Process Writing for Final

Narrative Journalism was an unusual and sometimes difficult class for me because I had difficult discerning what set this apart from other types of journalism in the beginning of the course and how my pieces should be styled differently than they would from a piece submitted in another course. As the course went on, however, and I read from more of the texts, I began to gain a firmer grip on what I was doing and hopefully, improved. Revision is something that I have struggled with throughout the entire year. I had never really encountered it prior to this year but from the choice of courses that I took to writing my SIP, I was now bombarded by it. Hopefully, at the end of the year, I am now a more conscientious and competent reviser than I was when I started the year off. The chance for revision in the course was a good one.
Writing for this course has made me firmly realize that I think my strengths lay in writing more pointed pieces such as opinion articles or reviews rather than more literary pieces. I’m not the best person to tell heart-wrenching stories or illuminate a forgotten facet of culture. Interviewing, at least broadly, in the sense of trying to figure out someone’s story, is not my idea of a good time at all. It is a skill that I either do not have or need to more fully develop. Hopefully, I can become better at it.
The comments on the blog were useful, at least in sparking new thoughts that I would take in different directions. They gave a different perspective and while I may not have always used the suggestions, they showed when perhaps something wasn’t as clear as I had thought that it might have been or when I needed to elaborate on something.
Overall, I think it was a good course for me to take. I enjoyed a lot of the readings and even if I don’t go into journalism as a career, it enriched the reading that I do in my daily life. When reading articles in The New York Times or The New Yorker now, I have a greater understanding of how they were composed and constructed. I also will have a deeper understanding of what they are saying and their messages. It was worth the frustrations.