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Caroline Tran
Professor Haas
Writing 37
3 December 2015
Final Reflection Essay
During the ten-week period of this Fall Quarter, I have been
able to gain a valuable understanding about the course objectives of
Writing 37 and attain a deeper understanding about the fairytale
genre. Some of the tasks included writing essays, working on Connect
modules, creating an ePortfolio, making class GoogleDocs, and
researching how the conventions of fairytales have developed
overtime. Some of the main concepts that were discussed in class were
how texts are formed by their rhetorical situations and how mediums
and elements in texts are not static. In addition, this course allowed me
to become more aware of how moments can grow out of the rhetorical
situation. Aside from literary analysis, the course also helped me fix
some bad writing habits, since we used the Connect writing modules to
help improve our essay formats; Some of the modules consisted of
lessons about dangling modifiers, wordiness, and common punctuation
mistakes. I hope to take away many of the valuable learning objectives
as I enter a new writing course and use it in my future assignments to
demonstrate that I can be a scholarly writer.

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During the first few weeks, our class studied and became familiar
with fairytales that were written during 1812 and 1857. The historical
authors that we mainly studied were Charles Perrault, The Brothers
Grimm, and Madame dAulnoy, and we studied how their fairytales
have been translated as time progressed into the 21st century. In order
to attain a better understanding of why the authors displayed specific
conventional settings, morals, and conventions of characters, on of the
assignments required us to research about the Salon Era, a
movement of the 17th and 18th century (Wikipedia). The Salon Era had
a large impact on fairytales since these gathering were popular
amongst women and they shared their tales by oral, which eventually
led the stories to be passed on to other generations. Within these
weeks, our class learned how the Brother Grimms collected these
stories and they were eventually combined and published into a large
volume. This research about the Brothers Grimm helped further our
practice on the course objective, understanding how every text grows
out and reflects its rhetorical situation, since the brothers revised their
first edition so that the tales could be more directed at children and
families (Zipes 1). This learning objective was emphasized when we
read other texts and focused on our cultural projects, since this can be
observed in others texts besides the majority that were written in
Europe.

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We began studying Habits of Mind in our weekly reflection
blogs on our online Portfolio during Week 3. By practicing this, we were
able to reflect on how we improved within that week or what goals we
were able to achieve. The framework of Habits of Mind is essential
for success in college writing since its topics help reveal the steps to
how you attained skills to reach the goal. The two Habits of Mind that
I practiced the most during these ten weeks were Engagement and
Responsibility. Majority of the in-class assignments consisted of
working in a team or group and these two approaches would help my
group finish deadlines on time. Engagement was an important topic
since working and participating with others is a very important element
of teamwork. Additionally, responsibility was another key element into
meeting deadlines, because if one member of a group fell behind in
their assigned role of the assignment, then the whole group would
have to adjust their schedule, since they would then be considered
behind too. Habits of Mind taught me that reflecting is healthy, since
it allows the link between processing the new information and
integrating it with your existing understanding of the world (Why
Reflect?).
As part of Week 6, one of the activities in class consisted of
reading an article about the benefits of Peer Tutoring. In the article, "To
Give is Better," students who spoke English as a second language were
tested in order to see what method was faster for them to learn and

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write a better essay. The author mentions "The findings of this study
suggest that L2 writing students can improve their own writing by
transferring abilities they learn when reviewing peer texts." Thus,
these students significantly did better when they had peers who edited
their work for them because they could learn from their mistakes.
When I peer edited my group's work, I was shocked, because I had take
away learning experience when I was helping them edit their work. It
helped me become aware of what mistakes I should look out for when I
am writing my next draft and make sure that I do not repeat any of my
peer's mistakes. This lesson in class enabled the students to
understand the class objective, the importance of the process of
writing. When I was editing my classmates essays on Connect, I was
able to determine my strengths and weaknesses in writing because I
knew how to give good advice to editing on some stages of editing, but
there were also some stages I was uncomfortable with giving advice to.
I was also able to recognize punctuation mistakes faster since I had to
practice with editing punctuation in high school. Overall, this was a
very fun experience because I was able to give helpful tips with full
confidence and determine what mistakes I should not perform when I
write future essays, all just by editing essays.
During Week 7, we finished our final drafts of the Cultural
Fairytale videos. My contribution of this project was researching the
history and cultural background of China. I researched about how

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China's religions and practices, such as Buddhism, Taoism, and
Confucianism influenced the fairytales, folklore, and dramas. My group
chose me to be the one in charge of making sure everyone was doing
their role of the project. It was an easy task because my group
understood that the project was a large impact on our grade. My group
also enjoyed researching for this culture because it was all new
information to us, since we did not discuss Chinese fairytales in class.
The main problems that we had with our first draft video were
pixelated image, since they were too small on the program that we
used for editing. Also, we incorporated Chinese music in our final draft
of the video since it helped demonstrate to the audience that we
wanted to engage with them. One of the learning goals and objectives
that helped me during the process of this video was engagement. My
group worked efficiently and we were very productive. Teamwork and
the habit of mind, efficiency, was a very influential element in putting
this video together because without everyone's contribution, time, and
effort, the video would be very bland and very unorganized.
The end of the ten-week period consisted creating the RIP
Project, an assignment that would exhibit how mediums and elements
in texts are not static and what we learned about the fairytale genre.
After struggling over what ideas to choose from for this project, my
group settled on making a lyric video. The process of this project
consisted of researching, writing the lyrics, finding a beat that match

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the rhythm of our lyrics, having singers rap the lyrics, and editing the
video. The conventions of lyrics typically include the intro, verse,
chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, and chorus. However, our
video does not include these conventions since our rap was a free
verse. We also worked on the finishing touches of our ePortfolio, which
contained multiple essays, group projects, storyboards, weekly blogs,
and class GoogleDocs. Both mediums demonstrate the objective of
learning how to communicate in different mediums and display the
culture of the 21st century because the Internet has become a popular
way of communicating, since almost everyone has equal access to it.
The learning objectives of this course have enabled me to attain
a deeper understanding of the fairytale genre and the rhetorical
situations that surround different mediums. By practicing how to
research the background of the fairytales during the 17th and 18th
century, I was able to compare its cultural elements to the 21st
centurys culture. Additionally, studying the historical figures that had
a large influence on this genre allowed me to have a better
comprehension of the culture during that century since they played a
large factor of spreading the popularity of the genre. Most importantly,
the assignments such as the connect modules, Weekly blogs, in-class
group projects, and video projects have all allowed me to enhance my
writing skills, and prepare me for future writing courses.

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Works Cited

Grimm, Wilhelm, Jacob Grimm, Jack Zipes, and Andrea Dezso. The
Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The
Complete First Edition. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Lundstrom, Kristi, and Wendy Baker. To Give Is Better than To Receive:

The Benefits of Peer Review to the Reviewer's Own Writing.
Provo: Elsevier, 2008. Print.

"Salon (gathering)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Nov. 2015.

Web. 06 Dec. 2015.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)>.

Why Reflect? Dir. Lynda Haas. Youtube, 2012. Website.