Fathia Qandeel

Professor Von Uhl & Professor Yankwitt

Individual and Society H8

15 December 2021

Reflecting on my writing this semester

      It’s truly difficult to narrow down just a few assignments to discuss and demonstrate my improvement this semester. I never anticipated being where I am now compared to the first day of classes. Especially for this being my first semester of college online. At first, I told myself that I’d be organized for the first few weeks and then I’d end up a mess, but I’m proud to say that despite all of the challenges, I was able to complete all of my tasks and participate in class. I learned a lot about writing, but I also learned about the realities of college and what is expected of me. Both of my professors taught me a lot about writing but they did it in a way that allowed me to grow and learn without them actually showing me every detail. This will benefit me so much moving forward into all the classes in the upcoming years. 

    The vocabulary employed in relation to Freud and the literary pieces we studied and discussed in class initially overwhelmed me. However, I learned how to annotate and break down the material in such a manner that I could arrange and comprehend it in my own way. I used to believe that annotating was a “one-time thing,” that I would read the material, annotate, and then walk away from it. Annotations are composed and “updated” in the same way as essays are. Reading a text multiple times can entirely change my perspective on it compared to the first or second time I read it. This had a significant impact on both my writing and classroom discussions. Using the discussions my peers and I would have during breakout rooms has helped me grasp the readings and improve my own writing. Despite our disagreements, we were able to learn and build off of each other which made me look forward to speaking during class. 

     The first essay I wrote in class, “Freud’s perspective of doctors in the late 1800s and The Yellow Wallpaper,” was on a novella called “The Yellow Wallpaper” by… and Freud’s beliefs on hysteria and doctors in the 1800s. Reading the yellow wallpaper was first perplexing, but after some time, I became engrossed and was able to link Freud to the tale. For my thesis, I wrote “Even though Breuer was only one of the few doctors committed to actually helping patients who treated hysteria, Gilman’s reading portrays many of Freud’s criticisms about the majority of doctors during the 1800s, who were dismissive of their patient’s symptoms, and viewed them as being “exaggerative”. My thesis is really simple and very straight to the point which was my plan because when writing my first essay I wrote a lot more than I needed and repeated a lot. However, doing peer review in class and going to office hours taught me how to put my words simply as well as ways to re-word sentences so I’m not repeating. In my final essay “Drug abuse pertaining to the black community and artistic gift” my thesis shows a lot of growth because my final paper needed to incorporate a literary text, Freudian idea, and two outside sources. Creating a thesis for the essay was not that easy but I knew that I needed to write about society’s effects and views towards the character of my chosen story “Sonny’s Blues” while also incorporating terms/ideas from Freud’s lectures. In my final essay thesis, I wrote “. Baldwin portrays that the faithlessness that Sonny’s community has in him makes it hard for Sonny to succeed as a young Black man; using a psychoanalytical lens, it is clear that Sonny uses his artistic gift as a Jazz pianist to break free from the norms and society’s expectations that he would be subjected to always going back to addiction”. This thesis is much lengthier than my previous essay, however, the technique I used to write it was much more organized than my first thesis. My thesis was extensive, but it met all of the requirements, and it also allowed me to condense all of my scattered thoughts into a formal statement. The way I ordered my essay was through the use of the way I organized my thesis which is what makes my thesis strong since I can expand my essay based on only two sentences.

        My writing was never “perfect” from the first draft. Most of the time I would re-write my essay 3-4 times. At first, for my final papers thesis I wrote “ Baldwin portrays that the faithlessness of Sonny’s outside environment makes it hard for him to succeed as a young Black man, and while looking at it through a Freudian perspective, Sonny’s artistic gift as a Jazz pianist was his way of breaking free from the norm that he would be subjected to failure”.  Here my thesis is really simple and it just doesn’t bring up anything about addiction which is solely what I talk about in my essay. But in my final drafted thesis, I was able to do that while connecting it to Freud’s term “artistic gift”. Drafting to me was sometimes hard because drafting your own paper and finding your faults isn’t as easy as reading someone else’s draft. But over the course of the semester, I found myself drafting my essay alone and was able to learn from past mistakes. Something I found really difficult snd still finds difficult is composing a conclusion. It’s probably the most thing I hate to write when it comes to essays. I still don’t feel the strongest in it but I do feel I got better writing it towards the end of the semester.  The main issue I found writing my conclusion is the introduction sentence. In my summary and response essay “Freud’s perception of doctors during the late 1800s and The Yellow Wallpaper”  my conclusion starts off when I say “ Both “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Freud’s first lecture portray the treatment of patients who suffered from hysteria and mental health problems without any support”. While in my Critical analysis paper “Drug abuse pertaining to the black community and artistic gift” in my conclusion I wrote “Despite Sonny’s hardships and difficult times that he faced in such a condescending society, we are able to see that Sonny found success with an artistic gift. We learn about the preconceptions that are imposed on the black community through the story “Sonny’s Blues”, and how this influences how the black community abuse drugs and alcohol”. I feel in my first essay I started out my conclusion really quick and the word “both” doesn’t really flow very well from the previous paragraph. However in my Cra essay I was able to transition from my previous paragraph about Sonny’s hardships as well as an outside source by using “despite Sonny’s hardships”. Even though I do still struggle with my conclusion I learned how to make my transitions stronger which allowed me to build a nice conclusion of my essay.

     In the previous essays before the critical analysis essay, we were only allowed to use Freud’s lectures and a chosen literary text while in the CRA final paper the guidelines asked for two outside sources. At first, it was hard to think of ways to bring outside sources into my essay. Every time I found a source or had an idea for a source the idea for my essay would change completely. I learned how to use and find scholarly sources on websites like Jstore and the CCNY library. At first, it was hard to type the ideas I wanted into the database but after a little bit, I understood what words to use to get readings close to what I am looking for. Talking to my peers and asking questions allowed me to learn things I didn’t catch during class and it allowed me to have actual conversations with them to develop better writing strategies even as a student who is taking the course online. Something I grew from was learning how to use the correct MLA format and using websites to guide me through the “MLA journey”. My peers were also of great help when it came to peer-reviewing my work and catching the small mistakes that I now double-check in my writing. 

    When writing a paper during this semester I knew I had a purpose to write for my audience, my professors, and classmates. I developed strategies like citing texts and writing clearly for my audience. I developed a good relationship with my writing and my audience because I was able to finally write without feeling like I always needed to be perfect. The more “perfect” I wanted my writing to be I knew it wouldn’t be likable towards my audience. My purpose finally became writing what I felt was true to myself and my ideas not anyone else’s.  I learned this through my many mistakes and talking to my close peers which include Julia, Hazel, and Lisbeth. We all helped each other in any way we could and supported one another through our online classes. I found it very helpful when we spoke about the constant mistakes we made in our essays and that’s exactly what they did for me and my writing. I’m very grateful for my peers and the reviews I received for my writing.

        Watching this class come to an end is only opening doors of opportunity for me to expand and enhance my writing for the upcoming classes I will be taking. My professors taught me a lot when it came to writing ethics, MLA format, peer discussions, and peer reviews. Learning how to break down a reading will not only be beneficial for my future writing classes but as someone who will be majoring in biology, I am sure that it will benefit me when writing papers and reading long texts. Staying at home for two years due to the pandemic has not only affected my education but my confidence in my work. However, this class really taught me and allowed me to be confident in my writing, and allowed me to become the student I was hoping to be at the beginning of the semester.