Diana Cruz 

Professor Conroy

English 11000

8 December 2019

Theory of Writing 

     Coming into this English Freshman Composition class I didn’t have an understanding of what a Theory of Writing was and never had to think about whether I had one or not. For so many years, I had just written countless essays with the mere motive of just getting them done. I knew there was an efficient way for me to write my essays but for the most part, I never wrote them as best as I could. This was due to me always procrastinating and waiting until the last minute to hand things in. I barely ever gave myself the opportunity to brainstorm properly before essays. This leads me to my Theory of Writing. My Theory of Writing is that brainstorming in a tranquil area while listening to white noise integral to my writing process. Without brainstorming, my writing is much more inefficient. Brainstorming is so important because it’s the primary method I use to get ideas flowing for my essays. Without it, I’m left with a horrible writer’s block. Ironically, I usually don’t brainstorm when I’m rushing, but I waste more time in this manner because I can’t form my ideas quickly. When rushing, I enter into a state of panic and end up getting so invested with getting to the destination- completing my assignment that I usually don’t end up focusing on the journey; in which I have a well-rounded essay. 

     When having to brainstorm before an essay I used to have this stigma surrounding it. Even though I knew brainstorming was a crucial part of my writing process but I would be hesitant to do it, especially in front of people. Seeing people jump straight into essays without having to preplan always made me feel like I was one step back in the back of everyone. But low and behold not brainstorming sidetracked me even more. I wouldn’t be able to get any ideas flowing when I would have to write on demand causing me to rush and perform poorly. Sometimes teachers would also dismiss the brainstorming part of the writing process as not being necessary which would cause me to have a lot of frustration. In one instance in 11th grade in my Global History class, we were given the task to work on an essay in class. My class was divided between students who needed extra help due to them being English Second Language students and those who were native English speakers. In the class, the English Second Language students were encouraged to brainstorm before writing their essay whereas the other students were encouraged to just start their essay as he thought brainstorming was unnecessary. I would just go with the flow because I thought feeling the need to brainstorm was wrong. This encouraged me to keep on overlooking the brainstorming process.

     During my time in English Freshman Composition, we did a lot of brainstorming before a big assignment. For me, that was relieving and reminded me of how much brainstorming can help me. Brainstorming allows me to not have to focus on whether what I write is grammatically correct or sounds the best. Its goal is to get the most unfiltered thoughts out to lead one in the right direction. Also, doing it in a classroom setting as a mandatory task helped alleviate the idea of admitting that I needed to do it because it was something the Professor believed as being crucial to the writing process as well. It wasn’t something that was overlooked and seen as unnecessary. 

     Listening to white noise in a tranquil space sets the mood for me to work successfully. I am someone who gets distracted by little noises easily. White noise is a random noise that has a flat spectral density. I can only listen to white noise instead of a favorite song even if its calm because songs have so many different sounds, beats and words that I get distracted and can’t focus on my thoughts and the music drowns it out. White noise, however, allows me to not have to worry about words, beats, or sounds as it is just one consistent sound. The perfect space for me to be able to focus on is a quiet floor in a library or in my room in which all noise is drowned out. In a place such as the 3rd-floor library in NAC, I can’t focus for the life of me even if there are study rooms. This is due to any noise such as constant chatter, causing me to focus on whatever the chatter is instead of hearing myself. This then causes me to lose my train of thought. 

     Throughout, my time in English Freshman Composition I learned a lot such as rhetorical situation. Our first essays focus was a Source-Based one. In this essay, we had to choose a topic of interest and analyze different pieces of media. Such as academic journals and social media posts. I chose to write about the idea When analyzing each source we had to find the rhetorical terms including author, audience, genre, media, tone, stance language, and purpose. Before writing this essay we were given an assignment in which we read a comic strip called “Research: More Than Detective Work,” Understanding Rhetoric. After we had read the comic we had to fill out a worksheet in which we looked for all the key rhetorical terms. Doing this assignment helped me significantly when writing my Source-Based Essay. I used the same worksheet and looked for all my rhetorical terms for my articles and wrote them in this worksheet. This way all I had to do when writing my analysis for my essay was look back at the worksheet. This step made things easy for me as I was able to use the worksheet to have an outline of what my essay would look like without getting blindsided. Throughout both assignments, the rhetorical term that stuck with me the most was genre. Having done these assignments led me to understand that genre isn’t just a label you put on books such as putting things into nonfiction versus fiction categories. Genre is the form of one’s writing and is determined by one’s audience and purpose. 

     The Inquiry-Based Research essay is where I struggled the most. My inquiry-based question was “Should Parents Determine Whether a Hearing Impaired Child gets a Cochlear Implant?” I struggled the most with this essay due to me not understanding the task properly until the very last few days before the assignment was due as well as just procrastinating and getting stuck in so many other things aside from this assignment. Finding all of the documents I needed to be able to support my question was pretty hard but eventually, I was able to overcome it. 

     At first, when given the task of having to compose two genres on my topic I was stumped. I wasn’t sure which genres to choose that would be effective for parents ( my audience). I eventually decided on a comic strip as one of which might sound infantile, but when deciding I wanted it to be my genre I thought of it as being an easy gateway for parents to get an idea of what a child with a cochlear implant might face. The second genre was a poster that describes the pros and cons of a cochlear implant which had a lot of information parents could benefit from.

     A piece of writing aside from the ones given in Freshman English Composition in which my theory of writing shaped my writing was my college essay. My essay was on why one should not rush growing up and instead cherish their youth. Before writing the essay I just free wrote on a piece of loose-leaf any ideas that came from my head. Brainstorming helped me to compose my essay efficiently and get any ideas that I wouldn’t get from just trying to write an essay on the spot.

     Coming into this English class I was pretty scared. I wasn’t sure what was gonna be expected of me coming into this class aside from the idea that I had assumed that I had to know how to write in an academic voice. I wasn’t sure if we were gonna write essays on demand for every class. Before this class, I had always thought that writing to please the audience and writing things in the most eloquent way possible was the most important thing for school but after being in this class I learned to not belittle my own voice. That, an academic voice is important but being able to mix your personal voice with an academic voice is most important. I also learned to not diminish whatever process helps you to write effectively to accommodate to your needs. I learned a lot more than I thought I would because during class we took time to understand each component asked which was something I highly appreciated.