In the beginning of this course, many of us expressed anxiety and a lack of confidence in the initial assessment of ourselves as writers. As someone who enjoys reading a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction, and who writes creatively as a pastime, I was less inclined to share in these sentiments. However, I still carried many unhealthy writing habits and misconceptions about the writing process that most of us form in high school. This course was designed to help each of us break through such barriers to be able to write successfully at a university level.

Writing assignments in this course were structured in line with a process of drafting, revising, and editing. Due dates for each assignment were set based on an iterative timeline which taught us how to understand writing as a process instead of a one-time event and gave us the benefits of feedback and second attempts.

We developed as a team and practiced collaborative editing through in-class peer reviews starting with the Workview/Lifeview Essay. As someone who prefers to complete work in the still silence of her own company, this felt very new to me. I was sometimes taken aback by the astute observations of my peers and their ability to universally perceive strengths and weaknesses in my papers. This combined with unique feedback from Professor Jamison taught me not to underestimate the value of seeking outside opinions and a “fresh pair of eyes.” If nothing else, it was a source of comfort and comradery, knowing that I was not the only person struggling to adapt to a new way of writing.

My own writing developed the most in my approach to academic assignments; I did not formerly have the tools to be methodical in my approach. Now, I can systematically plan how I will write and design any given writing assignment—using the rhetorical situations as a backbone.

The Workview/Lifeview Essay, for example, required me to think deeply about who my audience might be—and the required sources forced me to conduct valid, high-quality research and locate credible sources. The Researched Critical Analysis prompted me to seriously consider genre as well as design and media. Before this, I had never been required to write a research paper in the APA Style, or to substantiate my arguments with visual evidence.

I applied these strategies even outside of this composition course. My Art History class, for example, required me to practice writing and citing within the conventions of the Chicago Style to successfully complete research papers. One such example—a research paper about a public art installation—is featured in the “Writing About Art” section of this website. Context was important in this piece; it compelled me to write in a new and distinct style which could fit into the broader spectrum of analytical art critics and historians.

In retrospect, I am most fond of my video and reading response essays. They are the most personal, concise and engaging—and since I was less afraid of scoring low on them, I took creative risks and exposed highly vulnerable facets of my psyche and worldview. I focused on emphasizing and refining a clear stance on topics of personal consequences to me and, as a result, my exigence exuded from the piece clearly and naturally. Passion motivated me to craft statements which at times were edgy, highly personal, narratively rich, and emotionally impactful.

This website is a curated digital portfolio of the aforementioned works, which summarize reveal my development as a writer throughout this semester applied through a variety of contexts and expectations. The learning outcomes derived from the completion of these works, and from the completion of the FIQWS Composition course, will set the stage for my progression as a writer for the coming years and empower me to enjoy consistent, purposeful success in writing throughout my undergraduate education.