It’s been a while– it’s been a stressful, long while. Many things have happened since I started my journey in English 212 at the beginning of January. The first two months were what I expected out of an English course. There was lots of reading, pondering, processing, and of course writing involved, but that’s to be expected in a English course. There weren’t that many big projects which was actually pretty nice because it allowed me to show my thoughts and personality within those papers while still maintaining a formal tone for each of the papers that was asked for us students to write about. I really enjoyed looking at the different world of maps, lines, and numbers as something other than just words; I never thought I’d be able to write rhetorical type papers either until now.
Well since January, I feel that I have grown as a writer and how I write based on the topics I choose and or am given. My mindset has expanded to look at things in other ways and other points of view. I am forever changed, now a map is no longer a navigational tool, it’s a story of an area; a line may be the key to understanding where one comes from or the mindset of an era; numbers are the key to how we understand some of the most confusing parts of ones life. Thanks to all the different sources and topics, as well as the open-mind that my teacher had, I was able to explore maps, lines, and numbers in ways that most interest me and could help others understand the ideas that come along within writing.
When I look at maps or timelines now, I automatically want to understand more. Going past what one can just physically see, but go deeper into the development of the map/timeline. Is there a greater influence to how the visual was created? What was the reason that the creator choose that visual? What’s the deeper meaning that’s not being displayed? These questions show up when I see maps, charts, lines, and even data. I now know that I can find a way to make sense of these questions and thoughts and relate them to different ideas of writers, even if they sound strange and unusual at first.
Visual text is a hard concept to grasp at first; it’s a hard concept because in grade school they don’t really teach students to look further into the visuals they are given, versus giving them a text-based book (filled with only words) –telling them to read it– and write about what they read. Honestly, I struggled with the first paper on maps due to the fact that writing about a visual and proving an idea that maps are more than just maps using “factual” evidence was mind-boggling. However, as I began writing and re-reading and going over the sources given in the English class it was more understandable and easier to write about as my semester went on. With each paper writing rhetorically came more naturally.
Overall, I can say I enjoyed this English course. It encouraged me to move out of my “high school” comfort zone in writing and pushed me to explore new areas of writing. Since this semester is coming to a close, I want to say that with all the craziness that went on mid-semester I genuinely believe that I became a better writer due to my English 212 course. If I had to choose the best assignment that I enjoyed and learned the most– our first big project (even though the blog post on our psycho-geographical walk was really fun). The first project over maps was the best because it was the gateway to best understanding the new thought processes I must go through to be the best writer I can be. With that being said, I think I wrote up all the loose ends to my Winter 2020 semester and a close to my freshman year of college.
One Day At A Time 