Kayla Butterfuss

Professor Vetter

English 101

Project 4: Reflective Argument

Personal Growth on Becoming a Writer

and discussed the goals I had wanted to partake in for my senior year. At first, I had been scared

and stressed out about what classes I wanted to take, and which ones would help me in the

following years of college. Soon enough, I had sent out my application forms, and before I knew

it the first week of the class had arrived. Throughout all my English classes, that I had previously

taken, I would have classified myself as a decent writer. I learned how a proper essay should

look, what to include, what not to, etc; but I never actually sat back and fully analyzed the bigger

picture behind reading and writing. During the first week of my English 101 course, we had been

assigned to analyze the essay “How to Read Like a Writer” by Mike Bunn. This simple piece of

writing helped shape the foundation of my mindset that I would continue to have throughout this

class. In this piece, I learned about assorted styles of writing and how as a writer you have the

power to steer the audience in any direction with the choices you make. After completing this

assignment, we dove deeper into the importance of digital literacy and the impacts it has on

writing. This assignment led me to start analyzing how I became the writer that I am today and

what influences had the greatest impact on me over the years. Throughout this paper I will reflect

on what I have learned in my English 101 course and how my views on writing have changed

and grown over the previous few months.

As I had mentioned before, I classified myself as a decent writer, which honestly, I have

no idea what my classification of “decent” was. As I started the first major project, the digital
literacy narrative, I had dug into the roots of my upbringing and the high school classes I had

taken in the past. I wrote about the time I first learned how to read, write, and interact with other

pieces of literature (including technology). This allowed me as a writer to explore the little

details and tools I had used over the years to compose an essay. In this essay, I had discussed

how I had planned to expand and strengthen my knowledge through reading and writing. Today,

I can successfully say I have accomplished these goals by taking this English class. With each

writing assignment, I had faced several struggles; however, this allowed me to fully sit back and

look over what I could do as a writer to improve each assignment. During week four of the class,

we were assigned an essay called, “Shitty First Drafts” by Lamott. This piece was a major

confidence booster for me. Even though in our previous assignments we had discussed the

importance of writing and ways to improve, this piece allowed me to feel okay with the mistakes

I had made as a writer in the past. Lamott’s approach presented a different appeal to me when

she discussed the issues every writer comes across while writing and drafting. As I am authoring

this essay right now, I am struggling a little bit with ideas but by the end, I know that everything

will fit together and explain my overall purpose for this paper. In the last paragraph of “Shitty

First Drafts”, Lamott wrote, “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need

to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper.” (10) This essay

also was the perfect reminder that you can make a “child draft” out of anything, but if you use

the proper tools gained throughout this course and support with evidence, you can make

spectacular writing.

The next project we had worked on was “Project 2 Rhetorical Analysis of Multimodal

Text”. To complete this project, we reviewed the components that make up a rhetorical analysis

text. When writing, it’s important to remember who the audience is, the purpose of the piece,

along with design choices that reflect on the purpose of the writing. As I wrote and studied
rhetorical analysis, I realized the importance of emphasis, contrast, color, and organization. All

these components you place in your writings are very important when you are trying to aim and

appeal to a specific audience. While studying each topic, we were also assigned essays that

helped build a backbone for our major projects. A piece of writing that helped me support the

topics discussed in project two was, “Understanding Visual Rhetoric” by Janae Cohn. This

author, Janae Cohn, pinpointed all the times, we as humans have applied visual rhetoric in real-

life situations and decision making. I appreciated how Cohn expressed visual rhetoric by

explaining, “A picture is worth a thousand words because it implies so much and can give us a

lot of information quickly” (35). By understanding each topic discussed week by week, it helped

me expand my ideas of things for each project that followed the previous projects and writings.

Along with every assignment completed, the more we expanded from the backbone that

was previously created in the first couple weeks of class. All the topics we discussed correlated

with one another. For example, we studied our backstories first, then rhetorical analysis, and

finally we prepared for the meaning of multimodal pieces. For reading discussion 8, we were

assigned to read, “An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing” by Melanie

Gagich. In Gagich’s prompt, she provided the audience with a better understanding and

description for composing multimodal pieces by stating, "A multimodal text combines various

modes of communication (hence the combination of the words “multiple” and “mode” in the

term “multimodal”)” (72). This means that, as you're composing multimodally, you should

involve multiple forms of communication, which had been done in project three. The group

project for this class was very nerve-racking at first, since I learned a little bit about each

classmate at the beginning of this course, but never reached out one on one. After I met with my

group, I started to get excited about what we were about to create multimodally. The instructions
for this collaborative project were to make a website that advocated a social issue. Our project

focused on the IUP teacher retrenchment, which is a very important topic right now for students

and teachers. To reflect more, in high school, I completed several group projects that were

important for my grade, but I never focused on something that I fully stood behind. As the

project came together and ready to be published, I was shocked about how much my group

members and I had applied the information that we had previously learned to our website.

Overall, I appreciate all the tools and information I picked up while taking this course.

Not only was it exciting to learn new topics, but also explore the mistakes we all make as writers.

With every life event, you can either grow stronger and improve yourself, or just sit around and

wait for change. I faced several struggles when completing assignments, but those struggles

shaped my overall growth as a writer. Over the past couple of months, I have spent a large

portion of my time studying new topics and applying them to assignments. My new goal as I

move on to completing more college classes is to apply the knowledge that Professor Vetter had

taught me in the short fifteen weeks of class. I feel as if I apply these tools to my everyday

studies and life, I will succeed with my future endeavors.

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing,

Volume 2 (2012). Parlor Press. Wac.colostate.edu. Accessed on 9 Dec. 2020.

Cohn, Janae. “Understanding Visual Rhetoric.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing,

Volume 3 (2020): 35. Parlor Press. Writingspaces.org. Accessed on 9 Dec. 2020.

Gagich, Melanie. “An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing.”

Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 3 (2020): 72. Parlor Press. Writingspaces.org.

Accessed on 9 Dec. 2020.

Lamott, Anne. “Shitty First Drafts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers

(2005): 10. Ed. Boston: Bedford Martins. Accessed on 9 Dec. 2020.