A Writer's Journey
Planning and Exploratory Writing
Figure 1 - A piece of annotation from Jean Kilbourne's lecture, Killing Us Softly 4, during week 2.
Become more aware of and continue to improve in the Habits of Mind: Curiosity
This is one of the annotations I made on Jean Kilbourne’s lecture, Killing Us Softly 4. Her interpretations of social constructions on genders--“of normalcy, to a great extent they tell us who we are, and who we should be”--ignited my curiosity in this topic. I always think back to how Disney films define normalcy throughout films that we examined throughout the quarter.
Become more aware of and continue to improve in the Habits of Mind: Engagement
This excerpt is from my week 3 exploratory draft on analyzing characters in Beauty and the Beast (2017). Belle has completely different initiatives and attitudes toward destiny compared with primitive films. Yet, the film still does include some very traditional female gender roles. I noticed more about this pattern in other Disney films as well. As a result, this becomes my thesis for the final essay.
Figure 2 - An excerpt from my Week 3 Exploratory Draft analyzing Disney film Beauty and the Beast (2017).
Peer Review
Figure 3 - My comment for my classmate's draft thesis in week 8.
Feel more confident of your reading accuracy because you’ve improved your engaged reading habits.
This was part of a peer review comment I wrote for my classmate during week 8 for the thesis draft and essay outline. Through all the reading practices we have been doing (such as the McGill Connect close readings, peer reviews, etc.), I was able to gain more confidence in reading proficiency. For instance, I was able to notice the importance of word choice in reading my classmate’s thesis.
Understand the importance of peer review to your own reading and writing.
This is from the peer review I got for my thesis draft and outline. After reading the comment, I realized the importance of comparing the differences of Disney princesses in the three eras. This eventually became one of the major excerpts in my conclusion.
Figure 4 - An expert of the peer review I got from my classmate on my draft outline (week 8).
Self Review
Understand and practice the conventions of academic writing in exploratory discussion posts and in a formal essay.
During self-reviewing my essay, I pulled out all of my topic sentences from the body paragraphs and examined them (this is one of the exercises we have done during peer review), I noticed that they are not too well-interconnected. One change I will make to my draft is to revise them to reveal a more organized structure.
Figure 5 - One annotation I made during self review of my final essay for the "Analyze Organization" sector.
Understand the importance of self review: Learning (through peer review practice) how to become an effective editor, and then using those review skills on your own writing.
I didn’t notice that I didn’t give out sufficient details about each scene until I read my essay using the reading strategies in Connect. It appears that the context clues are too limited and make the explanations a little confusing.
Figure 6 - An response for planning the priorities of revising the essay.
Revision
Improve your ability to write prose that is readable, focused, and full of details.
This is a comparison of the before- and after-revision versions of part of my introduction. As my classmate has pointed out that my introduction contains too limited information that foreshadows the rest of the essay, I added some more details. Instead of stating that the fixed gender roles are accompanied by dynamic attitudes, I provide more details on how this pattern is expressed.
Figure 7 - A comparison of the original version and after-revision version of the same excerpt following the thesis statement in my introductory paragraph
Become more aware of and continue to improve in the Habits of Mind: Creativity
This is a revision of one of my topic sentences. As I mentioned in the “self review” section, my paragraphs do not connect very well with each other. I revised this topic sentence so that it continues the same thoughts in the paragraph before it but also summarizes the rest of the paragraph after it. Having smooth transitions would make a significant difference in the efficiency of expressing these ideas.
Figure 8 - A comparison of the before-revision version and after-revision version of my topic sentences analyzing Snow White's attitudes.