Final Reflection

When it came to writing I thought I knew all that I needed to know to be an above average writer. I have written difficult papers in the past before but had never reflected on a single one of them. Throughout this class I have found that reflection is the best way to understand the strengths and weaknesses in my writing because it involves taking a step back and looking at my work before, during and after I had finished with it. This class, particularly the reflections and weekly analysis that I wrote in the Common Place Book, taught me that I was far from knowing everything about being a good writer.

My first reflection I wrote on a paper and my first CRQ were weak and showed a writer that was insecure and overcompensated using large words, lots of summary and a bad implementation of quotations taken from articles and writing prompts. The difference I found in writing in the Common Place Book versus speaking in class was that the ideas I discussed and the personal stories or feelings I wrote in my Common Place Book were only between my teacher and me. The idea that the Common Place Book was a personal space to discuss thoughts and feelings comforted me and helped me to use it to its full potential as a helpful writing tool. By using the Commonplace book like a personal writing journal, I found that the most important part of the writing process is the reflection written on the progress of the current paper before it is finished. In these reflections I was able to see the most growth and even though I was writing as an assignment, it helped me immensely to flesh out the things I was struggling with. All of my life and especially at the start of this class, I hated research and analytical writing. I always found that writing on topics I was passionate about or personal stories came more naturally to me. However, after cranking out a CRQ week after week, I have become a writer that can respond to a prompt even if the prompt mentions things I have never heard of, let alone written about. Not only can I respond and write about these topics weekly, but I can do so confidently.

By doing weekly CRQ’s and reflections on my papers in the Commonplace Book, I have become a less formal more to the point writer who has found her own voice. I feel like I can write a well formulated response on any topic or prompt and still be able to implement things that are unique to me and my writing. I have exhibited so much growth in my writing and I hope that the learning does not stop there. I never again think that I know all I need to know about writing because if this class has taught me anything it is that I will never stop improving my writing skills.

Final Daily Write

I have learned a lot in this class about my self as a writer and my writing process that I will take with me whenever I write a paper for the rest of my life. I hope to carry on the confidence I feel with my writing now into Writing 102 as well as other classes. I hope that in Writing 102 I can work on writing better analysis so that it comes more naturally to me.

Children of Criminals CRQ

The New York Times article I chose for my CRQ was When Parents Are in Prison, Children Suffer by KJ Dell’Antonia. My attention was drawn to this article through the lines, “She is just one of the five million American children who have had a parent incarcerated at some point in their lives. Her father’s sentence is hers, too” (Dell’Antonia Para 3). As an avid watcher of Law and Order and as an American citizen who watches the news, I feel as though I have a good grasp on the insanely large number of people incarcerated for a multitude of reasons. However bad these people are, and I believe most of them are the worst kind of bad people, I rarely think about the families they leave behind. Every man behind bars has a mother and every woman behind bars has a father and depending how present or not present these people were in their lives, they are left to pick up the pieces after sentencing. I thought that the beginning of the article was common sense, of course a child of a criminal is negatively affected by their parent’s actions and jail sentence, how could they not be? It is sad to think that people can not stop their bad ways when they have children. I did not however realize that there were very few systems in place to help these children and that the burden often fell to their other parent or extended family. ““A prison sentence for a parent shouldn’t be a life sentence for a family,” said Ryan Chao, the Casey foundation’s vice president for civic sites and community change” (Dell’Antonia Para 11). I was intrigued to read about the Casey Foundations programs and plans to help convicts when they get out of prison to get their lives back on track for their kids and their programs to hopefully stop the cycle of crime from generation to generation. After reading this article, I realized that every person can see that the children of criminals are innocents, born into an unfortunate situation that was not of their choosing and that they need help. The children are not the bad guys and if the statistics are true then over five million American children are at risk because of the choices that their parents made. This really got me thinking why I had never heard of these programs or this problem before. Why are the children of criminals not talked about more? Just because their parents made mistakes and are possibly bad people does not make their innocent children guilty.

Dell’Antonia, KJ. “When Parents Are in Prison, Children Suffer.” Well. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2016.

MultiModal Reflection

I loved the MultiModal Unit. Not because it was a seemingly easy A, but because it was the chance to expand on a topic in my paper that I was really passionate about in a way that was easy and fun for my class to understand. The course learning outcome that I associated this project with was Purposes and Audience: Students will write with a variety of academic purposes for a variety of audiences. The game I created showed the way I feel about how women and girls are treated in today’s society and how it is setting us back, even if it doesn’t always seem like that. At first, I assumed my audience was men but once I started working I realized that as a woman, I had said some of the phrases written on the put-down cards and quickly broadened my audience. I found that everyone was guilty of thinking or saying the put-down phrases even if the words were spoken without hurtful intentions. When I watched my game being played, I found it very interesting that the audience was not exactly receptive and almost mocked the phrases that I had compiled. My game was not intended to make anyone feel bad or to call a certain group of people out, it was created to show that everyone is guilty of saying the things on the cards and people need to be aware of the impact of their words. I am very proud of my game and hope that my words and thoughts made an impact on the people that read them.

Why Reflect?

