I didn’t do anything much to prepare for this exam. During the exam itself I looked at the prompt and requirements and prepared a list of points I wanted to include in each paragraph. This way I wouldn’t be stuck thinking of what I should write about for each paragraph, but I had a rough idea of how it should be organized. I did struggle with what I actually wanted to write, because even though I knew what I wanted to say I didn’t know how to say it, and the time was also stressing me out. In order to combat this I would jump between paragraphs so I wouldn’t have to waste time thinking about what I wanted to write. Later I would then go back to what I was struggling on and because I had the rest of my essay developed it made it easier to make the points I wanted to make. I think I did well overall in terms of how much I wrote and what I wrote but I think I can improve on the way the information was presented. Oftentimes when I am under pressure it is hard to write the information the way I want it to be read. When it comes to what I hope to work on in my writing in general I feel like I struggle sometimes in the organization of my ideas. While I know what I want to write, I want it to be easy for the reader to follow what I have to say.

For the in class discussion I read the story and tried to think about what Machado’s intention was in writing this text. I also tried to come up with things I disagreed with in her writing and incorporate it into the discussion questions. I think the peer led discussion went well because everyone in the group was able to provide good questions for the class to answer, and that provided good conversation. In terms of how I think I did, I wanted to focus more on the broader point that Machado was trying to make and how it applies to us as a society. Since we had to talk about Eight Bites I wanted the class to consider body image as a whole and whether or not they agree with the point Machado was trying to make. I also wanted to question the text itself as a way to see if people agreed with Machado’s overall message to the readers. This prepared me for my in class essay because speaking was similar to the in class essay in the sense that you don’t have much time to organize your ideas and whatever is spoken is already said out loud and it cannot be edited or changed. In this way presenting or speaking might be harder because it has to be coherent in order to be understood. We had to write and say more for our in class essay so knowing what you want to say can help you further expand it and give you time to perfect your wording. 

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