Perhaps one of the questions that I have been constantly asking myself is: What is writing? Specifically, what is writing for me? What do I get out of it and how do I improve? What motivates me to write? And to be quite honest, I still do not know the exact answer to these questions after 19 years of living and continue to write essays after essays since middle school. It is still a blurry image in my head, but I will try my best to explain what I have accumulated so far on my journey in discovering what is writing for me.

The biggest issue for me when I write is the lack of motivation. Why would I write when I can paint or draw? I am much better at drawing and painting and it is something I am passionate about. As a visual learner, learning new things and consuming images are what makes me absorb the fastest, on occasions, I still do learn from readings but not as effectively. Pictures and images are what going on in my head most of the time and putting them into words is the hard part. Many say, “a picture may worth a thousand words”, but what if I have so many that I cannot physically write it out? As of right now, I am describing the mental images that I created in my head, of little videos playing nonstop putting the situation together.

Heading to college, it became a little easier with the knowledge compiling but it is still not as effective as pictures. That is why I love the second essay of this course so much, it allows me to creatively express myself through paint strokes, as it does not limit my hand on the keyboard, it felt free. Many may disagree that writing is also free, but I found the constraint of words too limited, and most of the time, writing does not give others the ability to comprehend and get different ideas. One may see a painting and perceive it differently, but words are words, well unless it is poetry or higher-level writing. But for the most part, it is boxed in the words.

Before I know it, writing is getting more advanced as my education go up. Rhetorical writing, research paper, lab report and so many more I am unfamiliar with. High school did not prepare me well for it. The intensity of writing also forces my skill to go forward and my mind to become more accustomed to putting images into words. Researching also expands my knowledge on pressing issues of the world like systemic racism, Asian hate, LGBTQ+ acceptance, global warming, etc.

Over time, writing has become more than putting images into words, it has now become its own thing. Where words are supposed to create images and putting down ideas that are hard to understand. Writing can create arguments and go into advanced details that images cannot. Images can create conversation, but words are the conversation themselves. Pictures give topics, but writing gives explanations.

I have grown to love writing more and more but it is yet to the point where I voluntarily open a word document and write an essay, a story, or even a diary entrance. Drawing, imaging is still my preferring method, but I can see writing became harder and harder to ignore, considering all things are now required to be put into words.

As for my Course Learning Objectives, I would like to go over them point by point. The first is to “acknowledge my and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility”. I have been reading other’s drafts and comparing them to mine to gain new insights on how to further improve them, though it has not been the most helpful as their writing style is different compared to mine. For example, while revising and editing the first essay, I decided to take and break and read through drafts instead, I notice that some people make their under the format of a newspaper instead of essays, so I decided to add pictures and make it more interesting and engaging to read.

Second is “enhanced strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment”. I have gotten better at reading and editing if I would say so reading through my drafts. But what I found the hardest is finding the motivation to write a draft. I fully understand the benefit of it. Since first writings aren’t always the best idea that come to your head, always write a draft before that to make sure if when you read through and there are changes to make, you can delete the idea and rewrite it. On a fully written piece, it is much more work to delete paragraphs and paragraphs of that idea and ruin the flow of the writing itself. But I just cannot pull myself together to create a draft before committing to the ideas. I can see the improvement in drafting, for essay #2, you can see that the concept of my drawing changes completely from the very first concept I made. A complicated portrait with many small details was switched with a  more minimalistic and symbolic. The two ideas are very different from one another and if I would change it halfway through drawing the portrait, it would have been a complete waste of hard work.

The third one is “negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of the genre, medium, and rhetorical situation”. The thought of audience expectation is not always at the top of my head. It starts with that thought but then strayed away as I go deep into writing/creating the works. For the first one, however, it is always in my head that I am writing for a newspaper, it needs to be simpler, more entertaining, and engaging to read and shorter so younger audience can understand.

Forth is to “develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes”. The discussion and giving my take on people’s reading helps in improving my own as well. I can read through drafts, criticizing them along with myself like “when I say they did not address this affectively in their essay, did I do the same with mine?”. Questions like that help us grow together as a community through sharing ideas and drafts.

The fifth one is “engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond”. We went through quite a few genres during this class and though I am intrigued by them, they are still quite new and unfamiliar with me, except the second essay with the visual. It did not cross my mind even once that visual essays exist and often disassociate drawings from essays. As for the newspaper and research papers, I do not quite find myself further exploring them. Though I assume I will have to through the course of the following years in college. The different genres have their different designs and purposes. Take the first essay, for example, it is a newspaper, designed to look simpler, catchier, and often includes images to better explain the issue. Its purpose is to provide its audience with the latest and pressing news that is straight to the point and no analysis needed.

The sixth point is to “formulate and articulate a stance through and in my writing”. I try my best to make it clear what my stance is on the issue. It is always introduced in the first paragraph, like essay #3 where I mentioned all the damages the Asian American community received before and during the pandemic, and possibly after it as well. After that, I went on to explain why it is bad and give potential solutions to the issue, and given the effects of the hate crimes on Asians as well.

The seventh point is “practice using various library resources, online databases, and the internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects”. I have to admit that during the pandemic, my internet surfing skill has improved a lot. Going through the CCNY online databases is way easier now. I use a diverse amount of websites to make sure my information is not too biased. For example, I use both left and right-wing news resources. Notably, searching for scholarly sources has been easier than I thought, given the online databases like Academic OneFile, Academic Search Complete, JSTOR, or different search engines like Bing, Google, Google Scholar, etc. Unfortunately, we are still in a pandemic and libraries are not accessible, so I have not used them at all during the last two semesters.

The last point is “strengthen my source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources). There are some criteria that I do well and some that I do not. I am pretty good at analyzing and integrating sources into my paragraphs and use them accordingly to support my statement. I have not been summarizing or paraphrasing due to a habit of limiting myself since I often go overboard with the summaries and make too many pointless arguments. I do quote the sources quire effectively in the readings, especially when I need statistical data. Citing is quite simple, and it is required so I do it often.

Overall, I believe my experience in this class has helped me improve in writing as well as a person in general. I have learned many different ways of writing, combing images with texts, and using scholarly sources. I hope I can apply these skills I learn in my future and make even better works. Maybe one day, I can finally understand what writing is for me.