The final project for this course was to write about an experience we had (in this class or outside or it), and what we learned from it. The goal is to show that we can both think and write reflectively, and state what we learned from going through the experience.

Throughout this course, we have looked at the use of written Japanese in  different literary styles. We compared and contrasted the styles in small groups. We would be given four different blocks of text using different literary styles to say the same thing, and we would have to match the text to the situation it was written for. For example, one was written as a term paper, one was written as if it was a job hunting document, one was written for a personal blog, and another was written like a text to a close friend.

The final writing project itself went through many drafts. At first, I wrote in English to gather my thoughts on what I would like to say. For the second draft I put my thoughts into Japanese. For the third draft, I incorporated the responses I got from peer-feedback and fixed some of my grammar errors. In the fourth draft I wrote two versions of my project, one in the long-form semi-formal/soft style and one in the short-form semi-formal/stiff style. Before the final draft, I reviewed a checklist of requirements (did I include the two required grammar points? Do all the kanji I used work as intended?).

Working on this project really showed me where my writing strengths and weaknesses lie. I am much more comfortable writing in the long-form than I am at writing in the short-form. Just because I’m writing using short-form conjugations, doesn’t mean it is in the casual form, so I had to remove some exclamation points from my draft.