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Throughout my whole education, writing essay’s seemed to be an easy task. Although it’s never easy at first. My typical routine starts with overthinking on a topic to write about. The more daunting task is figuring out how to start the essay. I can sit in front of my computer and have writer’s block for about 10 minutes’ tops. The most rewarding feeling, is getting into the writing zone where my ideas start flowing out of me. It seemed to be the same routine every time I sat down to write an essay. However, College Writing II gave me a different perspective on the writing process.

I write my essay’s in the most traditional way. I start with my introduction, and follow an outline with main points, sub-points, a few citations maybe, and a conclusion. My overall passing grades on these essays’ didn’t really give me much thought on how I tend to write them. I considered myself an okay writer, which meant I was able to hand in an assignment that gave me a grade I was able to live with.

Initially, I thought College Writing II was going to be like any other writing course. I was expecting on writing essay’s after essay’s. At the beginning of the semester when we were asked to define rhetoric, I thought that was it. I learned that you can’t just stop there, rhetoric is used every day in our daily lives. At first, I struggled to understand the point of using rhetoric.

For my first draft in the Selfie Summary and Analysis, I had a hard time writing a reflective analysis. How was I supposed to write a 3-6-page summary of a short paragraph? Through class discussion and peer review, I started to get more of an idea of over analyzing one direct quote. It seemed to come easy to Dr. Kyburz to have a more complex thought and analysis over one quote. As I realized in my writing, I am more straightforward and I never really give much thought to something. If I find a quote that sounds useful, I cite it, paraphrase and continue. From this assignment, I learned to find different meanings and to think more complex on something that I once thought was straightforward. I also learned that you cannot just cite a quote and move on from there, a critical thinking analysis should follow.

From this learning experience, it made a significant different to my approach on the Rational Argument. The topic I chose to talk about was ADHD and the implications of treatment. I have written essay’s in the past on this topic, however, I enjoyed writing this one in particular. In the past, most of my main points came from direct sources. It would be mostly informative and have a formal tone. The purpose of this assignment was to articulate the complexity of an issue, and to work on creating a more complex argument. My first draft was exactly like the essay’s I have written before, it was an explanation of the disorder by psychologists. Once I realized how boring it was to be writing the same thing, I went back to add in rhetorical analysis. Instead of writing an informative essay on the disorder itself, I brought up a more complicated understanding of problematic questions I have come across regarding the topic of ADHD. Such as:

Why are kids being classified as having signs of ADHD when the symptoms sound like a typical child’s behavior?

Is prescribing Adderall or Ritalin to suppress their behaviors really benefiting them, or does it make it easier for the caregiver to deal with a hyper active child?

And one that truly hit’s close to some, why some students resort to taking a non-prescribed stimulant to enhance their academic performance.

I enjoyed the Rational Argument the most because it wasn’t just about arguing one side. I learned to articulate my own ideas and opinions in a complex issue. I found myself finding answers to these problematic questions, rather than just paraphrasing a viewpoint from one psychologist. I enjoyed digging in deeper and illustrating a different form of understanding.

Overall, this course has taught me that there is more to writing than just wanting to achieve a passing grade. Putting in extra thought with critical thinking makes the process more enjoyable, as well as having a stronger standpoint. I’d like to have more of an open mind, and learning new outcomes benefit’s me as a writer.

Cuerdas. "Strings"

Even though this short film is in Spanish, it speaks for itself. One day it showed up in my timeline on Facebook from a family member who shared the post. After watching it I shed a few tears :( Im sharing this video with you guys to get you into your feelings.

Process of making the Multimodal

I have never used YouTube editor, which made it a lot harder to edit the video. Once I figured out how to upload each video, it was only a matter of playing around with the edits. Once I finished adding the transitions my video was only at 22 seconds. I was sure the project had to be at least 30 seconds. I decided to google a picture of textbooks, and a I chose the picture with a textbook that has a "used" sticker on it. I felt that the image gave a hint to the solution of buying expensive textbooks. It's cheaper when you buy a used textbook, or when you rent one. I used the same picture in the start and the end of my video. The filter I used in the end was called haunt. It sounded fitting because I am haunted by these expensive textbooks.

Interviews

I decided to interview two of my close friends, and three co-workers. When I asked them if they wanted to be apart of my video, they all asked, "What is it about?" I wanted to capture their reactions first rather than their answers. Everyone was interviewed separately without anyone knowing what the question was going to be. These recordings were taken on the first shot, no one had time to rehearse their answers. I found it quite amusing to see them so nervous, but their reactions was what I was looking for.

Introduction to the Multimodal

So after having a hard time writing the microtheme, the multimodal is assigned. I didn't really know how creative I was going to get with the topic of my microtheme. I thought of changing my topic and do my video on something else. However, it was highly encouraged that we stay in our topics. My first idea was to go and record in the Lewis bookstore. I just didn't know what emotions were going to come out from that. Dr. Kyrbuz gave the helpful advice of interviewing a couple of friends. I decided on taking that approach with the Multimodal.

Microtheme

I didn't realize how hard it was to write this Microtheme until I actually sat down to do it. In addition to it only needing to be a page long, I wasn't sure if it made it easier or harder. I guess I was just overthinking it. Since that's something that I tend to do with most of my assignments. After reading some of the sample essays I started to think of some topics that I thought would be interesting to write about. Then I remembered back in my freshmen year in college, I bought all of my required texts before classes even started. As I was sitting in my first class, my Essay professor was going over the syllabus. I remember he picked up the textbook and said, "To be honest, we won't really be using these." I decided to write my microtheme on students wasting money from buying expensive textbooks that they sometime's don't use in their classes.

Reflection on Cartel Land

The documentary I chose to summarize was Cartel Land, directed by Matthew Heineman. The reason I chose this documentary was because I felt like I had some sort of background knowledge on the violent crimes happening in Mexico.

      The scene that stunned me was the interview with Nicolás Sierra Santana. In his interview he mentioned how he was one of the leaders of the vigilante group los Autodefensas, a leader of the Rural Defense Force, and also a member of Los Viagras. It was an eye opener to see how corrupt the police force must be, to have a cartel members be involved.

            It surprised me to see that this is the kind of corruption taking place in Mexico. The documentary tells stories of some on the crimes the cartel commits and it honestly scares me to the core. Mostly because my family and I are from Michoacán, where the documentary takes place. Now I have that constant paranoia every time one of my family members fly out there.

            As I said before, I had some sort of background knowledge of what was going on in Mexico. However, I never had the full details. After seeing this documentary, I question how corrupted the government must be. As well as what is the president doing in this situation? I’ve heard of Mexico being corrupted, but I didn’t imagine it like this.

Some of the problematic concepts I saw in the film was obviously, how are the cartel members able to have positions in the police force? During the film, there are scenes where the President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, speaks on behalf of the violence. However, none of the citizens take him seriously. I question what is the President doing about the crimes and why do Mexicans hate him so much? One of the main characters in the film was Dr. José Manuel Mireles who was the one who started the vigilante group Los Autodefensas. He was put in prison for weapon charges but some believe the government put him there in a way to shut him up.  In addition, I would like to do further research on human drug trafficker’s in the border, since the documentary also touches base on that.