Beginning English 2089, I was not entirely sure what to expect. While I love writing (thus prompting me to start college as a journalism major, although it did not stick), academic writing is not my forte. Typically, I find it to be dry and often redundant. A full semester of reading academic articles, then analyzing them, did not necessarily enthrall me. I felt that our textbook title summed it up pretty well: Writing About Writing. And while that assumption was fairly accurate, this course was truly more than that.
We started the semester with an interesting discussion about literacies. While most people think of literacy as the ability to read or write, there are other literacies that exist. Any skill that a person is adept at could be considered a literacy – snowboarding, piano playing, etc. We were challenged to think about our own literacies, how they started, and where they have gotten us. This was to be the focus of our first essay. I chose traditional literacy; I have constantly carried a book with me for as long as I can remember, and am the proud owner of several overflowing bookshelves, so this made sense for me. I enjoyed writing this essay and having the chance to reflect on why I love books like I do. I had the opportunity to look back on my childhood adoration of my older sister – who is ten years my senior, meaning she was like a celebrity to me while growing up – which prompted me to sit on the couch and read a book rather than watch TV, so I could emulate her actions. It allowed me to sink back into the time that I finally conquered my first book (Miss Nelson Is Missing! by Harry Allard and James Marshall), to getting chapter books out of a secret cupboard in second grade because my teacher felt I was ready for them.
Writing this essay was like a nice stroll down memory lane, and that is part of what made it difficult. The biggest challenge for me was being able to write in a personal, engaging, descriptive way without getting too caught up in the story telling itself. I had to keep myself on track, making sure I drew connections to how it affected my life overall and how it relates to the overall concept of a literacy. Luckily, I found my sentiments echoed in other writings we studied, such as Sherman Alexie’s “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” and Stephen King’s “What Writing Is.”
In this essay, I wrote, “I did not have to fight the odds or the status quo like Alexie did, but I feel that I can empathize with the majority of his journey, demonstrating how books know no bounds, and knowledge crosses all kinds of barriers.” This was, perhaps, one of the biggest things I learned during this assignment: how to make your personal journey connect with the personal journey of others. It is possible, but you have to be willing to take a step back and look at the big picture. And a great way of doing this is, ironically, reading. Books have allowed me to understand other cultures and ways of thinking. Even if I don’t agree with everything that a character believes, I can almost always find some common ground and make a connection to my own life. This assignment about literacy related to my reading habits in so many ways. It was fun to write, but challenging to stay professional and on-topic, which made it a great first assignment and learning experience.
For our second essay, we were to conduct a comparative genre analysis. We were required to pick a topic of our choice (mine? Book censorship in schools; no surprise there) and use one scholarly article, one popular article, and then a medium of our choice as our third resource. Similar to the first assignment, the biggest challenge that I faced was staying on track and not getting wrapped up in the argument. “You are not taking sides in this paper; you are simply presenting the information and analyzing how the approach differs depending on the genre,” our professor warned. I chose a subject I feel very strongly about, so I had to keep my opinions in check the whole time. I used a New York Times op-ed, a 1985 research piece from The English Journal, and an article from The Atlantic that focused on censorship in a Southern Delaware high school. Each article I looked at did not support book censorship, using both qualitative and quantitative research to back up claims. I agreed with each article, so it was a bit easier to keep my own opinion from creeping into my paper because I didn’t feel like I had to disprove anything.
This paper was more challenging than our first assignment because of the task itself. Of course, I knew that writing styles and goals change depending on genre, time of publication, and other factors, but I had never analyzed this before. In the pieces from the New York Times and The Atlantic, the authors have more freedom to be outwardly bias and opinionated. They also have the opportunity to be more stylistic in tone. While their article needs to be factual, it is more likely to be presented in a skewed light than the academic piece was. This is important for anyone using these sources in their own papers to recognize, but it is also important for consumers to know. If a reader begins to take anything written in the New York Times for gospel, the op-ed section in particular gets problematic. I was able to take a closer look at how academic writing still uses the same elements that creative writing does, but faces different challenges. For example, academic writers must prove their credibility, something that many other authors do not have to do, putting ethos on the main stage in these pieces. This second assignment really helped me expand my understanding of writing techniques by looking at how they are used by others. Word choice, evidence used, context, and rhetorical devices all play a huge role in any type of writing. It gave me a better appreciation of each genre, and this is a skill that will be infinitely useful for the rest of my life, particularly throughout the rest of my formal education.
The first and second assignments were a challenge, particularly from the perspective of separating myself from the material. The third essay, however, was easily the most difficult for me to write. The focus was on a discourse community; we were to choose one but then relate it to the overarching theme, similar to what we had done in the previous two assignments. I focused on CHAARG, a women’s organization on UC’s campus of which I am a member. Again, our professor warned, “You are not cheerleaders or advocates; you don’t get to say that this group is great. You are only analyzing them as a discourse community.” And again, that was more difficult than I anticipated. By using John Swales’ six criteria for a discourse community, it was fairly easy to prove that CHAARG is one. The tricky part came when I had to make connections to discourse communities as a whole. In my first two drafts, I lacked a strong thesis statement, as well as connections to other articles we had read. I was also openly supporting the organization a few times, areas that I had to cut out for the final draft. I do love this group, so choosing two aspects of it to focus on, and tying those into discourse community practices, took some refining.
Unique to this third piece, we had to conduct first-hand research. I conducted four interviews with members who are varying levels of leadership, as well as collecting newsletters and message threads. First-hand research was something I had done for journalistic pieces before but never for a composition class. It made the paper more personal and allowed me to look at areas that I wanted to focus on, rather than what others had explored before me. I think this is a great experience to have had and it will absolutely help me when writing papers in the future. I now understand what needs to be done to obtain first-hand research and will be more comfortable doing it now that I have one experience under my belt.
The third essay is the one that changed the most from first to last draft; I had to keep my personal feelings in check even more than before, and draw connections from a very unique, specific discourse community to the broad concept of a discourse community. It took a lot of editing, but it is also the piece that I am the proudest of. All three of our assignments built on one another, and I don’t think I would have been able to write the third piece without the two that came before it. This class taught me a lot that I can carry into other classes, the most important of which is critical thinking and analysis. As well, connecting seemingly independent experiences and groups to a broader concept means that I can transfer knowledge later in life. While I had the general goals of this class figured out prior to really starting, I enjoyed it more than I anticipated, and definitely grew from it more than I expected to. I am now more confident in my ability to write academically – and to read academically – a skill that I know I will be using as soon as next semester begins, making this class an invaluable experience.