Reflections

The Photo Essay
I think the Photo Essay was the perfect lead in assignment to the class. It helped to get my mind working and helped me to express my creativity. This being said, it was definitely a challenge. This wasn't your typical "College Writing" type essay. It was hard to get use to the different format of telling a story and getting my point across through almost entirely pictures. I realized that although I wasn't writing 8 page/2000 word paper, I was still struggling for some reason. I was having a hard time coming up with a topic that I could successfully show through a selection of 5-10 photos. Coming up with the idea and how I wanted to go about it was the difficult part. Once I choose my topic, I took the pictures and created my story. My topic was that people needed to learn to appreciate what they had in life before they craved more. This was a lesson I had learned in my first semester of school, and it was a thought that refused to leave my mind when I was thinking of possible topics. It was something I was really passionate about and I think I created a good photo essay on it. The pictures were dramatic and coherent and I think my point was well understood and well received.

The Rhetorical Analysis
The Rhetorical Analysis was my absolute favorite assignment. The day you first explained it, I had a million thoughts and ideas running through my head. I landed on the topic of Romantic Comedies and how no matter how similar the general storyline of all of the movies are, there is always a unique and interesting aspect to each of the movies. I enjoyed writing about the movie posters because they were some of my favorite movies. That being said, I was extremely shocked at how much you can analyze of a simple movie poster. There are so many aspects, such as the coloring, font, character interaction, word placement, etc. that help to create each different poster. There was a large creative side of this project too. I tend to enjoy projects that allow me to use my creativity. This assignment, along with the Photo Essay, gave me that opportunity and I feel that I have grown stronger in my use of it. And for that, I am incredibly grateful. I also believe that my essay was successful in its attempt to analyze each poster, and find the best one, as well as showing all that goes into a making a movie poster.

The Argument Synthesis
The Argument Synthesis was incredibly intimidating. When we were first walked through all it entailed, I had doubts that I was going to be successful in my attempt to accomplish it all. I reviewed all the passages that we were required of us to use in our essay, and then found another that I felt could add to the sources we already had. I used our activities in class, such as the one where were got into groups and went up to the board and wrote possible topics, in order to come up with my own topic points to use. But, before I did this, I had to find what exactly I was going to argue. I decided to pick the need for all people to change with and adapt to the new and changing work world of our present day culture. After this, I decided on technology, globalization, and education as my body paragraphs. Once I had this outline set up, finding the correct sources for each point was much easier. Synthesizing was not easy for me. It still isn't. I was able to go back over the essay and try to synthesis the different statements. I think I was able to improve my essay, but I have to continue to work on my synthesizing skills. Overall, I think I did a fairly good job at arguing what I intended to. I backed up my three main points with good source material from all of the articles and created a good argument.

The Research Synthesis
The Research Synthesis was, although similar to the Argument Synthesis, much more difficult. First off, I had to come up with the topic and an argument. I eventually choose literary censorship in high school and why it stops students from reaching their full intellectual and emotional potential. Once I had my topic, finding the sources was a challenge. There was plenty of material, but I was looking for both reliable and educated authors and information that helped prove my argument. Once I was able to find seven good sources full of great information, I thought writing the paper would be a breeze. I was so very wrong. It was hard to find the best information to use in order to prove my claim and synthesis appropriately with the other sources. This was definitely the hardest paper for me to write. But, thankfully, I had a topic I was passionate about and it made the essay interesting to write. Overall, I felt that through this essay, I become a little better at finding sources, as well as formatting an essay to prove one specific point. But, I still need to work on my use of passive voice. I saw that it was definitely present in both this essay and the other two essays (not including the Photo Essay). I had hoped to improve more from the second assignment to this one, but I am only slowly, yet surely transitioning to an actively voiced writer.