Sindy Jimenez

12/11/21

Humanities and the arts

Self reflection

My expectations for this class weren’t really any different than the ones I have for any English class. Those expectations were, i knew we were to be challenged as writers and having to write work that pleased not only the writer but also the reader. I was excited for the poem portion or the personal section of the class. I get a certain level of comfortability when I’m able to talk about the way I am and how I’ve responded to my life, experiences and the beauty around me. When i saw my syllabus, i saw that the poem section more specifically the “where im from” piece was something i couldn’t wait for.

A Lot of the writing pieces were very engaging, in a way where we had to speak to our peers and learn new things about each other. With the “where i’m from” writing piece we were to use a layout and just add our own bits to the template. “I am from _______ (specific ordinary item), from _______ (product name) and _______.I am from the _______ (home description… adjective, adjective, sensory detail).” It was easy for me to grab bits and pieces from my life and turn it into something beautiful. We were to read our peers’ work and comment on them, some of which were beautiful as well. Connecting with my peers was one of my most difficult parts of the class. I think sharing my work and my writing is so much better for me than to talk to a peer about my work. Working with my peers and receiving their constructive criticism was nice but i think as well my writing piece being the way i wrote it straight from my thoughts makes it raw and honest. I think an audience would have appreciated that. Ofcourse spelling and fixing the way it’s written in reading format and not a spoken format is much appreciated.

The way we revised our work in class or went about editing our work was in our discussion boards and having other peers comment on things we can add, as well as my professor. Zoom breakout rooms were also a way we looked over our work. Ithink personally what I did well was visualize the ending of my work and what I wanted it to mean as well as what was the message I wanted to relay. Something I could’ve done better was work individually with one person consistently and build a routine, in a way where they know the kind of writer I am and know what works for me and what doest. As well as what the audience would like and the message they’d like to hear.

An assignment that I found a little struggle with was my digital story. I knew what I wanted to talk about but I didn’t know the way I was going to lay it out. I was going to use my op-ed topic for my digital story but felt like I wanted to shed light on another topic, which was the struggles that kids face in single parent households as opposed to in two parent households, since I myself grew up in a single parent household. I used google slides which was very easy for me to use because of the years of experience using it. Then after I started a zoom meeting and recorded myself speaking about my slides. The software imovie was a nice way to edit small things in my videos like repeated words or “um’s” and “like’s”. Overall I would grade myself an 8 with the way I presented the project. 

Writing to me is honesty and a mirror of yourself. What do you feel and how do you want others to feel what you feel. Do you want your work to be a body of empathy or do you just want it to be words on a page. Ofcourse its grammar and spelling and punctuation but it’s also the way a reader would read this. if the words were all lowercase it would still be the words i meant to say. IF THEY WERE ALL CAPITAL, maybe im screaming, who knows but they are stills my words and i’m relaying them whether they are lowercase or uppercase.