1. By Monday (online assignment): Write a reflection on your reflection page. Reflect on what your annotations and blog post show about you as a critical reader. Use Frank Bruni’s pronouncements about the value of strong reading for writers to frame your reflection on your own reading practices.

Bruni: “Whenever people ask me how to become better writers, I tell them to become better readers. Yes, they should write and revise and then revise and write some more. They should practice. That’s crucial. But the way they’ll know, on a gut level, if they’re choosing the right words, fashioning the right phrases and finding the right rhythm is by having ingested and internalized countless examples of writing done right. It’s the wellspring of vocabulary, judgment, confidence. Reading fuels writing no less than carbohydrates do running.

But that’s only some of what it does. It jump-starts thoughts. It puts the brain into gear. It fires the imagination.”

– When it comes to critical thinking, we have to put aside our own thoughts, so we don’t become bias to what we are reading. Something like being bias can come unintentionally, since as humans we normally ted to group together similarities. When writing it is easy to become bias to one thought and not look at all different stand points. By reading different material and expanding concepts that aren’t natural to you, you learn how to become a better writer. Reading something that isn’t natural to you, you are able to think deeper into what you are reading and then make connections to it. To become a better writer, you to become comfortable with being open minded to the readers and how many different types of people can be reading your writing. When you annotate something, it allows the reader to think deeper into what they are reading. This can come in different forms, asking a question, relating it to something personal or connecting to an idea. This gives the reading a whole new concept or idea to what they are reading. Other than annotating the reading, the act of reading itself is a way to strengthen how you write.

Reflection 2

-Reflecting on project 1 and how I feel about it so far, I wish I could’ve changed a few things. Though I feel confident in what I wrote, I wish I was able to write it in a different way since there was so many components I could write about. In each of the stories there was so many points I wanted to touch on for each it was hard trying to make connection points to each that were similar since they each had individual pieces. Each article or story was very interesting to me, and I engaged well with each of them. I think there was just so many different things that could be used for each of the writings, it was hard to choose certain ones to make connections with. Next time I would highlight my favorite points I want to make and talk about those instead of trying to talk about all of them.

Reflection 3

While reviewing the comments and proofreading my paper I discovered multiple revisions that would strengthen my paper. While I am proud of how my final draft came out, while writing my first draft it was hard for me to connect all the readings to the point I was trying to make. However, I had a point I wanted to accomplish but it was difficult for me to find the words that would make solidify my paper. Some of the revisions and the most common ones were on adding background information on what I was going to further explain when making the point. For example, when introducing the studies Dr. Pauker conducted I didn’t further explain who she was or why she was conducting these studies in my first draft. The examples I had were strong, but I was lacking information when explaining. When revising and making my final draft I went back in and kept the examples I had and just added more information behind them. This overall really helped my paper and how it all flowed together.

Reflection 4

Reflecting over my Project 1 paper, I think there are points while reading that are very strong and other parts that are weak. One strength in my paper that I feel confident about is that quotes that I chose. While reading all of the articles I made sure to think deep while annotating which I believe helped me while writing. While reviewing the articles and looking over the annotations, I made sure to use quotes that I felt would strengthen my paper. Though I feel the annotations I did while reading helped me feel confident with choosing my quotes, one weakness I felt was making sure I had all the requirements I needed and little mistakes that could’ve easily been fixed. Looking over the comments on the grading rubric, something I could’ve fixed was the perspective global comments made while peer reviewing. Another comment made that I need to look out for next time is about local revisions I could’ve fixed while proofreading. Though they are small easy fixes like double checking authors last name for spelling errors, these were easy to miss, and keeping them in mind will strengthen my next paper. On the last three sections of the grading rubric, I can tell by my grade on my strengths and weaknesses that looking out for these errors on my next paper I will get a much better grade.

Reflection 5

While reading over the essay prompts, prompt one suited perspective taking and what I want to achieve in my paper 2 the best out of all of them. Perspective taking can often times be considered overrated due to the lack of empathy people believe to have. Though, perspective taking can often be beneficial in some cases what good is it if there is a lack of empathy. The components that are required for perspective taking is active listening or if you cannot listen, imagine a situation through someone else’s perspective. When looking at the big picture of how to understand someone’s situation, looking at the situation through their perspective is easier said than done. When looking at one of the readings, “What’s The Matter with Empathy?” by Sara Konrath, she explains how there are many different forms of empathy and with that comes perspective taking. The article takes a deeper look at different sides that perspective taking can benefit yet also become detrimental based on who is trying to understand someone’s situation. When initially looking at perspective taking and understanding what is required to portray it, I was on the fence about whether perspective taking is truly overrated to some extent. While reading the scientific article and thinking about “Devils Bait” and how perspective taking was used in both of those readings, it is truly based on how you interpret how others have empathy. While perspective taking was shown in both, the way empathy was shown in each was very different based on the circumstances people were put into. Writing my paper 2 on how perspective taking can be overrated in some circumstances made the most sense to me since not everyone has the same ability to have empathy. While perspective taking can be beneficial to taking into perspective a situation, it is often overrated in others.

