She encouraged me to do the same and told me that she wanted to see more detail in my writing. She understood that it was a difficult topic to talk about, but she wanted this narrative to serve my experience justice. The learning outcome that I believed I demonstrated during this process was: “To demonstrate that you have developed ‘reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing,’ you might include copies of the notes you took while reading to demonstrate that you have practiced or developed flexible strategies for reading”. The first draft was the most difficult piece of work I had to write this year. I tried to start by free writing, but my writing came out disorganized. The points I was trying to make were not being made and the structure of the essay was not clear. It was then a friend suggested that I should outline what I want to include in the essay. The outline took some time to write, but when it was done, it made it much easier to start the essay that looked so daunting before. 

As I writer I have definitely evolved. I watched myself grow as a writer. Writing outlines as definitely helped my writing process. I believe my “Metaphor Essay” and “Critical Lens” paper were both stronger than my Outsider Essay. I spent more time on creating my drafts and being more careful with my word choices. I am grateful for this class as allowed to expand the ways in which I write and strengthen my writing skills.

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