First Reflective Journal Entry

My understanding of this assignment is that the primary objective is to state what I’ve learned thus far in the class. I find this difficult for a couple of reasons. First, it’s early yet; the class isn’t two weeks old. Second, writing isn’t exactly new to me. I am not professing to be an expert in writing. On the contrary, I’m pretty far from it. I do have fifty years of life experience, half of which involves a blatant lack of shyness or decorum when venting my opinions and experiences on various internet platforms (which included my very own website for a few years). My online rantings (essays, maybe?) combined with a great deal of journaling experience in a half-assed attempt at self-exploration has given me quite a bit of opportunity to hone my writing skills over the years. I am fully cognizant of the fact that these credentials does not a writing expert make.

Had I seen myself as an expert writer, I would have made an attempt to test out of this class rather than enrolling in it. Aside from a class in community college in the nineties and taking English 201 last Summer, I have no formal writing training. I do know that I still have a lot to learn and am excited for this opportunity that this class provides to do so.

What this class’ readings have provided me so far is differing perspectives. What I’ve read so far has taken many things I already know instinctually and framed them into more articulate and organized packages, producing far superior results than I could have ever accomplished myself. For example, (SLO 1A) Analyzing a text’s genre and how that influences and guides reading and composing practices. I have found it enlightening to explore not only my own analyses of my projected audience of my Expert Blog Entry, but to read my classmates discussions of doing the same.

Speaking of my classmates, even at this early state I’ve already engaged in (SLO 4E) evaluating and acting on peer and instructor feedback to revise texts. When sharing my ideas for my expert blog post, and my audience analysis of same, some excellent ideas were offered to me that I most likely would not have come up myself. They are very much appreciated, and most (if not all) of these sage-like suggestions will be incorporated into my Expert Blog Entry. Now that I type this out, I suppose I am also accomplishing (SLO 4D) identifying the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.

So, upon further consideration, now that I’ve actually read what I have written, I suppose this assignment wasn’t so difficult after all. Go, me!