Final Reflection

 

Wobble.

To lose balance.

To be unsteady.

To falter or stagger.



In this course, there have been many moments of "wobble" for me to work through.  I mentioned my literacy narrative in the last post, and the first and perhaps most prominent struggle has been to reconsider my identity as percieved from the outside in this new college atmosphere.  Because of band and AP, almost all of my classes during my last year of high school were year-long courses, in which I really got to know my teachers and fellow students.  In this situation, I could without issue be my quiet self and over the time, people around me gradually got to know me, and I them.  Here at UNC Charlotte it is much different.  In a class that only meets 33 times, one must be much more outgoing to create friendships.  Because I live at home and commute to Charlotte on school days instead of living in a dorm and having the traditional meal plan, I miss the main opportunity to connect with other students. 

In a traditional lecture course, this conflict is circumvented.  Walking into a class like that, the purpose of the student is clearly set forth: come to class, listen, and leave.  In contrast, this course demanded much more interaction and I became known by my name instead of a face in the crowd.  That, in itself, wasn't the rub; it actually made it feel more like high school.  The issue arouse when we began discussing our personal thoughts and life stories with those we just met.  This was very uncomfortable for me, (and still is! haha ) and many times I would talk more about what I thought my partner easily nod along with, than actually sharing my true opinion or experiences.  I would listen around me as to clues on what others were talking about and find something similiar to say; my true response often felt too sincere for 9:30 in the morning.  I think we all do this to some degree, monitoring our speech depending on who we are speaking with and the external situation, but the struggle for me was to decide how much.  God is the most influencial and important person in my life, and the experiences of every day are put into the context of his presence.  The way He has changed me means the world to me, and His plans for my future do too, though I don't yet know what those might be.  This sort of thing is difficult to mold into a casual, minute discussion with a stranger, especially when its so close to my heart.  Deciding how much I would "hide" was my greatest wobble of this course.

Literacy Narrative Reflection

My literacy narrative.  Sigh.  There is so much that could be said about this assignment. 

Let's start from the beginning.  Or before the beginning.  When I first heard about this project, I seriously debated not doing it.  (and this is coming from the girl who thought she had to make perfect grades in high school!)  As it was described to us, I felt like there were only two ways to write this paper: either as a metaphor, or as a paper centered on me and my writing progression.  The former seemed impossible to me.  When I read the Living Like Weasels and Carpet is Mungers, neither one made any sense to me, and weasel analogy kind of grossed me out.  Because I felt that I wasn't creative (or crazy) enough to write a good metaphorical literacy narrative, I was stuck with option number two.  Writing about the development of my literacy seemed very self-centered, like when you write a resume or scholarship application and only talk about all the great things you've done.  I hate doing those, so I thought a 3-5 page paper would be absolutely horrid.  This is what I wrote for my writing into the day...

I hate papers about myself.  Who am I?  Who cares? ...but my greatest opposition is this: I am dead.  "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live! Christ lives in me!  ...It would be like the ocean boasting about its water, when the real majesty lies in what lives within.   In the grand scheme, I'm not important!  It almost seems wrong...to focus three pages completely on myself and my desires/accomplishments...Perhaps that's why I haven't started!!  "Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool because I would be speaking the truth.  But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say."  Should I, like Paul, also refrain??

However, I realized the centrality of this project to the course and its eventual impact on my grade and decided that since my parents were paying this semester of college for me, that I should honor them and do my best to make good grades.  Plus, from the outside, not doing a homework assignment just looks lazy.  After deciding to do it, I then waited until the last minute to actually start writing because I didn't really know what to say.  It started out as a general narrative on how I learned to read, but about halfway through the first page, I realized how I could change up this assignment so that it didn't feel so self-absorbed.  I look back now and it seems obvious... I wonder how I didn't see this sooner!  I decided to write the first draft not focusing on how I have improved my literacy, but how God has impacted my life, including but not limited to, my literacy.  Just changed the focus. :)

