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Saho King
Dr. Lynda Haas
Writing 39B
2 June 2014
Final Reflection Essay
While I have always enjoyed reading, writing has never been my strong suit. I would not
necessary say that I am bad at writing, but it was never something that I truly enjoyed. Needless
to say, I was not looking forward to a quarter of writing essays. However, after an eventful ten
weeks, I can say with certainty that Writing 39B was an enriching learning experience that has
not only made me a better writer, but also a better communicator. In our class taught by Dr. Haas,
the theme was Sherlock Holmes and we concentrated on the history and development of the detective
genre and how it has been modified to appeal to the modern audience. Throughout the quarter, we
practiced critical reading and rhetorical analysis of a number of stories written by Sir Author Conan
Doyle, including The Sign of Four, The Final Problem, and The Scandal in Bohemia, and of a few
modern TV and film adaptations. The major focus of the course was the numerous conventions of the
detective genre developed and standardized by Doyle in the Victorian Era, including that of various
characters and plotlines. For the multimodal adaptations, we analyzed the use of cinematic elements to
depict the conventions. Dr. Haas also placed importance on group work, oral presentations,
comprehension of scholarly articles, and academic writing. Throughout the course, we worked on
developing several habits of mind, including curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, among many
others.
In the very first week of class, we were assigned an Intro to Me presentation. While I
was initially hesitant, it ended up being a great way to get to know one another and I think it
created a friendlier learning environment. One of my favorite parts of this class was reading The
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Sign of Four and the numerous short stories written by Doyle for the first time. There is so much
more detail and depth that comes from actually reading the stories rather than watching them and
I was able to gain more insight into the characters, Holmes and Watson. Furthermore, I enjoyed
reading the scholarly articles. Although some of them were difficult to read and understand at
first, it was interesting to read a scholars in-depth analysis of Doyles work and gain different
perspectives and opinions. Furthermore, analyzing the sources was a good practice for critical
thinking as we had to identify and evaluate their arguments and reflect how they relate to that of
other scholars.
Throughout the quarter, we were assigned numerous group presentations. The first group
project was on the Victorian Era and its effect the development of the detective genre. My group
created a PowerPoint presentation to teach the rest of the class about the gender roles during that
period. This was an interesting topic because the gender roles have changed vastly since then; we
covered points such as marriage, gender identity, class, and lifestyle. This assignment gave me a
chance to get to know my group members and to build a foundation of knowledge that was
essential for the rest of the quarter. It also peaked my curiosity to know more about Sherlock
Holmes. I think my group worked well together because everyone was very motivated and had a
desire to learn more about the topic. We communicated through Facebook and made our
presentation on Google Drive so that we could all collaborate. Even though we had our
individual responsibilities, we helped each other refine the slides. One of the challenges that we
faced was dividing our topic into four distinct sections for each member to work on. We also had
difficulty finding specific examples of relevance with The Sign of Four. When working in a
group setting, I think it is important to be flexible and have the ability to adapt to different
situations, expectations, and demands. Also, to succeed in doing group work, each member needs
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to be responsible for his or her own part. For this presentation, I had to take responsibility for my
section because not doing so would affect not just myself, but everyone else in my group. It was
nice to see how each group presented so that I could get a better understanding on what a good
presentation looks like. In particular, I learned the importance of eye contact, simplicity of slides,
and visual aids. Oral presentations have never been my strong suit, but it was not something that
I could avoid in this course. While I am still not great at public spearing, I am grateful that I had
the opportunity to practice the skill because it is not something that only gets better with practice.
From the presentations, I learned to be persistent with developing my public speaking skills and I
realized the importance of practicing out loud before the actual presentation, as mentioned in the
Oral Presentations chapter in the SmartBook.
For the RIP Seminar, I was in the group that was responsible for creating and performing
an original play. To prepare for the performance, our group first brainstormed ideas and came to
an agreement on the plotline and characters. After the scriptwriters wrote the rough draft of the
script, I made some edits to the script and added some well-known quotations from Doyles
classic Sherlock Holmes stories that enforced the different conventions. Before the performance,
everyone was responsible for memorizing their lines and we met as a group a couple of times
before the seminar to practice and figure out the details and the flow of the play. During the
seminar, I played the role of the victims boyfriend and the murderers sister. My character calls
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to request an investigation because she was told by the police
that her boyfriend committed suicide. As many things come to light during the investigation, I
eventually become one of the suspects.
