Saturday, March 12, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Reflection Letter
Of the dozens of English Composition 101 classes to choose from I registered for item #3692 simply because it filled a diversity requirement I wanted to get out of the way. While the subjects we have covered do tend to be a bit edgy and have the potential for controversy, I found another area of diversity which will serve me well both academically and personally. Throughout this course we have written in a range of styles and formats of writing that have are relatively new and many people haven’t had much contact with. For me it was the blog. I had never explored the blogosphere and wasn’t entirely comfortable with idea of posting my writing so publicly. Once getting through the “Coming Attractions” module and understanding how publicly all of our writing would be explored, I considered dropping the class, only to discover I wouldn’t be able to get into another. But let me come back to that…
The second week of my sophomore year in high school my folks evicted me from their house after I continued to see a girl I had been forbidden to speak to. Their first warning consisted of selling the house we grew up in and moving to a school district “where she wouldn’t be an issue” and I should have taken them as serious in their purpose. After finally receiving a waiver to take my GED test, I closed the door on education, and shoved off into the troubled waters of life where I drifted about with the social currents for another decade until finally coming to shore in the city of Seattle. After meeting my wife a short time later, I set to cleaning up the wreckage of my past, and building a new life based on family, responsibility, and education. With that history and these new promises of stability and responsibility biting at my brain, I had gone as far as I could in my school work without meeting the English 101 requirement.
If I dropped this class I would be unable to continue with my program spring quarter, effectively breaking the promises I had made to myself and family. So, publicly we explored the realms of community, tradition, and identity while class discussions helped me confront many of the ways I keep people at a distance and in doing so realized how that has prevented me from pursuing better opportunities.
As we began the discussions and reading of our first segment Identity, I began to relax a little, feeling like I had a reasonable grip on the concepts of each of the modules to come. What I hadn’t anticipated was my ideas wouldn’t be a factor in the main essay projects and I would have to learn to use synthesis of other author’s essays to support my one idea or thesis. This proved to be a challenge in every module, but I began to notice that the way I was reading and taking notes was becoming more analytical. While reading the assigned works I found that my focus was directed more toward supportive ideas than flowery bits or humor to augment my own ideas. This same approach of anticipating the assignment began to appear in my studies for other classes and soon found both my note taking and test preparation skills had improved dramatically.
Community was my favorite module overall and I enjoyed each of the assigned readings, exploring ideas in the discussion boards and blog, and finally the essay which I had high hopes for but again only edged by with the same mediocrity my Identity paper had achieved. The other writing assignments and especially exploring other people’s ideas in the discussion boards and conversations spurred from them were a pleasure and I felt like I really got to know some people on a level I wouldn’t have expected possible from an on line class. In reading Shari Caudron’s "Befriending Barbie" I learned how starting an essay with a vague or somewhat misleading introduction that get’s the reader incorrectly anticipating the direction of your essay can make the impact of your true message much deeper. She begins with “Debbie Baker has extraordinary fingernails' (this sound like your mother has forced you to say something nice about that bratty girl Debbie Baker) 'They’re very long. And pink. Fantastically pink. So pink that if you weren’t completely focused on your conversation with her, you’d be distracted by them” - (page 167), which kind of had me ready for a fluffy article teasing about the triviality of Barbie. Caudron then get’s to a heart breaking story of how Debbie Baker’s child died and how her community of Barbie collector’s rallied around her and became a second family.
Intermission was a well enjoyed break after the demoralizing experiences of the first two essays and I looked forward to not having to write a thesis based essay at the end. What I managed to overlook was that the free write was under such a tight time limit and still expected that we adhere to the same thesis based writing that had dogged me so badly already. I could handle the idea of not knowing the exact subject in advance and felt confident I could watch the movie enough times and take enough detailed notes that I would be able to put together a paper in a short amount of time. What I overlooked was that it was 1 hour and we would still be expected to write a thesis based argument. It had taken me days of work and exploring many different avenues to come up each thesis in the first two papers, and now I had an hour to discover a thesis and defend it. I crumpled under the pressure and couldn’t focus my thoughts let alone focus and drive a thesis. It was so bad that I didn’t look at the grade book until I had completed my final essay on tradition.
Tradition, for the most part, was purely an effort to keep on track to complete the class with a passing grade. Realizing I wasn’t going to be able to master the thesis based essay by the end of the quarter I decided if I did get through this class, I could probably successfully avoid them for the rest of my life while enjoying blogs and discussion board writing. Two out of three isn’t bad right? While I did manage to come across a thesis I really thought would be fun to explore, I overlooked the utter lack of examples in our reading to drive my thesis. So yet again I floundered to the finish line in the essay section. I thoroughly enjoyed writing the blogs, participating in the Discussion Boards, and have let down the guard enough to ask for help when I needed it. These skills will more than compensate for my utter lack of skill in essay writing and I enjoy them much more as well.
As I mentioned this English 101D was a blind pick not having any idea what would be covered. After I purchased the textbook ReMix and scanned its pages I was intrigued by what we might be doing. Once the class opened and I read the syllabus and looked at each assignment I knew that the instructors end had been carefully thought out and it was going to be a fun ride. We’ve explored a variety of writing formats while touching on a diverse range of topics designed to make us think about the world we live in and the different microcosms that exists within daily life. To conclude I haven’t given up on the thesis based essay and plan to practice the skill until it becomes a more natural part of my newly diversified writing portfolio.
