Throughout my years as a writer, there has been a vast improvement in the quality of my pieces. As an early elementary student, the principles of English grammar and composing simplistic essays were the focus of Language Arts classes. In my middle and high school years, it was expected that grammatical basics were already mastered, and the focus shifted to composing different genres of text. Rightfully so, the content was increasingly difficult as I became more insightful and used to creating most kinds of papers, reports, etc. At the collegiate level, my writing coursework became even more intensive, both in time invested in any given assignment as well as the complexity and professionalism of the completed piece. In my semester in WRA 150, my abilities to read, write, and research rhetorically have greatly improved in a manner that will surely benefit me for the rest of my life.
In my opinion, possibly the most important aspect of being a writer is one's ability to read. One could argue that it can be somewhat illogical for a writer's work to hold great weight in society if the said individual has not had any exposure to the thousands of years of literature before them. The greatest, most innovative minds in our history have documentation of their ideologies, discoveries, and advancements. By no means is it unlikely for equally great scholars of our time to emerge, but it is much more improbable for these people to have innovative ideas isolated from studying the knowledge and texts of our predecessors.
Although my process of learning reading comprehension was completed years ago, this course taught me how to read literature rhetorically, and why it is so important. This new depth of reading allows the audience to better understand the writer's purpose for the paper, and therefore understand the piece wholly, rather than a relatively shallow understanding. Before WRA 150, I was expected to read assorted texts, and come up with a conclusion based on what seemed important to me in relationship with the reading.