Over the semester and throughout the class my writing has changed and developed. At the beginning of the semester, my writing felt like I was still in high school and I felt that my improvement was stagnant and that I could rarely improve. However, through the course of this class, I was able to find my voice as a writer and as an academic writer. Through both the Bloodchild and the Heating Plant essay I was able to learn how to not only improve my writing but also change how I view my writing,
The biggest thing that helped me improve not only my writing but also my thought process I started to think about things like our discussions in class and to our small group discussions, in those small groups, I was able to hear my peers thoughts more clearly as well as learn to express my thoughts, when we were brought back to our large group discussions I felt that the things that people discussed were more developed and were very well thought out from the small groups that we had.
One thing that stuck with me was our discussion with robbie routenberg. Even though we were pushed to being online and were not able to talk in person, the discussions that we had were very impactful for me. I never really understood what happens when there is a racial incident on campus because I am fortunate enough for it to not directly impact me but, hearing the process that happens and that many people are willing to learn from their ignorance was very impactful because the view that I had was that most people make these comments out of hate and less of them saying them out of ignorance and the fact that people are still willing to learn and grow stuck with me that. It showed me that I had the willingness to grow and that I should try to learn how to give people second chances.
One thing that is crucial for me to improve as a writer is to be able to keep trying and to keep persisting. One thing that I learned from my time in INTD 105 is that the first draft isn’t going to be the same as the final product. I used to believe that if my first draft and my final product were so different then they wouldn’t be good. Throughout this class, I have learned that my first draft changing isn’t a bad thing but a good thing. I may have gained new developments since starting my draft and, the more that I learn the more my draft is going to shift to fit what I have learned. I think that my initial fear of my work not being good enough on the first round stopped me from improving my writing skills throughout my adolescence. This class has pushed me to challenge those fears and that has made me a better writer overall.