Georgia Pai 

Self-Assessment Essay #4

 

Why do I write? Well this is a very broad question. I have written for a lot of different reasons. Sometimes for emotional release, sometimes for the sole purpose of getting through a class, and sometimes I genuinely am curious about getting my thoughts straight about a topic. I think putting your ideas and findings into writing can greatly help you when pursuing deeper matters on a subject. It gives you a base to work with and solidifies everything you’re thinking and learning into a more compact piece. This semester has probably taught me lessons in incorporating personal observation into writing. In past essays I have written for school, I have not been required to observe people nor communities on a personal level. The type of research required for said essays involved a lot of googling and textbook reading. This class has pushed me to absorb the real world around me; others thoughts, feelings, experiences, and hardships. I can reflect back on the fieldwork and writing process done for this class’s papers and apply these learned methods to how I will observe and critically think about other topics for future work. 

 

For the first essay, I actually felt that I learned a lot on how to approach serious issues that I usually wouldn’t feel comfortable touching on. By the discomfort comment, I just mean sometimes one feels uncomfortable providing their opinion or expertise on issues they haven’t been personally affected by. It can feel as if it’s not your place. So observing my partners’ experiences in their respective community and writing a paper about it was definitely a learning experience that I appreciated, I also ended up becoming closer with them. The second essay where we had to observe a larger portion of a community and their interactions/systems of communication helped me develop my research, critical thinking, and writing skills. I am used to observing online communities, but this assignment forced me to actually identify the specifics of how people use online platforms to create social systems, hierarchies, and speak to one another. Writing down the exact things I observed in a forum was a different experience that encouraged me to actually acknowledge and think about what I’m looking at. I had to examine and question things people said and figure out the basic social dynamics within the community I observed. But the advocacy plan essay was definitely the piece that really helped my critical thinking and problem solving skills. This is because we had to look at an issue and rationalize what would be the best solution(s) for combating said issue. 

 

I think I have achieved the course learning objectives in terms of essay writing and critical thinking. I was not active in class discussions because I didn’t want to accidentally participate in conversation relations where I didn’t know what to say. I think I have learned to listen in on hard hitting conversations and understand people’s personal experiences and how they relate to broader subjects. In class there were a lot of conversations where everybody shared their anecdotal experiences relative to everyday examples of world issues. It gave me a better understanding of how things like stereotypes, discrimination, and racism still unfortunately impose on many people’s everyday life. I definitely have a deeper grasp of the issues different marginalized communities face and how relevant they are to the people immediately around me. Understanding this also helped me with my essays, as it gave me real life context for why exactly pieces such as the advocacy plan are necessary for the real world. Evidence is always key for helping others understand what you’re trying to get across. When discussing marginalized groups and the issues they face in essay #2 and #3, we were required to provide evidence for the points brought up. Providing statistics for example can greatly help readers/listeners understand the importance of issues. Investigating without bias has additionally been another acquired skill from this class. Especially when delving into social matters, it’s necessary to approach topics without bias. It’s very easy to curate information to support your own point of view and disregard others. 

 

I’m still working on achieving my goal of helping people in real time. Although we discussed ways to realistically advocate for marginalized groups in class, there’s still the matter of actually putting the suggested methods into action. I need to use critical thinking and my ability to act in order to actually help communities I want to support.