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Blog Reflection

When I was assigned these blogposts for my ENGL 1010 class it filled me with dread. I am a private person by nature and the idea of writing posts online that anyone could potentially see made me uncomfortable. That is why I chose my audience to be just myself and my fellow classmates. I feel like this was a good decision for me. This is because I would write whatever I would want to read then adjust to be slightly more professional, but not enough to be stiff. In time I learned from peer-reviewing my classmates how to write in tone that was welcoming and warm.

If I could go back to talk with my past self about this blog I would give her the advice I'd tell her about most things; to not worry about it to much it won't be nearly as bad as she thinks.

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My Experience Working in a Group

I tend by nature to be a rather introverted person. I enjoy talking and interacting with people but it is not ever something I choose to do. Working on a group project at school has always been a struggle for me but I have liked my team for this project. However, I have learned that scheduled Zoom meeting were probably not the choice for college students who also work. If I were to do the project again I would have suggested a different way to meet.

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My Reaction to Segul's Work

It is amusing how different audiences approach the same work. For example, Carolyn Foster Segul’s work The Dog Ate My Tablet and Other Tales of Woe is a collection of increasingly absurd types of excuses retold by Segul who becomes increasingly sarcastic throughout the article.It was written in The Chronicles of Higher Education, a newspaper intended for faculty members in colleges and universities. I imagine the intended audience of this work found the piece funny as they almost certainly have similar experiences. However, as a student I found myself having a different reaction.

In the first paragraph of the article Segal writes “ With a show of energy and creativity that would be admirable if applied to the (missing) assignments in question, my students persist, week after week, semester after semester, year after year, in offering excuses about why their work is not ready.” This beginning rubbed me the wrong way immediately. I found myself siding with the faceless crowd of students against the narrator.But why had I had such a quick defensive reaction to The Dog Ate My Tablet and Other Tales of Woe? 

I am not the type of person to lie to get out of a deadline. This is more because I am terrified of being caught rather than any strict moral guidelines.I do however sympathize with the want to do anything other than what I am supposed to do. This causes me to relate to the object of this moral rather than the teller of it. 

When authors begin the writing process they must do it with the knowledge that not everyone is going to receive it the way they want them to. This is normal and should not be met with discouragement. All humans have different experiences and that is reflected in art and how people perceive art. 

Segal , Carolyn Foster. “The Dog Ate My Tablet, and Other Tales of Woe.” Patterns for College Writing, A Rhetorical Reader and Guide, 15th ed., pp. 450–453.

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My Research Argument Topic

In my English class we were assigned argumentative essays. No topic was assigned so I must admit I had a hard time choosing one. The world is filled with an incalculable number of subjects, anyone of them worthy of writing a paper on. After struggling for a couple days with writer's block, I realized I should write on a subject that I consider crucially important to have a conversation about, the effect of religious exemption in America.

Growing in the very religious state of Utah in a Mormon family, there were very clear societal views between right and wrong. As I grew older I realized I was Asexual and because of this unable to be true to both my religion and myself. When I was confronted by this choice I chose me. Leaving Mormonism opened my eyes to the way members would talk about outsiders like me. They would claim to love us and then to try to take our basic rights. They used religious exemption to do this. By trying to claim because they believed something their opinion mattered more than the people those rights belonged to. 

This is a very important topic to me. Though I haven’t gotten far with the essay I would like to share the sources I have found so far.

“Most states have religious exemptions to COVID-19 social distancing rules” was written in the height of the pandemic. It talks about how in the middle of necessary social gathering limitations very few restrictions were placed on churches.

In the next article “First on CNN: Biden administration to strengthen Obamacare contraceptive mandate in proposed rule” talks about how employers are allowed to not provide contraceptives in their insurance because of their personal religious convictions.

“Gay rights, the Bible, and public accommodations: an empirical approach to religious exemptions for holdout states”, and “Infertility Treatments for Gay Parents?” covers how religious exemption and the various different ways it affect LGBTQIA+ people.

“Conscience wars: complicity-based conscience claims in religion and politics” covers how attacking someone outsiders from rules that only affect a select group of people is hollow defense.

I am very interested in this topic. I view it as important to discuss the full ramifications of it and all its effects. So I am excited for this essay.

Blustien, J., & Charuvastra, A. (2006). Infertility treatments for gay parents? The Hastings Report Center, 36(5).

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My Thoughts on Girl

Jamaica Kincaid grew up in Antigua, a small island in the Caribbean. She moved to New York City at the age of 17. In time she would become a staff writer for the New Yorker where she would publish her short story Girl in 1978. 

Girl is a list of instructions given to a child by her mother or some other maternal figure. However, mother seems to be the most likely answer because Jamaica Kincaid said her own mother had “The same relationship with plants that she had with her children. She could make something grow into the most beautiful thing and then decide she didn’t like it anymore.” This narrator never refers to the child by her name, only calling her girl. The child only gets a single line. In the last three lines of the short story; the narrator tells her to “always squeeze bread to make sure it’s fresh” then the girl asks “but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?” to which the woman responds “you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?”. The child’s question asked in good faith is met with immediate ridicule as if the answer should be obvious to her. This shows that the narrator believes that if the girl intuitively understood and acted in the way that the woman believes is best; life wouldn’t be as hard for her. This and the way the narrator insults the child throughout the story speaks to internalized misogyny. This implies that she is repeating this because it was once said to her.

