Phase 4: Self-Assessment Essay

Final Thoughts, Concluding Statements

While I wouldn’t say writing is second nature to me, it’s certainly a skill that I’ve been honing for years. I tended to mostly write works of fiction, and I rarely wrote any academic essays. And when the chance befell me, I always found it incredibly difficult. I always managed to get a good grade just by writing as much as I could to defend my point. The FIQWS: Fairy Tales and Retellings Composition class helped me greatly with constructing cohesive academic essays with each individual phase; each phase allowed me to dig deeper into different aspects of my work and understand my weaknesses. It helped me understand and analyze my writing style and strengths– fluid with good pacing and repetition –and recognize my flaws. There are times when writing too much hurts you, as your point gets lost in the sea of words, and it’s still something that I need to improve on. I grew familiar with locating research sources with journal DOIs and keywords in the CCNY library databases and archives, and developed strategies for reading, analyzing, and dissecting my sources in a manner that would benefit me at a glance. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I enjoy writing academic works over fictional works, but I will say that writing them has gotten a lot easier, especially with the skills that I’ve learned from this class.

The Phase One “Multimodal Language and Literacy Narrative” (LLN) assignment was a difficult one to write for a variety of reasons. I had never thought about my language and literacy skills that much in depth simply because I had never thought about it that way. My language, English, was constantly surrounding me in my everyday life, and I thought it pretty clear that my literacy helped me excel in school. It was incredibly difficult to explain why and how these things that just felt so natural impacted me. I had never considered that my parents’ decisions for me to learn solely English changed me, mentally and emotionally. Yet as we read several other LLNs and anecdotes, I became even more aware of just what was in a language.

There is a sort of empowerment that comes with language, no matter where you are; but if you do not speak the ‘native language’, then your opportunities not only become limited, but oppressed. Unfortunately in America, the linguistic ‘standard’ is English, and there’s a clear prejudice against non-English speakers. Most immigrant families are essentially forced to learn English to survive, or struggle through life, unable to learn. The best time to learn a new language is when you’re young; you’re able to pronounce and learn each sound of the language quicker, but when you’re older, it feels heavy, foreign, and unusual. If a non-native English speaker learns to speak English, they are praised. If they do not, then they are scorned, ignored, and neglected the opportunity to live, not just survive. Reading Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” was the moment for me that let me know just what I had– not just wanted –to write about. My parents were immigrants from China and Malaysia, and throughout my childhood, I had only ever spoken English. They placed their expectations on my shoulders with the hopes that I, an English-speaker, would be given opportunities in life they had only dreamt of.

Throughout my own LLN, I utilized rhetorical strategies such as pathos when describing the standards and expectations felt by children of immigrant families;

I look at my classmates who I am so often compared to and see them with their immigrant parents, their perfect grades, the expectations that weigh heavy on their shoulders, and I can’t help but feel that we’re all too similar.

and aimed to evoke a feeling of longing and grief. I used imagery to describe the scent of petrichor, which is simply the scent that generates when the earth is moist, but to also describe my younger self working tirelessly throughout the night, metaphors, and repetition. I knew all of these strategies before, but I learned how to use them in a manner that would be compelling to the reader. However, I struggled with articulation; I felt as if I was being too repetitive and throwing the reader off with the same phrasing, and my pacing felt off at times. It was a very helpful first essay, though, and while I wasn’t very proud of it, it was a good transition to writing academic pieces.

The Phase Two “Exploratory Essay” assignment left me with the feeling that I could have done better. Much better. I had seemed to entirely miss the part in which I had to create a rhetorical analysis, followed up by an op-ed piece. I was a little lost on choosing a primary source, and chose a different source that was not a retelling of a classic fairy tale, nor was it a critique of a retelling. What I originally wrote for my 500 word paragraph was intended to help guide me in a direction for the Phase Two assignment, but it seemed to be a little more helpful for the Phase Three assignment (a little more on that later). But it helped guide me in a good good direction, and I knew what I wanted to focus on. I just didn’t know how to articulate it properly.

With our library days, I learned how to use the CCNY Library Databases to find helpful sources that were relevant to what I wanted to prove. While the sources I found weren’t helpful for the Phase Two assignment (considering I had completely missed the point of the op-ed), they were incredibly beneficial for planning my Phase Three assignment.

I had several strategies when it came to drafting, collaborating, and editing; we reviewed several op-eds and book reviews together, and I was able to get a good feel for how an op-ed should ‘sound’. Knowing what an op-ed should sound like allowed me to write a draft I felt content with. It was opinionated, referenced the original source, and during peer reviews, I got some advice that would help me greatly with refining it. But despite my stance that the identity of queer authors is incredibly important to the works, I felt that the Phase Two essay was my weakest one. To me, I felt like I could have done so much better than what I put out. On the bright side, this essay helped me prepare myself for the Phase Three essay. With the Phase One essay sitting at 2,123 words, and the Phase Two essay at 1,294 words, my Phase Three essay at a hefty 3,320 words was the essay I was the most proudest of.

These past phase assignments helped me prepare for this absolute behemoth of an academic paper. The Phase Three “Researched Critical Analysis” assignment was a culmination of all the hard work and effort I had put into this class. At the end of a grueling three weeks– not entirely exaggeration, I was still writing quite a few essays for other classes –I felt that this essay was worth every single bit of stress those weeks. I knew what to write about. My Phase Two essay had prepared me for it. And I knew my writing style like the back of my hand and all the issues that I had with it. I was repetitive, I dragged things on, I had filler words that didn’t need to be there in the first place, but I knew that just writing with error and imperfection would ultimately help me as I revised the drafts for my final version. I scrapped the original ideas I had for this not once, but twice. The sources I gathered from the Phase Two assignment were very simple, but it led me down a rabbit hole of finding five other incredible sources. Three out of five of these selected sources were all from journals, and I made extra use to include websites as well. If I only used one or the other of these types of sources, I would be neglecting to include a portion of my (hypothetical) audience.

Having both print and digital technologies included a range of audiences. I explored and analyzed each of my sources several times; they were credible, accurate to my points, and relevant time and information wise. The sources used contained a

“variety of genres and rhetorical situations” that helped me understand it better. I used the author’s personal history to justify that my sources were coming from ones trusted in their field, and that their rhetorical questions had reason to be included. I learned how to integrate my stance into my essay seamlessly, and supported it with the sources that were relevant to me. I was a little stuck on how to properly incorporate a critical source that we discussed in class into my essay, but with a little bit of synthesis,

I was able to blend the critical source and a very important source together explain how important it is to examine classic fairy tales through a queer perspective.

I used MLA format to properly cite my sources on a works cited page and in the work itself, and adhered to the rules of MLA format to bring my essay together with that final cohesiveness. It’s not a perfect essay. It certainly has his flaws, but it is full of information and analysis that I take my pride in greatly. I firmly believe this is one of my strongest academic works to this day; which doesn’t amount to much, as I’ve only written five of them in my eighteen years of existence, but it’s an essay I’m incredibly proud to say I wrote.

My Fall semester Introduction to Sociology final, using MLA format for a block quotation.

My writing has changed over time– naturally, it does. While I still mostly write fiction, the lessons I’ve learned from this class has definitely helped me understand my strengths and weaknesses. It’s helped me incorporate useful writing techniques and terms into my writing, and knowing how to properly use MLA now gives my work a very nice and refined finish to it. I’ve realized that the skills I learned in this freshman class are going to stick with me permanently. I’ll be taking Writing for the Sciences next semester, and even though I’ll have to learn a new citation format, all the information I’ve learned from this class will help me greatly when I continue to write in the future.