I enjoyed writing even prior to taking the FIQWS 10111 class. In high school, I took a creative writing class which sprouted my love for writing. Although my creative writing class made me enjoy writing, this class made me understand my writing and all the techniques used in my writing. I knew from the beginning of the semester that this class would be helpful because I knew there was room for improvement in my writing. 

Phase one of the class was the Language and Literacy Narrative in which we talked about the influences that shaped the way we speak. One of the goals was to recognize the role of language in empowering, oppressing, and hierarchizing languages and their users, and be open to communicating across different languages and cultures. The first phase made me look into my language journey and explore the influences in my early life. I enjoyed this phase the most because it’s interesting to look back on memories especially when you can make the analysis on how it impacted the person you are today. In this phase my life and experiences were the topic and that was fun to me because you know a lot about yourself and your experiences. It was a bit stress relieving to talk about my language journey. My struggle was growing up in a hispanic family of all males that were also older than me and my opinion often didn’t matter. Language is a way one expresses themselves and by remembering my early childhood I saw that I speak loudly now because I had to speak loudly to be heard when I was younger. 

The next phase was the Rhetorical Analysis. This phase helped me improve in two goals which were: Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations and recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations. I analyzed Julia Alvarez’s My English. In phase two I had to analyze the rhetorical strategies and appeals used in My English. This assignment helped me understand readings past the main idea but more into the writing techniques of the author as well. After it, I was able to incorporate some rhetorical strategies I found in readings into my own writing. I overall enjoyed writing this paper as well because the professor taught the lessons in this phase very clearly. I felt confident while writing this paper with all the notes and tips the professor gave in class. 

Phase three was the research essay and from the first class I knew it was going to be the most difficult for me. The first day when the syllabus was read in class, I saw the research paper and was immediately frightened. I had never written a research paper before. When I saw the prompts for the research paper, I was even more intimidated because they were topics I knew nothing about. I had also never used the APA style in my writing before. This phase helped me with several goals, the goals being: to explore biological concepts within rhetorical discourse, locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias,  Compose texts that integrate your stance (i.e. you thesis) with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation and practice systematic application of citation conventions. The topic I chose for my research paper was Informed consent, respect for personal autonomy. I was asked to explore the ethical, legal, and social aspects of genomics research in the issue of informed consent.  I had to look carefully for scholarly sources and then also find non-scholarly and multimedia sources. I had to learn how to cite in APA and figure out what would be the best to incorporate into my paper. This paper came with a lot of reading but I am grateful to know that I was able to write a research paper on a topic in biology. 

Every phase in this class required me to develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing, engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes, and understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences. For every paper I wrote in this class I had to make drafts for each paragraph and post it to the course google drive. In class we would often go into groups to talk about our writing which was helpful because it helped me get input from my peers and made the editing process easier. Speaking with my peers about our writing not only helped me with ideas to add to my essays but also helped my editing skills because I would read their papers and give my opinion on what could help them.

Besides the phases and essays written, I enjoyed the in class free writing. In the beginning of class there was always a small five minute prompt to free write to and I believe that it helped me warm up my brain for the rest of the lesson. It was almost like an alarm for my brain to wake up and start writing. I found the free writing relaxing because it wasn’t always school related. Some of the topics were so fun and creative that I didn’t even want to stop when the timer went off at times. I specifically remember my favorite free write being the one before halloween where we were asked to look at pictures and write what comes to mind. I really enjoyed this prompt because it let my creativity run wild and I absolutely love writing with details. 

With this class my love for writing increased and at times I didn’t even feel like I was doing school work. I can proudly say that FIQWS 10111 was my favorite class not only because of the assignment but also because of the environment of the classroom. I always felt like the professor was understanding, accommodating, willing to help when anyone was struggling. The students in this class were also very respectful and helpful. There was never a time where I felt that my writing was being made fun of and my peers always gave good feedback. I believe my papers could’ve been better if I hadn’t had many personal issues throughout the semester but I did try to push through and do well in school. I am certain that this course helped me improve my writing and reading skills in several ways; however, I believe there is always room for improvement.