Reflecting On My Writing

 As I began writing my first interpretive essay I struggled with what was expected of me as a writer which led me to over-think what my rhetorical audience should be. Because of this I had trouble defining my purpose as well as my context, medium and strategy. My instructor said; "This draft is impressive, considering that you had a bit of a rough start figuring out what I was going for in the thesis/statement of purpose assignment." It wasn't until my revision that I realized that I can use Kalman's essay as a structural model in which I could write my essay. By looking at how she interpreted the world around her gave me insight on how I should interpret her essay. This allowed me to understand my purpose, context, audience and gave me a sense of what my medium should be. I used this same strategy with my next two essays.


For the Neufeld essay I discovered that my essay should convey the disgust the comic made me feel when I read  it. It made me feel a sense of disgust toward our government, our media, and disgust of what society feels about the lower class or those below the poverty line - that they are just not that important. Because this was a comic though I felt a strange need to mention the colors that he used. I thought that I should demonstrate how these colors blended with the story that he told, how effective his drawings were and how his characters sprung to life. I think these things were effective and influential in telling his story. 


Junod's article was a little more difficult though. I had a hard time figuring out what I want to mention because he gave us so much material to work with. My purpose was clear - I didn't want the Falling Man to be forgotten either. Junod's article was touching and inspirational and I wanted to make sure that this essay would give my audience the same remarkable feelings that Junod gave me. This I used for my strategy. Figuring out my context for this would be a challenge because again, there was so much to work with! So to stay in context I made sure to only mention what I could use to convey the points in my essay. I also had the pleasure of quoting Junod in different ways which made the essay a little more fun to write because I got to play with different quoting techniques. 


As long as I keep these same strategies and techniques in mind, I am sure I will be able to continue writing with the same degree of influence and inspiration as these talented writers. 


Keep your pencils sharp and your wit sharper.