The final year
My public speaking skills, in fact, have helped me become a better writing tutor. I became a writing tutor during my first year at NICC. After transferring to Loras and earning a position as writing tutor at the Loras College Writing Center, I continued to evaluate other students’ viewpoints and share my own constructive feedback to help them grow as writers. In addition, I used my skills as a thoughtful, active contributor during class to help me develop a deeper connection with my peers’ creative works. Forging this emotional, intellectual connection motivated me to apply for the position as Poetry Editor at Catfish Creek, a national undergraduate literary journal. I created a formal letter of application for Professor Jablonsky, the journal’s supervisor. After researching the best way to organize the letter, I spent an ample amount of time choosing the best information to describe my qualifications, including my past literary acceptances to the journal Gallery, operated by the Dubuque Area Writers Guild. Professor Jablonsky hired me soon after. Without the public speaking skills I learned in the semesters beforehand, I would not have been able to excel as a writing tutor, editor, and a proponent of reflection and revision, core aspects of the writing process. Just like before, I ventured forward into my studies, extrapolating a deeper insight into the importance of my education and its impact on me as a writer.
***
Other than my stressful sexuality and democracy classes at Loras, my J-Term course invoked an inordinate amount of stress in my life. Regardless, the class called Revision, Editing and Publishing taught me to use active learning and reflective thinking to help me grow significantly as a short story writer. Before the class, teachers have praised me for my dedication, fervor, and talent for writing. My time during J-Term reminded me that I still had (and still have) much to learn about the craft. The point of the class is to teach students how to become better at revising and editing their work, effectively preparing them to submit their work to journals and magazines for potential publication. I submitted two of my short stories to my class, essentially a month-long workshop course. My classmates and teacher decided that me stories were convoluted tales devoid of proper characterization and verisimilitude. As a result, to pass the class, I had to take an active approach in the way I processed, or reflected, upon my classmates’ suggestion before moving forward with strong edits.
In fact, the drafts lacked so much promise, I resulted in rewriting the stories from scratch, keeping only a few plot points from each story. Starting from the beginning each time led me to feel insecure about my work: I cried at home during most of J-Term, feeling like a pathetic novice in a community of adept authors. But as I have told the writers who visit me at the Loras College Writing Center, passing and learning as much as you can from a particularly challenging course will prove how vital perseverance can be in your life. I carried this sentiment from elementary school, I would later conclude. Despite the mental anguish, I revised my work and passed the class with an A-minus. My short story “The Calf” has undergone an extensive metamorphous, the conflict rendered much clearer and the pacing adjusted to display the proper characterization of the narrative’s protagonist and antagonist, a wife and husband respectively. The final version of “The Calf” was accepted by the Limestone Review, Loras College’s literary journal. The acceptance showed me that success sometimes comes after great turmoil, that active learning and reflective thinking can help writers understand their limitations without feeling bound by them. Since J-Term, I have become more humble and confident in my work and myself as a student, tutor, and editor.
To further use my creativity and ingenuity to reaffirm how much I have learned, I enrolled in Criminology, knowing from me peers at the Writing Center that my teacher will assign each person in the class to write an essay and compose a PowerPoint over a crime of our choosing. I chose to discuss child pornography. By using the knowledge I have accumulated over the years, I created a plan to help me compose the essay and PowerPoint, referring to me other essays and PowerPoints as guides. (Since I received an A for my Educational Psychology PowerPoint, I designed my criminology PowerPoint after that.) The essay and PowerPoint together took me almost a month and a half to complete, from finding sources to compiling and organizing my expanse of research into a brief eight pages. I consulted with a fellow tutor at the Writing Center twice to help me polish my essay and PowerPoint. By answering the tutor’s questions in an open-minded dialogue, I learned the best way to present my information and prepare for my PowerPoint presentation, a ten-minute speech showing what research I have found on my subject. By using active learning and reflective thinking throughout the writing process for both assignments, I completed and rehearsed my PowerPoint almost a half a dozen times before my presentation day. Ultimately, I earned A’s for both assignments and praise from my teacher.
***
***
Other than my stressful sexuality and democracy classes at Loras, my J-Term course invoked an inordinate amount of stress in my life. Regardless, the class called Revision, Editing and Publishing taught me to use active learning and reflective thinking to help me grow significantly as a short story writer. Before the class, teachers have praised me for my dedication, fervor, and talent for writing. My time during J-Term reminded me that I still had (and still have) much to learn about the craft. The point of the class is to teach students how to become better at revising and editing their work, effectively preparing them to submit their work to journals and magazines for potential publication. I submitted two of my short stories to my class, essentially a month-long workshop course. My classmates and teacher decided that me stories were convoluted tales devoid of proper characterization and verisimilitude. As a result, to pass the class, I had to take an active approach in the way I processed, or reflected, upon my classmates’ suggestion before moving forward with strong edits.
In fact, the drafts lacked so much promise, I resulted in rewriting the stories from scratch, keeping only a few plot points from each story. Starting from the beginning each time led me to feel insecure about my work: I cried at home during most of J-Term, feeling like a pathetic novice in a community of adept authors. But as I have told the writers who visit me at the Loras College Writing Center, passing and learning as much as you can from a particularly challenging course will prove how vital perseverance can be in your life. I carried this sentiment from elementary school, I would later conclude. Despite the mental anguish, I revised my work and passed the class with an A-minus. My short story “The Calf” has undergone an extensive metamorphous, the conflict rendered much clearer and the pacing adjusted to display the proper characterization of the narrative’s protagonist and antagonist, a wife and husband respectively. The final version of “The Calf” was accepted by the Limestone Review, Loras College’s literary journal. The acceptance showed me that success sometimes comes after great turmoil, that active learning and reflective thinking can help writers understand their limitations without feeling bound by them. Since J-Term, I have become more humble and confident in my work and myself as a student, tutor, and editor.
To further use my creativity and ingenuity to reaffirm how much I have learned, I enrolled in Criminology, knowing from me peers at the Writing Center that my teacher will assign each person in the class to write an essay and compose a PowerPoint over a crime of our choosing. I chose to discuss child pornography. By using the knowledge I have accumulated over the years, I created a plan to help me compose the essay and PowerPoint, referring to me other essays and PowerPoints as guides. (Since I received an A for my Educational Psychology PowerPoint, I designed my criminology PowerPoint after that.) The essay and PowerPoint together took me almost a month and a half to complete, from finding sources to compiling and organizing my expanse of research into a brief eight pages. I consulted with a fellow tutor at the Writing Center twice to help me polish my essay and PowerPoint. By answering the tutor’s questions in an open-minded dialogue, I learned the best way to present my information and prepare for my PowerPoint presentation, a ten-minute speech showing what research I have found on my subject. By using active learning and reflective thinking throughout the writing process for both assignments, I completed and rehearsed my PowerPoint almost a half a dozen times before my presentation day. Ultimately, I earned A’s for both assignments and praise from my teacher.
***
butlett--the_calf.pdf | |
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butlett_criminology_research_paper.pdf | |
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