During this semester I completed a myriad of writing assignments and looked at a selection of different types of writing. First poetry, then fiction, then examples of radical revision. During the poetry unit, I learned about different facets of poetry such as the usage of imagery, voice, and syntax as well as the usage of metaphors and similies. This unit allowed me to improve on the different parts of my writing but the thing that stuck with me the most was having fun writing. In the past, I sometimes found myself bored of writing but the poetry unit had multiple fun writing games that encouraged me to open up, explore more, and truly have fun with writing rather than just using it as a tool to communicate. At the end of the poetry unit, we had a writing game where we were split into groups and I found that it was now even easier for me to put pen on paper and write something that was a little goofy but fun and really sparked my will to write. I also really enjoyed getting feedback on my poetry and it gave me a lot of insights into where I could improve my poetry. I found the feedback really helpful and on my own, I went back and re-wrote some of my poems for myself tweaking them based on feedback, my own feelings about the piece, and using things learned in the minilectures. I think one thing the poetry unit did for me was it got me to put some of my heart into the works and use writing as a way of conveying and sharing feelings.

  The next unit that was covered was the fiction unit. This unit was really a test for me as going into it I had done very very little creative fictional prose pieces. I had form and fun in the first unit and now I needed to try to translate some of those lessons into another version of creative writing. It was both the unit that I found I struggled with the most due to my inexperience but also the unit where I feel like I had the most growth. I think needing to push my limits of writing and trying new styles really made me learn the material and try to produce something of my own. Some of the things I wrote I found confusing reading back or just didn't convey what I wanted it to. This led to a lot of revision but with the groups we were organized in for giving feedback I felt like everyone was super nice and there was constructive criticism getting shared but it was all low stakes so we were all trying new things and experimenting which made the assignments so fun and such a great learning experience.

  The final unit that we covered was the weirdest or I guess most foreign to me. I completely misjudged what the unit was going to be about and that was covered in the first video. I went into the unit thinking that it was going to be about fixing small errors in writing and tweaking small parts of the story. I was really happy when I figured out that that couldn't be further from the truth. What the unit turned out to be was completely reimagining or drastic changes in vision. It turned out to be the most experimental part of the course for me and I think my classmates. There were pretty much no rules given but examples and ideas and a gentle push to get a little out there with our writing. I had a ton of fun completely mixing up my writing, taking another stab at something, or just trying something crazy. We took a few of our past writings and were instructed just to re-imagine the piece, to do whatever but to do it big. This unit really flipped my definition of "revision" on its head and encouraged me to try different things even if they may not pan out.

  I think more than anything what I came away with from this class was how to incorporate feelings into my writing, how to look at writing in different ways, and more than anything to just have fun with writing and do something different. This course also just gave me time to focus on writing which despite being something I do all day every day I rarely ever specifically practice writing but I always feel like it is something that is one of the most useful tools I can work on.