For me, writing is a creative process that reflects objective things, expresses thoughts and feelings, and conveys knowledge and information. As an immigrant from China,  English writing is not my strong point, on the contrary, it often bothers me, my papers were usually dry and boring. In this semester, improving my writing skills is a good learning experience for me. In the beginning, I spent countless nights just staring at my computer screen, not knowing what to write. Writing for social science is a very strange field to me. However, in general, I have learned a lot. We all have strengths and weaknesses. For me, my biggest advantage is that I can learn from my mistakes and use them. Writing is a never-ending process, I made a lot of mistakes in my writing, but as the semester went on, I finally learned from my mistakes.

 

My first assignment was the personal artifact paper. I was allowed to describe the artifact that can clearly indicate my identity and the subculture that I belong to. This assignment helped me enhance my strategies for reading, drafting, revising, and editing. The peer review was very helpful when I finished my first draft. It allowed us to read peer’s papers and give our personal suggestions. I received a lot of useful suggestions to help improve my paper. The first time I realized how important peer review is for my writing. Through the discussion board, I acknowledge my and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources and draw on those resources to develop my rhetorical sensibility because we were required to review peer’s responses, and analyze things that surprise, intrigued or disturbed us. The reflection after we submit the final draft was also very helpful because we can reflect on the issues we have when we are writing and make sure we can avoid facing the same issue next time. The professor also gives great feedback on my essays, which helps enable me to do better on any other upcoming essay.

 

The second assignment was the interview paper, the purpose of this paper is to write the report and analysis according to the interview with the informant. I did not interview with my group partner because of the time conflict. As a result, I was allowed to interview with my class tutor Micheal. Michael was very excited to introduce the subculture that he belongs to, which is a dungeons & dragons player. The interview with Michael made me feel very much the same way. Because in real life I’m also a gamer.The conversation with me Michael helped me develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes. When I start writing, I also have to negotiate my own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of the genre, medium, and rhetorical situation because I have to notice the potential audience for this paper and if my opinions will offend the audience. I also learned how to use a different subheadings for different contents. This is very helpful for me to improve my article structure.

 

The third assignment was position paper, in this paper I learned how to formulate and articulate a stance through and in my writing because we need to discuss a debatable issue about the subculture that I belong to, so I should clearly indicate my specific position about the issue. This paper also required one, scholarly, peer-reviewed source, and one credible, pop culture source to support the thesis statement. Therefore, it is very important for us to know how to use various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to our writing projects. Thanks to our librarian, Emily Pagano, I learned how to find the sources by using the CCNY database. During the class, I also learned how to use the APA format for my writing and strengthen my source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources). 

 

All in all, this is a very unforgettable experience for me. City College was moving all the classes online due to fears over the spreading coronavirus. It is hard to ask someone to go from a land-based course to an online course without any previous online teaching experience. But the professor Alyssa did it, She not only taught us about English writing as usual but also spread a positive and optimistic attitude to us. It is my pleasure to have such a good professor. I hope everyone could stay safe and pass this tough period.