Franklin Díaz Mirás
Professor Cynthia Pittmann
INGL 3104-134
25 May 2018

Journal, Life Compass, and Multigenre Reflection 

          The writings in the journal and the life compasses have been present in my day to day since last semester. Things to which I did not see purpose at the beginning but with the passage of the days I began to see the benefits that gave me. The first days that I wrote in the journal, it was becoming very difficult for me to continue writing and concentrate for ten minutes without stopping. I couldn’t focus, always getting distracted by something and I kept thinking about other things that had nothing to do with the class. Almost always there were worries about the amount of work I had in the classes. Also, I did not see the meaning and purpose of the life compass. It seemed ridiculous to have to do a spiral many times a week and in each corner to put my emotional, mental, spiritual and physical state. On top of this, we had to summarize the four states in one paragraph.

  As the days went by and I continued to write in the journal and do my life compass, I was greatly improved in many aspects. I no longer had the same difficulty of keeping writing without stopping that I had at the beginning. Each time I wrote more fluently My use of language was positively affected, I learned to use new words and make them part of my vocabulary. The life compass also served me as a daily self-evaluation and look for the causes of my mood, physical condition, etc. 

In this semester we did three works in a new section of the journal, called the multigenre. In this section we did two jobs that I found very entertaining and interesting. One of them was to make a letter dedicated to my younger me. The other one was to make a metaphor of that message that you want to say to "your past". These jobs made me think about things that had changed since my youth, things that I should not have done and also made me realize the great childhood that I experienced. These kinds of activities make the students think of the luck we have had in life and how blessed we are. Finally, we filled the front and back of the notebook with images related to literature. I really liked this job because I put my creativity into practice to make a nice collage.

This projects not only helped me in aspects of writing, but it also helped me for many other things in my life. My concentration is something that has greatly improved. Since I started writing in the journal, I feel more focused when I do other jobs and do not waste as much time as I used to. Also, this helped me to release stress and anxiety, something that will be very useful for me during my studies.

Works Cited

Pittmann, Cynthia. Class Assignment Journal, Life Compass and Multigenre Reflection. UPRRP
          25 May 2018.