My Retrospective

 Over this past semester, I've been confronted with my inconsistent tendencies with every assignment, activity, and writing project. I've always known that I despised structured writing. In AP U.S History, I hated writing DBQ's. Researched-based essays felt shallow to me, and writing concisely was never my goal. I came into this semester off the kinetic energy fueling me from last semester-interpreting theatre design. In this class, I could be much more poetic, metaphorically complex, and use rhetoric to compliment the author's own usage. I consistently prioritize freedom, but at what cost? For this writing class, I risk my grade. Further than that, I risk understanding. I always want to challenge my audience, but for them to also understand the basic content I'm trying to convey. My audience will not always come from a highly English-literate audience. With immigrant parents, I should naturally feel considerate writing in a simpler way that is easily accessible, but just as powerful. Quite obviously, that is something I'm still working on. As I've kept writing, experimenting with word choice is still something I'm practicing and I don't always nail the right meaning. I mix formal and informal language. The tones clash. Structurally, my essays feel illogical. They don't to me. I've spent hours making sure they make sense, but I've realized, only to me. Writing, for me, is always something deeply personal and I've never written for someone else. Figuratively. It has always been a selfish endeavor, and one I'm becoming more aware of is something I actually want to share. As I've reached the end of this course, I'm learning bit by bit from your honest feedback and notes from my peers to make a change and to be open to critique. As I tackled each of the topics, I revitalized my voice for social justice and reform. Because I researched these topics and found meaningful evidence independently, I've found the confidence to speak up on paper and in real life. I hope to integrate simplicity and persistence into my future endeavors as a person who is determined to unravel many stories and use them as the thread to connect people in our universal human experiences.