Maximo’s Freshman Composition Reflection
One of the first thing that I learned from the beginning of the course, from day 1, is to be specific and not be vague with my writing. Instead of just stating an event that you should linger on that idea, and the impacts of it. But also you need to know where to be specific on, since some information is unnecessary, and shouldn’t be implemented. But one case of moments where you need to be specific is where there is some sort of tension going on, since as learned in class, one of the things that the reader is likes to know is the tension of the story, since is one (if not the most) interesting things in a reading. In writing such as analysis or research essays, I also learned the importance of writing a good introduction, since is the first thing they look at, and it suppose to be able to hook the reader in wanting to read more. And that one way of adding that type of interest to your introduction, is by adding a story. But not any story, it’s suppose to be a story related to the topic and main idea of the whole essay. It needs to be a story with a lot of specific detail, but as stated before, those details must be relevant, and not vague or just all over the place. We also learned key concepts like the difference between context and form, when analysing an story or just doing an analysis essay overall. How context is more like what is the story about, and what’s happening on it, where form is more about the techniques used to deliver that story. Some techniques that I learned in class are juxtaposition, which is when two or more things are mention with the purpose to contrast one another. Another technique learned in class was the use of humor on a story, which used correctly could not only bring your message out, but also could be a way to make the reader be more engage on the story. One last thing I would like to mention that we learned in class about writing essays, this one being particularly for research essays, is how to identify a good source from a bad source. And other than going to the basics of “not having wikipedia as a main source, trust sites with .org more than sites with .com” and all that, we also learned that some other good sources will be sites like academic journals, news essays, magazines articles, vlogs interviews, etc. That we should question the source and the information given to us, since in some cases people who do the research relates and event with another and calls it cause and effect, when in reality not because two events are correlated, means they are related.
Other things learned in class outside of writing essays, were readings based on articles and blogs, such as the ones we learned at the beginning of class, were topics like if school teaches you the skill necessary to have a job, and if is overall meaning less. How male (specially teenagers) are under pressure to “be a man”, meaning that fathers wants their sons to “behave, and speak like a man”, that if those roles implemented in society for man should be follow or if they are fair. That how come does teenagers aren’t allowed to drink, yet they are allowed to drive, get a job, and even get married. That people (specially teens) should be limited to the amount spend on the internet, since it has a lot of dangers with it, such as addiction, privacy violations, etc.
Other stories for our analysis essay such as the “onion”, where it used humor and juxtaposition to contrast how absurd social anxiety can be sometimes. Or others like “drinking coffee” and “The glass Castle” were they just use dialogs and short stories and dialogue to either present an issue and tension, or send us a message.
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