Reflective Essay
Megan Larrondo
I have consistently been praised for my writing abilities throughout my career as an English major. From the moment I first registered for classes and was allowed to skip English 101 and 102, I have collected high grades and verbal praise for my way with words. This was not surprising; I had heard much the same thing from teachers from fifth grade on. I saw writing as something easy, something mindless. I could always throw words onto the page, create a reasonable argument, and get my “A.” I acknowledged the minor sentence-level criticisms that my professors left on my papers, but I never tried to learn from them. It was not until I took English 309 that I began to see writing as an art form, and a difficult one at that. For the first time, I recognized the endless possibilities to enhance my prose afforded by grammar and sentence structure. I also began to notice the areas where my writing could stand some improvement. It quickly became obvious that I had much to learn, and I began to respect writing.
There is a distinct shift in the quality of my work prior to English 309 and after its completion. This break is most noticeable in the creation stages. Before, a professor would guide me by the hand through the brainstorming stages, such as in my multi-genre research project for English 207 and “The Dream of Dick and Jane,” or I would search published literary analyses for insights into works that I could mutate and own. Although I did not recognize it, I was not comfortable with beginning a major project without help. Fortunately, it was not asked of me until my senior year.
The papers that I was asked to complete in the first semester of my senior year showed me that I had finally established a pre-writing routine, one which served me very well for organizing and developing my ideas. With my current routine, I create a tentative thesis, read the criticism and secondary sources relating to my topic, then sketch out my thoughts on a legal pad. This technique helps me organize my ideas, as well as clears my head so that I can focus on writing, instead of juggling arguments. Writing out my tentative thoughts before approaching the computer has extended to other facets of my writing, as I noticed when I was writing personal statements for law school applications. My pre-writing skills are a far cry from those used in the creation of “The Dream of Dick and Jane,” where in-class writing and prompts from the assignment helped me to develop my thoughts.
Looking at “The Dream of Dick and Jane,” which was one of my first papers for an English class at the University of Idaho, I can see just how far I have developed as a writer. The paper is full of minor punctuation and citation mistakes. In addition to these surface concerns, the voice of the paper is simpler than that of my later work; the writing seems accomplished but not controlled. I seem to be holding tight to the form and the word choice so that the paper does not escape me. This is most apparent when the paper is seen as a whole, but it also can be seen in the sentence, “Pecola, the daughter of this family, is a young girl who is learning to read according to the method of the 1930s” (“Dick and Jane” 1). I carefully stay within the rules set by high school teachers to thoroughly identify the protagonist and her place in the world of the novel. There is none of the joy in word choice that will be seen in my later work. Despite the glaring errors in my writing, my professor still complimented my work vigorously, allowing me to remain complacent.
English 207 and the culminating multi-genre research project began the process of stretching my knowledge of writing forms. I had never heard of a multi-genre research project before, nor was I at all convinced of its value as an argumentative form. In addition, I was taken aback by the use of “I” in a scholarly paper, which had been forbidden in high school, and in the second semester of my first year in college, I was still firmly ruled by those strictures. For the first time, I felt uncomfortable with writing. I had no experience with developing multiple voices in a piece, and the similarities that this style shared with fiction made it nothing like the literary analyses that I was accustomed to producing. The finished project was rough and the voices repetitive. Looking over my multi-genre piece, I could not immediately distinguish the genre of one of my pieces. This is evident in the segment which argues for personal medicine; “However, today the more impartial the cure is the better. There is no room for people who just want their hand held until the pain goes away” (n. pag.). My editorial takes a scholarly tone to make an unprofessional argument, which makes it difficult to distinguish the genre. However, I am proud of the overall format that I developed for the project. For a piece that I completed while still feeling my way in the world of college writing, I managed to develop a little flexibility as a writer.
As I mentioned above, English 309, which I took my second semester of my second year, truly forced me to reevaluate writing itself. I learned to identify and control my use of passive voice, but the most exciting part of learning stylistic control of my writing was learning the rules and capabilities of punctuation. This development is easily seen in the differences between my first paper for the class, “The Stereotypical Sorority Girl,” and my final project, “Revamping Recruitment.” My first paper is covered with punctuation errors—missed commas, misused semi-colons, and absent colons—while “Revamping Recruitment” demonstrates my control over those conventions. I manage to effectively use a semi-colon in the latter paper when stating, “being a member of a sorority seems to imply that the women have low self-confidence; they think that they will have fewer friends and boring social lives outside of the sorority environment” (“Recruitment” 3). Of course, punctuation and grammar are only minor, if vital, parts of the writing process. The real impact of “Revamping Recruitment” was on my self-confidence. At thirteen pages long with a progressive thesis statement, it was the most ambitious paper that I had ever written, and the first to engage me beyond the desire for a good grade. When my professor suggested that I aim at publication I was shocked and thrilled; I had never thought that I would write something important enough to warrant possible publication.
The final paper in my portfolio, “The Burgeoning Womanhood of Cordelia: A Cause for Misfortune,” was written while I was an intern at the Writing Center. The paper reflects my newfound control over writing. I learned an incredible amount about writing, organization, and revision by working with other students on their papers. There is a unity and flow to this paper, as well as a sense of authority. I am able to engage with scholarly work, as is demonstrated in my summary of two critics’ differing conceptions of Cordelia. I assert that Cordelia “has been seen as the prideful wretch that indirectly tossed her father out onto the heath and into madness by Hazlitt and Coleridge, and as the single incarnation of goodness in a play redolent with malevolent humanity by Anna Jameson” (“Cordelia” 1). Finally, I sound like I know what I am doing, instead of blindly following the rules laid out by some teacher. I also sound like I am having fun, playing with words and images in a scholarly work, which makes the paper fun for others to read.
Next fall I will start law school, where the skills that I have developed in reading and writing will be put to good use. My ability to manipulate language will be very useful in a career where precision of word choice and meaning is vital. I feel confident that the years that I have put into developing my writerly confidence and argument construction will help ease me into the grind that is law school. I have developed my control of language to the point where I feel comfortable with whatever style of writing is asked of me, and that is a trait that will serve me well wherever life takes me.