Reflecting Back On This Last Quarter

This quarter has been such a challenge! I had put English off as long as I could and finally decided to get it over with. Writing is one of my toughest subjects and I was not looking forward to this class in the least. But I was very surprised to find myself actually enjoying this class. There were a lot of occasions where I felt like pulling my hair out, but all in all I enjoyed myself. I started at EVCC in the fall of 2007, taking one class at a time. It was an exciting but very frightening experience seeing as I had been homeschooled since the first grade. I wasn’t used to the classroom structure or the vast diversity of viewpoints and opinions. I am happy to say my confidence has increased greatly with each passing quarter and I have begun to take two classes a quarter. Kudos to all of you who go to school fulltime and work fulltime, I don’t know how you do it!

The themes that were studied this quarter consistently challenged my thinking and caused me to look deeper and analyze my opinions as well as others. We discussed identity, community and tradition from a variety of angles and points of view. Before this class I had never really put all of these subjects together to compare how they cumulatively work together to form a person’s character and paradigms. The discussions about identity that ensued reminded me that beauty is in the eye of the wearer and not the beholder. Cultural stipulations can certainly limit our thinking. People are judged and rejected based on a number of petty issues such as gender, appearance, personality, behavior and cultural background. It caused me to ponder into why I would have assumptions about people and to seriously consider whether my assumptions were rightly grounded or not. Unit two, community expanded my understanding of what a community is and entails. I had always thought of community as either a literal group of people that lived together or a group of people that shared life together based on similar beliefs or interests. From my understanding there was a certain level of long-term commitment that was involved. Now I see a broader definition of community that can include either a permanent or temporal group of people that share life together based on similar backgrounds, beliefs and interests. I never thought of runners in a race as a community vs. Chinatown in Seattle. This unit opened my eyes to a new definition of community. In unit three we discussed traditions. Tradition is a touchy subject with many people and changing traditions can really “push up daisies” when you are dealing with long-held customs and beliefs. This unit really “hit home” for me you could say. I have a hard time accepting change because I like things to be predictable and familiar since that is what is comfortable and safe. It was great to read other people’s posts who had similar thoughts and opinions about current issues in our culture.

For our portfolio we are supposed to pick four pieces of our work from the quarter that demonstrate our critical thinking, audience awareness and voice, revision skills and a piece that represents our overall progress in this class. For my critical thinking piece I chose my discussion post response to the essay by Ellen Ullman “Museum of Me”. This piece showcases the fine-tuning of my analytical skills; it also demonstrates how I have learned to read impartially but still think critically and draw conclusions based on analysis and not presumption. My audience awareness and voice were best demonstrated by my blog for the tradition unit. “Coffee Hour” was a fun piece to write; I liked being able to talk casually about something that doesn’t have to persuade anyone. I think it causes the reader to recall memories about their own family and the traditions they have. For my revision piece I chose my second timed writing assignment for unit two entitled “Who’s the Outsider”. I really wanted to develop the ideas in this paper a lot more and organize it differently to make it more coherent. For my writers choice I chose my third and last paper for the quarter. My paper is titled “Traditional Childhood vs. Pop Divas”. I feel it is my best work this quarter because it exhibits my growth in organization and developing ideas. Thank you for taking the time to look at my portfolio, I hope you enjoy it.