For my Honors Writing and Rhetoric foundation requirement, I took the class with Professor Elise Green. The content of the class was heavily taught in a group discussion like manner. I really enjoyed this as hearing everyone’s differing opinions on subjects was interesting to me. While I enjoyed that aspect, the content of the class just seemed a little pointless. I don’t see how learning to write across the curriculum would cultivate students ability to write across the university. The concepts we went over in class and the readings were things that I had learned years ago and have had continuously drilled in my brain. There were many genres of writing that I just would most likely never need to use and it felt like busy work.
Overall, it was a good class and it gave me experience in writing other genres. Students were required to write an annotated bibliography that transformed into a literature review that we would later add into our finished academic article. For the annotated bibliography we were required to pick six articles and write a quick summary and analysis for each. That transformed into our literature by using the same articles we were able to compare analysis between the articles easily and form excellent ideas. The academic article was extremely hard to write, but overall, I learned to take what I had already written and transform sections and pieces of the article into a well flowing and intellectual piece. The only thing, I truly disliked about this class was the peer reviews, having a peer read it and give suggestions is not the same as getting real feedback from a professor. If I made changes to the way my peers thought was right and it wasn’t up to the professors standards, I would get grade deductions and this wouldn’t be that bad if there were clear expectations and examples to follow.
When the class moved online due to the Covid-19 there was a real lack in communication between the professor and the students and I found myself constantly confused on what assignments were due as the canvas dates and syllabus dates never matched exactly. Instead of using a zoom format and continuing in the classroom discussion like manner, we moved to writing reflections on what we had read. Which while it was fine, it lacked the same enthusiasm that made me excited to speak in class. As this class came to a close, I learned to appreciate the experience it gave me in different fields of writing.