Reflection
Essay
In the beginning of the quarter, I had to idea what to expect from this class. I considered myself an okay writer in high school but had always stuck close to the standard essay format. I was excited to dive into multimodal composition, and looking back, I could not have asked for a better atmosphere to do so. In ten short weeks, I learned how I can express ideas through images, scents, Google Maps, colors and other mediums I would never have thought of. Daily prompts pushed me to overcome my desire to create perfect pieces of writing and taught me to explore ideas that may not be fully developed at first instead of fearing them. The three showcase pieces I have selected pushed me to rethink what I thought was possible in terms of composition, and after revising them, I learned how to create balanced and organized writing that sends a clear message.
In short assignment 2, I was tasked with combining sensory information with photographs to create a scent map. This was the most enjoyable assignment of my quarter, as it let me take a break from sitting at my desk and enjoy my surroundings. I chose to create a map of the journey I take while checking the mail because I do it so often that it is habit at this point, and I have never stopped to observe the scents I encounter along the way. Creating the draft of this assignment was a lot of fun, but revising it required a lot of effort and critical thinking on my part. My pictures and text felt, at times, disjointed and the text itself did not do as good a job of immersing the reader as I wanted it to. Outcome 1, which I understand as the ability to pull together different forms of composition to create a unified message, was not being fulfilled by my draft. To better tie together the images and text, I made sure to create a reference to the image in every slide so that the reader could have a clear understanding of why I chose the image. In slide 1, I added the phrase “I close my laptop, done with my last class of the day” to give context for the image, as well as the start of my journey. In slide 5, I added the phrase “As I walk through the front yard on the winding stone path” to better place the reader in that specific moment of my journey. These changes made sure that the message that the image and text were sending were tied together and I was able to establish that each image was there to place the reader in a certain context. After referencing the images, I edited the text by adding more sensory details so that I could better immerse the reader into the map. In slide 2, I wanted to capture how the smell of paint slowly overwhelms me. Instead of saying “paint fumes bore into my head”, which made the sensation seem blunter than I wanted it to, I added the phrases “fumes snake into my nose” to capture the subtle yet determined movements I feel that the smell of paint has. In slide 7, I added the phrase “make me feel like I am at a grand, diverse feast with every food I can think of” to capture the feeling of community I get by smelling what my neighbors are cooking each evening. My initial text just explained that the smells made me think of dinner, which is not wrong, but completely overlooked what I wanted to get across in this slide. After forming stronger connections between the text and images, and adding in sensory details to my text, I now feel that short assignment 2 better takes readers through this map because it uses different mediums more effectively.
In short assignment 5, I analyzed The Map by Gary Soto to situate it as a poetic exercise in critical cartography. My draft had all my thoughts in one paragraph, loosely transitioning between claims and vaguely tying Soto’s poem to critical cartography. My first step was to create a well defined structure for my analysis, with an introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. This organization was inspired by the feedback I received from Professor Gilbert during our second meeting, where she encouraged me to improve my structure. I focused each paragraph on each part of the poem I focused on, omitting my analysis of line 12 because it was my weakest piece of evidence. Though I overhauled my piece in response to the feedback I received, I feel like it was well worth it because my piece is now easier to read and the argument I make is easier to follow, ultimately fulfilling Outcome 4 which I took as the ability to strategically revise a piece based on constructive feedback. After defining my structure, I added more sources into my analysis of each line because in order to argue that The Map is an exercise in counter mapping, I felt that I needed to establish the preexisting dynamics that Soto was challenging. I did not have the expertise to address current power dynamics, so adding in more sources let me create a credible foundation from which I argued for counter mapping. I also added a conclusion that tied together the countermapping observations I made in each body paragraph. By connecting each piece of evidence to countermapping, and tying my arguments together in a conclusion, I could identify the situation of countermapping that The Map participates in. This made me feel like I better fulfilled Outcome 2, which I interpreted as having the ability to understand the purpose of a piece and engage with the message it is sending.
Major project 1 is an assignment that is very close to my heart. I engaged in map making to reveal the flaws in my high school’s lottery system that are not apparent in a regular satellite map. I am passionate about this topic because I tried to bring it up with my school’s administration before and failed to make an impact, so I created this piece to build an argument that I can bring to the administration in the future. That passion bled into the piece more than I liked, because reading it back, I felt like I was ranting in some parts and making grand, unfounded claims against the administration. I was very embarrassed to read my piece back and realize that, but it motivated to me take a more mature approach to this piece so I can create a piece that will not alienate the administrators who are the intended audience of this essay. My bias clearly influenced my piece, so I added an author’s memo to establish my positionality and remove my opinions from the facts I was trying to present. I also removed some egregious, unfounded claims I made and instead replaced them with milder arguments that I could support. One such claim was implying that Big Picture’s lower test scores were because of its lottery system, which I replaced by just saying that many factors can influence test scores. I also threw around phrases like “classism” and “must decide between scores and values”, which were not at all based in fact and just made my tone sound angry, so I removed them completely. In revising this piece, I matured as a writer and learned how to remove my bias from arguments that I want to be seen as credible. By considering the different points of view that my audience might have and creating a piece that tried to not ostracize any of them, I felt that I fulfilled Outcome 3 better, which I interpreted as the ability to create a piece that is meant for a specific purpose.
Revising my showcase pieces allowed me to reflect on my skills as a writer and how I can grow through embracing the revision process. I had fun with exploring multimodal composition and embraced the usage of sensory details. I learned that while I do not always have to follow the standard introduction-body paragraph-conclusion format, I do need to follow some structure while I am creating my pieces so that readers can follow along. I also learned valuable lessons about myself along the way, like the fact that I generally stick to my point of view very tightly and need to write for an audience that might not know what I am thinking. This was especially true in the revision of major project 1, which showed me that I need to learn how to remove myself from a situation to make sure that I create a welcoming space for diverse sets of perspectives. I believe that long lasting change can only happen when people put their differences aside and work together, so learning how to create balanced arguments that do not dissuade people from listening was very important to me. I can see myself taking this skill forward in my academic and personal life, as I find work that speaks to me and fight to make change when I need to. I am deeply grateful to ENGL 182 and Professor Gilbert for pushing me to break out of my comfort zone and take risks that let me grow as a writer and person.