PROMPT:
Reflect on the process of writing and revising the three major units, from the time you first decided what you’d write for each first draft, through the final version you turn in during exam week.
ELABORATION:
Show me what you have learned about writing this quarter by pointing to your own development across each of the three papers you have written. Get specific about advice you took and why you took it. Get specific about advice you ignored and why you ignored it. Quote your own writing (both in first and final draft form) to show the nature of the progression each paper has made.
In reflecting, discuss rhetorical terms in a way that shows that you understand them. If they were at all important to you in writing, then explain how those concepts were important to how you wrote and revised. If they weren’t, try over the next two weeks to be more conscious of those things, and to have them guide your revisions, so that when you write this reflection, you can discuss these things.
(By the way, when I say, “discuss rhetorical terms,” I mean concepts like the rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos. I mean rhetorical notions like Kairos. I mean rhetorical devices like anthypophora, eutrepismus, and litotes. I mean things like, “who you are in relation to the argument you’re making?” and “how did your notions of your audience change the way you approached the writing of this piece?” I mean basic principles like the rhetorical situation, which has five elements (purpose, audience, speaker/writer, content, and context). If you don’t immediately know what I’m talking about here, then I highly, highly, highly recommend that you go back to the rhetorical readings I gave you throughout the quarter on these concepts. The more familiar you are with them, the more natural it will be for that knowledge to influence how you revise your papers, and how you reflect on that process in this paper.)
LOGISTICS:
Write this in Word format (.docx format). Use 12-point, Times New Roman font. Number your pages. Double-space. Include a title that suggests an argument you’re making about the way you revised and what mattered most. Make sure it’s between 1,200 and 1,600 words.