Reflection Essay

Rhetorical Practice & Understanding

My own histories of languaging involve indulging in reading, researching topics, writing, holding conversations throughout my day, etc. I am most familiar with writing essays and giving presentations because, throughout my whole life and journey through education, that has been the most consistent thing for as long as I can remember. Doing this so often in my life has made me figure out how to go about things and figure out what works best for me skill-wise and habit-wise. Also reading is a genre that I am very familiar with and that really just exposes me to new ideas daily and allows me to appreciate different forms of writing, and when I read something that made a big impact on me, I look at how the writer conveyed their message and I try to adopt that in my own writing style.

I think that the variety of contexts impacts how I language by making me more mindful and aware. It makes me not only understand the intended meanings of others but also helps me convey my own intended meanings. It helps me set the tone for the right audience and how I want to go about talking about things, I take the time to make sure what I say doesn’t come off as offensive to anyone but still keeps my meaning of what I am trying to say. For example, in my writing process 3, I bring up mental health a lot but the wording when talking about mental health is kinda tricky, and didn’t want to say the wrong things because I know that it is a very important topic.

Critical Languaging

Most situations don’t make me uncomfortable, I am very open to learning about new things and experiences from people. It helps me with the way I navigate the world, it opens me to new forms of perspectives. On the other hand though, I get uncomfortable sharing my own situations because I am just scared with opening up about certain topics. When it comes to informational contexts, I don’t mind talking about things to inform people and I think that it is actually useful to have those conversations and bring up those topics.

If I come across an idea or author that challenges my own assumptions, I usually take the time to fully go through the piece with a nonjudgmental eye first. I take the time to understand the idea from the perspective of the author and how their own experiences have influenced this idea. I know that with my own writing if someone with a different perspective were to come across it, I would want them to fully understand where I am coming from and why I feel the way that I do, so I do the same with other author’s works and ideas. Sometimes when I do this, I learn about new ideas that I probably wouldn’t have taken a second look at and adopt them in my own life and sometimes I stick with my beliefs but still appreciate the writer and what they had to say.

Composing As a Process

A big habit that has shaped how I labor as a writer is taking the time to actually sit down and focus on what I am writing instead of just trying to rush through and get it done. Moments like those, I tend to produce my best work, which should be expected honestly. I also learned to not be afraid of being open about experiences and what I believe in, vulnerability can go a long way and make pieces more powerful. For example, for my research paper I opened up about how I felt about gun laws, it was a topic that I was scared to talk about because of how I thought I was going to look for being pro-gun control in a way. I realized that it is an issue that I am very passionate about and why should I care how others view me, that is ultimately not my problem, and went forward with writing what I believed in.

I value feedback a lot, that is how I improve my writing as I go along and I feel kinda lost when I write something and just get a grade back but no commentary on what I could have done better or why this didn’t work, or that I should keep this style going forward, etc. Being in both an English class and a news reporting and writing class at the same time, as really strengthened my confidence and love for writing because I was constantly writing something every day and working on those skills. Then to also come back to class and have dedicated days to peer-reviewing also helped because it allowed me to hear how others viewed my writing and what they got from that, and it allowed me to go back and change things if that's not how I wanted my writings to come across.

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