English in college has been a very different class from what was described throughout the Calverton School experience. The readings themselves are similar to the International Baccalaureate program that I faced in high school; however the writing style which has been introduced is still somewhat foreign. The understanding for writing which I was accustomed to in high school has become blurred and foggy; it seems inadequate for this class. The realization that academic writing does not exclusively revolve around a set structure, such as a five paragraph essay, was difficult to accept; and continues to plague my writing. From a perspective standpoint, what has truly changed is the approach to writing is that writing is not trying to always prove something. An essay is not entirely reliant on persuasion or comparison or contrast; rather that each of these facets of writing, along with countless others, can be used together to create the “new-knowledge” I am trying to seek. The introduction of accretion and apposition, demonstrated best by James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son, has lifted my writing, making my analysis stronger; but not my understand of new knowledge. In my first formal essay, there was a lot of proving points, and analysing arguments, and not a whole lot of method and practice; something that I have done better with Bechdel’s work (“The Ordinary Devoted Mother”), as seen in my yet to be completed second formal essay: ‘“Another difficulty is the fact that the story of my mother and me is unfolding even as I write it” (Bechdel 82). Bechdel, while confused and irritated with her inability to move forward with her writing, is able to continue explaining herself through illustrations. Baldwin does not have this luxury, as he is writing from a place of past experience. His explanations come strictly from a place of words and metaphor” (Formal Essay 2). My understanding of method and practice has grown; particularly thanks to Scott McCloud’s “Blood In The Gutter,” leading to a better grasp of the writer’s project.
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Yet I cannot seem to come up with my own project when I am writing; for when I do, I feel as though I am relapsing into my high school way of writing, and when I try to write with my own “project” in mind, I cannot get my mind out of the gutter, so to speak.
The most obvious change in my understanding comes from comparing my first difficulty essay about Bechdel’s “The Ordinary Devoted Mother” to my journal essay; I did not even realize that I had the chapter title as the novel title: “Alison Bechdel, author of The Ordinary Devoted Mother….” (Difficulty Essay 2). Getting it right in the journal essay, ‘“The Ordinary Mother,” the first chapter of Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? could be its own graphic novel,” (Journal Essay 2) led to a much better comprehension of Bechdel and her work.
While I am not progressing as fast as I would like, I do think that I have a much better grasp of the concepts “method, practice, and project,” than I did my first couple of weeks. My ability to create new knowledge, however, leaves something to be desired. The third to last paragraph of my first formal essay has semblance to the direction I want to go in: “The irony in all of this is that despite the stress placed on the Mohamed family in this situation, there was never any anger or hatred. Like the Baldwin who tried not to give
Yet I cannot seem to come up with my own project when I am writing; for when I do, I feel as though I am relapsing into my high school way of writing, and when I try to write with my own “project” in mind, I cannot get my mind out of the gutter, so to speak.
The most obvious change in my understanding comes from comparing my first difficulty essay about Bechdel’s “The Ordinary Devoted Mother” to my journal essay; I did not even realize that I had the chapter title as the novel title: “Alison Bechdel, author of The Ordinary Devoted Mother….” (Difficulty Essay 2). Getting it right in the journal essay, ‘“The Ordinary Mother,” the first chapter of Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? could be its own graphic novel,” (Journal Essay 2) led to a much better comprehension of Bechdel and her work.
While I am not progressing as fast as I would like, I do think that I have a much better grasp of the concepts “method, practice, and project,” than I did my first couple of weeks. My ability to create new knowledge, however, leaves something to be desired. The third to last paragraph of my first formal essay has semblance to the direction I want to go in: “The irony in all of this is that despite the stress placed on the Mohamed family in this situation, there was never any anger or hatred. Like the Baldwin who tried not to give