Final Reflection
"Show your work." This book encapsulates the goal of this class throughout the year. Rather than taking anything at face value, it is always worth it to analyze deeper, find the connections, find the outcome. Throughout the year, we have developed upon our analytical skills and determined our own styles of writing. We have practiced our skills through rhetorical strategies, Strong sources, and concise yet compact information; All done in order to pave a pathway for refined, precise, and engaging pieces of literature.
On Substack, we made multiple posts, deciding our topics and determining our writing style. I was able to find a variety of unique writers which allowed me to curate my feed to the style of writing that I most resonated with. This style of learning through others is a significant species of learning which has greatly assisted with my style of academic writing. As I read and analyzed different posts, the flow of my Substacks were certainly influenced, however the information contained were my own ideas and inquiries. Of course, not all my posts were significant, nor were they good. For my first post, uninspired, I wrote a post about procrastination... I'll discuss that mistake later. However, as we continued to write more posts, I began to become more expressive, leading up to my final Substack, "Vibrant Community vs. American Suburbia" which ultimately denotes the comparison between the lifeless style of American housing in comparison to the more tight-knit communities located in my hometown/country, Taiwan. The greatest achievement from my Substack journey was the feeling of victory when my piece of writing tied for first following an in-class peer review. My work paid off, and ultimately, through the repetition and exposure, I have developed not only a strong writing style, but one that also conveys expression and passion.
Alongside the substacks, we have also written many SQUIDD inquiries, were we have always followed the premise of "Pay Attention, Be Astonished, Tell about it, Suprise me." However, another significant SQUIDD entry that I remember is the "Show your Work," where we learned important writing and analytical skills. Through the book, it not only taught how to analyze and what to look for, but it also prepares us for the future. Don't just describe what a thing is doing, but tell what it will result in, what it will lead to. This is the significance. I have been applying this to my writings and it has definitely strengthened my writing skills and will continue to do so with more practice in analyzing and writing simply put.
Overall, throughout this year we have done many forms of practice, homing in on our style and strengthening it. These are only two of the many examples in which we have developed both writing and analytical skills and in just this year my skills in these crafts have reached a new high still rising.
Works Cited
Kleon, Austin. Show Your Work!. New York City, New York: Workman Publishing Company, 2014.
Oliver, Mary. “Sometimes.” Read a Little Poetry, 10 Sept. 2014,
readalittlepoetry.com/2014/09/10/sometimes-by-mary-oliver/.