I think that reflection is key, following anything that you do creatively or intellectually, to really knowing how you felt and what you did. They say hindsight is 20/20 and I think that reflection in this class after large assignments, is a great way to let the teacher see your thought process, conclusions you came up with on your own about your work, and things you may have done differently. It is a great way to evaluate and comment on your writing process.

Simile Daily Write

My semester has been like running a marathon with no finish line. I have constantly felt stressed out with no end in sight (until now)! This semester was definitely required more effort from me then the last semester and I was not expecting it! Hopefully I have handled it well and that my hard work will pay off in the end.

Suicide CRQ

This article, ‘Buddy Check on 22!’ Veterans Use Social Media to Fight Suicide, shone a positive light to social media and while the statistics and things these people who sacrificed their lives for the country go through on and off the line of duty are alarming and horrifying, it is so nice to know that they have a support system if they need one. This entire article was compelling, sad and positive all at once but the lines that called me from the page were, “It was March 22. To many civilians, just another Tuesday. But to thousands of veterans and active-duty soldiers, the 22nd of every month is a reminder to make a suicide prevention spot-check on former comrades.” To think of thousands of men and women feeling a certain way on a certain day every single month, having flashbacks to war zones, was hard to believe but the lines had tones of compassion and camaraderie and it was so positive and uplifting to think of these thousands of men and women being able to have an accessible safety net of people to turn to. Unfortunately, those who have support systems are still afflicted to the point where a support system doesn’t help or matter. My life had never been touched by suicide until last spring when a girl that I had gone to school with took her life a month before her expected high school graduation. Once word got out and the school brought in grief counselors, I remember everyone going back through her Facebook, Instagram and Twitter trying to find a clue or something foreboding that we all had missed. Word got out that she had sent text messages to four or five of her closest friends minutes before she decided to take her own life but those people thought she was being her usual sweet, thoughtful self and had no idea that those would be her final words. She had been active on social media but there were no signs that anyone felt pointed to what she was going to do. I began to wonder if there really had been no one for her to talk to who could have helped her make a different decision. I looked at my own life and thought of the people I would go to if I were having similar thoughts. However, Natalie, like many other people, was afflicted with depression and while I could think of a list of people a mile long to help me out, her brain blocked her from thinking of a single person. I can only imagine my brain blocking me and then being filled with war images of death, violence and dust like the veterans that suffer with PTSD. We will never really know the thoughts that go through a specific person’s head before they decide that life is no longer worth living, but it is comforting to know that those that come home alive from the war, have a growing system of support. It would be nice to know that every person had this same net of support through an accessible social media platform. Are schools, private agencies and the government doing enough to raise awareness about suicide across the country?

 

Derby Days Incident

I totally agree with what Rachel Wilson had to say in response to the horrible and offensive events of last Friday night. The Sigma Chi’s responsible for the comments should be held responsible but I, like Rachel, believe that the issue is much larger then that. It unfortunately is a cultural issue that many college aged boys have little to no respect for women. I hope that her words are amplified and made an example of because she it spot on.

Freedom of Speech Daily Write

George Takei’s words are something that I think everyone should know and try to abide by in their lives. I am not saying that speech should be stifled, but “it’s a free country with free speech” is not an excuse, in my opinion, to say horrible or offensive things and feel as though you had the right to do so. Also, a lot of people say things and then get offended when a dialogue ensues that does not directly agree with what they said. Takei addresses this in a perfect way saying that if you get to say what you want to then everyone else has the right to respond how they want to.

Games You Can’t Win CRQ

This Op-Doc from the New York Times called, Games You Can’t Win by David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall was by far the darkest thing that I have had to write about in this class. While many aspects of the article and video were very poignant, what called me from the page was, “While their reasons for creating these games vary, one element clearly unites these developers: the video game is their chosen artistic medium, and programming is their paintbrush.” Upon first reading this the comparing of these dark video games to art really surprised me and I felt as though it was an unjust comparison. How were these dark and upsetting video games anything compared to a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat that hangs in the most famous museums in the world or even a piano piece written by a child? When the authors of the article portion of the Doc-Ed opened up with the line, “Video games are generally associated with guns and explosions — a medium better suited to escapism than intimacy” I got the impression that the authors felt videogames were just a game that teenage boys played and one that they did not deem held any other merits other then to express pent up aggression. As a senior in high school, brother spends more time playing on his XBOX then he does with my parents, a fact that I am sure many sisters of teenage brothers would corroborate. It was weird for me to think that his controlling an animated football player to run up and down an animated football field or defending an animated country in animated war was art. Once I watched the video and saw the plight and trauma that the three experiences caused on the four people highlighted in the documentary, I understood why someone, like the animated football maker or animated war maker, would want their story told in a way that instead of reading it as a book or hearing it as a song or viewing it hanging on the wall, could be felt and seen step by step in a video game. As hard as it would be to watch and to play a “game” that can not be won and demonstrates a sex change or living with a child with terminal cancer, it is a way to convey every emotion and the feeling of a never ending struggle just like Basquiat conveyed on canvas or the way the Coronation of Napoleon tells a story hinging in the Louvre. Why is it that people, like I was, are turned off by the idea of immersing themselves in a game about a child dying from terminal cancer but could stare at a paining of mass annihilation or a traumatic event in history for hours in awe?

Osit, David, and Malika Zouhali-worrall. “Games You Can’t Win.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2016. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.