Writing about Writing

I'm not even sure where to begin with this one! I guess I'll start by saying that my writing has really improved throughout the course of this class, in my opinion. Not only did I learn how important your thesis and topic statements are within any writing, but I think my confidence improved more than anything else. Which is actually something I was lacking the most. Although "confidence" isn't exactly a writing technique, it definitely effects your writing one way or the other. For example, it was brought to my attention that in a lot, almost all of, my essays I would start each sentence with "I feel," or "I think." These statements advertised a lack of confidence and sureness in my knowledge. I've learned to be confident in my writing without trying to shadow it with "I feel" or "I think."

Struggling in confidence isn't something that I just stumbled upon recently. It's definitely been something that I've had trouble with in all different areas of my life. But school has always been the big one, and college definitely had its ways in enhancing that. With this class being a much smaller one, I felt much more comfortable and less-hesitant on putting myself out there with my blog posts/forum posts and even my comments to others posts. I'm usually the shy student in class that doesn't speak up often, so this class very much pushed me and allowed me to voice my opinion more and respond to other's opinions. 

In addition to that, this class introduced me to different formats for writing and some different ways to get your point across. I've never experienced any type of blogging, but I've come to find out that it's a form of writing that I really enjoy. It is very laid-back and comfortable atmosphere for me me to write in. In contrast to this relaxed writing format, I've learned and improved on how to properly and professionally answer questions and even feed off of others thoughts more, such as our forums. This was more of a serious atmosphere, but yet still very open to all ideas. It also allowed me to improve on my conversation skills with other classmates upon a certain topic or subject. And of course, the writing I'm most use to, the response papers, have improved as well. I have strengthened my writing techniques as well and my clarity and specificity in my writing. 

ENGL 372 Reflection

    When I think back on this class two things come to mind. The first and foremost thing that comes to mind is me thinking, "Wow... This class kicked my butt." There were many sleepless nights spent working on papers, blogs and forum posts for this class and a few time I thought about how there was no way to pass. So I really hope I did well so I don't have to take it again or else... 

    With that said there are also a lot of things I enjoyed about the class. I loved that I was able to find new comedians that I had never heard of before such as Notaro, Wong, Robinson, and Williams. In addition to reading work done by comedians I was already a fan of now seen through the context of an academic lens Such as Fey, Poehler, and Kaling. I also found myself more motivated to work on subjects, such as these, as I found them far more interesting than some texts and subjects in past classes. This really allowed me to go through this class with a lot more ease than if it was a subject I had no interest in. Plus I didn't procrastinate as much for this class so that's like a small win for me personally.

   

Looking back I am going to miss this class. It brought a lot of much needed laughs during a pretty serious time in our world. Yet similarly to a lot of the texts, videos, and audio we have seen and heard in the class. We too can use humor as way to deal with these real world issues. Whether that be through coping or making a point/ argument. So I'm not really sure how to end this so I guess... 

 

Writing About Writing: On Using Sources to Support my Argument

One very important thing which I have learned in other English classes, but have really brought home in this class, is efficiently using my sources to support my argument in a paper. This idea was introduced to me long ago, but I've always struggled with finding the right balance between my voice and the source's voice. I often would allow my sources to be the main voice in my argument, rather than my voice leading the conversation while my sources exist in my paper just to back that voice up. I'd always get very overwhelmed when looking for sources because I'd find journals or essays which made such excellent points which I'd like to make in my paper, but this always ended in me being overwhelmed because I couldn't find a way to use all of the wonderful sources I'd found. I'd even cite some sources that I never directly quoted in my paper just because they helped me to formulate my argument even if I didn't use them to support my argument. With my final project, and with many of the response papers I've written for this class, I think I finally found the right way to balance my voice with my sources. My voice is leading the argument in these papers, with the source just existing in the paper to support my voice.

