How I Developed as a Writer

Over the course of academic career I have always identified as a good writer. During high school I was in the honors and AP English courses, always one of the top students in the class. But when I came to Wake Forest, I quickly learned that, while I excelled in the literary analysis essay traditionally found in high school classrooms, there was so many more diverse writing genres I had yet to experience. For this portfolio I reflecting on the writing I’ve done in my liberal arts, writing, and business curriculums. Upon doing this I identified three primary sections of skill development; academic, professional business, and creative writing. The content of my portfolio highlights my development in these genres and this introduction with discuss the experiences that helped me develop the skills I have writing in these genres. 

Academic

I first started to learn how to write academically in 11th grade European History Honors. This was my first class experience in which I had to use research and facts to make claims and support an argument. My teacher, Dr. Jones, was very good and I enjoyed his class very much. Having recently being a college professor himself, he really prepared me well for what academic writing at the next level was going to look like. European History Honors was where I wrote my first real lengthy history research paper. At the time I struggled to learning how to develop that level of thorough detailed writing. Going into my second semester at Wake Forest, I was enrolled in HST 102: Modern European History with Professor Charles. I found that early development from 11th grade went a long way towards my success in my college class. I had to write two essays for HST 102, with two exams. The two essays, “King Leopold’s Ghost” and “Ordinary Men” are both featured in the portfolio (although only the drafts because I don’t have access to the final copy). They are analyses of books I read for the course, drawing upon class material and outside research as well to formulate a supported claim. This skill was very difficult to develop and writing these essays went a long way as far as my growth as an academic writer. One thing I did in these essays that was new in my writing was the “so what” paragraph at the end. Many times in my early writing the concluding paragraphs fell flat. But in these essays, I used the last paragraphs to highlight what effect the history has had on the modern day, or where we see history repeating itself in the world today. This was a rhetorical move I picked up from course learning and is something that proved effective in these essays. I regret not having many more opportunities to develop this move, as I didn’t take any more history classes. However, I was able to use this rhetorical move in one other essay. For my WRI 111 essay, which is also featured in the portfolio (under Essay 3), I wrote about the AIDS epidemic in America during the 1980s. This also took the form of a research paper. At the end of the essay, my concluding section was titled “Where We Are Now”. In this section I outline the effects the outbreak had on the American population, where AIDS is still a problem today, and if history is repeating itself in other parts of the globe. I feel the ending paragraphs in all three essays turned out strong, with this rhetorical move representing a key skill that I developed in my academic writing.

            Another key class I took that advanced my academic writing skill development was WRI 210. One of the essays I had to write for this course was a rhetorical analysis study which examined course syllabi structure, discourse, and grade breakdown to identify trends across disciplines. This essay was written in standard scientific IMRaD format and was repurposed from my WRI 350 genre repurposing project. Both essays are featured in the other elements section of the portfolio. This essay was key for my development because it was the first time I wrote an extensive research essay where I ran tests, studied the results, and formulated takeaways. I greatly enjoyed writing this because it gave me a new experience and exposure to a new field of writing. I got more exposure to this sort of statistical analysis study when I wrote the “Profile a Writer” assignment which is featured in the annotations section of the portfolio. This allowed me to gain insight from a professor who has published work in statistical analysis academic journals. The opportunity to interview my professor about his writing, and then write about it myself, offered valuable development as far as my academic writing, particularly in that field. It is through these experiences, and some others that can be viewed in the portfolio, that aided my academic writing development over my time at Wake Forest. 

Business

My development in business writing has been interesting. I am a Business Management major and strangely we are not asked to do that much writing in the course curriculums. For one of my Business Law classes, BEM 262, we were assigned a group dissection essay (which is also featured in the portfolio). I greatly enjoyed that essay because it was a new experience, both writing as a group and writing in this new genre of legal analysis (sounds boring but more interesting than you’d think). This allowed me to gain exposure to what legal business writing looks like and how it is used in the financial world. I was going to delve further into developing this style of writing with the “Interview an Academic Writer” assignment for this class but due to the circumstances that assignment was retracted. 

