Enl 102 - Super Intelligence

Zach Dunn

ENL 102

Professor Keator

Portfolio Letter

5/4/14

Dear Writing Liaison Committee,

 Upon transferring here to Westfield State from UMASS Amherst I was informed I was required to take two English Composition classes where as UMASS only required one. Hearing this news was like hearing nails screech across a chalkboard. I loathe writing because I am a perfectionist, sitting down and starting a paper feels as if I am being water boarded I can feel the pressure build with every passing minute. Trying to put together my thoughts on a page is one of my biggest struggles. This semester changed my outlook on writing completely. What helped me improve was not only the continued practice of writing outlines, drafts, editing and revising that most basic comp classes consist of. But, also the critical thinking and analytical skills I gained from reading and critiquing other writers and their arguments. While I still struggle with putting together my own thoughts I believe that these critical thinking skills I acquired and learning to breakdown authors argument by providing rhetorical analysis to form my own opinion has been the key to my personal growth as a writer.

We began this semester by writing an autobiography on our own personal use of technology throughout our lives. This paper seemed relatively easy to me until I sat down to write it there was so much to talk about but we had a three-page limit. I had to take time to brainstorm a skill that every English teacher I have ever had always emphasized, but I had never taken seriously because I viewed it as unnecessary. This allowed me to narrow in on the most influential pieces of technology I had experienced in my life and develop a thesis statement “For me personally technology currently plays a major part in almost every facet of my life, so much so that it makes it hard for me to imagine what life would be like without it”.  I was told that we had to write to keep in mind our audience at all times, who in this case was Professor Keator. The thought of tailoring my argument to a specific audience had never really crossed my mind it pushed me out of my comfort zone. Leaving my comfort zone was scary and brought back feelings just like those I felt during the first few days at College but in both situations in reality it wasn’t that bad and only helped me to grow.

 We then began reading and critiquing a renowned psychologist Sherry Turkle and an excerpt from her book “Always On/ Always On You: The Tethered Self”. Turkles writing style is extremely effective but personally it infuriated me, it reminded me of my mother nagging and force feeding me her opinions on decisions I have made with my life because she “knew better” and “ had been there before”. Looking back on this paper Turkle like my mother “knew better” than me she provided a strong argument and lots of supporting evidence. When I look at my thesis “She [Turkle] argues that loneliness in the age of social media has become far more crippling than ever before in history. But is she right that connectivity is driving us apart?”  I believed my argument was strong but I realize now I did not support it or even provide an adequate contrasting solution. All I could come up with to support this argument was “Turkle providing example after example of ways technology has changed us for the worse mostly focusing on personal observations supported by scholarly success”. After improving my critical thinking and rhetorical analysis skills I now realize I could have done so much more. I could have questioned these personal observations and how she interpreted them in a negative way and shown the positives of these same observations. Furthermore I could have expanded on how my own personal observations of technology provided what I believe to be a more accurate representation of the effects technology has had on us for the greater good. Also, how her writing style, which may be effective in her field, fails to convince the average reader to take her side because of the way she force feeds it. But, I didn’t even though I believed her argument to be flawed and her writing style infuriating Turkle provided great insight on the state of our current society.  Instead of taking the time to really understand what Turkle was saying I proposed a counter argument based on my biased emotions towards her and gave a counter argument based solely on my feelings and opinions of her while trying to mimic her writing style in the process. The result was ugly her argument annihilated if you put our two arguments in a boxing ring Turkle had backed me into a corner and methodically dealt blow after blow while mine struggled to find a way to find a weakness in hers that would allow me to counter until I was down for the count.  I wasn’t thinking like an academic I was impersonating one, this paper clearly shows that it was a mistake I wouldn’t make again.