NrypelMemoirReflection

I’m not a big fan of choose anything assignments because I have a hard time focusing on one point. So when we were assigned to write a memoir I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about. I started thinking about my interests though and it made me wonder how I started liking history when I used to despise it so much. Most people wouldn’t take me for that kind of guy when they meet so I figured it’d be an interesting topic to explore. I didn’t really think about my readers a whole lot beyond that though. I would have probably written the same paper if I knew no one was going to read it.

All of my planning pretty much occurred in class which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. My English class at IU didn’t really have that much planning for papers but it was also a completely different type of English class that had to do with analyzing literature. That lack of in class planning I would say hurt my papers though and this class has proven beneficial in some ways because of its techniques.

As with all of my papers I didn’t really start drafting until the last second. I usually dread writing one and always put it off. There was some done in class and a little done in my head that was never written down. The feedback I got from the draft was mainly from the teacher. Not enough detail is usually what I get for all my papers so I wasn’t really surprised to hear it again. Usually, I’ll admit, I don’t revise my papers at all from the rough draft to the final draft and there was a small chance I’d do that again, but this time I actually decided to go back and change some things. I changed the layout completely of one paragraph and completely erased another to name a few.

I didn’t put too much thought into the design of the document though I did think about the beginning and ending and how they did their respective roles. I edited the final version some as I went through changing various things but I did not sit down and read through from beginning to end after the fact. I personally hate reading my writings.

Looking back on everything I feel while this assignment wasn’t the worst thing I’ve done I know I probably could have done better. I should have revised more to fit in more detail I’m positive but I didn’t really give myself that much time. If I started all over again I think I probably would have went with one of my other ideas for my memoir. I don’t really like talking about that memory though but it would have been easier to go into detail and would have been more gripping of a tale.