TOW #27: TOW Reflection

In the beginning of the year, we students of AP English Language and Composition were assigned weekly TOW posts, which were intended to give us much-needed practice in analyzing arguments. It was assumed that at the end of the year, we were going to be able to look back at all of our TOWs and see how much progress we had made. Before I did that I wasn't sure I would see much progress, since TOWs are only small-scale examples of the work we did in class and had a very similar format every time. I was surprised when I did, in fact, see that my TOWs has gotten better throughout the year.
The TOWs I wrote during the first semester were all similar regarding the types of rhetorical devices I pointed out in the texts I analyzed, both written and visual. At that point, I understood very few rhetorical devices and what their effects were, so I kept pointing out the same ones over and over again; this included ethos, pathos, logos, word repetition, and exemplification for written texts and colors and words for visual ones. However, as we talked more about analysis in class, I became more familiar with rhetorical devices and could write about their effects in a more in-depth way. I could write about the arrangement of a text, the tone of the speaker (which I could more easily describe with a single word than I could before), and whether or not the audience would be swayed by the speaker's argument.
TOWs come with requirements about what you have to include in them, and I've noticed that I've gotten better at meeting all of them without sounding methodical about it. Earlier in the year, my TOWs sounded like a list: the title and speaker of the text, the devices used, their effect, the speaker's tone, and a judgement as to how effective the argument was. My early TOWs were all longer than the requirement as well. However, as I got more practice, I was able to fit all of these things into a TOW and make them flow better and switched up the order of all the required things. This is probably the feature of my TOWs that I have most improved over the past several months, and it is very beneficial, since this skill can transfer to other kinds of writing. I was not, however, able to shorten the length of my TOWs; even at the end of the year, they were still longer than they were supposed to be. Length is something I always have trouble with, no matter what I'm writing. I would very much like to improve this aspect of my writing, as saying something in a concise way is much better than saying it in a flowery, roundabout way.
Everyone in APELC, including myself, has whined about the TOWs all year, but those criticisms of the assignment were at least partially undeserved. Of course, it is an extra bit of homework that can take a long time to complete if one wants to do them well. Few students get to them during the week because of their other obligations, or on Saturdays because they want to have fun, so when it comes to Sunday, no one feels like putting the work in. For busy students, it can be another burdensome form of stress. These complaints make sense, but do not outweigh the benefits that TOWs have. They are an excellent form of practice, as they are essentially mini-essays. TOWs provide a lot of opportunities to do things that students have trouble with, which they might not always be able to get to practice in class. I think I definitely benefited from writing what was essentially an introductory paragraph  and practice recognizing rhetorical devices every week, as I struggle with that. They served as a good benchmark for me by helping me recognize what I needed to improve on in my writing. While TOWs can be annoying assignments that seem to forever chase you, at the end of the year, their value and worth become apparent.