Spencer Reynen

Dr. Linda Haas

WR37
December 6, 2015
Final Reflection Essay
In most college courses, its not common that when the course
reaches an end that the student sits down to reflect back on their work
and how they met the course objectives by writing an essay. However,
UCIs Writing 37 class is different, and for me the course has been a
more than positive experience where Ive had the opportunity to learn
about things Id never thought Id have an interest in, and grow in my
ability to write effectively no matter what medium Im using, among
many other things. In this essay, Ill explain how I managed to conquer
the objectives of the Writing 37 course and what I learned during the
progression of the class through the creation of the different texts we
were assigned.
Understanding the concept of rhetoric and the rhetorical
situation, especially in regards to a specific text was a major course
objective that we started to work on from week one. Something that
we started doing as a class shortly after it began was reading different
versions of a fairy tale text and then analyzing them in order to
compare and contrast the differences between them, in regards to the
rhetorical situation. I think this was extremely beneficial to us as

students and using this method improves two aspects of our ability to
write. By comparing and contrasting the elements that are different,
we improve our analyzing skills- because its hard to write on a text
without analyzing them first. Also improved is the ability to gauge what
the rhetorical situation is, so that when we write, we do so with an
audience in mind to turn out a written work that best suits our target
audience. When you practice writing with a full grasp of the text youre
analyzing and with a solid understanding of the rhetorical situation at
hand, good habits are being formed that improve the overall quality of
ones writing. Something very important that Dr. Haas explained to the
class was that the authors of the fairy tales reflected their rhetorical
situation in their works- meaning their work grew out of their time
period and culture in which they lived, it was likely something they
werent thinking about, but something very important for us to
understand when analyzing their work. Im glad we read and wrote
about all those fairy tales because I know that it wasnt only beneficial
to my skills as an analyzer, writer, and rhetor, but I actually enjoyed itand Ill be honest, as a male college aged student, I certainly didnt
expect to enjoy it. However, I found most all of the tales we read held
my attention exceptionally well as I was reading them, as most of them
were both interesting and intriguing. I also found myself ranking my
favorites among the few fairytales we had read and even looking
forward to reading next weeks tales. Because I had only been

previously exposed to tales that were popularized by Disney, I thought

Disneys princess fairy tales were the only ones out there, which made
me believe that all fairy tales were for girls. I realized this was not the
case when reading tales like one of my most favorites, The Brave
Little Tailor, a clever tale of a tailor who somehow works his way up to
be a prince against all odds, or another one of my favorites, The Devil
In a Green Coat, a story about a man who gains fortune and a bride
by entering into a pact with the devil. You also realize that the stories
popularized by Disney didnt always have happy endings- some of
them were dark stories probably not suited for children. For example,
the Sleeping Beauty tale originated from a story called Sun, Moon,
and Talia, a story containing rape and a plot where one of the
characters tries to kill 3 other characters, two of which are children.
When taking a look at the different versions of each fairy tale, you
learn a little about the history of each tale, the time it was from, and
the rhetorical situation- sometimes by just reading the different
versions of the text, without even looking it up. While the assignments
did take awhile to complete and were a little stressful to do, as the
deadline seem to approach more quickly every time, Im glad I could
learn about something new and open up my mind to an entirely new
genre of stories I had a misconception about- something I wouldnt
have done had I not been in this class, and something that makes me

think about what other potential things Im missing out on by not

investigating further or not having an open mind.
During the progression of this course, I contributed to many
projects that improved my digital literacy communication skills across
several media, an objective of this course that made up the bulk of the
work done throughout the class. There were several categories of
media in which we had to work with in this course including: live
presentations, videos, websites, and written texts in several different
genres. Our first assignment of the class, suitably titled Intro To Me,
was meant to introduce ourselves in front of the class with the
assistance of a PowerPoint presentation we had created- also our first
foray in completing this specific course objective. It was assigned on
the first day of class, which meant we had to present on the second
day of class- something I remember being concerned and nervous
about for two reasons: it meant I had a very short amount of time to
complete a project that would be everyones first impression of me,
and I had to get up in front of the class and give a presentation about
myself. However, as I reflect back now, besides the fact that it
introduced the classmates to each other, the assignment served two
very important purposes: to get us used to presenting in front of an
audience (something I wasnt confident about before this course), and
completing a presentation under a strict time constraint- two things
that would be continually expected of us as the course progressed.

With our first live presentation under our belts, our next major
adventure in completing this course objective came with the Cultural
Fairy Tale video project. For this assignment, the class was put into
groups in order to create a video presentation on a particular culture
and a Fairy tale from that culture. The best two videos would then be
presented at an event later in the quarter to all students enrolled in the
Writing 37 class. While working with my group to create the project
was a good experience, and while I thought our final video was great, I
was a bit surprised that we werent included in the top two videos that
the class voted on. Its hard for me to see how even from an unbiased
point of view that our video was not objectively one of the best two.
However, if our video wouldve made it in the top two, we wouldnt
have had the opportunity to take part in the creation of a Fairy tale rap
battle video project later on in the course- and considering how good
that turned out, it wouldve been a shame if it wouldve never
happened. So, even though we didnt make the top two videos for the
Cultural fairy tale video project, we still learned quite a bit from
creating the video and completed the objective of learning to
communicate effectively through use of a video.
Throughout the quarter, we updated our progress in the course
every week on our blog contained in our portfolio site, and by doing so,
we not only were able to reflect on the week that had passed, but
learned to familiarize ourselves with the different technology available

to help us reflect and document our progress. At times it was stressful

getting those end of the week reflection blogs in on time (Im quite the
procrastinator), but I also felt they were beneficial because it was a
concluding wrap up of the week that allowed me to reflect on what I
had learned, while serving as a detailed documentation available to me
so that I may retain what I learned, what my thoughts were, and what I
experienced through that week.
Because a good majority of the work for this course was
completed in groups, I can say with confidence that the objective of
practicing effective collaboration can be checked off the list.
Throughout most of the quarter, we worked in groups to complete
projects, presentations, etc. The first group I worked in was to
complete my cultural fairy tale video project, the second group I
worked in was for peer editing of my RA essay, and the third group I
worked in was for creating the Fairy Tale Rap Battle for the RIP project.
Working in each of these groups gave me a more positive outlook on
group collaboration than I previously had before, and I actually had fun
working with everyone to produce content that we thought was top
quality (especially the fairy tale rap battle, my personal favorite project
of the quarter). Based on the positive reaction and acclaim my Fairy
tale rap battle group received, Id say we did a fantastic job creating
something balancing entertainment and education, making all that
hard work on the project pay off. Working in a group setting for so

many activities in the class also improved in aspects of the habits of

mind, which was another course objective. The three habits of mind
that I think of when doing work with groups on a project are: creativity,
persistence, and flexibility. When working on a project like the fairy tale
rap battle, you have to be in a creative mindset to produce something
thats entertaining and interesting to watch. You have to have the
persistence to complete the project, even though you may be the only
one working on the project late at night and you have a lot of work to
do until its done. And finally, you have to have flexibility when working
with a group, because as college students, we all have busy schedules
and personal lives to balance and finding a time dedicated to working
together outside of those two aspects of our lives is sometimes
difficult.
All in all, Ive had a great first quarter at UCI and Im glad that in
one of my first college classes ever that I could be apart of such an
amazing class with great people to work with and interesting things to
learn. Looking back on my experiences, I can say that Ive completed
all the objectives for the course and have had a great time doing it. Im
sure my time at UCI will be filled with more positive experiences such
as these.