Dear Reader,
I would like to start off first by saying that from the first day of class, I instantly fell in love with it. English has always been a subject that came easy to me and that I performed well in. However, I had never taken a writing class. I have to admit I was a bit nervous due because I thought that for the whole semester we would only conduct research for essays and have papers due nearly every other week. But was I in for a surprise. My whole perspective changed when I met my professor, Ms. Lazzara. She completely changed my perspective on the class and made it very enjoyable. Especially due to the fact that we only had to write one major paper and not multiple. From her, I have learned that I must pay close attention to rhetoric and rhetorical situations. This was something I had never known about or was taught at all throughout my academic life. The most important component of that for me is being aware of and considering your audience because I believe that we often forget about who we are writing to other than our instructors. Aside from the grade, we our writing has a purpose.
Being in this class has also not only opened my eyes to my flaws, but also my achievements. For the inquiry paper, I focused on the topic of art therapy and tied that into healthcare. I was very torn about inserting myself into the conversation because this topic hit home for me. I wasn’t just writing a paper, I had a connection with it. After taking some time to think about it, I made the decision to insert my voice which definitely paid off in the end. Ultimately, this experience made me realize that not only is it okay to take risks in writing, but that being vulnerable is not such a bad thing.
I'd have to say that coming up with my topic for the inquiry paper and finally narrowing it down was my favorite part of the process. My first idea was very vague: What relationship does art therapy and healthcare share? I honestly didn't know what knowledge exactly that I wanted to gain from my paper. I knew I'd need to have my own voice in it but at the time I didn't know what I wanted to say. It took three more attempts for me to find what I was looking for. After I had conducted all of my research, I came to the conclusion that therapies such as art therapy were effective alone and even more effective when used alongside traditional medicine. Furthermore, I wanted to know why art therapy isn't more commonly enforced or implemented within inpatient settings? Once I finally honed in on my topic, I became overwhelmed with waves of relief and accomplishment. I'm actually proud rather than embarrassed to say that I took me multiple tries because that only meant I was making progress.
Prior to this class, I have never composed a literature review, let alone did I know what it was. But now, I understand that it basically a summary of whatever the topic or assignment is, touching on your findings and further research or questions that need to be done. I enjoyed writing literature review because it became a basis for my paper. Although we created our outline after this, it almost also served as my outline. Essentially, I learned to better hone in on the important points I wanted to get across as well as organize and structure my inquiry paper. In the end, I enjoyed every aspect of the composition of my inquiry paper and I have learned to embrace my own personal writing process. After constructing my summary, literature review, and outline, I was able to successfully structure and organize my essay exactly how I wanted. That meant that the revision process was pretty intense, however, editing was not. I am very proud with my work and I feel accomplished.
As I wrap up the designing of my e-portfolio, I am proudly able to say that I have come a long way. From not knowing how to work the site at all to now finally setting it up how I aspired to, my e-portfolio is flourishing. My main concern was having my website visually appeal to the viewer without it being tacky. I've included many anime-inspired GIF's because I love GIF's for one, but I am also part Asian. Aside from my homepage and my about me section, I want whoever is viewing my website to truly get a feel for who I am because when all is said and done, my e-portfolio is a digital representation of me.
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Studio 7: Library Field Trip
I included this Studio because I enjoyed learning about various other sources and it allowed me to have options as far as how I wanted to structure my works cited for my inquiry paper.