November 2020

Writing is something that is liberating or freeing. It’s the opportunity to express everything you feel. Every type of writing is different ,but the process of writing is quite the same. With writing everyone views it differently. They view their writing differently than a reader would. At the beginning of this course, in my first ed-blog post I described the way I write as a structured mess. With time and with reading and completing the modules, I realized that writing isn’t just about expressing yourself, it’s about expressing yourself in a way that can help or influence readers. It’s more than just structure, although structure is important. Writing is a form of self-expression, but it’s important how you express yourself with writing.

In this course and with the time we had to read “What the Eyes Don’t See” by Dr. Hanna-Attisha, the general advice I would give someone, who wants to make changes in their own community, would be never think that you couldn’t create a change. After reading this book and thinking about an issue that was affecting my home-town, I thought the issue in my home-town wasn’t as major as the crisis in Flint, Michigan. The crisis in Flint was something that demanded change, no one could really overlook the problem of discolored water. So, whatever crisis/ issue is present in your community/ home-town, never think just because it’s not to the extent of the crisis in Flint that it’s not a problem. If you view it as a problem, there’s a strong possibility that others around you see it as a problem as well. That was a problem I addressed in an ed-blog reflection to “What the Eyes Don’t See”, I didn’t know whether or not the issue in my home-town was big enough to discuss. It seemed as if it wasn’t comparable to the crisis in Flint. I had to learn that no problems are the same, and the detrimental effects aren’t the same.

The writing advice I would give is ,always revise your writing, always use scholarly sources or strong statistics, and always write as if you were actually presenting your research to someone with authority. In “What the Eyes Don’t See”, Dr. Hanna-Attisha did a ton of research and with help got information from people with more knowledge of lead levels in water, and when she was given the opportunity to present her information ,her work couldn’t be denied, although there were people who tried to deny it. The information that she, her residents, and friends gathered was something that sparked a conversation among the city of Flint and even got to people in other states.

When choosing to research a topic, it is important to choose something that has affected you. I think it becomes easier when you write an argumentative essay, I think it allows you to have some credibility. In my argumentative essay, I wrote about gun violence in my home-town, Horn Lake, Ms, and originally it was hard to find a counterargument for my essay. I realized that because I had the experience of knowing people that have been lost to gun violence,  it would be easy to argue the need for more police. When I realized that, I had to think how does this help my argument and how will it hurt my argument. Finding articles and information that can support that argument was difficult because there were more news reports ,and news reports aren’t scholarly sources. What helped the most is peer reviews, having a reader’s opinion saying that the counterargument is not clear caused me to re-evaluate my paper and try to find a scholarly source that would support my argument. In the evaluating sources module ,I learned a-lot about scholarly sources and how they help your credibility in any paper.

In “What the Eyes Don’t See”, it was very obvious in the beginning that no one knew the truth about the crisis ,but many people denied it because of what was being said by the government officials and they were trusted because of their positions. In chapter 1, Dr.Hanna-Attisha recalls a time where a patient’s mother asked her if it was safe to drink the water and she tells her “The tap water is just fine.” With her being a doctor her patients’ families trusted her and her advice. Credibility is one of the most important aspects when doing a paper. The reader has to be able to trust your words, they have to be able to know that your facts aren’t faulty. One module spoke about appropriately using logical fallacies, and after completing the module, I realized logical fallacies can hurt your paper if used incorrectly. I also learned that run-on sentences and fragments can really hurt your essay. If it is hard to read an essay ,the reader could possibly think you don’t know what you’re talking about.

After completing the semester and this course, my writing has become better. Learning different aspects of a paper and how to improve my writing not only was helpful for this class, but was helpful with having to complete papers for other classes. The peer-reviews helped me the most throughout the course ,as well as peers and teacher interaction. After reading this book, I realized it’s important to fight for things that mean something to you. Dr.Hanna-Attisha continued to strive for more throughout this book and it took her to greater heights. This book taught me to stand for what you believe in, and there could be a great outcome.

Works Cited

Hanna-Attisha, Mona. What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City. One World, 2018.

 

 

Reflecting on the first post about the way that I write, I would say not much has changed. I initially described the way I write as a structured mess, now I would describe it the exact same way. For the first essay ,the analysis essay, my structure wasn’t the best. After going through the modules, my knowledge of writing and how to properly structure my paragraph has grown. I think that the modules help strengthen the skills that I already had.

The module were the thing that allowed me the most help. The module about revision is something that I took into consideration with most of my writing. I think that is something that helped me to grow over this course along with peer review. Peer review was the biggest help over-all because it gave the opinion of the reader rather than just allowing myself to read and try to structure things differently. I would say overall my writing has had small changes more than big changes, but the knowledge I’ve learned from the modules has influenced me to better my writing.

In the peer reviews, I have be extremely grateful for the insight of my peers. I do think it has help me with my essays and sometimes there opinion gave confirmation of certain aspects of my papers I was unsure of. With the analysis essay the best advice I received was to add more structure to the essay and give more background information. I think this information was very helpful because I was unsure if readers would be able to get a clear understanding of my paper. After the peer review for that essay, my essay had more structure, not the best structure, as well as more background information. With the argument essay I was unsure of the counterargument, was it clear or even present in my rough draft. After the peer review I received confirmation that it could have been more clear and that readers were basically trying to read between the lines to understand my essay.

I think that the way I gave feed-back didn’t necessarily change over the course. I tried to give advice the way I wanted someone to give me advice. I think the best advice would be to check for grammar error. I think grammar places a major part in keeping a readers’ attention and helps the flow of an essay. I think that if an essay is hard to read, it’s hard to understand, which possibly means the writer didn’t get their point across the way they intended.

In the last chapters of “What the Eyes Don’t See” the other goals that Dr.Hanna-Attisha wanted to accomplish, I think she accomplished them. Her goal to get the water system changed was a great accomplishment , and although the water system is still not it’s best, she got people to pay attention and forced change. I think with the other goals she wants to accomplish, if she hasn’t already, I think that she has to put in the same effort, but go about things differently because they are different issues. Her bringing attention to the water system allowed for funds to be sent to Flint, although families were ready to leave, but couldn’t, her bringing attention to the issue helped other issues.

If my policy were adopted, I would hope that the long-term outcome would be a decrease in crime. Adding more police to the patrol unit ,to help decrease violent crime in my hometown, is something that would require more money. I think with any fix to a problem anywhere requires a certain amount of funding. That is the biggest limitation on what can change for many neighborhoods and cities. If there isn’t a decrease in crime at least there is a conversation to come up with other ideas to minimize crime.

In chapters 23-24 of ” What the Eyes Don’t See” ,I think Dr. Hanna-Attisha won her argument when in chapter 23 she states that they (her research team) had found information about the state officials. The information that she received about how the state official basically covered up the issue and protected themselves, rather than the community.I think also, a turning point in her argument was actually getting the state officials to change the water system back to Detroit water system. I think once that was down she basically succeed. In chapter 23 she states,”There is no way that this ever would have happened without the two of you, so thank you for all the lost sleep and incredible work you have done on behalf of Flint residents.” I think in this moment she felt accomplished even though things took and change with the school systems, she brought attention to Flint’s water crisis and celebrities and very important people began to show support.

Including pathos, logos, kairos, and ethos was an important role in her argument. If she never included the data and stats that her and her residents discovered throughout the book, she never would have been able to create her argument. She had the credibility as a pediatrics Doctor, the help from people who studied lead levels in water to help build her argument. The stories she told in her presentation caught the attention of officials and forced them to make a change for Flint.