Humans are social animals and communication between each other becomes a natural interaction. Speech by mouth use to be the most common way to carry information from one generation to the next, evident from the cultures and traditions that has stayed. Sooner or later, humans found the need to keep record of speech to have a more accurate account of events. Writing has then become essential in daily human activity whether it is keeping track of reminders or texting rather than calling. There is always a purpose when it comes to writing.
Growing up, I never wrote for enjoyment. I was never the kid to just sit still somewhere in my house and open up a chapter book to read. In fact, I hated the art of writing and reading. I grew up speaking chinese at home and no one in my family knew English. Therefore, I was never introduced to writing in Chinese or English. When elementary school started, it was difficult for me to understand the English structure as well as its grammar. During the writing sessions that I was given in class, I was always the one to play with my pencil, not knowing how to articulate my thoughts onto paper. I never had a structure to follow or knew how to follow it when given to me. My writing skills were just borderline, enough to pass.
When I was in the eighth grade, the reason I was writing became different. My English teacher was passionate about teaching her students something different and valuable. Therefore, she created a newspaper for our school and we were the authors. That is when I learned the true meaning of structure when it came to writing because we would write for specific purposes. Because my writings were a response to a specific situation, I began making strong arguments on my stance and backing them up with valid evidence. My language and tone were well suited for the targeted audience. From that experience, I grew more confident that grammar can be fixed through editing my paper. Once the newspapers were published, they allowed many to start conversations which develop into a social dialogue amongst the readers.
Transitioning into college, I didn’t know what to expect from this course. The first essay was very structured and still felt like it had no purpose other than being an assignment I had to fill for the sake of receiving a grade. The source based essay was an effective way to introduce the terms rhetorical situation, audience, author, tone purpose, genre, medium, stance, and language. However, writing the paper itself served no purpose but to gain an insight of the terms. When comparing articles on immigration, it was simply a further analysis of the existing articles. While it did work to improve my understanding of the terms as well as my the skill to compare and contrast multiple articles at a time, the paper was limited to analyzing the article without the freedom to give personal input. The content was straightforward.
Moving onto the research essay, I decided to change my topic because I didn’t find the issue assuming anymore. Switching to the question of whether hazing is justified allowed a more opinionated piece. The most impactful part of writing that resulted from this course would be the lesson on the importance of knowing your audience. Knowing the audience you are producing for shapes the writing style and format. However, the second second provided me with a better sense of the usage of audience.
As an architecture student, it was interesting that an English course would provide an assignment where the students had the ability to created two genres of our choice to reflect on our issue. With such a open project, writing can be completed in forms that are far more creative.
