Being enrolled in English Comp. I is what I find the easier and most beneficial route of receiving my english credits for high school. I could take English Comp. I & II in one year, which would give two english credits, rather than AP English Composition I with a rigorous test, proving you should earn the credit or not. I’m expecting it to be pretty challenging for me, since I barely met the requirements to be enrolled in this course. Something new I expect to learn would be ethos, pathos, and logos, since it what is heavily discussed in APLAC. I struggle with grammar, style, and probably syntax in writing, and I hope this course can clarify how I can use it correctly, and if I can keep up with it.

Genre is the way we can interact, communicate, and collaborate together as a whole, with the works of writing and speaking. To apply genre in a focused, coherent, and developed writing, one must have a flexible writing/speech that can be played with multiple fields. As for Rhetorical Context, the word has two meanings merged in one. Rhetorical means “the art of persuasive or engaging writing.” While Context means the situation that surrounds the event. Together, rhetorical context basically means “What’s the purpose of your writing? What are you writing?” Applying rhetorical context to make it focused, coherent, and well developed, must meet the criteria of your topic. You have to make your context explain the situation you’re in now, and why it matters. That is how you construct a “focused, coherent, and developed writing.”

Some writing strategies mentioned in the book, and myself included would involve making a brainstorming layout with 3-4 main points that branches off with 5-6 minor points that will support the main points, and those main points will support and explain your topic. Another writing strategy would be breaking off your draft in sections, such as introduction, paragraph 1, 2, 3 and then a conclusion. There are also many other variation of the previous example, but for more specific essays like field reports, reviews, etc. This can help you organize all your information. These were my favorite writing strategies, since the book perfectly explained what each part would be meant for, and what I should most likely put in my writing. The least beneficial would be the brainstorming, since I felt like it was too much of an overemphasize of your topic. Sure it may look good, but it would contain too much “unnecessary substance.” Of course the minor points could represent the evidence of your main points, which could represent as explanations of your main topic, but I felt like it was too much too handle where to compress your research within those branches.

Style in a nutshell depends all on how you, yourself write the paper. It does not matter how many fancy words, or figurative language you put in. It just depends on what is the topic you are writing for, the genre you’re using, and the rhetorical situation. If you write, with how you normally would, than this being true to your style, and your doing right. Plain Style is where you basically write plainly, but it takes some practice to achieve this skill. There are eight guidelines in total. The first three guidelines focus on the correct usage of the  subject in writing. You must emphasize who is the subject, make the subject “do” something within the writing, and last but not least, put the subject early in the sentence so people understand who is the subject. Guideline four is basically converting all action into a verb, so it’s easier to understand. Guidelines five and seven are basic edits/revision where you eliminate unnecessary or excessive substance in your writing. Guideline number six involves simplifying long prepositional phrases into a more smaller, and clearer phrase. Lastly guideline eight may be hard to master, but it asks for all your sentences to be within “breathing length.” Basically don’t make long sentences, where your readers start to run of breath while reading your sentences. Genre has an important role with tone and style, since you have to think of a certain mood that will fit your writing. “Is your writing something happy, depressing, angry?” Setting the mood can make the writing coherent and focused for your readers. Of my past writing in this class I feel like I struck the tone in my memoir, since it was a personal experience in our past. My memoir focused on my struggles of moving on with the friends I departed for a better education, and the new friends I made throughout. The tone was set as a mix of happiness and depression, which help make my essay better.

Syntax is where you place your choice of words (Diction) to form a sentence.

Bad: Depressed about her mother’s funeral, the trip home was full of mourning.

Good: Depressed about her mother’s funeral, Payton mourned all the way home.

Why? The phrase “Payton mourned all the way home,” is more descriptive on who the subject is in this sentence.

For myself, reading, analyzing, and interpreting print text, I do a process called “Close Reading.” In close reading I would carefully read the text and underline, highlight, and define words, break down sentences and figure what the passage was saying as a whole. By making notes throughout the print texts, it helped me gain knowledge on the concept we were learning. As for non-print texts, I would usually just reread sentences that we had to peer review, and it help gain the various perspectives people had about their essays.

My research process throughout this semester has changed quite a bit. Being enrolled in a college level english course I would have to use more credible sources, mainly primary or secondary sources. I learned its better if I start using databases more often, since databases offer all kinds of sources that are more convincing. Navigating the research was pretty tough, especially for my proposal essay. The proposal essay was very hard for me to construct, since my topic changed many times throughout, and I never had the rough draft on time. My final topic ended up with a mix of politics, which personally is my least favorite concept to learn. It was hard to find the right explanations and evidence, but I couldn’t just throw all the information away. So I kept on going. in the end I got an 89%, which I’m pretty proud of myself.