 The most difficult part of accomplishing this was trying to figure out exactly what the focus of my argument actually was. I had an idea which was very inspirational to me, but figuring out how to get what was in my head onto the paper was a little bit difficult initially. This made it hard to give proper exposition to the quotes which I used in my paper, but I found that once I finally just got started, then my argument started to come together. The stronger my argument got, the easier it was to find supportive quotes for my paper and the exposition of them came to me easily once I found that I was simply supporting an argument which I have kind of been making in papers and blog comments since the beginning of this class.

I definitely think that my final project was a culmination of ideas I've had since about the second week of class that have only grown and become stronger through all of the materials we've read. I definitely owe much of my argument to many of our readings from this class. The argument I made was ultimately my idea and many of my main points came from things I've learned from my 6 years of being an "official" feminist, but the materials we've read throughout this class have only further cemented those ideas. I think this is apparent in my final paper. It has been very interesting to watch these ideas grow throughout this class and turn into piece of work of which I am very proud.

2 Dope Queens of Comedy

My major project was written on the most interesting source we looked at for this class in my opinion. I wrote my Major Project on the 2 Dope Queens podcast. What first grabbed my attention is Robinson and Willams attitudes and tones for each and every episode. Not a single episode of the podcast felt like a formal discussion. Rather, it was like hearing two good friends talk at a bar, something I miss in this post-Covid world. This light hearted tone would at times give way, yet never disregarded, to talk about serious issues such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and much much more. The 2 Dope Queens never lose sight of the humor in the show again making it seem like just a couple of friends talking about serious stuff at a bar, naturally in both examples it never stays serious for long allowing for the two comedians to touch on some serious topics yet never ruin the funny and light hearted tone they craft with each and every joke. 

      Another reason the podcast drew me in so much is the choice of guests they have on. Allowing for the comedic tone to stay yet shift the serious moments to different subjects. Best seen in the episode titled “White People Love Coyotes”. In which the guest, Alex English does a stand up performance yet also touches on serious topics unique to him. In his case that being homophobic remarks directed at him during a past performance. This unique point of view is only obtainable because of the variety in guests that the podcast is able to have on. Allowing the 2 Dope Queens podcast to present these differing points of view and still being successful as a comedy show.

Writing about MY writing

I have always taken pride in my writing, sure it isn’t the best out there but I am proud of most of my work. So for the past few semesters I had been doing my work. Reading it over and turning it in. What I would always be shocked by is the amount of times I was given feedback with marks up and down my paper, pointing out how many sentence fragments I had left in. This is a point of criticism I had never understood. I would read the sentences out loud and they would make perfect sense to me and anyone I would read them to. That leads us to this class. As it has taken me four years of college for someone to finally make me realize why I write like this. 

    It was during my meeting with professor Hanrahn that it all came together. She showed me several examples in my major project draft in which she called fragmented sentences. I was confused as I read them back in my head and it sounded completely normal. So out of pure confusion I finally asked what makes those examples fragment sentences specifically. After she had explained I was still confused as to what made me write like this. I had been writing academic essays for nearly six years now. You would think I would have learned by now. Yet I was utterly confused as to why I was doing this.

    Professor Hanrahn was the first person, after four years at Shepherd, to point out to me that I come from a communications major’s background, Film, TV, Radio to be more specific. I had been encouraged to write realistic dialogue for so long that I had forgotten how to write a proper formal essay. I was so focused on writing how I would say thing to a group of people that I had completely lost the context of the papers I had been writing, and I can’t believe it took a one sentence explanation for me to understand all of this. Of course it had to happen right when I was about to graduate. As I will more than like stop writing formal essays. At least I learned something new.

Normalize changing your opinion when presented with new information

Tina Fey's response to David Letterman stood out to me because not only is it a lesson on not needing men's approval, but it's also a lesson on learning and growing from mistakes. The sheet cake bit was one that wasn't met with rave reviews. It was a little tone deaf, and not her best skit. Instead of allowing this skit to be praised by Letterman or excused as being okay, she sticks to her guns and explains what was wrong with it. Instead of being stubborn and searching only for feedback that affirmed or praised the "chunked" skit, she acknowledged that it wasn't great and explained why that wouldn't stop her from learning from it and trying again.

