Tieu 1

Camelle Tieu

Greg McClure

Writing 39B

11 December 2018

Ten Weeks of Writing 39B

As the fall quarter comes to a close, marking the end of ten weeks of learning and

reflecting, my time in Writing 39B has come to an end. In this class, I learned more than just

viewing texts in the lens of its rhetorical situation. Along with the course objective of

understanding rhetoric, I have learned to improve my communication skills by collaborating

efficiently with others and presenting to the class. I also improved my own personal reflection

and work habits through the various assignments that the class was allocated. The most

significant lessons I learned in this class were those of metacognition and the structure and

organization of body paragraphs which contributed to the improvement of myself as a scholarly

writer. The processes of drafting and revision were mentally agonizing, but they helped to

develop my understanding of the texts I was analyzing, such as The Road in my rhetorical

analysis essay. Even though the assignments were tiresome, the results were clearly apparent

when I compare my writing before the class to my writing now. I will certainly take what I

learned in this course and apply it to my later university career as I explore research

opportunities in upper division classes.

My progress as a writer throughout the ten weeks went smoothly as I finished all of the

assignments with effort and deep insight into the topics we discussed in class. However,

completing the assignments was only one of the ways I developed my skill as a scholarly writer.

One thing we learned in class was metacognition. I realized that it was something I was already
 Tieu 2

doing, but I did not realize that I was reflecting as I was reading. Putting a name to it helped me

understand what it was, and I was able to reflect with certainty that I was benefitting myself.

These are notes I took of metacognition. When I forget what the symbols are, I refer back to my

notes and practice metacognition while I read.

Through this lesson, I found myself reading texts and mentally recording the words I did

not know or the context that the text was in. This technique sparked curiosity in me. It made me

engage more with the text and do further research to fully understand what I was reading.

Because of metacognition, I found it easier to write. Being the author of the words, I paid closer

attention to my diction and the context of my words. I was more attentive to detail and the clarity

of my words rather than the quantity. In the rhetorical analysis essay, I was initially not sure how

to begin, so I picked important quotes and simply wrote everything that came to my mind. I did

not pay attention to how I was writing because my goal was only to get my message across.

Along with the lesson about structure and organization of a paragraph, I put more value on being

concise as well as organized. In high school, the structure of my essays was quote and analysis

until there was nothing left to analyze. In this class, I learned to support my quotes and analyses
 Tieu 3

with scholarly evidence. Every single sentence in the paragraph had a specific purpose, and the

template helped me to clearly define everything that I wrote. My rhetorical analysis essay

improved significantly, and it is evident when comparing the two essays side-by-side. With these

two key lessons I learned, my writing improved significantly as well as my ability to reflect,

think creatively, and collaborate.

I never know where to start when beginning an essay, and I still have trouble with that

now. Drafting an essay is one of the hardest things for me to do as a writer because there are so

many possibilities for the essay. Because there are infinite possibilities, I begin every draft by

finding important quotes and writing down all of my ideas about possible meanings and

messages. For example, in the Reznor response that we did within the first few weeks of class, I

took the entire video apart. I discussed the meanings of the images, the lyrics, the melody, and

even the crowd during the live performance.

These are some notes I took during class that helped me throughout the entire course. It helped

me draft my rhetorical analysis essay, write responses to articles, and create the RIP.
 Tieu 4

As for text, I take everything sentence for sentence and analyze it within the context of

the entire work, like what we did for the two-sentence horror stories.

The two-sentence horror story exercise helped me to analyze a text sentence-by-sentence and it

helped me to put value and purpose to every sentence I wrote. It taught me that every word has

purpose, and tone is incredibly important to establish genre.

For my rhetorical analysis of The Road, a good place for me to start was to identify the

horror genre conventions of the novel. In the introduction to the novel A Dark Night’s Dreaming

by Tony Magistrale, Professor in English at the University of Vermont, and Michael A.

