Reading/Writing Journal Entry 2

 Hi everyone,

I'm back with another update on my writing and rhetoric class. I just finished up my second project and my first paper for this class. This was more of a struggle than the first project, but swapping my sanity for caffeine and balancing this project with a number of assignments for my other classes, I got it done.

The second big project that we had to do was a rhetorical analysis of an article of our choice. This project was all learning, in the sense, that everything I did was new to me. The style, the type of writing, the formatting everything. The only consistency I knew was how to read an article and take notes on it to throw some words together for a project. 

The article that I chose to read was "All Writing is Autobiography" by Donald Murray. In this 1991 article, he discusses his opinion that writing, no matter what form it is in, is all autobiographical. He found out in a study that most authors write about experiences they went through before the age of 21. Those key details show up in their work the most and the rest of their life is just simple observation. The article itself is amazing in the sense that poems and part of a novel he wrote are incorporated into it so that you get a better understanding of his message. Overall, I would recommend reading this article because upon finishing reading it, it made me think about all the writing that I have done. Looking back at my own work, I realized that in both the poems I've written and the novels and scripts I've written, certain elements of myself are woven into them. I was doing it subconsciously the whole time and never even knew!

The writing process of this article was interesting. Reading the article took me no time at all and it was on a topic of my choice, so clearly I liked it enough to read it. Note-taking was the same way. I already take a thousand notes a week here anyway, what's one more small article? Actually sitting down and writing was the most difficult part. I have never worked in APA style format before which would have been a lot nicer to know back in high school after having MLA format driven into my skull since sixth grade. I really had to force myself these last few weeks to sit down and just write. On top of learning a new format, I had never written a rhetorical analysis ever! This was a new challenge for me, but I just tried to take it chunk by chunk, and it got done.

Overall, the feedback I received was glowing. While I thought that I had done a horrible job writing it, the people who reviewed it loved the way it flowed and the description that I had put into it. One even said that I was a talented writer and to hear that not from a personal, creative piece made me feel more confident about my writing. The only parts I needed to change were adding some in-text citations (not too bad considering all my information was in one article) and adding more personal opinions. I'm glad I didn't have to rewrite most of my paper!

I think that for a first-time rhetorical analysis, it didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would. It definitely challenged me, but my favorite high school English teacher said that I needed that. As much as this paper tested my patience, I took a quick glimpse at my upcoming project and this is a lengthy research paper... at the same time, I have to study for 2 huge exams and write a research paper for my ASL class. Don't know if my sanity or mental health will be on the up and up next time I check-in, but wish me all the luck I can get.

Signed,

Midwestern Redhead