Our group collaborated very well and worked efficiently. Google Drive and Facebook
were very helpful tools when we were making the original mystery play because we could all
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work on it at the same time. However, we had some trouble deciding on the plot of our play
because everyone had their own opinions and wanted something slightly different. This was
when the habit of openness was crucial. We all had to be willing to consider different ideas and
opinions. Also since we didnt have much time, not everyones ideas could be incorporated into
the play. Throughout this process, I realized that it is much easier working in a smaller group
than a larger one. At times, it was unclear who was working on what and what needed to be
done. As a result, communication and flexibility were very important during the preparation of
the RIP Seminar. We had to adapt to various situations, expectations, and demands. Furthermore,
responsibility was a habit of mind that everyone had to practice because we all had crucial roles
to play, such as memorizing our lines, in both the preparation and presentation of the seminar.
I felt that our classs presentation went very well and was very engaging. I think the three
different parts of the seminar came together nicely to give the other students a very good
understanding of the mystery/detective genre. We were all professional and did a nice job
presenting in front of an unfamiliar audience. I thought my group did a good job engaging the
audience and the whodunit internet poll was a good way to draw the students in and to make
them think about the mystery and participate in the crime solving process. Although our play
went very well, I was very nervous and had trouble staying in character and not smiling towards
the end of the play. Over all, I am really happy with how our presentation went and the RIP
Seminar was a great experience. I ended up enjoying the RIP Seminar more than I had expected.
I was reluctant at first because I did not sign up for the play group and had no former experience
with acting unlike many of my other group members. But in the end, the project made me step
out of my comfort zone and challenged me to develop my creativity. The other class also did a
wonderful job on their seminar and all of their short horror films were very entertaining and well
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done. While I enjoyed watching the short movies, it would have been better and more organized
if they had formatted their presentation like we did because I would have liked to know more
about the history of the horror films and its conventions.
A major focus of the course was on writing academic essays and the process of revision.
We learned about this through both practice and an interactive online program on Connect called
the SmartBook. We used it to read a few chapters, including Reading Critically and the Art of
Questioning, Editing Fundamentals, and Writing Portfolios. Throughout the course, I
learned the importance and helpfulness of peer reviews. Not only does it give the writer
feedback, a peer review forces the reviewer to really think about the requirements and provides
different ideas on how to approach the topic. I chose my Literature Review Essay to take to a
full-length final draft for the ePortfolio because I had a better understanding of the prompt and
clearer ideas than for the RA Essay. Looking over the peer reviews and Dr. Haas comments
were very helpful when creating a revision strategy for this essay. I think the strongest part of
my essay is the first two body paragraphs because they have a nice flow and the scholarly
sources are in conversation with one another. If I had more time to work on this essay, I would
prioritize the conclusion because it is the greatest weakness of my final draft. It does not do a
sufficient job on giving the essay a sense of completeness and leaving the reader with a good
final impression. Also, the restatement of the thesis is mediocre and the paragraph as a whole has
more summary than synthesis. For the paragraph revision on my RA essay, I revised the first
body paragraph because I received some helpful comments on the paragraph and saw how it
could be improved upon. Now, the paragraph is more concise and clear, and the analysis is more
detailed and they all support the main point. Writing is not something that comes naturally to me
and I think is will always be something that I have to work on.
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Looking back, I have realized that I learned so many things from Writing 39B in such a
short amount of time. Throughout the course, engagement, or having a sense of investment and
active involvement in learning, was a crucial part of doing well and getting the most out of this
class. Since there was a lot of work involved, I had to invest my time and be actively involved in
the learning process, but it was great to study a topic that I am truly interested in. Also, I have
learned that flexibility is a key component of success, especially when working in a group. The
ability to adapt to various situations, expectations, and demands was important when we were
working on group projects and presentations. Since critical thinking, public speaking, and
academic writing are essential skills in not only academics, but in the professional world as well,
I plan to keep working on building my confidence in those areas through practice.