1. Introduction
The topic for this reflection paper is COM 215 which title is Storymaking. As its title suggests, this subject aims to us students about story making and writing. For about 3 hours on Wednesdays I meet my Professor to study about story making. We study different ideas on how to best write stories, particularly, short stories. Journal entries, writing activities, and problem solving activities are ingredients to the learning process. As an overview of my reaction to this project, I can say that it has allowed me to learn a lot about story writing, which became instrumental for in appreciating written stories and becoming able to write short stories myself. For me these are great accomplishments and I owe it all to this subject and my professor who shared his time and energy to help me and my classmates learn making and writing stories. As such, I would agree to recommend this course to other students in the future. On the onset of the class, I thought that the subject would be boring, but my experience changed my mind about it. I now think that COM 215 is probably one of the best subjects that I have taken thus far, as it not only met my expectations but have exceeded them. From this subject I learned how to organize my thoughts, come up with different ideas, write them, and organize them into a good story as will be discussed henceforth.
2. COM 215 has taught me how to organize my thoughts
Constantly challenging us to come up with ideas is one of the primal experiences that our professor allowed us to have. Through the subject I have learned that such ideas, alone, could not be sufficient to write a good story. They must be refined. In order to refine them, they must first be organized in to logical and interesting sequences. Before I took the course, I could already write some ideas for short stories. But the story that I have in mind could not be eventually written in paper as I keep on having ideas that get tacked on top of the other until I forget the initial ideas that I have. This was very problematic for me until the subject helped me realize that I had to write down every idea that enters my mind. This way I will not forget the former ideas that I have learned. This ability to organize my thoughts would be useful in any endeavour that I will be venturing into in the future. I understand that our productivity will not just depend on out knowledge and skills, it also depend on how we organize our knowledge and allot our skills to each of these knowledge for application.
3. COM 215 has helped me refine my writing and gain writing skills
Perhaps another important lesson that I learned from this course is the refinement of my writings. Through this course I have learned the importance of re-reading my work and making drafts. I sincerely think that no matter how good a writer a person is, he or she still needs to re-read his or her work and then make revisions. Revisions make the work have that professional, polished feel. It also allows us to identify inconsistencies in the ideas expressed thereon. I have come to realized through this course that what we write comes from the knowledge that we have. This means that we can only write as much as what we already know. One interesting point that I learned in accordance with this is that as I review my work the knowledge that I have previously get to surface out; meaning, I get to remember them. From this remembrance I tend to come up with more ideas to refine my work or to make it read better. The refining process itself is, therefore, a learning process and an activity that hones the skills in writing. The ability to refine and acquire writing skills will be very helpful for me in pursuing my goals in the future. Today’s world is filled with many communication devices that allow us to communicate at long distances, even overseas. In my opinion, long distance communications, to be effective, necessitate that we refine our sentences in our written messages so that we could be correctly understood by those to whom we communicate with.
4. COM 215 helped me enjoy story making and writing
Lastly, writing is not really my “first love.” So as one might expect, I was not all positive about the subject at first. Nevertheless, as I engage in the class activities and try to address the challenges that our professor is giving us, writing became one of my appreciated and treasured activities. I have come to realize that writing is an art like singing or painting. I began to appreciate the thought process that is needed to come up with good stories - all of these realizations thanks to my professor who always find ways to make the subject interesting. Note that we had to finish an entire book entitled, “Writing Fiction,” chapter by chapter. This is a tedious task and a boring one, if you are not into writing. Nevertheless, the class has never been boring because our professor floods us with thought provoking ideas and questions which then lead to active discussion among us. Enjoying what you are doing, I think, is what defeats mediocrity. When you enjoy what you do, you find yourself doing it at your best; hence, producing the highest quality of work you are capable of. This subject has helped me learn how to enjoy my future endeavors, so as to make sure that I will be able to produce only the best quality of work possible.
5. Conclusion
All in all, COM 215 has exceeded my expectations. It has helped me become more organized, refine my writings and develop writing skills, and enjoy and appreciate story writing. It is concluded in this essay, therefore, that COM 215 is a subject that is worth taking. It will teach students things the same lessons that I have learned, and it might even change students’ lives for the better in the future. Note that I am no saying that it will eliminate all the weaknesses of the students in writing. I myself have my own weaknesses that still need to be overcome. One of my weaknesses is the initial lack of interest in writing. I usually do not show much interest on things that I do not know much about. I also have the weakness of procrastination so that I seldom wait for a while before I write the ideas the pop-up of my mind. Nevertheless, I have strengths that I can use to overcome such weakness. My first strength is the desire to learn even if it means sweating a lot at first. This strength will allow me to overcome the first weakness aforementioned. My second strength is that I can easily be persuaded by logical and rational reasoning. My teacher is rational about jotting down ideas, so, I think I would be looking for companion who would regularly persuade me to not procrastinate.
1.2.4 I learned to become organized, refine my writings and acquire writing skills, and enjoy writing
1.3 Thesis Statement: I now think that COM 215 is probably one of the best subjects that I have taken thus far, as it not only met my expectations but have also exceeded them. From this subject I learned how to organize my thoughts, come up with different ideas, write them, and organize them into a good story as will be discussed henceforth.
2. This subject has taught me how to organize my thoughts
2.1 I learned to come up with different ideas
2.2 I learned how write them down as the ideas come into my mind
2.3 I learned how to organize them into logical arrangement
2.4 Future application
3. This subject has helped me refine my writing and gain writing skills
3.1 I learned that I need to re-read my work
3.2 I learned to identify things that needs to be improved
3.3 I learned to create drafts
3.4 Future application
4. This subject helped me enjoy story making and writing
4.1 I was not very interested in writing at first
4.2 My professor had interesting ways of making the subject enjoyable
4.3 We are constantly engaged in discussions and other activities
4.4 Future application
5. Conclusion
5.1 COM 215 exceeded my expectation
5.2 Summary of actions 2, 3, and 4 and recommendations for future students
5.3 Weaknesses
5.4 Strengths
