Maxwell Maltz, a famous author and cosmetic surgeon once said, “Our self-image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become.” Therefore, although I have completed my assignment, I think it is essential to record how it has shaped me as a writer. This assignment- a memo to the president of City College, addressing a problem on campus- was a predominantly subjective piece of writing and therefore provides an ideal space to self- analyze and reflect. In this essay, I will be discussing and reflecting on the process of writing, the rhetorical situations it encompassed and the class learning outcomes I achieved as a result.

A problem that I personally face on campus is the lack of free printing services As the architecture senator of the undergraduate student government, installing the 1000 printing credit system in the architecture building was one of my campaign promises and I am still working towards it, therefore my extensive knowledge and passion to solve this problem motivated me to write about it. The purpose of this essay was not only to present the problem but also the need for it along with the advantage of decentralizing printing services i.e., making a single system, common for all printers on campus. The genre was a memorandum, as prescribed by the assignment. It was simple to collect my thoughts on this problem and record it but shaping/organizing it according to the structure of the memorandum was challenging to me. I understood the purpose of each sub-heading, but I did confuse the placement of certain information in my draft that I rectified in my final version.  As the first ‘Class Learning Outcome’ states, the peer review of my draft allowed me to acknowledge my peers and my range of linguistic differences which I drew on to develop rhetorical sensibility. The peer review also allowed me to develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes as the fifth ‘Course Learning Outcome’ specifies. Reviewing works of my peers also allowed me to reflect on my own work and revise it, the peer reviews along with the professor’s review on Blackboard allowed me to enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment as suggested by the second ‘Course Learning Outcome.’

My audience was the president of City College. Given the audience my language was formal and official, but in my draft, I missed out on the fact that the president has access to most information of the school, and that I had to focus on creating a snapshot of the problem instead of delving into the specifics. This battle of what he might need to understand the problem and what he might already know created a negotiation in my own writing goals as the third ‘Course Learning Outcome’ records, analyzing audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation. As it is addressed to the president, I recognized and recorded the problem at a campus level instead of sticking to just the architecture building alone. My stance was firm and action-oriented as it recognized a problem which must be solved, while my solution aimed to project itself as the most logical, easiest and cost effective one for it. I formulated and articulated a stance through my writing as mentioned in the sixth learning outcome.

To conclude, this assignment was motivated by the problems I faced on campus, its purpose was to present the lack of printing services and the advantage of decentralizing it, its genre was a memorandum, the language was formal, and the stance was firm. I used these rhetorical situations to achieve the first, second, third, fifth and sixth ‘Course Learning Outcomes.’