First I want to say welcome to New York, the city of my birth. You are going to experience NYC like never before. I also want to say welcome to LaGuardia, a school that has done nothing, but give me a great college experience. Like most students, many of us has had to take English 101 and I will tell you firsthand how valuable this class is. You won’t learn about how to be a good writer, but how to become a great one. In this class I’ve transformed my writing from novice to expert and I am very proud to say that. Most importantly above all you will learn about yourself in ways that you never thought. That’s through the writings and projects we’ve done on others identity. The writings that shape our own identity were through blogs we’d have …show more content…
That has been my weakness coming into this class, but through practice and repetition, it has transformed my writings into being great pieces. I would also recommend, working on your public speaking skills as this class bread and butter is discussions, the part I like most. I would definitely tell you not to be afraid to speak during the classroom discussions. The assignment I would say challenged me the most is an essay we had to do on Pat Buchanan’s short essay “Deconstructing America”. The assignment was to deconstruct his essay ‘no pun intended’ and figure out whether it was effective or not and why. This was very challenging because I am very opinionated person so I had to approach this essay, from a neutral perspective and not sound harsh. It took me two revisions to finally get it …show more content…
One way I examined identity is a project we had to do through the Story Corps App, an app that helps interview people. Through that I decided to interview my friends Mom, a lady who has been a mother like figure to me since I was about 12. I decided to interview her because I never knew her on a deep level. So I always wondered why this lady is so nice to me. Why does she remind me of my biological mom? I knew I had to interview her to find out and the perfect opportunity came, when we had to interview someone. I discovered what shaped her identity was her upbringing and her influences. A lot of which has to do with her mother who raised her and taught her to respect and be nice to everyone no matter the person and no matter what that person had done to you. Finding that out taught me your identity is shaped a lot on how you were raised. Another medium we used was a book called “Identity” containing many short essays and stories. In the beginning of the semester we has to read a short essay in the book titled “How to be Black” by Baratunde Thurston. He talks about his upbringing and the huge role his mom played in his life and how much it shaped his identity. She instilled in him his African roots always educating him on the Motherland of Africa, even giving him “a very African name”. Reading this story resonated with me being that my family
Do you know who you are? I’m not just talking about your name and age. What I’m talking about goes way deeper than that. Anyways, there’s this girl who’s so desperate to find out who she really is. Sure, she knows what her dislikes and likes are, but what else does she know?
The third book I chose to evaluate African American culture and identity is names Papa’s Mark (Battle-Lavert, 2003). This book was about a young African American boy, Simms, who had a strong passion and desire to help his father learn how to write. During this time period, African Americans were given the freedom to vote. However, Simms noticed that his father did not know how to write his own name and wanted to make sure he could by the time election day arrived. In order to achieve his goal, Simms would leave a piece of paper with his father’s name written at the top to help guide him.
After carefully reading the well-written pieces on identity, I believe the main subject is the change of identity. According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, the word identity is, “the distinguishing character or personality of an individual.” Along the way, individuals experience setbacks with the disconnection of themselves and others. For example, in Alfred Lubrano’s piece of writing, he explains his personal struggle between balancing college education and family. “At night at home, the difference in the Columbia experiences my father and I were having was becoming more evident.
But the thing is on the inside she doesn’t actually know who she is. But when people get close to her, they realise she isn’t the person they thought she was, her life looks messy and not put together like everyone thought.
Tawney Nodland – As I look back over the past semester of English Composition, I realize that I have grown as a writer. Not onlyhas my understanding of the writing process changed, my whole attitude towards composition has too. This composition course has made a significant impact on my learning experience and has given me tools to take forward into my future educational and professional goals. Throughout this course, I have discovered things about myself as a writer and know some of my strengths and weaknesses. I now feel more prepared for future writing assignments, whether for work or for school.
While reading the story, you can tell in the narrators’ tone that she feels rejected and excluded. She is not happy and I’m sure, just like her family, she wonders “why her?” She is rejected and never accepted for who she really is. She is different. She’s not like anyone else
The blogs have deepened my writing and ideas in many ways throughout this semester. The texts that I wrote about are: Wieland, or the Transformation by Charles Brockden Brown, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass, “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “Rosa” by Cynthia Ozick. My writing experiences helped me develop my close reading skills by showing me the importance of noting details, such as tone. My writing has become more sophisticated and I have learned to cite sources properly and make better arguments. Overall, I have learned a lot about writing: it is complex with many different interpretations, has purpose, and is difficult to do.
Throughout my experiences in this course so far, I have had many opportunities to reflect on my own past and have begun to better understand my own cultural identity. It has been much more difficult to wrap my head around than I would have predicted it to be because so many things play into the construction of an identity that it can be hard to look at all of those separate pieces together. My cultural identity, like all others, is more complicated than it first appears. I identify as a white person, a woman, an American, a gay person, and a feminist, just to name a few. While all of these labels carry with them stereotypes and expectations, they also interplay with the cultural influences I was subject to throughout my childhood.
Writing has always been an issue but yet interesting subject of mine. As hard as I try and write essays, and papers I just can’t get the hang of writing. But after taking this class, I did learn different writing technique and improved my writing proficiency, material body of formatting, and how to uncovering and properly use sources. Through class exams, essays, and a research paper, I was able to learn new writing skills. Although I have learned a variety of things, my writing still needs improvement.
Her personal experience is socially and theoretically constructed and emotions play an essential role in the process of identity formation. Her identity is not fixed, which is portrayed by inquisitiveness that her own mother and Aunt thought she was possessed, enhanced and made this story an enriching experience. The family is the first agent of socialization, as the story illustrates, even the most basic of human activities are learned and through socialization people
My expectations coming into the course were high and remained high throughout the duration of the course. The essays I wrote in the class really challenged me to progress in my writing skills. The illustration essay really served as an example of what not to do when writing at a college level. My approach of the essay was really misunderstood and grammatically incorrect.
In the past, I found myself identifying myself to have commonalities with people surrounding me. When I was surrounded by a diverse group of people, I would find that I would gravitate towards those who appeared to have something in common with me. I believe I was drawn towards people of the same age range, race, and culture the same as my own because it is something familiar. Although I still think that I gravitate towards individuals like myself, I believe I try to branch out and meet others individuals that differ from me more than I did in that past. Now, I shape my own identity.
A. My personal identity has been heavily influenced by the culture in which I was raised. My family has had the largest, most significant influence on my identity, thus far in life. They raised me in a home heavily relied on faith and through the years my faith remains a large part of who I am. My parents and grandparents created a culture of acceptance and understanding were love is the most important thing.
Her identity was given to her because of the man she
CHAPTER 2 : IDENTITY Identity is a topic that is significant to everyone. Identity relates to the time less question who am I and the related inquiry who and what do I appear to be; to myself, to my companions, and to others etc. A person can be appear to be many things at once where these different identities appear inconsistent. Identity basically reflects the individual characteristics which may include the idea about what kind of personality we have, as well as to social categories. In this manner, identity in its available incarnation has a twofold sense.