Your journal entry should explore how you have approached the Writer’s Journals assignments so far. How have the journal assignments shaped your response(s) in these assignments?
Your entry should also reflect on how writing assignments in general - and writing instruction, by extension - has shaped your thinking in other ways throughout your life.
Finally, your journal entry should reflect on the more general notion that writing can structure our thinking. Does this idea concern you? Are there upsides to realizing that writing can work this way?
So far, I have approached these journals with ease. The word count is easy to achieve and the topics are open-ended enough for me to elaborate on and think critically about my writing. By the end of my responses, I have gained a better outlook on writing as a whole.
In the first journal, I wrote about what writing is to me, why it is useful, and how I learned to write. This made me think of how essential writing is. The second journal helped me face the Literacy Narrative Essay in a thought-out way. By doing this, I was less overwhelmed. It also made me realize that I take pride in my literacy in everyday conversations, via email, text, and social media. Journal No. 2 also discusses how I acquired these literacies, which made me realize how much I learned in high school and my other college classes. Since writing Journal No. 2, I remembered learning about Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle, (Ethos, Pathos, and Logos) a method used to write persuasively. I have not used it since taking that class, but I’m excited to possibly brush up on it in this one. I want to add that doing these journals has helped me practice my writing process, and by the finished product, I am proud of my work. This is not common for me, and I find myself enjoying writing these journals. I do think that the journals have a lot in common, asking the same sort of questions designed to reflect on my writing. Writing assignments usually scare me, I get so overwhelmed in picturing my response to be perfect that It's hard for me to start.
I like when I’m able to write as a reflection and share my thoughts on a certain time in my life or experience I had. Doing these sorts of works help me compartmentalize my emotions, and serves as a therapeutic outlet. I also enjoy writing that allows me to voice my opinion (I have a lot of those). For example, I wrote a Persuasive Essay on parenting, specifically, having one parent versus two. This essay allowed me to voice my opinion on why I think one parent can be challenging when compared to having two parents. It allows me to think about why I have formed a certain opinion, its relevancy, and accuracy. I believe an opinion isn’t valid unless there is a reason behind it, and writing helps cultivate those reasons. Writing instruction has shaped my thinking by prompting me to dive deeper into why I think a certain way, or pushes me to explain more than what I thought I possibly could.
Writing, in general, truly does structure our thinking. It is a way to wrtie out your thoughts and ideas in an organized manner, all in one place, to look back on and revisit at any time. Instead of thinking in your head, you are documenting to form a conclusive peice. Most importantly, writing improves how I think and speak. It allows me to generate more ideas. This does not concern me in the slightest, and I struggle to see why It would for anyone. I guess if you wanted to remain stagnant in your education, and ignorant to expand on your preceived ideas, instead of elaborating on them, then this would concern you. I am quite the opposite, always looking for ways to improve my intellect and creativity. Writing helps me learn in ways I cant by just reading, or studying. It helps me deep dive into topics and situations in ways I cant by other means.
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