Introduction: “Tribe or Tribble?”
Demonstrating Critical Thinking: There were so many intensely personal and intriguing lines of thought to each of our assigned essays this module and it was difficult limiting the conversation to just a few areas and a reasonable length. Each essay gave different rich examples of community and a variety of ideas and perspectives for synthesis and analysis.
I found that in several essays the author provided analysis to support the scope of their thesis, but still left me room to explore the subject a bit deeper. In the first example Kumi Hodge is discussing African American students being shunned by other students once their GPA reached 3.5 and where accused of “acting white”. It left me wondering how something private like a grade could leave students to be singled out by their peers and the 3.5 GPA seemed to be a familiar landmark of success. I found that most school honor roles are 3.5 and above, and would advertise the student’s academic success. By narrowing the case Hodge had made to that specific point, it gave an alternative perspective to actual intelligence being the cause for a decline in social popularity at the 3.5 mark.
Preparation for this ePortfolio was the first time I re-read my post and now that I have, think I could have found more success in the final essay’s had I reviewed my use of analysis and synthesis earlier.
Works Cited
Latterell, Catherine G. Remix: reading + composing culture. Boston - New York: Bedford/ST. Martin’s, 2010. Print.
Hodge, Kumi. “Making the Grade” Latterell 259 – 260
Berreby, David. “It Takes a Tribe” Latterell 119 – 124
Caudron, Shari. “Befriending Barbie" Latterell 167 – 177“Tribe or Tribble?”
Kumi Hodge discusses the interrelationships between Identity and Community in his essay “Making the Grade” and makes several assertions worth exploration. Hodge states “One of the most dominant stereotypes I see in my generation is the idea that when black students show interest in academics, they’re acting white. I’ve read statistics in public policy journal that say the popularity of black students slope negatively when their GPA reaches a 3.5” (Page 259) I don’t doubt the correlation, but does the popularity slope negatively when the GPA reaches 3.5 because that is an actual bench mark of intelligence that somehow alienates them from fellow students among their race, or could it be that 3.5 is the GPA published for the honor role students and their name and face then advertised as smart. If there are such few black faces among the sea of presumably white faces, is the affect stereotyping them as “acting white” instead of the highlighting their intelligence and academic success as an honor roll student and smart youth that they are? Could this be a negative incentive for minority youth to underachieve? I spent time on the honor role and found that all the hard work with rewards limited to home life, were not worth sacrificing the social scene at school only to be badged a dork and left without a place in the intramural activities. Instead I could coast on studies, hang out with friends, and tune out mom and dad’s insistence that I was potted.
While reading the Community DB #2 assignment description and prompt, I was reminded of the different essays I was considering when putting together my Identity DB 1 "How did we manage to survive adolescence?" post. Just before the prompt in our current community discussion board assignment, we are given the example “David Berreby says, ‘We want to live in tribes…[people] are looking to be told what group they belong to. And then once they do that, they want to know ‘What are the rules’” (123). This might as well be the high school cafeteria on a larger scale with bigger risks and rewards. The key difference is the primary assertion of the author; in “community” we want to be told were we fit instead of having an “identity” and locating or flying our own identity markers to find our people. There is a significant difference in philosophy between the two classes; in communities the individual achieves status and rank simply by being identified as a member of a particular “tribe” and might not have any real individual merit, where as “identity” gives the individual control over their success, is held to personal accountability, and must achieve at every level. Not just enough to meet the entry requirement of the desirable community.
In relatively controlled environments with large populations there might only be the choice between having a successful personal identity and achieving a more desirable community acceptance. In the freedom of everyday life, we have the ability to strike out on our own and find large groups where each individual is unique, yet each has a common thread tying them firmly to the community. The essay which illustrates this idea is Shari Caudron’s "Befriending Barbie". The introduction to her essay leads you briefly down the road every mind travels when conjuring an image of the typical Barbie collector when Caudron writes “Debbie Baker has extraordinary fingernails' (this sound like your mother has forced you to say something nice about that bratty girl Debbie Baker) 'They’re very long. And pink. Fantastically pink. So pink that if you weren’t completely focused on your conversation with her, you’d be distracted by them” (page 167) She gets your mind ready to partake in the hysterical Barbie bashing session she is just about to unleash to the sounds of cheers and hysterical laughter. Then she goes deep and introspective on the reader, and has one truly examining the worth of an individual, regardless of how silly their overzealous passion for a Barbie doll might seem to level headed you. When people are free to choose their community and can inter-associate regardless of identity, the family between genus and order can be discovered and value of each fully explore without being mutually exclusive.
Introduction: “Pain is a Community”
Writers Choice: I didn’t think this piece was particularly important until a week after I posted it and started thinking about where my life might be if I hadn’t decided to join. Once you get comfortable with a group, it’s easy to overlook the really special things that are unique to it and how it fills a place that nothing else would. I was driven to membership through desperate pain and the need for information to empower myself to get the care I needed. As I mentioned in my Reflection Letter, I don’t like to make my life public record and was very reluctant to continue with this class after seeing how publicly our writing would be reviewed. It didn’t even occur to me that the CP group was basically the same scenario when I first showed up there and my life had benefited from it so much. I don’t know if this represents my best work but if I hadn’t written it and decided just stick with 101D to see what happened, I might have decided to drop it and I wouldn’t have had any growth, accomplishments, or increased ability.