Reflection 6

Looking over my paper 2, I feel as though I have made strong points. For my A comment, somewhere in my paper I felt like I was expressing exactly what I wanted to say in the way I said it was in my fourth paragraph. Going into “Devils Bait” and connecting it to what I was trying to claim about empathy was going to be a difficult task, yet I feel like I did a pretty good job connecting the two. When I was trying to connect the two, I really thought about how Jamison felt towards the situations of the patients. With that, I decided to use that as an example towards how it is easier to show empathy towards someone once you haven’t experienced the same thing. As for my comment B, somewhere where it was difficult to make myself understood that was almost fairly easy. Since I went out of the box with my topic by choosing something most people would disagree on and challenged the reader, I found it was hard to make myself not sound repetitive. With trying to really make my claim to the audience I found that it was hard to word many things correctly to make it sound correct to where I was getting at. As for my comment B I highlighted my conclusion article. My conclusion could’ve been better for one and as I have said before it was hard to create a conclusion without sounding repetitive.

Reflection 7

Looking at my strengths in my paper 2 is my use of quotes that to back up my statements. Picking an out of the box topic for my paper, it was hard to find evidence to back up my claims. Although, throughout reading my sources, reviewing my annotations, I believe I found good quotes that I was able to use. Though, I believe that my use of quotes and evidence to back up my claim there are weaknesses in my paper. One of the weaknesses being that, in order to understand where I was trying to get at, there were spots where I was reputative. Though, my paper 2 was longer than my paper 1, I was a lot more confident writing my paper 1 since I was more confident with my topic. By challenging myself though, I was able to prove that I can prove a difficult claim successfully. Lastly, my caveat used in paper 2 was useful for me. Though it might be hard to point out, my caveat was used at the beginning of my conclusion. I chose to use that one since many people may disagree with what my idea that empathy isn’t natural, the use of my caveat made a lot of sense for what I was trying to say.

Reflection 8

Reviewing and looking over my reflections 1-7, many skills of mine as both a learner and reader has changed. One really strong change I have noticed is in my writing skills. In high school I never considered myself a strong writer or even when during first semester with a few reports I had to write. Writing was always a hard concept for me to really feel confident doing. Until this class I was able to make connections with readings and research that may be difficult to understand for other people. One thing that has helped me grow as a writer is forming connections whether it is personal or not to the material I am reading. Forming these connections help expand the different areas that I am trying to achieve. This allows the reader to hear about my personal connections along with hearing about other relations I make to the reading. Something that has also strengthen my writing is how I revise my essays. This was something I always struggled with and never truly saw the importance of. Looking over and revising my essays has made an impact on my writing skills thus far. Writing essays far in advance and adding and revising them has helped the flow of all my essays sound smoother. Making enough time for me to revise and look over my essays, while writing I am not worrying as much about what they sound like while writing.

Reflection 9

Composition is a descriptor of putting elements together to create something we use in school and on everyday life, we can define this as a careful and artful creation. We use this process in everyday life, not just when reading, writing, or learning. In school, you are composing thoughts and how you process what you are learning by relating back to things in your own life. By applying personal experiences to something you are learning you will have a better understanding of what you are learning, increasing your ability to remember. We also use “composition” when we are planning out our school day. When there is a list of things you know you need to get done mixed with things you want to do, in order to make sure there is enough time for everything you have to plan out what you need to do. This also goes for when you do homework and studying, knowing that you have a homework assignment due in a couple days but there is a hard exam you have to study for on the same day as that homework, you might plan out to get the homework that’s due in a couple days done then began studying so you can focus on studying. Learning what tactics work for you compared to what might work for other people takes trial and error to figure that out. This creative energy is the same energy I put into schoolwork when I read or write about school. Yet sometimes depending on stress levels or the amount of work it may be a less or it may even be more. Knowing that I put a good amount of effort into my work makes me feel confident in what I am doing so I know that regardless of what I’ve done I am confident.

Reflection 10

Switching from an academic paper to a podcast was fairly easy. In my paper I made and highlight notes that I wanted to make. Speaking rather than typing out my thoughts was easier to get the words out that I wanted to say. In writing the paper, I could use writing to describe what I wanted to say and have quotes to back them up. Yet, in the podcast I had to make a script with highlighted notes of the important points I wanted to make. I also noticed that in the podcast rather than the paper, I had to summarize a lot of the readings and points I made in the paper. In the paper I had a lot more points and background evidence to back up what I wanted to say. While revising from what I had in my paper to what I needed in my podcast I learned you have to take the most important points regardless of the other evidence I wanted to use. While there were a lot of points that I wanted to use in the podcast, you really have to pick and choose what you want to use. When deciding where I felt the most creative energy is a difficult question since I feel I used creative energy in different ways in both. In the paper I challenged the reader by choosing a difficult topic to get by. In the paper I also used evidence to back up what I wanted to say and I would consider that as creative energy, yet in my podcast I’d say having to break down my paper and choose points I wanted to keep was also creative. Also, in my podcast I was able to test my interviewee with my questions and include background music.