Class Reflection

When I first approached project 1, I didn't exactly know where I was going to go with it. It took me a couple days before felt compelled to tell a story about my time on the basketball team, and I felt it was perfect because it was both personal and involved me being a part of a select "community". It definitely brought some nostalgia back and it felt good to talk about my experiences throughout those four years of high school. Basketball was the biggest part of my life at one point, and to be able give my point of view of what it felt like to go through that was really cool. My first draft was pretty rough to say the least, and through the conference I felt I was really able to narrow down my ideas and close in on a story the best followed the prompt. All in all, I enjoyed doing this project a lot. I didn't feel pressed on time, and I feel that personal stories are a lot better to write about then more mechanical type of writing.

I came to the conference with about half of rough draft completed, and still not much of an idea of where I should take my paper. I wanted to write about my interest in AI and technology, but Mat explained how that didn't really fit into the prompt. I went back to the drawing table, and Mr. Wenzal and I talked about some other topics I could discuss. He told me about how one of the students from the last class talked about her medical major, and I leaned towards that kind of idea with a little twist. I ultimately came up with the idea of a community of unsure college students who were seeking a way to figure what major to choose. That idea is personal to me, and I feel is one that could also be relate with many other people.

I liked doing Project 3 a lot. It definitely relieved the pressure of having to write a paper since this time there was a lot more freeway about how we could go about writing this. The aspect of having to create a campaign about something we cared about, as opposed to something that was chosen is also a huge plus in my opinion. It was really interesting to look at this like a marketer, and figure out what the best way to go about this is. I had to think about my audience, and what would be the best way to interact and advertise to them. I feel the digital age is huge, and the world of the internet is making the world a smaller place so of course I chose a form of social media to try and connect to high school students. This project accomplished in making me think a little, while also refraining from the pressure of writing a hard paper. I enjoyed this project a lot!

All in all, this class was big learning experience. I never really considered all the aspects of genre, and how it shapes almost every part of our lives since almost everything we interact with is some form of a genre. I feel like I struggled a bit with my project 2, and trying to get specific on a genre that meant something to me, but over time I slowly learned more and more about the true definition of a genre and how I can write a paper about one. Not only that, but I feel I also feel I explored a creative side of myself that was never really touched before in an English class for me. I was so used to the constrained prompts, and lack of choice of topic. This class gave me freeway in almost every project I was assigned to do, and it was a breath of fresh air to be able to decide on my own creative venture rather than be told what I have to write about.