Josh Martin

4/19/16
Ms. Blandford
UWRT 1102-23
Reflection

When I was first introduced to this project, I was not looking

forward to having to research and study the topic of gay marriage. The
reason why was because I did not care about the subject enough to
research about it. However, that changed throughout this paper. I
became more intrigued as each stage of this project passed. I learned
about many past cases that all contributed to the success of legalizing
gay marriage. It made me realize how throughout time the gay
marriage movement progressed slowly and their support grew after
every case. I will go into detail about my experiences throughout this
project. At first, I did not think about the subject in the perspective of a
gay person. However, in the end, I was able to show more respect and
see how they fought hard over and over again to gain their right to
marry.
In the beginning, my group and I hosted a question session
among the class. At this time we were still trying to figure out what
exactly we wanted to talk about within gay marriage. This question
session helped guide us to what we wanted to d, we. We gained so

much that we were able to figure out that we should cover multiple
aspects in the matter of gay marriage within the views of the
community. Since middle school, I have been interested in history so I
decided to go that route in this project by researching back to the
oldest cases to the legalization. Since I like history, that means I am
experienced with researching and writing papers about certain events
in history. However, it told more about the peoples aspect rather then
just the history of the cases.
Since I decided to discuss the cases and history of the gay
marriage movement, I had to start at the beginning of it all. Therefore,
I searched for a timeline of major cases involving gay marriage. I
thought this timeline was full of information that went into detail about
the main summary of the cases. I took the time to carefully read over
every case in the timeline to decide which ones were most important
so I could discuss about them and go into further research for each
one. I only chose a handful to go into more detail about because I did
not want my paper to be too narrow. Since I chose to only to do a
handful, I made sure all of them connected within the same aspect of
one another. I broke it down into each stage of progress they grew.
One aspect that stood out to me was the fact that this movement
started in the 1970s, but just became legal in 2015. This made me
think about the small conflicts we have now as a society and made me
wonder how long exactly it will take to even be resolved. I believe my

research was over flowing because there were so many cases to see.
Out of all of these I realized how our Supreme Court was always trying
to avoid the legalization of gay marriage. The states even did the same
by passing amendments to that States Constitution limiting marriage
rights. I decided to discuss this because it represented the resistance
that the gay marriage movement faced constantly as time went on.
Even when cases were in favor of gay marriage, they faced even more
obstacles. The fight and hard work they put in stood out the most to
me because I believe hard work beats a lot of other personalities. That
was when I began to view it within the perspective of a gay person.
During the year, we discussed Composing Process. I was already
educated well on how to finalize and go about writing my paper but it
was a nice refresher to help me start my paper. When it came to
writing my essay it started by me having to break it down right in the
beginning. When I broke it down, I wanted there to be an introduction
that explained the overall meaning within my subject, then go into
detail by discussing cases. The hardest part about writing this paper
was to make it not sound like a research paper. To make it not sound
like one, I made sure I added my opinion on certain cases and beliefs I
had concerning the outcomes. Finally, I ended the paper with bringing
all my cases, opinions, and outcomes together to one related theme.
For my final draft, I made sure to add in my genres and add more of
my opinion in my paper. The peer reviews helped me provide an aspect

of critical reflection in my paper because it needed more of my voice

instead of the research.
After this semester, I learned many new ways to go about doing
a project and other assignment in more of a detailed and thoroughly
thought out fashion because of the Student Learning Outcomes.
Critical Reflection taught and guided me to making my writing more
thought out rather than just being straight forward and blunt. Critical
Reading helped me to stay intrigued and create questions while I read
so I can understand what I am reading in a more thorough aspect.
Finally, the Knowledge of Conventions helped me connect my genres to
my overall message in my paper. This strengthened my paper so I
could present my message but in a differently composed way.