I have learned a lot throughout this course, picking up on new techniques for writing and better ways for analyzing other pieces of writing. Each of the phase essays has taught me something different and I have felt that my writing has only gotten stronger after each phase. 

The phase one assignment introduced me to rhetorical analysis and taught me how to blend a narrative with analysis. The assignment was straightforward and structured, which allowed me to complete the essay in a timely manner as well as create a strong writing piece that met all necessary points. The June Jordan writing piece was the perfect example of a piece blending rhetorical analysis and a narrative. June Jordan was able to use her personal experience as a story that exemplified what is “Black English”. Jordan’s essay taught me that with telling a story I can analyze parts of that story and analyze it with other texts through rhetorical analysis. Throughout my essay I would take parts of my secondary source to explain bits of my narrative, similar to the way Jordan had explained what “Black English” was but in her story it was used in the Black Lives Matter movement and her students expressed how unacceptable it was to society. Jordan’s essay not only guided me in being able to perfect the craft of blending the two styles of writing but also taught me about the oppression of language, so much so that I based my essay on AAVE (African American Vernacular English), another oppressed form of language. I explained that through personal experience I had picked up on AAVE due to my environment, but I also learned how oppressed it was because it was not accepted in all environments. AAVE is similar to Jordan’s “Black English” in the way it is spoken and shunned in most of society. My narrative told my personal experience while explaining what AAVE is through secondary sources. Although I had a strong narrative and analysis, my narrative was not as vivid or story-like, I learned that I needed more visual and isolated moments to truly put the reader in perspective while also being informative through my analysis. 

Within phase two I felt I had perfected the use of rhetorical analysis and blending different writing styles. Phase required me to write a book review on one of the fairy tales we had read and include a secondary source, and a rhetorical analysis of that source. Since this assignment was not given much structure, and I had never included a secondary source in a book review, I found it quite difficult. I chose a feminist analysis of sleeping beauty as my secondary source, so that I could write an opinionated book review on how I did not like sleep beauty due to its anti feminist values. Though I found blending the secondary source with the book review difficult, the rhetorical analysis came naturally to me due to the techniques I picked up in phase one. I used the author’s identity for the analysis to explain how as a woman she searches for feminist values and how her audience was meant for anyone wanting to learn about sleeping beauty. The book review portion allowed me to perfect the blending of two different writing styles. I used the secondary source to justify my reasoning on why I did not like the story of sleeping beauty, and used it as a second opinion. This assignment is where I began to use proper MLA format and citations, though I still had not perfected its usage because I had errors with formatting. Phase two perfected my use of rhetorical analysis and gave me the best techniques to blend different styles of writing. Though my writing still could have improved, I had a lot of summary rather than analysis and again my citations were not the best, but those were all things to learn from for my next piece of writing. 

Phase three pushed me to use all the techniques I had learned in phases one and two, allowing me to write my strongest piece. The phase three assignment was a research essay on any theme I had picked up on throughout any of the stories we had read. I chose the theme of feminism within Cinderella. For this assignment we were not only required to cite the story and one of the articles associated with the story chosen but also find 4 other secondary sources, two of which were required to be from the City College Library. I quickly learned about the importance of finding sources so that said sources would be able to not only support my argument but also are reliable. To find sources related to my topic I would just look up Cinderella and feminism, but when I would click on a source I would look at its references to be sure the source was reliable and could be used for proper research. I used rhetorical analysis to explain and analyze the sources I used, by making use of the sandwich method where I would integrate my evidence, drop the quote and then explain the quote. Whilst doing all of this I would also have to properly cite with MLA citations which I had seemingly perfected, not only within text but also in my works cited page. This essay did not require me to blend different writing styles but did push me to be a strong writer and make my argument clear and direct throughout its entirety. I made sure that even when I presented counter arguments that I would explain why said counter argument was wrong, I introduced my arguments in the introduction and made sure to tie it all together in the conclusion. 

The entirety of this semester I have picked up on many techniques that have bettered my writing, as well as taught me how to look for string pieces of writing. The techniques I have learned not only taught me how to write but also research and cite, allowing my writing to not only be strong but professional, all of which has been exemplified in the growth of my writing throughout the phases.