            Other than that one Law essay, writing was not a significant part of the learning process in my BEM classes. That is strange because writing does exist in the business world as I learned. Rather the majority of my business writing development comes from my preparation for interviews and my experience during the internships. As far as preparing for interviews, there is a lot of weird nuanced writing you have to get good at in order to be a more impressive candidate for a job opportunity. This takes the form of learning how to write cover letters, resumes, answer application questions, writing emails to recruiters, etc. This is a real skill, the ability to communicate information about your qualification for a job opportunity with an air of professionalism and confidence. As part of the BEM major, I took a class intended to provide guidance on how to present yourself professionally. It was called Professional Development. The class gave students to the opportunity to do things like develop an elevator pitch (a 30 second pitch about your skills and competencies), clean up Linkedin accounts, improve their resume format, and cover letter content. The class also offered tips on how to act in the business environment and handle early professional life. I do believe the class was helpful in offering guidance and an outlet for questions, but a lot of learning of to write professionally about yourself comes from practice. Learning how to write professionally in the business world at all come from practice. There are so many nuances that exist of when one thing is appropriate when another is not. That brings me to my second key development experience in business writing, my two summer internships. 

            I interned the summer after my sophomore year at a Canadian bank and the summer after my junior year at a private investment firm. Both internships were ten weeks long in New York City. Unfortunately most all of the writing was regarding private information and was not allowed to keep those documents. This type of writing was mostly term sheets and call memos. A term sheet is a record of the terms of a potential deal, the step by step negotiations from all parties, and the revised terms of the deal. I was tasked with keeping the term sheets updated for different clients. I also was responsible for keeping call memos. These are little summaries of what was said during the call and the main points that should be taken away. Both of these tasked required a lot of practice and I only got better with time. A big challenge was that I had a limited business vocabulary, often times the conversations went over my head. It took time to learn how to continue to gather information when you don’t understand something. Then go back and try to figure out what you didn’t understand. That is a process that you don’t learn in the classroom, and was a crucial part of my business writing development. Additionally, perhaps most importantly in my opinion, I developed in my ability to write workplace emails. In the business world, people communicate by email. Any given office can send thousands of emails day, and all of them are different. What I quickly picked up on is that you write each email differently. There is a standard style you can stick to, but depending on who you’re talking to, what you’re talking about, and how important the content is, you write each email differently. How you communicate as a young person says a lot about your competency as an employee. The ability to effectively and professionally communicate through email is a valuable skill I developed in my internship that went a long way as far as developing my business writing skills. 

Creative

A last area of writing in which I have developed over my years in school is my creative writing. Going into my senior year, I had never taken a creative writing class, never wrote a fiction or nonfiction story. I had very little experience with the creative side of writing, but I knew I was a good story teller. I felt confident in my ability to create an entertaining story. So, as one of the courses for the WRI minor, took CRW 287, Creative Nonfiction Workshop. This class was a true emersion, a real eye opener to the world of nonfiction creative writing. We read essays from accomplished writers, discussed strategies and style, and engaged in deep class discussion. We also all had to write two essays that would be workshopped by the group. Your essay was read by all the students before class, read out loud by the professor during class, then workshopped by the class, with each student offering positives and negatives about the writing. This was a classroom writing environment I had never been in. It was a strange feeling of freedom but also restrictedness with the writing. The class encouraged student to write the story they wanted in whatever form or voice they desired (as long as it was creative nonfiction). But there was a pressure to write a good essay because everyone would be reading it. It felt to me as if I was more directly connected to the work I was handing in. It made me want to perform better, write the best essay I could. It was a struggle at first. My first essay was creative but lacked a true purpose or friction to it. It was fun and entertaining, which could be its own purpose, but my teacher felt it was missing passion. So in my second essay I wrote about something much more heavy on my personal and emotions struggles. The essay took a lot to write and showed me a power in writing that I hadn’t had much experience with. I was shown the ability of writing to communicate and clarify confusing times in a person’s life. The CRW 287 class and the design of it went a long way for beginning my creative writing development. 

            The next semester I took WRI 340: Writing With, For, and About Animals, with a similar intention of developing a new component of my writing. I thought I had gained some valuable exposure in the CRW 287 class and WRI 340 seemed like a next logical step. I am very glad I chose to take Writing About Animals because it exposed me to an entire knew would of literature that I really enjoyed. The different ways animals are used in literature to enact different feeling, tell different stories, communicate different thoughts is remarkable. I wrote two essays for this course, both are featured in the other elements section of the portfolio. Both of these pieces, “Dogzilla” and “Yertle the Turtle”, take on a sort of playful story telling that I feel has really identified me as a creative writer. I like to write children narratives. That is something I realized from this class. I think writing a child animal story is fun and something I hope to get more practice with as my writing development continues. 

I hope you enjoy my portfolio!