Midterm Reflection

Reflecting back on the first half of this course I have realized I have learned some very valuable skills to take my writing to the next level. I have also been able to start realizing who I am, and discovering myself through my free writing. While free writing I have been able to use metacognitive thinking to open up my mind and think less on the way I write and more on what I am writing. It allowed me to write without thinking about my mistakes and focus on what was truly on my mind, and allowed me to get over my dreaded writer's block. Although I enjoyed free writes, clustering is my favorite technique that we have learned so far. I have been able to take one small memory or event, and add every single detail to help describe that event, and it vastly created a huge story out of something I never thought I could never successfully write about. Writing and reading memoir has helped me discover myself. I am currently reading a memoir about a man's journey to be as healthy as possible for an entire year, and being fit has always been a passion for me. I can so easily relate to his stories and his struggles, and it has helped me to finally decide on a major. There has been a few negatives to this half of the semester, such as the blogging and Moodle assignments. The blogging assignments seem a bit confusing to me, due to the fact that I am not always certain on what the topic should be on. Secondly with Moodle, there is a lot of confusion when I am reviewing my assignments. It could very well be from a personal lack of understanding, but Moodle just seems to be so clustered and I loose track of what I am actually suppose to submit and do for this course. In class I feel fine and I have a clear understanding of everything that we have discussed and gone over, but once I get home and I check Moodle, confusion sets in. I don't know if there is a way to fix this or not, and when you gave a quick run through of the Moodle cite it did help to an extent but I am still having issues. I believe I need to focus and work more on small details in my writing and using more of the five senses. From this class and the ideas that we have learned, I feel as if my personal memoir that I am writing is one of my best pieces of work yet. I started out trying to avoid the topic because of the heartache of the event, but as I continued writing I feel like I can make a connection to my audience and I feel like I have put more into this piece of work than anything I have ever written because of the emotional bond I have with what I have written.