All through my academic life I can honestly say that I despised writing and to be transparent I still despise it now. Growing up when I would write I was always given such a short leash and had no freedom when it came to doing assignments. I always felt like I had to change what I wanted to say for my teacher to like it and I never felt like it was coming directly from me. I had no interest in doing writing and would simply just wait until the last minute to do assignments and just write anything just to meet up to the word count. When I walked into class the first day, I thought I would go through the same thing and did not really expect much. But it turned out to be the opposite on the first day professor Steegmann had sort of made us interact with each other, I remember myself going up to the board to talk about myself and my name and looking around feeling brave enough to participate. She was not so harsh on our writing and made me feel like I could write my own opinion and not have to filter it just for her to like it. Like I said I still despise writing, but I can tolerate it now due to this class.

Writing has always been a way to simply talk or have a conversation for example, writing little notes on my phone or writing text messages to people I could not call, writing has always been there. The first assignment in class was to write an introduction that expressed who we are as individuals to the professor. While I was writing the assignment, I was able to talk about myself. There was not any structure given, I felt like I was communicating with my professors. Before we started writing the assignment professor Steegmann told us to write as we please and I am not going to lie, I was a little bit confused about what to write, but she explained and told us to write whatever comes to mind. That was a fantastic way to start the class. I was able to write without anybody judging me. When I got my paper, he showed me that she read my paper and enjoyed it and that I could improve with the feedback he gave me. Every time I thought I revised my work the more it felt like I did not fix it at all, but as I continued writing these assignments, I was able to make some changes with the feedback I received.  

            The learning outcome I believe that I met was enhancing strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment. When it comes to drafting it is about what your mind is telling you, it is about trusting the process, and allowing yourself to think without stopping. Drafting is to see your limitations, and your creations. When it comes to writing it’s about writing without judging or caring about what people think. It is about not worrying if you are good enough as a writer. I have always had trouble with grammar and punctuation. Grammar is something that I have not progressed in because most of the assignments I wrote were typed so the corrections were already made for me. When it comes to editing, I have learned that it is about accepting feedback, it does not matter if it is good or bad. The feedback might come from a professor, student, or myself. Editing is going over what you are working on and making changes just so your work can look better or make you a more effective writer. Editing is seeing the mistakes you made when writing your draft. Self-reflection is you looking back to see if you made any improvement. Also seeing if any changes were made and to see some challenges you faced when writing your topic and what are areas you need to work on. 

            The assignment that really made me take a jump in writing was the peer interview assignment. I had to be very descriptive about my partner that I was with and that was one of the first times that I conducted an interview and came up with my own questions. Even when writing about it I was able to just flow and go back to my notes I took about the person and just write whatever came to my head and how I wanted it to be conveyed. It made me more comfortable to write in the class and even in other classes that I took this semester

            Another learning outcome that I met was practicing field research strategies, such as observing, writing field notes, and interviewing. I was never able to do this until I got to this class. I even feel comfortable interviewing people now without help from a professor or anyone. It might be the one thing I kind of mastered and became good at. I had 3 opportunities to do so which was in the peer interview and twice in my field study. All three of these interviews had positive outcomes and made me learn something and even made me a better interviewer. I would not have been comfortable doing this without the help of Professor Steegmann and this class.