Workshop Reflection for your Blog

In the initial class session we got the opportunity to read and revise our classmates Exploratory Essay. This process was a wonderful experience because it enabled us to think from another person's perspective. We were asked to form a group based on our inquiry groups, which consisted of three intelligent young ladies, Rachel Pilkington, Dominica Beverley and Kayla Edge. Individually, we were granted 15 minutes to be critiqued, which was just enough time for us to point out the things that one did well on and also point the things that we saw needed improvement.  

Instead of reading our own essays aloud, we took the approach of reading the student's essay to the right of us. This allowed each of us to hear our essays being narrated from another student's voice. When my time came to be critiqued, My Exploratory Essay was narrated by Dominica Beverley. She read it loudly and with clarity so I could hear where there may be any holes in my writing. As the writer I sat in the passenger seat and let my readers' do the driving. To begin with, Rachel Pilkington gave me valuable feedback. She did a great job in stating that my essay needed better paragraph structure and formatting because I failed to include the required MLA format. Also, Ms. Pilkington stressed that I could use an alternative when incorporating my quotes but she made a final point of correcting grammar. I believe that focusing on punctuation and grammar was the least effective advice for me in being that this was only the first draft. Another student, Dominica Beverley, enlightened me on my use of citations. Ms. Beverley stated that I excessively referenced the authors and that it would behoove me to incorporate a work citied page. My purpose for writing was questioned by her because she indicated that my writing was starting to become a list of answered questions. The last reader in my group, Kayla Edge, argued that I should better incorporate my questions in my paragraph and that maybe I should maybe start off my paragraphs with the questions I formed. Ms. Edge also pointed out that I could improve my writing by forming a better relationship with my paragraphs and it would help if sometimes I referenced back to a previous paragraph. She concluded by stating that my writing needed better transitioning so again, it would not sound like a list of answered questions. I believe Kayla presented me with the most effective advice because through her advice I am now aware of how to improve the flow and structure of my writing, Overall, I believe that the readers did a great job in taking control of this session but they understood their roles and did not overstep their boundaries. They all agreed that I did an exceptionally well with emphasizing the author’s main points and opinions instead of my own. Throughout the whole process I think that we really bonded and they played the role of a friend and a classmate instead of a teacher. In conclusion, I believe they all reached their common goal which was to help me better understand how to improve my writing.

Moreover, when approaching revision I will first tackle the importance of revision and ask myself if certain things in my writing are valuable enough to be elaborated on, if my writing explains my overall theme and if the reader will understand my purpose of writing. Then there are a few steps that I will take when revising my writing. To begin, I will confront the main issues of my writing. Next, I will acknowledge whether my individual sentences are appropriate to my writing, i.e., whether they meet the demands of my writing. With this done, I will be allowed to generalize my theme and make sure it is not too specific. I will then incorporate the advice given to me by my classmates. For example, revising my paragraph format and sentence structure, reference the author when needed, work on better transitioning and finally, focus on punctuation and grammar. Lastly, I will rethink my purpose of writing to make sure it is understandable and appealing to the reader. Additionally, I plan expanding on my resources by taking my writing to the writing resource center which is located in Cameron Hall 149.