Lopez 1

Daniela Lopez
English 114B
Stephen Topf
May 7, 2014
What Type of Writer will I Become?

Throughout my semester in 114B, I have been challenged to grow as a writer not
only by continuously applying the writing process we learned in class, but also by
learning how to question the sources we have worked with in order to develop arguments
for an essay. While I have experienced some growth as a writer, as seen in the difference
in writing style in my essay A Novel Foretelling the Future, compared to my last essay,
Mid Valley vs. Encino Little League, there is still a lot of room for me to evolve. With
this essay I hope to engage in the process of reflection in order to better understand where
my strengths and weaknesses as a writer lie, and what I can do to not only improve those
weaknesses, but also retain what I have learned already. Reflection, just like revision, is a
core component to writing. However, rather than just rewriting my paper making the
corrections that were pointed out to me, reflection allow me to really try to understand
what I did right and where I went wrong in writing my past essays. Instead of trying to
focus on the subject of the essays, I can focus on myself and what I can do in the future to
write better essays. Confucius said, "By three methods may we learn wisdom: first, by
reflection, which is the noblest; second, by imitation, which is the easiest; and third, by
experience, which is the most bitter." (Kanthan 1). Rewriting is more like imitation
because I would just be trying to imitate what my professor has pointed out needs
changing and what my professor believes is good writing. Although I dont agree that it is
Lopez 2
always easy when it comes to writing, it is easier than reflection. In reflection no one
points out what I have done wrong and what I can do better. Instead, I have to take what I
have learned in the past and try to apply it to see for myself what is in my own writing.
Being able to do that will give me more wisdom in my writing and wisdom is something
that can stay with me because it is a part of me and not someone else that I am just
imitating. Based on my reflection of my two essays I have come to the awareness that my
strength lies in being able to start the writing process by allowing my thoughts to just
flow as I type, however, this is also my greatest weakness because I dont spend enough
time trying to understand the material, develop deeper thoughts or engage in editing
before turning my paper in. In order to continue to use my strength and improve my
weakness, in the future it will help to let my ideas initially flow to start writing, but then I
should take a step back to re-read my thoughts, question my thinking and the material,
pre-write, structure my essay and then take the time to edit instead of just rushing to turn
my paper in.
In doing my reflection of my two essays, I found that what both essays had in
common was my ability to observe patterns and themes in the subjects of my essays and
apply them to my own personal experiences or feelings. For example, in A Novel
Foretelling the Future, I was immediately able to relate to the desire to be immortal,
while also recognizing that if this really happened it would be a problem for humanity. In
my essay I noted that, The main problem, which no one thought of, is that Earth doesnt
have the resources to keep everyone alive and happy indefinitely with the population
duplicating and never decreasing just growing faster and faster. I automatically
understood that this was the message that the author was trying to get across. Another
Lopez 3
positive I found is that I was able to take the authors idea and apply it to our real world.
I wrote that I believe that people of today find time to be extremely precious because
they know there life will come to and end and only have so much time to complete there
goals . . . . This is why people are so competitive and strive to do well with the time they
have for example more and more people are going to college. Here I was able to take a
science fiction story idea about technology and living forever and connect it to how in
real life being mortal helps us try harder to be better people and to accomplish more. I
was also able to talk about my reflection and impressions about the book itself. I wrote,
When I read this book I was in shock because even right now as we speak society is
running out of resources. Therefore, I was able to take the basic theme of the novel and
not only apply it to how I see it in the real world, but also reflect on the impact it had on
me. Similarly in Mid Valley vs. Encino Little League, I was very good at observing
the subject of my essay - the differing environments of two baseball leagues. I was quick
to notice the differences in the physical appearance of the two leagues and wrote
extensively about them. Not only did I observe the physical differences, I was also able to
see that the different environments had an impact on how well the children played. For
example, I wrote that My observation led me to conclude that although one of the
complexes is newer, cleaner, wealthier, and better organized, the children are able to
thrive and have more fun in the complex that is less structured and lacks all these
luxuries. In this essay again I talked about how the subject matter impacted me by
stating that What I observed was mesmerizing. Therefore, my strength as a writer in
observing themes and extending them to the real world and my personal experience has
Lopez 4
remained consistent in both essays. Thus, my greatest strength is in being able to try to
relate to the material and see how it is relevant to the real world.
Yet, while I am very good at seeing the superficial themes, I am not very good at
