Jacob Ritteman Kevin Brooks Personal Fact Sheet 12/14/11 FOREWORD I came into Advanced Writing Workshop with

a fairly substantial understanding of the writing craft. Most of what Ive learned from a teachers instruction has been post-high school, but some has resulted from trial and error writing attempts. My high school English teacher wasnt an effective one, so Ive been grateful to have the opportunity to study under professors who know what theyre doing these past few years at NDSU. My interest in writing is primarily with fiction I love crafting creative pieces. Naturally, most of the courses Ive completed deal with objective academic writing. However, there have been a few standouts that have contributed to my understanding of creative writing, and Advanced Writing Workshop is the most recent. LEARNED TECHNIQUES Editing Throughout this semester, we covered a handful of editing techniques in addition to writing strategies. One editing technique that is most prominent in my mind is the paramedic method. This editing strategy requires one to analyze a piece, line-by-line, word-by-word, and use different marks to catalogue errors and troubling consistencies. As a class, we employed this method in-class to our own pieces, and found errors which we hadnt noticed before. It reminded me of a creative writing class I took last year in which Stash Hempeck would highlight every was within our document, encouraging us to reduce the usage of the word. Naturally, thats the first analytic lens I applied to my paper while exercising the paramedic method, and I branched from there. Another editing technique Dr. Brooks had us practicing was side-shadowing our own papers before having workshop session peer critiques. I cannot remember ever side-shadowing before being critiqued by peers, and I found it most useful. Even as the critic it was beneficial because I could see exactly what the author had wanted to be addressed; sometimes when subjecting a piece to critiquing, aspects on which the author wanted feedback are overlooked. Writing I found the journals were the most interesting writing technique we covered this semester. They came off so natural, and visceral, and to know Dr. Brooks would be scanning through our entries, issuing grades, gave them a purpose that previous journaling in my life has lacked. Through this, I now find myself experiencing something or noticing a detail that, immediately, I consider to be worthy of a journal entry.

Being that class has nearly finished, I will adopt this technique into my personal life. Consistent journaling will be very effective for my personal writing projects not only will I come up with new ideas as an entry is being penned out, but Ill also be able to look at past entries, maybe from the beginning stages of the project, and find something useful for present-day progress . Second to journaling was the opportunity to create a research paper through technological means. I couldnt believe it when I first learned of this it was almost too good to be true. At first, I felt devastated that our literacy narratives were being followed up with a research paper, but then Dr. Brooks informed of the unique approach to the assignment. This approach gave the research paper a very fresh, unorthodox feel to it, and I think I benefited greatly from it. The idea that I was turning in an annotated bibliography for a documentary was incredible. This technique or approach to a paper cant be implemented freely, but could be useful for teaching or similar classroom circumstances in the future. AFTERWORD As the semester comes to a smooth close, I know Ive advanced my writing in various degrees. Its not a notion which can be easily described, but rather one which radiates a certain confidence within. I touched on a select few items from class, but those were the most important ones for my future. This isnt to discredit the other methods practiced, this is merely a way to highlight what I benefited from most; confidence, discipline, innovation and drive principles that have been improved upon via Advanced Writing Workshop. This class not only helped improve my abilities with writing and my understanding of it, but it may have inspired me to pursue a career in teaching. Until now Ive only felt motivated to deal in creative writing, falling back on a career in journalism, but the versatile capabilities of classroom instruction depicted through Dr. Brooks teaching has been quite mesmerizing and eye-opening. Im not meaning to commit to anything through this personal fact sheet, but am definitely noting that Ive been, at the very least, inspired to look deeper into that path for my future.