My second draft was hard for me to write too.  I remember being rather annoyed that I had to completely rework an essay that I had already put alot of myself into.  Often times when I write an essay, I will outline and revise its form, structure, and thought progression in my head, wait until the night before its due, and then dump it all out on paper all at once.  The idea that I had to go back and dig up all these old ideas that felt complete to me and readdress them felt kind of frustrating.  Eventually this second draft served as a giant experiment of sorts.  From the October 4th assignment, I thought it would be cool if I combined the idea of focusing on one specific event, describing it in overblown detail and the idea of converting it to a poem.  The poem idea also flowed nicely into the mentor text that our writing group had found in the library, Owl Moon.  I decided that it would be neat to reminisce about the night I was saved through the mood of Jane Yolen's children's story...I have rerun it many times in my head, but have never taken the time to write it poetically.  In the end, I actually really enjoyed doing this draft, but when I finished, I found it difficult to throw the context back on my literacy and still stay within the same lyrical mood, so it kind of fell to the wayside.

For the final draft, at first I was really excited about the rolling due date, but the longer I thought about what to write, the more I couldn't decide!  There are so many possible things to talk about, so many different perspectives to take that I felt like the extra time just made me more indecisive.  Several times I thought about trying the idea my teacher suggested, which was to start at my 40th birthday and work backwards, which was a really cool idea, but what if I didn't meet my goal?  It felt presumptuous to me.  A lot of things can happen in 22 plus years.  I also considered completely rewriting it, viewing the third draft more as a progression of ideas than as a replacement for the first two.  I would use it to relate the literacy narrative to what's been going on recently, focusing on apologetics.  In the end I chose to dismantle the end of the first draft and add these other new thoughts to the end.  I still ended up liking the first draft better, perhaps because of its focus, but I wasn't about to erase my work. :)

Overall, this assignment was an all-around struggle for me, but it was certainly successful in driving home the fact that literacy is dynamic and hopelessly intertwined in each of our lives. 

Ethnography Project Reflection

Here are some of my thoughts from throughout the process of creating our group's ethnography project.

As previously mentioned on this website, at first I wanted to do this project as a study of the literacy in the natural world, such as different types of patterns, animal communication, and even that of our own DNA.  However as we were split up into groups, that was not a feasible option.  I instead decided to join the group searching for literacy in everyday objects; I had some thoughts on this that came up in one of our past assignments and I thought they would be interesting to flesh out in totality. 

As our group met together and began talking, it was clear that we each had different directions we wanted to take this project, based on how we understood our individual definitions of literacy.  This was especially troubling for me, because I'm not an assertive person, and yet I always have an opinion.  Eventually we came to a consensus to focus on objects like symbols, places, and buildings more than anything else.  Getting to that position wasn't clear cut though.  On our first day out of class, we simply wandered the campus discussing what could be considered literacy, taking pictures of viable options.

This Google Doc shows our development of thought on both these pictures and what to do with this project as a whole.  It serves as a good little representation of our revision process and all that it entailed.  Although the end product is clean and ordered, the road to get there was actually rather messy.  Ideas of kinetic text videos built on PowerPoint and sped-up videos of cartoon drawings flowed freely and eventually we scratched them both, along with the pictures and interviews, and made a video.  This concept, however, did in a sense build on top of what we had done while getting the pictures.  It was a sped up version of our journey with music in the background and text in the forefront.  I give all the props to Michael and Caity on the great video they made because I wasn't there when the finished product was birthed.  Kudos to them. 

Concerning the media form, this was, admittedly, more on the uncomfortable side for me.  I don't own a camera or know how to edit video, so I was at the mercy of Michael's video expertise when we decided that's what we were going to do.  It was also hard because we weren't sure what was expected, or even desired.  I would much rather write a ten page research paper with strict guidelines than do any kind of vague multi-media project.  It's just out of my comfort zone.  Overall, I loved the change of pace compared to any other project I've done, and it gave me a chance to learn more about our campus... and I got to go through the tunnel!