Writing Across Curriculum

Dear Reader,   

Writing is an essential form of communication that enables one to express their opinions, spread awareness, and convey their thoughts and feelings without speaking a word. Writing has been used to document history, enact change, and create some of the greatest works of literature and art. Practicing writing and being able to navigate my own skills and create my own ways of communicating is so important throughout my time in college and for my future career. That is what Writing Across the Curriculum 2001-301 has taught me: that writing is a skill that will follow me throughout life, and being able to practice my mastery of writing on an academic and professional level before entering my profession is an amazing opportunity and a beyond helpful tool.   

Over the duration of the class, my skills in persuading, summarizing, arguing, and synthesizing works of literature within my discipline have grown. The lesson in class helped me learn how to organize my research and the importance of prewriting and process writing before beginning the essay. In class, I learned new ways to analyze text through assignments such as the Comparative Rhetorical Analysis Essay. I was not taught in depth about rhetoric and its importance to persuading an audience, or how to analyze two pieces of text in an academic format. While learning new skills, I also found new challenges that I need to work on, such as effectively using argumentative language to convey a point and focusing on synthesizing and not just summarizing.   

Our first assignment was to create our own infographic on our professional disciplines. Specifically, we were prompted to research what kind of style of writing our profession would prefer us to use: MLA, APA, or Chicago. Another aspect of this assignment was to practice finding both academic and popular resources to widen our range of media. I found this assignment quite fun, due to its foundation of creative freedom in the infographic’s design, color, and graphics. While the information in the infographic was prompted to be about writing in our profession, it was a great way to be introduced to our peers and why they are passionate about their future careers.   

My most difficult assignment was the Literature Review. I had never thoroughly researched ten resources, six academic and four popular, at one time. Or been prompted to review, synthesize, and summarize those ten resources with one another and create our own prompt, about an important issue within our discipline. When I began this assignment, I had doubts about my ability to sort through all the information I was reading. However, Professor LeQuire provided us with amazing organizational tools to make the writing process easier when drafting. Before taking this class, I never put much thought or emphasis into planning how to structure my writing; I just started writing. But, as I was writing, my thoughts would begin to jumble together and stop making sense, which would increase my writer's block. Luckily, this class has also taught me that it is important not just for your writing but for yourself, so you experience less stress while writing, to prewrite, plan, organize, and draft all before starting your writing.   

The assignment I got graded best on was my Academic Argument with the Literature Review. I enjoyed writing this essay, and I felt more passionate while writing it because it was a topic I had thoroughly researched and felt confident discussing. I collected research and literature from reputable authors within the elementary education field to help support my claims that teacher turnover was on the rise and causing detrimental effects to schools, educators, and students. Over the period of the semester, I began to find my voice and use it to more confidently write and get my points across because I had more literary material and devices to support and map out my thoughts and statements.   

Overall, this class has greatly impacted me as a writer for both my academic and professional careers. While the process of this class has presented many ups and downsand opportunities for continual growth, I have gained new insights into how to be a better writer and have been able to identify many personal strengths and weaknesses that will help me navigate literature and writing more effectively. I will use all the organizational, structural, and grammatical insight that this class provided me with. Writing will always be a skill that I will build upon for the rest of my life, and I plan to continue my literary education with an open mind and the promise to grow while also spreading my knowledge with my future students in my own classroom when I become a teacher. 

Sincerely,  

Genna Scrocco