Morrison, Professor of Physics and English at the University of Oklahoma, it is stated that,

“Much of what occurs in horor art is symbolic, that is, its deepest meanings exist on a subtextual

level” (2). This quote made me realize that monsters are metaphors for the subconscious fears

and vulnerabilities of the human condition. I saw the novel in a different perspective and found a

way that the monster in the novel could relate to the flaws in human nature. Moreover, In his
 Tieu 5

article “The Nature of Horror” published in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Noël

Carroll, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center states that “...it is

crucial that two evaluative beliefs come into play: that the monster is threatening and impure”

(55).

Notes I took as I read the article for the first time. I referred to these notes often while writing the

rhetorical analysis essay and planning the RIP.

This was a quote I used frequently (along with my notes), and it helped me to find the

monster in the novel and later create one of my own for the RIP. When I thought of the monster

in The Road, I formulated my interpretation of the novel’s message and began to write down

every single possible idea that I had. Writing down all my ideas is good because I know that I

will be able to examine a variety of texts. However, it can be ineffective when it results in

rambling and disorganization, and that was exactly what my first draft for my rhetorical analysis

was. I had good points and ideas, but the execution of them was disordered, and I was

determined to prove myself in the revision of the essay.

 Tieu 6

Much of my revision process revolves around being more concise, clear, and organized.

In my draft of the rhetorical analysis, I had good insight, and my ideas were valid, but the essay

was extremely disorganized because I did not follow the structure and organization exercise that

we learned in class.

These are notes I took of the Three-Step Method that I closely followed to revise my rhetorical

analysis essay.

Revision is my favorite process of writing an essay because feedback from others helps

me realize that I can do so much better to improve the clarity of my essay for the best reception.

When I revised the rhetorical analysis essay, I followed the template for the three-step method in

the structure exercise, and I found that my ideas were so organized and clear that it made me so

much happier to read. I supported my ideas with scholarly evidence in each paragraph, and it was

so satisfying to read the essay and to identify the purpose of every single sentence that I wrote.

Organization is important for the best reception because it helps develop ethos, and the audience

should be able to fully trust the author of any text. Revision is a long process, but it is the most
 Tieu 7

rewarding when the final result is so much better than the first draft. The revision process for the

RIP was a different story since we were working with a completely different assignment in a new

medium -- film. My group and I had to revise the story for our project countless times, and the

finished result is almost completely different than our proposal. We drew inspiration from the

films we saw in class, most notably “No Way Out” directed by Kristoffer Morgan. We wanted

our monster to torture our protagonist psychologically but not as intensely as the monster in “No

Way Out.” We loved the idea of having the protagonist suffer due to the monster’s

communication with her and inserting poisonous thoughts in her mind.

This was the “No Way Out” response I wrote in class that identified the monster in the film using

the evidence I sourced from watching the film. I used this to help me create a monster for my

own film in the RIP.

 Tieu 8

Ultimately, this class taught me how to see text in a whole new perspective and take more

into the audience reception as well as my own interpretation. The class was not too much of a

heavy workload for me, and it was definitely bearable. However, I can see how it can be a lot,

given the amount of effort that must be put in for a satisfactory grade. This class is the perfect

introduction to more varieties of texts and forms of writing that can be found in future classes.

The next lower division writing course, Writing 39C will be based on research, and everything

following will be similar. The lessons that I learned from this class will carry over to the next,

where I will be using the metacognitive, organization, and rhetorical analysis skills for writing

that will invoke discovery, understanding, and change. Taking it outside the realm of classes, I

hope to be an engineer in the future. I want to work with people, and the collaboration and

communication skills I learned in this class definitely contributed to my confidence in my

speaking and writing skills. Through research as an engineer striving to innovate, I will be taking

the lessons I learned from this foundation and take it where I can apply my knowledge anywhere

in the world.
 Tieu 9

Works Cited

Carroll, Noël. “The Nature of Horror.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol.

46, no. 1, 1987, pp. 51–59.

Magistrale, Tony, and Michael A Morrison. A Dark Night's Dreaming: Contemporary American

Horror Fiction. University of South Carolina Press, 1999.

Morgan, Kristoffer A, director. No Way Out. Short of the Week, 2012.