In this course, we were asked to writer Reflection Journals. In these journals, students were asked about a topic where they could write about anything they wanted. This submission is some of my free writings from my reflection journals. 

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Reflection Journal 1: Personal Composition Goals

For UWP 1, I entered this class not only because I still need to fulfill the undergrad
writing requirement, but also for personal gain. I have never been a strong writer and I hope that
by the end of the quarter, I will be a better writer with the help of UWP 1.

In my opinion, my biggest weakness in the scope of writing is revision. I find myself
good at being able to put ideas on a page, and slowly chip away at writing till I have a full draft.
Once I have this draft, I can easily read through it and find any small errors, like grammatical or
punctuation issues, but afterwards I feel like I hit a roadblock. I end up rereading through my
draft and changing a word here or there, but no major revisions come afterwards. In a previous
quarter, I took UWP 7, where the class stressed heavy revision on all essay drafts. This helped
me since it gave me the opportunity to look through other peoples drafts and try to give them
feedback on what to change, as well as have others comment on my draft. After this period
passed, I would have comments and feedback to work with when it came to revision. This gave
me a guide of what to change or leave in my drafts, allowing me to come a little bit closer to
completion. Yet once I had made my way through every comment and bit of feedback, I once
again would feel stumped until we went through the process again for a second or third draft.
Looking at my recent past in terms of writing, revision helps me tremendously, especially
with another pair of eyes that can look through my work to spot unseen ideas or issues to me.

This is why I hope in 10 weeks I will be better at revision so I have to rely less on others to help
me out. But until then, all help is very welcome.

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Reflection Journal 3: Thinking About Genre

One of my favorite movies to watch is Mid 90’s. It is a movie about a kid growing up in
the mid 90’s who is looking for a place to fit in, which he finds with skateboarding. The story
follows him and a few other main characters as they go about their life and the situations they
get themselves in.

The genre I would associate this with is fiction. It is a made up story with made up
characters that is pieced together from what could be actual events. My reaction towards this
media is reflexive in a way. This movie highlights the friendships that skateboarding makes and
everything else in between and there are many parts of the movie that I relate to. Since I relate
to points in the movie, that would make me part of the target audience; skaters, teens, and
anyone else looking to fit in through some sport or activity. Mid 90’s also has elements of humor,
melodrama, and mockumentary that are evident in some scenes. Dirk mentions how each genre
has a specific reaction it evokes in the audience. For instance, horror films will elicit fear, while
rom-coms will elicit laughs and love. For Mid 90’s it hits home a sense of nostalgia for that
decade and all the things people used to do back then. In this case, it brings a sense of
nostalgia to skaters when they see the main character learn his first trick, or when the audience
sees the main character and his friends all hanging out having fun. Nostalgia is a context in
which Jonah Hill capitalizes on, where the rhetoric action is his camera. All the shots used are
designed to evoke that feeling in the audience.

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Reflection Journal 5: Confronting Personal Biases

To be honest, I am not too sure how my personal biases affect my writing style. I do
know however that there are other ways in which biases affect my life in other situations.
Scoping in on writing, I would say a big bias I carry is the bias that the instructor or teacher is
the ultimate recipient of my writing. Whenever I had any writing assignment, I would always gear
it towards the teacher, even when the contents inside might interest another target audience
better than the teacher. This bias comes from the fact that teachers assign writing assignments
for a grade, which in my brain reads as “this is for a grade, so you should make it appeal to
them”. This bias can hinder me slightly because if I focused on other target audiences, I might
be able to elaborate more on ideas and concepts that the teacher might not be too familiar with.

Confronting my biases requires me to be conscious of what they are and how they affect
my identity. I would consider myself pretty good at finding hidden biases and confronting them to
myself to make me aware of them. For instance, both of my parents would consider themselves
supporters of the democratic party. They occasionally talk about politics along with the usual
talking subjects at dinner. I know that this has shaped me to think more liberally instead of
conservatively. I realize this inside of myself, and in conversation, I try my hardest to stay as
neutral as I can. With this example, I am doing very well with this since of my awareness of what
I think vs. what I say.

If I had to categorize my biases into opinion or preference, it is hard. For food related
biases, it is more of a preference, while political biases would be more of an opinion. I think all
that matters is being able to spot any type of bias, good or bad.