Final Blog Post

I see myself as a pretty decent writer. I think that I put words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into papers effectively. My attitude about writing is still fairly consistent with my attitude about writing before this course. I see it as a way to express thoughts and ideas, and I guess I have a greater understanding of techniques, but I still have the same attitude. I have always enjoyed sitting down and writing things for enjoyment, and I will probably continue doing that.

My writing processes are very structured, even though this class has focused on more of a non-structured writing process. I like to make parallel outlines about the details of every paragraph in my paper, but I start coming up with ideas by brainstorming. The brainstorming we did in class has helped my brainstorming skills and made me think outside the box for ideas. The peer reviews we have done have been really helpful because they give completely different ideas on one subject. As a writer, that opens more doors for creativity and offers more directions to take a piece of writing.

Conferencing with a teacher was important because they are the one grading my paper. I want to have the stuff in my paper that my teacher wants. I think that good writing, unlike this post, flows exceptionally well and leaves the reader forgetting that they are actually reading. Depending on the type of writing, I usually like a lot of vivid description, but not too many metaphors because that begins to drive me crazy and makes me forget what I'm actually reading about in the first place. I think that good writing also has a point and is not just pointless ramblings about nothing. I evaluate my writing a day or two after I write it so I can be as unbiased as possible. I evaluate others by comparing them to God. I have applied this knowledge from this classroom by writing clever witticisms on facebook. I also think that when I am asked to write a paper for another class I will have better skills, especially with rhetoric.

My writing has changed during this period by becoming more descriptive, such as in the first writing project we did. I wrote about animals and I actually found myself enjoying being able to portray them to the readers how I saw them and viewed them through descriptive writing. One example is from a paragraph about a leopard: "The fur followed this pattern along the leopard’s body until the hair finally turned fluffy, long, and a spotless cream-color under the belly and behind the arms."

My greatest strength as a writer is the ability to sit down and write for hours if need be. I don't have trouble coming up with things to say, and I don't get bored of writing really long posts. I'm still working on some areas as a writer, though. I think that I need to be able to reread and revise better. Once I write something I usually don't want to change it because I think it's perfect. I don't want to reread it because I know I will find something wrong with it and will have to fix it. This might just be laziness rather than lacking skills as a writer though. I think that this class has helped me.