digging deeper and being more analytical or questioning the subject of my essays more.
For instance, before getting any feedback from my professor, both of my essays were
mostly a summary of my observations with no thesis or structure. Most of A Novel
Foretelling the Future is all summary of what happened in the book. Even after my
professor made suggestions, it is still mostly summary and my impressions of the book. If
I could go back I would talk to my professor more about the book in order to have a more
in depth conversation about what the author was possibly trying to argue. I would pose
more questions and do more research on the effects immortality could really have on
earth. Most importantly I would write a thesis with a real argument. Maybe I would argue
that although the author is right that the abuse of technology can be the downfall of
humanity, technology can also help to live better lives. I would propose more examples
from sources about how technology has actually improved the world. My essay A Novel
Foretelling the Future also lacked a thesis on the first draft. The whole essay was just
my observations with a lot of detail. I did not even make any connection that having or
not having money could have an impact on raising children. That seemed obvious once
my professor hinted at it, but it never occurred to me to include that in my essay
originally. Reflecting on this now, in the future I will work on looking for bigger
connections such as this in order to help me have a stronger thesis. This observation
shows that When performed correctly, reflective writing develops these indispensable
attributes, encouraging the writer to create meaning from events that have transpired to
Lopez 5
guide future choices. (Kanthan 2). In this case I was able to see how my lack of analysis
and a thesis limited my essay so it couldnt be more than summary. Now that I see this I
can make different choices in the future like actually trying to see the bigger issues. In
this reflection I took the time to first put all my thoughts together about what I wanted to
write. I made bullet point notes about my strengths and weaknesses. I found my quotes.
Then I made notes about all the topics I wanted to cover. After doing all that I outlined
what my sections would be about. Finally I started writing. I hope that this helped this
essay not be summary since it has more structure.
Another big weakness is my grammar and lack of editing. In my reflection I was
honest with myself that I am always writing my essays last minute racing to just get them
over with so that I turn them in on time. But when I do that I cant write a good essay.
My professor pointed a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes, especially in my baseball
essay that made it difficult for him to even understand what I was trying to say. What is
worse is that running spellcheck and grammar check could have pointed a lot of the
problems out and I did not even do that. I make a lot of mistakes with words like where
and were and its and its. These are basic spelling issues and I need to just take the
time to know the difference and not write so fast so that I can think about which words I
really mean to use. Another problem that was pointed out that I see in my reflection too is
that I write like I am talking to someone instead of like I am writing an essay. My
professor pointed out that sometimes that works like in Mid Valley vs. Encino Little
League when I was quoting real language such as when I noted that Parents screamed
What the F*** where you thinking?! When a child would go up again to bat or make a
good play parents would say, Thats how you play not like the shit before! However, I
Lopez 6
did not just limit this kind of language to quotes. I used words like stupid throughout
my essay to describe what I saw. Looking at it now it makes sense that someone reading
my essay would not take what I have to saw seriously if I dont sound professional. At
least I was able to adjust my language in my rewrite. With this reflection I ran spellcheck
and grammar check many times. I re-read my paragraphs as I wrote them and then re-
read my whole essay. I also rewrote many sentences and changed the order of some
thoughts too. I had learned to do that in the baseball essay to break up the description of
the leagues by adding paragraphs about my hypothesis about what I was observing. This
helped make that essay more formal and not only description. Hopefully the changes in
this essay that I was able to make after reflecting on my last two essays made this essay
more formal too.
In the future I plan on applying what I have learned from this reflection. I will
continue to use my strength of relating to the subjects I write about, but now I will ask
more questions, and do more research to see the deeper issues so that I can write a thesis
that is an argument. I will also give myself more time to write so that I can brainstorm,
pre-write, and edit. If possible I might try reflection on my essays before turning them in.
Dating back to ancient Greece, the 'noble' process of reflection has developed into an
effective teaching/learning tool capable of enhancing education, decision-making, critical
thinking, and self-concept. (Kanthan 1). I agree with this quote and believe that this
reflection has been a good teaching/learning tool about where I am as a writer and how
I can work on getting to where I want to be which is a A+ essay writer.



Lopez 7
Work Cited
Kanthan, Rani, and Jenna-Lynn B Senger. "An Appraisal of Students' Awareness of 'Self-
reflection' in a First-year Pathology Course of Undergraduate Medical/dental
Education." BMC Medical Education, 11.1 (2011): 67.