Reflective Letter

Camila Ibarra
9 June 2023
Katya Lopatko
Writing 2
New Perspectives
As I entered our classroom I wasn’t sure what to expect. All my life there was a strict
boundary between structure and writing freedom; the expectation of how things should be when
it came to writing. Being stuck in a loop of structure led to me having trouble with my
translations. Both of my writing projects had similar problems that revolved around my initial
perspective of writing. Most of the writing I did in the past years consisted of five-paragraph
essays that were mostly timed. When it came time to start my writing I would try so hard for my
essay to be good the first time around. As time went on I told myself that the first draft had to be
as perfect as possible. Yet when I got to this it made me realize that writing was more than what I
was taught. Two quotes come to mind as I write about my experience. “All good writers write
[shitty first drafts]. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts”
(Lamott, 21) and “I also think, though, that writing is made harder than it has to be when we try
to follow too many rules for writing ( Reid, 3). Unlike any other course I've taken Writing 2
taught me that the first draft is allowed to be filled with mistakes you can only grow from there.
For our first writing project, we were tasked to translate an academic article and
transform it so that our target audience would read it. I translated Gender Role Portrayal and the
Disney Princesses I chose to take this academic article and change it into something that children
could understand. I knew what audience I wanted to reach but didn't think about how
there was different type of storybooks. Some storybooks had more pictures than a word to starter
chapter books. I sat there with all my ideas, but nothing on the paper. Yet “ Knowing a genre [is]
about much more than simply knowing its form”(Dirk, 255). I needed to go beyond structure I
had to think about what really captured my audience. I kept feeling like I had ideas but wasnt
sure how to start. I kept thinking about the rules and when I would think I had something good I
kept questioning myself.
For my WP2 I chose four articles of my choice and needed to make a translation as the
audience followed a conversation between the sources. The theme for this project was
code-switching and my target audience was young adults who were bilingual. As I created my
translation I kept running into the same problem. As I was writing my first draft I noticed I was
trying to integrate all my prior knowledge into the translation yet again. This time around
allowed me to start my first draft; well… at least the outline to try to narrow down who my
audience was going to be since at first it was too general. At first, I was scared to ask for help but
as I reached out to my teacher she helped me realize that it was ok to ask questions. I was so used
to the high school format that every time I tried to be as detailed as possible since there was a lot
of information coming from the four articles. As I met with Katya we came to the conclusion that
the genre that I had picked was not the most efficient way to convey my message. When I started
putting my ideas on paper I realized that the message I had originally planned had completely
changed resulting in me changing two articles and my genre.
As I was doing revisions and edits for both my writing projects I learned to expand my
perspective on genre. It was the first time I had written this type of genre while trying to
integrate as much information from the article without overwhelming my audience. I think that
the writing freedom given to me allowed me to see writing from a different perspective to reach
my audience. One common thing that both my revision needed work on was my formatting. I
need to put myself in the shoes of the audience and see how the way I formatted it could be a bit
confusing. I need to make sure that the audience could tell the way the writing was flowing.
One big takeaway from this class is you have to start somewhere when writing. Even if
you haven't finalized your ideas you can at least have an outline of what you want to say. This
was one of the hardest things I had to adapt to. Most of the time I would want my first draft to be
my final one which lead to many spelling errors and unfinished thoughts. With these new
adaptations, I had to learn to be patient with myself because writing takes time. I couldn't expect
to get everything right the first time around. While taking this class found myself using some of
the techniques while writing a few other papers for my other classes. I started with an outline of
the paper and I started to write. The first draft was done and it would only improve from there.
Perspectives change every day. This class connected me to the words that I wrote on
paper. It turned words into a connection; A connection with the audience. I think I grew a great
amount in this class, but I do believe you can only grow with good guidance. My professor was
there when I had questions which allowed me to feel comfortable in class. In the beginning, I
also struggled with speaking up I thought that my opinion wouldn't add anything but as the class
progressed and I knew this was a place for improvement I was able to volunteer more. This was
seen a bit as I presented my Final Portfolio.

Work Cited
Dirk, Kerry.” Navigating Genres ”Writing Spaces: Readings On Writing.Parlor Press, 2010, pg
249-262
Lamott, Anne, “Shitty First Drafts.”Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New
York: Pantheon,1994, pg 21-27
Reid, Shelly E., “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musing For College Writing
Student.”Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2, 2011, pg 3-23

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Camila Ibarra

kept questioning myself.

changed resulting in me changing two articles and my genre.

seen a bit as I presented my Final Portfolio.

York: Pantheon,1994, pg 21-27

Student.”Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2, 2011, pg 3-23

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