Reflective Essay On Teaching Writing, Rhetoric, And American Culture

One semester and it is all over. We have been given this limited amount of time to learn valued writing traits to take with us the rest of our college career. Teaching “Writing, Rhetoric, and American Culture” with the theme of “Women in America” seems to be no easy feat for any professor, but somehow this class has taught me much more than any of my previous high school courses. Maybe it is the condensed amount of time to teach us the in’s and out’s of writing and femininity that makes the curriculum so effective. I invite you to think about what we have been taught in broader themes. Not only have techniques been highlighted in the course, but also individuality. Everyone makes mistakes, but before taking this course it was never expressed to me that it was just a step on the long staircase to making a
As stated in the syllabus, as a part of our curriculum we will be able to “Demonstrate an understanding of writing as an epistemic and recursive process” (Quinn 11). When going over this syllabus on the first day of class I remember the words epistemic and recursive specifically being pointed out. Of course, on day one we had little to know clue how relevant these words would be to what we have done throughout the course of the semester. With each project this class has completed, we have taken some aspect of our previous work to carry on to our next endeavor. Us as students have been given the chance five times now in WRA 140 to really figure out the “OFT”, as Professor Carol Quinn would phrase it. The “one freaking thing” has been mentioned continuously throughout the course to encourage us to think beyond simply ink on a piece of paper. When taking a step back, an overall theme you might consider to be true is that this course is more than just its title “Writing, Rhetoric, and American Culture: Women in