Writing the first paper for this class was daunting. I felt overwhelmed knowing that I had a lot
of preparation to do to ensure I was capturing the information required. Though I have written papers in
The first step I took in preparing to write this essay was
to read the articles related to the assignment over again. I wanted to be sure I had a thorough
understanding of each of them. I felt
that the assignment prompt led me to the “Having It His Way” easily. After reading the articles again I chose to
focus on a commercial described and analyzed within “Having It His Way”. The next step I took was to view the video
that I chose, “BK Manthem”, on YouTube. After
viewing the video, re-reading the articles and thinking about the prompt some
of my irrational thoughts started to be replaced with drive to write my
feelings and get my argument on paper.
During the first few steps of this process I continued to
feel overwhelmed. I was trying to think
of ways to possibly incorporate all of the articles we read into my essay. This made me feel anxious, I felt like a
sponge trying to absorb too much water, like the water my thoughts were all of
the place. This feeling of being
overcome led me to decide that I was overthinking. I could not use all three articles in full,
but could possibly add parts of what I learned from them to help in my essay’s
arguments.
I began jot down simple words and phrases describing the
video. I wrote down a few quotes from
the video that stood out to me as related to our assignment. I choose and then described parts of the
video that made me feel angry, sad, even some parts that made me laugh. I then found links between my thoughts about
the video and the analysis in the article “Having It His Way” and wrote those
down. From here I began to form my
arguments and found support of them in the article, and started to write my
essay.
I also felt nervous about the peer review process. I feel uncomfortable with the idea of
providing someone else feedback. What if
I offend someone with my thoughts on their essay? (Because I know I can be opinionated…and how
to appropriately phrase my thoughts?) I
was thinking that I don’t even really know my classmates, and they don’t me so
this could be difficult. How do I phrase
my responses to their writing when I’m not sure of their personality, their response
to my feedback, their writing style? I also
felt nervous about the prospect of receiving feedback from peers. I only experienced peer reviews in one other
class. In that instance the peers that
reviewed my work really didn’t give constructive or what I felt to be useful
feedback. It was just a few kind words,
or grammar/spelling corrections.
I must say after experiencing this type of peer review
process where the professor is requiring a certain type of response in our
feedback, I feel much more at ease with the process. I feel that since we all knew what was to be
expected in our feedback to others, and what we were to receive in our feedback
it made the process easier and more comfortable. I appreciated this type of review process and
the feedback received.
Overall, from start to finish I feel that this assignment
and most likely the class in general is going to make me stronger as a writer,
reader, student and classmate. The amount
of time, effort, and emotion that the class will take will add to my qualifications
in taking on any type of writing assignment from a simple email, essay or
research paper. I will feel very
accomplished when I complete not only this assignment, but this course.