As I read Girl it reminded me of my own childhood. My own family talked about womanhood the way the narrator does (although thankfully my family was not as cruel). They both believe that being a woman is a set role of taking care of her husband and children. Any variation of this formula is met with disdain and judgment. However, as I have become my own person I have concluded that much of what society views as womanly traits often only exist because women of the past were punished for not behaving in those ways. 

Jamaica Kincaid also uses Girl to show what it is like to grow up a black child. We can see from the way in Girl that no one challenges the narrator that the way the girl is expected to act like a grown woman, is perceived to be normal. This is adultification; in other words it is treating a child as if they were an adult. It is particularly relevant to black children because it happens to them at a higher volume. For example black girls are often given harsher punishments in school than their white counterparts. Kincaid shows us in Girl how harsh adultification can be.

Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." The New Yorker, 19 Jun. 1978.

Gardening is a kind of colonialism. (2022). [Video]. Youtube. Retrieved June 20, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWFgUAU2gbE

The Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2017). New study: The “Adultification” of black girls. The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Retrieved June 20, 2023, from https://www.aecf.org/blog/new-study-the-adultification-of-black-girls

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Weber River

There is a river by my childhood home. It is a rather small with dark green water surrounded by a glen of trees and tall grass. I used to sneak out as a kid to explore. I would skip stones with the water up to my knees, climb trees the tall trees and, pick bouquets wildflowers. One year it froze over entirely and was like a place of shimmering glass and crystal. That was the same year Frozen came out and I would sing Let it Go as I slide on the ice. My mom would get angry whenever she learned I did an excursion alone. She would beg me to take my sister or a friend. But I loved the river it was my special place, and I couldn't understand why my mom would try to take that from me.

Recently a woman from my home town died in the river. Suddenly, it forced me to revaluate things from my childhood that I took for granted. The river, even though it's been especially high and dangerous recently, was never a safe space for a child to be alone. My memory of my mom being nitpicky and controlling of this issue was a false perception. She was just a worried mother who wanted her daughter safe. The river has changed in my mind from a symbol of independence to recklessness.

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Summary of Thirty Seven Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police

In Martin Gansberg article Thirty-Seven Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police he details the events before and after the death of Catherine Genovese. He details how Genovese was attacked around 3:20 A.M. She screamed for help and the lights of the nearby apartment complex turned on, scaring the assailant away. After no one in the apartment building called the police he came back, attacked her and fled again. Genovese tried to escape but didn’t get far enough when he came a final time and stabbed her fatally at 3:35. At 3:50 the police were called by a neighbor. They arrest Winston Moseley six days later. When the residents are asked why they didn’t call the police they give a variety of answers including: they didn’t know, they were tired and they didn’t want to get involved.  At 4:25 an ambulance takes Genovese’s body away. The article ends with the quote “then the people came out”.

Thirty seven who saw murder didn't call police. (1964). The New York Times,

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The Writing Process

Ever since I was young I have always enjoyed writing. It was a way to sort out my thoughts, beliefs, and ideas. However, when we began learning how to write essays in school I could never finish them. My points always came out disjointed and I inevitably gave up and threw the assignment away. I fluctuated between following no guidelines then floundering on the next step, and following the writing process to the exact letter that I'd get so caught up in it that nothing seemed complete enough to submit.

Eventually, it clicked writing is personal and so the writing process often must be modified for the authors individual needs. It is helpful to consider it a cyclical guide with these rough steps: prewriting, research, drafting, revising, and editing/proofreading (The University of Kansas). Here is advice on how I use this guide.

The first step of prewriting is to outline your goals. What do you want to accomplish with your work? If you were assigned this by a professor or a boss what are their specifications? What do they want you to accomplish? If you were not assigned a topic you will need to brainstorm a topic. Then choose an audience you want to address your work to. If it's possible choose a topic you are interested in and an audience you relate to.

Research is not always a necessary task in everything you will write. However, I find that it is always a helpful one. You should research facets of your topic you like. If you are genuinely interested in your topic you be less likely to succumb to writers block and will know better how your topic applies to your audience. This is also a helpful step to come back to when you feel stuck.

The first thing you will want to do when you draft is to come up with your thesis statement. This will be the main idea of your work that you will build your essay around. I usually then build a rough outline detailing the vague concepts I want to go into. I expand on that over and over until I have a final draft. This is also the step to add your in sources.

Your final draft as a Frankenstein's monster of ideas and concepts likely won't make much sense. That is where revising comes in. In this step you rewrite the final draft so it flows well when spoken outloud.

I personal like to edit my work whenever I get stuck. But, you should also do it when you start to feel ready to submit it. In this step you should make sure that all punctuation and spelling is correct. When you feel confident in your work have someone you trust to give good advice proofread it.

The writing process isn't linear. I often go back a step or skip a step or two whenever I am stuck. Because of this the writing process doesn't really end. You simply repeat the the parts of it you need to until your work feels complete.

"The Writing Process." The University of Kansas, https://writing.ku.edu/writing-process. Accessed May 20 2023.