An Unexpected Creativity
This class has developed my writing more than I ever could have imagined, because of the ways that I was able to explore writing. In previous courses (especially in high school) I always wrote standard argumentative papers that analyzed a text. I never wrote creatively, which really overwhelmed me when I first started this class. How could I possibly do well at something I have never done? I learned through our blogs that I was able to write in creative ways, incorporating media because of the medium through which we wrote.
Typically in classes, you write a paper and then turn in your beautiful MLA formatted copy to the professor in class. The fact that our “essays” were written on a blog allowed me to expand my writing approaches. I was able to write argumentative posts using a more casual, engaging tone than I do with standard essays. For example, one of the strongest arguments I felt I formed in this class due to the clarity by which it was presented was used in my Conversation Post on Gender Roles in Fun Home, “While today we do not necessarily think of gender or clothing as binary, when Alison was a child this binary was a reality… Because her father was afraid appearing “feminine” would unveil his homosexuality in the closet, he needed other outlets for this feminine taste. These outlets became decorating the home and Alison.” I was able to make this an effective, clear argument because of the casual nature of the blog.
The medium of the blog also allowed me to explore my classmates’ ideas in a way I never have been able to in a class before. I could see what different interests, interpretations, questions, thoughts, etc. we each had about a topic or text. This promoted creativity in my own writing because I felt comfortable sharing my opinion with the rest of the class. When my peers commented on my writing, at first, I would get so nervous because I thought “Oh no what if they hate it and Dr. Churchill agrees with them?!” However, I learned as the class went on that my peers want to give me feedback not to tell me that my ideas are stupid or wrong, but because they want to help enhance my posts and writing. For example, Niara wrote in a comment on my Feminist Roundtable Post, “The only time I was a little unclear about your arguments was where you discussed Beyonce’s critique of traditional Christian marriage. I would have liked some more evidence, maybe a video clip.” Rather than critiquing the nature of my argument, Niara gave me feedback on how to strengthen it.
Shifting towards particular topics we discussed in this course, there were many topics of interest for me in this class! Some of the topics (poetry for example) I didn’t think I would find interesting, and was gladly proven wrong. One of my favorite parts of this class was the Impersonation Post on The Hunger Games. I enjoyed this topic the most because it included different forms of media (text vs. book) and how they affect communities and different perspectives of the book. Our class discussion on the impersonation post was also one of my favorites because I got to learn such a wide range of perspectives and understand the movie in so many different interpretive ways that I had just watching it by myself.
I also enjoyed the wide range of texts we looked at in this class, like Fun Home, digital poetry, Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White, “Community.” This mix of medias and types of text allowed me to learn about a wider range in which communities are formed through media. Specifically, one idea that I would enjoy examining further is the way in which our society watches TV forms communities. TV watching is no longer picking one of the three channels on, ultimately leading to everyone watching the same thing. Rather, TV watching has become sorting through Netflix to find categories of shows you want to watch and then binge-watching the show and forming bonds within communities around them. There were so many interesting ideas that we discussed in the class, but how our TV watching forms communities I think is really fascinating.
I am so glad that I chose to take this class because it has truly broadened my knowledge of how to analyze media, write, and think through my ideas and form arguments around them.