When it comes to sensitive subject matter, or sociopolitical issues, we are all just learning as we go. Everyone is bound to make mistakes, but what leads to personal growth is acknowledging those mistakes, learning from those mistakes, and forming a new opinion about the subject matter after we have learned more about it. Fey was presented with new information, in the negative response she received for the skit, and instead of blindly standing up for the old way that she saw it, she developed a new opinion which she stood by. If we apply Burke's parlor analogy to this: Imagine you walk into the parlor where a heated discussion is taking place about an issue which you're not well educated on. You make a defense based on a snap judgement you make about the conversation that is met with large disapproval. Some may come to your defense, but most believe that your wrong. So let's say you leave and the conversation is still going and maybe continues on to the next day. You don't just decide to never go back and never contribute to the conversation again because your point was wrong or disagreed with, you educate yourself on the subject, learn new information, and change your perspective only to return to the conversation with a new view based on new information you have learned. This is a lot like life and something that I think Fey demonstrates well in her interview with Letterman.

Rap as a Form of Remixing

One of my favorite rappers, Dominique Jones, or more popularly known as, Lil Baby, just released a song titled, The Bigger Picture. This song is very timely, as its main theme addresses the issues of racism and police brutality in America.

First, I'd like to give a little background on Lil Baby. He was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, a city now regarded as the mecca of rap music in the 21st century. Raised by a single mother in one of the city's most impoverished neighborhood's referred to as "section 8", Lil Baby was in and out of trouble with the law throughout his adolescence. He uses his experience growing up in a southern city, which is still segregated to this day, to share a powerful critique of racism in America and offer an empowering anthem of hope as well.

  He begins the song with the chilling lines, "I find it crazy the police'll shoot you and know that you dead, but still tell you to freeze". Right off the bat this hits home in an emotional way. So often rap is viewed in the main stream as a "thug" form of music that only talks about drugs, sex, and money. This could not be further from the truth when it comes to Lil Baby's new song.  Yes, in some of his music, he talks about these things, which he says are prevalent in his community. This is where the remixing comes in. Lil Baby remixes his own story to show the systematic racism in his community and plead for a change in America. 

Lil Baby is extremely honest in this song. He writes, "I can't lie like I don't rap about killing and dope, but I'm telling my youngins to vote / I did what I did cause I didn't have no choice or no hope, I was forced to just jump in and go / This bullshit is all that we know." This is a theme expressed by other rappers as well that is often disregarded by the mainstream public as just thug music. Fellow Atlanta Rapper, who is also from Section 8, writes in his song, Letter 2 My Momma, "Times got hard started selling hard / Before I see you stressing, I'ma break the law." This is the same sentiment that Lil Baby is expressing - growing up in the environment that he did, he did not have much other choices than doing things like selling drugs as a means of survival. He is careful not to defend or promote this in his song, but he is telling the world that where he comes from, kids do this because sometimes they have no other ways of putting food on the table or taking care of their younger siblings. Breaking the law often serves as a means of survival in Lil Baby and 21 Savage's neighborhood.

By engaging with his past actions in a brutally honest way, Lil Baby is able to remix his message into one of hope and encouragement. He writes in his chorus, "It's bigger than black and white / It's a problem with the whole way of life / It can't change overnight / But we gotta start somewhere / Might as well go ahead and start here." By exposing the systematic forms of racism in place in his neighborhood and across the country in America, he sheds a light on America's darkest and ugliest sin. A sin that not only affected his ancestors, but that continues to affect his family and community today. He encourages his community to rise up against this and make a change, inviting not only black people, but people of all races as symbolized by the lines "It's bigger than black and white." This is a very enlightening and timely song that I think every American would benefit from listening to.


 Here is a link to the music video, where you see Lil Baby helping lead a peaceful protest in Atlanta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VDGysJGNoI

Here is also a link to an instagram post that describes the kind nature of the man who the world knows as Lil Baby: https://www.instagram.com/p/CBIc6prjpL9/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet