Korayma Arriaga Professor Lynda Haas Writing 37 10 March 2014 Final Reflection Essay What are the rewards

of knowing how to write? There are too many, writing is a main source of communication that allows people to write down their thoughts. It is a training process that teaches the brain how to put into words the multiple thoughts that roam in the mind. The process of writing an academic essay is a challenging task that forces the writer to think critically and analyze the resources available to be able to write an acceptable essay. Focusing on the mystery genre, as writers we have developed a sense of observation that was not used enough before this class. Being able to transfer my thoughts and observations into words on a computer screen allows me to take notice of how much knowledge I have gained through this class, domesticating my brain into analyzing everything that it crosses paths with. Without a doubt, the techniques learned through writing analytical essays will follow the essayist for the rest of their existence. That is due to the fact that when writing an academic essay, techniques like critical thinking are greatly emphasized. From choosing credible sources to understanding the audiences knowledge of the topic of analysis, the writer is practicing critical thinking, which in the real world is something that is done on the daily basis. Emphasizing critical thinking skills benefits all in the way that people practice it daily, summarizing what occurred in an accident, analyzing a film, observing details in an advertisement, evaluating any information that is received, and applying any knowledge that you

have gained through a source into action or words. Critical thinking conjointly runs with Sherlock Holmes ideals for a detective: observation, knowledge, and deduction. In deed through the mystery genre, skills of observation, knowledge, and deduction have been greatly pressed on. By focusing on analyzing the mystery genre, the writers are able to transfer the knowledge attained to future reading and writing assignments by using the skills as guides on what to focus on. Paying close attention to details on future readings will allow students to find puzzle pieces that will help build up their analysis on the text. Students will be able to portray the knowledge acquired in the course of time by writing essays of higher quality. Applying these gained skills into prospective readings and writings will transfer all the knowledge when making any type of decision. To demonstrate the knowledge I have attained, the essay I have decided to focus my revision on is the modern text analytical essay. Ive decided to fully revise this text since it is focused on comparing and contrasting the modern updates of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes text. Since I had the experience of analyzing a Sherlock Holmes text before analyzing Sherlock BBC, I feel that I have a greater strength with my modern day analytical essay. Also, the fact that the modern day text is made for modern audiences, as an audience we are able to connect more to the story line and observe the changes that have been updated from the original version, pinpointing significant details for analysis. MY greatest weakness of my final draft is losing focus from analyzing a certain scene to relating that to a different convention which I am not supposed to.

Whereas for my Conan Doyle text analysis, I chose to focus the revision strategy mainly on my introduction. This being that the introduction defines or states the basis for the entire essay. I chose this paragraph for revision because it was also one of the paragraphs that needed major changes to make it clear and succinct. The strengths of this paragraph include the brief detailed summary of The Sign of the Four that provides an introduction to Conan Doyles texts. As well as the introduction to the mystery genre, which focuses on presenting what we will be analyzing in the essay. Undeniably, working in groups to complete a task has continuously allowed me to use many habits of mind. Focusing especially on openness, flexibility, and responsibility, I was able to expand my use of these habits as I worked amongst my peer. As a group we had to find ways to avoid group think and work as a team not to allow one person dominate the entire groups method of reaching its goals. Group coherence was extremely important and something that required much responsibility of every member since the absence of one member affected the group as a whole and we needed to maintain our goals together and work as a team to attain the yearning goals. Through the group projects I have also learned that collaboration of every member is key to success and that members of the team must remain flexible and open to new ideas while still providing their own ideas to the group. Moreover, the online modules on Connect have taught, reviewed, or showed me which levels of reading and writing I need to focus more on. Over the ten weeks, the modules that troubled me the most where two of the three critical thinking modules. Critical thinking is skill used in everyday life that I must continue to work on to excel in it. Through these assignments I reviewed grammar styles that hadnt been emphasized for some time now. These modules overall where very beneficial in providing me with the basics of writing that were once taught

long time ago as well as acknowledging that I need to improve my critical thinking skills including being able to summarize and analyze more efficiently. In addition, my main contributions for the RIP Seminar where in the preparation. As part of the visuals team, I collected various images that supported the presenters information, as well as working with the rest of the members to create a detailed but flowing presentation for the introduction of the mystery genre. Along with this I was also part of the set up crew and helped bring some of the necessary props. In the brainstorm of the murder mystery script I helped with the writing of one of the scenes, although in the end was changed. The day of the RIP Seminar I was in charge of advancing the slides for the introduction as well as presenting the Late Victorian Era due to last minute changes. Through these assigned roles, I learned the importance of responsibility and flexibility, due in fact that one persons role must be completed so that the next person can do their part and if you can complete another task, why not? we must remain flexible to any given changes to perform the best as we can as a team. In fact, all of the skills I have learned throughout the quarter in Writing 37, are applicable to real life situation in other settings. Not only will group collaboration, openness, flexibility, responsibility, creativity, engagement, curiosity, and persistence help me be a better student in other classes, but it will follow me for the rest of my lifetime. When socially interacting with other beings, these habits of mind learned will come in handy, allowing me to be able to better communicate with them. I can reflect on these habits of mind and observe that I have used many of them, but also I am able to accept the fact that I can extend the use of some of them. I noticed I need to work more on my creativity and persistence, since I had multiple ideas for something that werent creative enough for the group to focus on. Also, although I did reflect

persistence on some projects I could have sustained a greater interest in my essays, which is something I am currently working on as I revise my essays. To conclude, there have been various habits of mind and skills that were attained during the weeks in this writing course. The importance of metacognition is to be able to look back and recap all that one has learned throughout the production and participation of various activities that have allowed us to become better readers, writers, and therefore better communicators. Some important lessons I have learned this quarter include the idea of remaining open to considering new ways of thinking as I had mentioned in a blog post before, engagementmeaning that however much effort and involvement I made into fulfilling the grade contract on the syllabus- the closer I am to receiving a better grade in the class, and finally the most important lesson I felt that has been greatly pressed upon in this class is responsibility. Without responsibility none of the assigned tasks would have been completed by anyone. One must take full responsibility of our actions and know that our actions will be reflected on not only our grades, but also the productivity of the entire class as a whole. We must take responsibility for our actions and not continuously evade our responsibilities by creating invalid excuses.