When choosing an audience and matching it to a genre, I had to keep in mind how that audience would react. As a speaker, I need to persuade my audience, for the Text Messages half of my multimodal project, I decided to come across as very casual and a wee bit comedic so that I can speak with them instead of at them. Self-analyzing my work strengthened me as a writer because it was something I was not familiar with before. It is similar to peer reviewing and editing but so much more thorough. It allowed me to literally have my work right in front of me so that I could pick it apart and see what it was worth. During the various peer reviews, I was able to talk about my work with other students as well as hear some feedback. Transitional sentences are a bit of a weakness of mine because I have a preference for just jumping into the “meat” of what I am talking about, during peer reviews, I was able to lean on my peers and improve my paragraph transitions. During the multimodal unit, my classmates and I had to analyze various genres. The components we picked apart were who each of the works were intended for, if they fit that audience, and how well they worked in various audiences. Way back in the CCNY 1969 Project Unit, I navigated a module full of really old sources so that I could piece together my Opinion Editorial on the CCNY protest. Outside of that, I mainly gathered evidence from sites like JSTOR, but also more fun ones like Philosophybro.com.

I learned to appreciate other forms of media, which is a common theme in my reflections but it just comes back each time harder and harder than before. For the multimodal projects, I saw a sticker and a trailer, not once did I ever consider these to be something I would do a project in school on, outside of some art or video class of course. I also developed a little bit professionally I would say. I remember during the first peer review for the CCNY project OpEd, I came into peer review and sat with my friends, I left that peer review session with as much as I had when class started. For the second peer review, I decided to sit away from them so that I can prioritize my work. Outside of class, I often dedicate time after school to do work but often end up hanging out with my friends instead. Seeing it right in front of my face really brought it all to the surface, now when it is crunch time I tell my friends I am off to study in the library or to do an assignment so I do not spend my time playing UNO instead.

I want to further develop my peer reviewing skills, and actually use what I learned here. Going line by line and analyzing everything in a project is very useful to the author in their editing process. The more social aspects of writing are very important as other writing is oftentimes a part of my audience so it is good to know how they see my work so I can make changes to better accommodate them. I also will be further developing my drafting, a bad draft made early is definitely going to be my way to go from now on.

For the CCNY 1969 Protest, I read a bunch of the documents inside and learned a ton about the historic protest. Afterward, my classmates and I compared notes. We each went around and shared what information we felt was important, as well as how it made each of us feel. This lets us learn more about each of the sources as well as confirm our own thoughts on each piece. When it came to actually writing my OpEd, I chose the 5 Demands since it was what I felt most opinionated on and it was an opinion editorial. Then came peer reviews, I emphasized what the critics liked and worked on what they did not, if I saw eye to eye with them. Moving forward, I will be keeping the sharing part. The 1969 Project had a ton of information and it will not be the last time I will be working on a project that has a ton of information that I do not want to comb through.

As a psychology major, I was a bit finicky about choosing to do Writing for the Humanities and the Arts instead of Social Sciences since that one would probably help me more with APA, as well as introduce me to more people in the psychology department. I am glad I chose this class instead because I learned a lot about the writing process in general. As for APA, I learned all about that in my Experimental Psychology course so I doubt I missed anything that I would have learned there. I also had the pleasure of meeting a lot of interesting people in this class and learning a lot about them. I was introduced to Y Tu Mama Tambien, a Mexican movie from the early 2000s that has amazing actors and tells a story about these two friends who are caught in a love triangle with an older woman, featuring a hilarious road trip and Mexican Spanish(of course). I was also introduced to Sweeny Todd, I have not yet seen it but from what I remember it has a rating of a million out of five and is a horror musical. I am definitely going to see it in winter break because the classmate-made trailer piqued my interest and I love horror and musicals, so why not have them together? It could be the new peanut butter and chocolate (great metaphor even though I hate peanut butter D:),