Alejandro Estevez

Prof. Crowe

Freshman Composition

27 November 2020

Exploring Expressing Myself Through Writing   

            Throughout the semester a variety of work has been assigned in order to understand the Course Learning Objectives. The Course Learning Objectives focus on our development as a writer in improving the ways we approach drafting our work, rhetorical analysis, the impact that writing has in social implications, using rhetoric to our advantage in formulating our work, citation methods, and methods of research. In my work personally there was not really a theme across all of the essays I have written this semester. The way I approached my writing was just writing about things I enjoyed. Previously in Highschool most of the writing was driven towards academic subjects exclusively. I wanted to use the freedom I was given in my writing for these assignments as an opportunity in exploring writing as a medium to express myself. In each unique phase and the projects within those phases I understood each respective Course Learning Outcome needed in the completion of the essays and I explored expressing myself through writing.

In the first Phase I read a series of narratives that had a social implication that was central to the theme of language’s and literacy’s impact in how society observes people who are considered an anomaly. Examples include “Mother Tongue” written by Amy Tan and “Why I Keep Speaking Up” presented by Safwat Saleem. “Mother Tongue” follows the experiences of Amy Tan, a Chinese American writer who accounts moments where her mother was treated as sub-human for speaking “broken English” or not conforming to the “White English” standard. In “Why I Keep Speaking Up” Safwat Saleem describes his challenges as a content creator with a speech impediment and how he confronts this challenge with graphic representation (Saleem). Along with reading and analyzing these works we also filled out worksheets that confirmed our understanding in the rhetorical development. Finally, at the end of the phase, we constructed our own narrative discussing key moments where language and literacy were especially important in our lives. In the formulation of this essay I heavily relied on the Course Learning Outcomes: “Recognize the role of language attitudes and standards in empowering, oppressing, and hierarchizing languages and their users, and be open to communicating across different languages and cultures”, “Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations”, “Engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes”, and “Develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing”. I used the first two Course Learning Outcomes in reading and analyzing how the narratives illustrate how language and literacy affect our lives. I used the last two Course Learning outcome extensively throughout the development of the project and through peer editing. As I read the works presented in Phase 1 In writing the WLLN and the SLLN I was inspired by Saleem’s interest in graphic representation and I enjoy art, so I decided to write about how art and literature go hand and hand through the comics I analyzed in my senior year English class. Within that essay I try to explore and analyze why my love for art does not translate into a love for literature. With the equality between literature and art I establish in my paper, I also make an intriguing argument where the complex and nuanced elements in comic books make them a valid scholarly source. This was one aspect in which I used the freedom of expression given to me to explore and understand who I am.

In the second Phase I critically analyzed the rhetoric of Amy Tan in her personal essay, “Mother Tongue” to compose the Rhetorical Analysis Essay. Since this type of writing is more of an academic paper it was a bit easier for me to write because of my background of writing analysis driven papers in high school. Even though we covered some basic rhetorical situation worksheets in the first phase, this was type of analysis was more in depth and rich with information. This mainly stems from the rhetorical devices of ethos, pathos, logos and circumstances that affected the rhetoric being used by Tan like her intended audience, diction, and the original publication of the essay. With that being said, I mainly used “Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations” and “Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations” in analyzing “Mother Tongue” and composing the essay. I also used the Course Learning Outcomes previously mentioned in order to fully understand Amy Tan’s use of rhetoric and how she constructs her argument. Since I was writing about someone else’s work I could not really focus on exploring something about myself. However, I do enjoy this type of writing the most because academic writing is the type of writing I am most comfortable with.

In the third Phase, I engaged in a research topic of my choice that reflected my interests while addressing the core themes of the class regarding language politics. In the early developments of my essay, I was extremely lost in what to write about since the prompt was very open ended. I then decided to focus on what I see to be a key part in my own identity, which is being a first generation American. The question I chose to focus on was “How does the Immigrant experience influence the American Dream?”. In the midst of the research process, it was extremely interesting to understand the history of immigrants and the contemporary immigrant experience develops and shapes the American Dream and how their experiences also support the Death of the American Dream. In addition to analyzing the history of the Immigrant experiences, in the paper I also analyze the role of classic American literature. In developing this essay it was imperative that I understood the following Course Learning Outcomes: “Compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation”, “Practice systematic application of citation conventions”, “Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias”.  The formulation of this essay was not only limited to the Course Learning Outcomes listed. I also needed all the Outcomes I practiced in earlier phases. In using this opportunity to dive deeper in understanding my place in the American culture, I finally understand the enormous impact of immigrant contributions to American history and culture.

In using this semester to explore expressing myself I was able to understand my own preferences in the world of writing and how to used the Course Learning Outcomes to enhance and elevate my reflective writing, rhetorical writing, and research writing. As mentioned in my WLLN, I personally prefer artistic representation as a way of expressing myself, but in only using art as a medium of expression I’m losing a variety of possibilities in communicating who I am to others. I understand that this semester is only the beginning in a very long journey in understanding who I am, but I’m grateful for this experience in pointing me in the right direction.