1) Write as much as you can in 30+ minutes and use as much concrete detail as possible to accurately convey your state of mind in right now, your sense of your current writing strengths and weaknesses, and your goals for the course.

2) Answer all of the questions below, but don’t simply answer them in order like a checklist. Instead, approach this reflection as a story you’re telling about your writing life. What’s the beginning, middle, and end of your story as a writer? What are the high and low points of this story? Are there any surprises?

Part One: Your Writing

What do you like to read? How does what you read motivate your writing? Put another way, what topics make you want to write?
What do you like to write? Do you keep a blog, or comment on social media, or write stories or poems or write something else in your free time? If you don’t like to write, what kinds of texts, images, and ideas do you think would make you want to write?
Do you speak another language fluently, besides English? If so, what do you speak? Do you write in it as well?
What kind of writing do you think will be required of you in college and later in your professional life?
How do you hope WR39B will prepare you for university-level writing in your major? Or put another way, how do you hope WR39B will help you build on the writing skills you learned in high school or other college classes?
What do you see as your current strengths and weaknesses as a writer? How do you plan to build on your strengths, and how would you like to tackle your difficulties in WR39B?
What kind of feedback have you received about your writing in the past? How helpful was this feedback and why was it helpful (or not)?
How does writing help you learn new ideas and information? If you don’t think writing helps you learn, why not?
What do you currently know about rhetoric and/or genre? Where did you learn this information (previous classes, some other context)?
How do you usually tackle a writing assignment? What steps do you follow in your process?

Part Two: Our Course Theme

What do you already know about travel writing?
What is your favorite place to visit or a favorite memory involving a specific place?
If you’re not into traveling per se, do you enjoy reading or watching films featuring different places or specific aspects of different places (famous landmarks, food and culture, etc.)? Why/why not?
What are your first impressions of our theme? What do you look forward to reading?
What do you think may end up being fascinating, enlightening, edifying, or surprising about our theme?
What objections, reservations, anxieties, or questions do you have about our theme?
What aspects of travel or travel writing do you want to talk about with your classmates, as a class, in groups, one-on-one?
What kinds of images, music, movies, artifacts, literature, websites, or other sources would you like to study in relation to our course theme?