When I first began my mission for thinking of my writing topic, my original thought was to brainstorm topics. Between a handful of topics I could have went with, I came across the idea of air quality in Utah. I felt confident that this was a topic I felt strongly and that it would be a topic I would be interested in learning more about. During the time I began collecting research for me topic at first it felt just like any beginning. I had an idea of what I wanted to write about and began looking online.

 

As my process furthered into the semester, my perspective began to change because of opportunities I took to get more involved with my topic by doing field research. Going out into my communities, speaking with environmental groups and finding scientific based research to really understand and learn what is going with Utah's air quality and it's pollution. It especially took off as I ventured to the state capitol with the SLC Air Protectors.

 

I learned from them how air pollution hurts out environment along with other topics of what is not environmentally friendly and being brought into our state. They showed me what it takes to make a real difference. That in turn changed my whole perspective on my writing pieces. It showed me that I need to fully respect the topic I have chosen to write about and deliver it to the masses with a sense of urgency. There are things happening that I believe people are not aware of and that they needed to know. This is how I proceeded the remainder of the semester.

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The mediums that I chose to deliver to my audience was more of the form of that like a newspaper article. I believed that in using that platform, it would showcase my writing piece in a easy, follow along type of style. I also added a story form plot line. From beginning to end I want them to be able to see what exactly I saw, and feel what was felt during that time. Such as to that in my flash memoir piece for example. In my flash memoir, I made my story to have an emotional appeal by surprise. By making the story seem like its an average day of waking up, but ending with the concern of a mother for her child because of the environment that surrounds her and what she must do to care for her child. I feel that the choices I made were appropriate to communicate my message.

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For the adaptation part of my magazine, Air Out: News & Opinion Magazine, I decided to go with my person of profile piece. From the beginning of this assignment, right away I felt that it should be this piece. Reason being is that I felt that I put my heart into the project to show the person I picked with the upmost respect and really create the story of the person of who they are and what they are accomplishing in our communities. I originally had this profile as visual images with text, like a photo essay. I felt the most comfortable putting it in that kind of format.

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What I learned from the original by attempting to transform it into something new was that I was pleasantly surprised to change it into a visual, audio video. I was very intimidated to change it and I liked the original for sure. Once I began to put my adaptation video together it made me have to stretch my skills. Do something that I was unfamiliar with, which is in this category of video making was something completely new for me. Overall I enjoyed it and I am glad I got to do something new like that.

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My greatest experience was felt during my writing for my persuasion piece. I felt that after all the discussions in class over my writing pieces and helping other students with there own pieces, that it helped me create the best writing persuasion piece I have ever wrote. On top of taking the advice of my peers I also went to the writing lab. All of these resources, helped me see my writing piece in a better perspective. It helped me catch the small things like grammatical errors to looking at the bigger picture and keeping my writing to more of my own personal style and not sounding to robotic and really expressing my writing so I can reach a larger audience.

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The goals I had originally at the beginning of this course was just plainly to write and pass the course. I blindly didn't think much more than that at the given time. As I explored the assignments and saw how different this class was, my goals immediately began to change. When I had to choose my topic to write about and learn the different aspects of writing, I felt encouraged to really dive in an explore my creativity. Through that aspect, I wanted my goal to become a confident and efficient writer. To get closer to that goal, I took the time to study about writing, I went to the writing lab on the advice to my teacher (which I'm really glad I did) and I helped peer review my fellow students writing pieces. All of these things combined allowed me see the direction of writing I wanted to move forward with and helped me put my best work out. As I leave this course I truly feel that I am leaving with a proficiency level of writing. As someone who has become involved with my community more by this course I feel that the skills and knowledge I have learned will help me continue to help my community and continue to be an active citizen.

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To me the 2 Big Ideas about writing mean an exploration of creativity with a means of understanding in your world and actions of that world that surround you. Writing is the resource that allows people to learn, explore, create action, express emotion, and so much more. For example, in my flash memoir piece for this class I chose a strategy of interpreting the life of a mother. Being a parent is not always easy, and each parent goes through a different experience with raising children. No two kids are alike and the same outlook goes with parents. There are many people out in the world who are not parents yet, or they want to be or they are waiting for there little bundle of joy to arrive. In my memoir I tried to portray a story that everyone can understand the love that a mother has for her child. I chose to write the way I did because in my opinion I believe that everyone can understand love or caring for someone else other than themselves.

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In another setting of writing, for example my persuasion piece, it was rhetoric that provided me with the method of speaking to my audience. The choice I made from the beginning was to find my purpose. I wanted to give a dramatic visual view of what the purpose was to move and persuade my audience to my point of view so they can understand the importance of saying No to the SLC Inland Port.  

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From the Big Ideas that I learned from class it allowed me to find a way to research my topic in a way that would benefit my writing pieces, creating the concept of choices and how I want them to play out and following it with the language that will speak the most volumes to my readers.

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If you would like to check out my magazine, feel free to click the link below: