Week One & Two Response

When I saw the course theme in my email inbox before we started instruction, I was nervous and stressed out. Are you kidding me? Modern horror? I questioned myself. How am I going to write spooky stories if I've never been interested in horror? However, as we continued our discussions, I am now less worried. Believe it or not, I am quite excited to see what I can accomplish by the end of the quarter.

One of the biggest struggles I encountered so far is the rhetorical analysis. I was never good at analyzing. Usually, I just read whatever is assigned by the instructor and call it good. I don't think about the meanings behind the content. But now, I have to analyze every piece that I read. It is a huge challenge for me and I'm still getting used to the idea of rhetorical analysis. For me, I sometimes have difficulties with understanding the author's intentions behind the words.

Another challenge I am facing is lack of ideas. Sometimes I would stare at the computer screen for an hour but still has nothing in mind. Somehow, I just cannot find creativity. In other situations, I know what I want to argue but I cannot find a way to start, or express my opinions. To be honest, I don't think there is a particular solution for this. I just simply need more practices with writing in order to improve my skills as a writer.

In the past two weeks of the course, we have wrote many discussions including a peer review, video/film responses, two-sentence horror stories, and etc. I realized that I'm starting to pay more attention to the words I use in my writing. By "words", I mean little details. For instance, in the two-sentence horror stories exercise, which was my favorite assignment. I used descriptive language such as "intently", "staring", and "push" to emphasize the actions. I feel that now I need to think differently than before when I write. Something that surprised me is that I've never thought that two-sentences stories could be so powerful! Some of them are terrifying and really make me cringe. It was fascinating to see how language can have such a great impact to us. I could almost picture them in my mind. I guess it is called the art-horror effect.

As the quarter continues, I hope to learn small things from each assignment and become a better writer!