Core Values: The Hidden Agenda

College composition II was an amazing experience for my second semester of college. I have to admit, my writing before this class was completely awful. I have learned so much from my professor and practice in this last semester than I have for my entire schooling of composition. In the first couple days of class I was extremely nervous in writing my assignments. I needed a lot of help from others in order to perfect my writings, fortunately my professor was always there to point on my mistakes. I was taught, without even realizing it, the core values of this class and using the tools given to me by my professor, I became a better writer.

Core Value I:

This is one of the most important core values that was stressed throughout the curriculum. Our teacher made this very clear to us throughout the semester. He would constantly remind us to ask for feedback and critique on our essays if we needed it. On my assignment “The Invention of Money” I thought I had done a pretty good job on the essay. When I was in class the next day, my professor was discussing the essays and he told us that when we looked at our work again in a week that it should make us sick with how bad it would be. He then asked us for our next assignment to rewrite our essay. Feeling confident on my way back to my dorm, I was shocked to find that my essay had an even longer looking paragraph in the comments section about everything I had done wrong in my essay from the teacher. It was from this moment that I realized that even if you think that your essay is finished, it’s not. There is no such thing as final drafts. The help of others and constant revision is not optional, but required for your essay to be anywhere near publishable. This can be seen through my essays where I have relied on the guidance of others to help my essays reach their full potential.

Core Value III:

This core value to me means that words on a paper mean much more than letters. People use language to provide imagery and depth to their stories without the need of pictures or visuals. When people write about things, the infuse meaning into their words in order to get their point or ideas across to the reader, I try to do exactly this in my research paper. The goal of my research paper was to show how the Westboro Baptist church influences people to support the gay rights movement. I gave an example of a time where the Ku Klux Klan counter protested the church and people joined in with the notorious group to face up to the Westboro Baptist church. I explained the meaning of this to show how the church creates enemies when they protest and how that protesting creates opposition to their ideologies. If my essay had no meaning in it, then there would be no point in reading it in the first place.

Core Value V:

Information plays a vital role in any essay. As a physics major, science and truth is very important in my life. When someone in the physics community writes about something interesting, I end up wanting to learn more about it. An article that is lacking facts is an article I don’t want to read and it creates problems to those who are naive to not question the things that they do read. One example of this happening was when my father told me that they had built a vehicle that can go faster than the speed of light. I knew that this was impossible and was quick to find the article he read and fact checked it. It turned out to be riddled with misinformation that my father was not experienced enough to know for himself. Information plays an important role because without it, it’s honestly not worth reading.

Core Value VII:

Writing can be an extremely powerful tool. However, like a tool, it is only as good as the person using it. I take great care in what I write, I say what I mean and mean what I say. I do my best to check my facts and to not portray any falsehoods. I have witnessed first hand how writing can be used negatively in the world. There are some people in the United States that still doubt evolution even though it has been expressed as a scientific fact. The reason of this is because there are people in the world that only read what they want to believe and write essays about it. People read these essays and accept them as fact, just like my father had done about the vehicle that can go faster than light. They lie to the reader and in the process, the reader becomes confused about things that should be simple. It is for this reason that I try to stick to what I believe and give nothing but facts to my readers. If I am ever wrong about something or someone proves me wrong, I admit that I was wrong and apologize. It is our job as writers to provide this to our audience and allow the reader to leave with a greater perspective on the subject than when he first started reading.

In the end, College Composition II  taught me everything I need to become a respectable writer. The core values that I have expressed through the semester are a key note of this. Writing is an art form that cannot be learned from lectures, but must be learned from practice. Throughout all the assignments that I had done in this class,  I must say that I have had plenty of practice and as such, learned more than I could ever imagine. On the first day of class this semester, I felt nervous, however now I can finally say that I am confident in my writing capabilities and ready to show my potential.