Personal Narrative: My First IWM Class

Rollins College is an alluring and esteemed institution that I, through my attendance, hold illustrious and venerable attitudes toward. Here, at Rollins, we have a set of general education requirements consisting of various classes within different groups of classes known as, “neighborhoods.” My neighborhood is Identities, Windows, and Mirrors (IWM) which includes classes of varied subjects but all, of which, are centered around the idea of personal identity and self reflection. My first IWM class was Native American Media and Culture taught by Prof. Cummings. I particularly enjoyed the themes and ideas conveyed throughout my semester in the class. Ideas of social culture, stereotyping, and history of Native Americans were a few of the many topics that were conveyed throughout the class. It was quite an …show more content…
Shafak begins by recounting her childhood experience as she grew up in Turkey within a patriarchal society. She discussed her grandmother and how she would use a form of pseudoscience in order to cure acne, warts, and other blemishes. Despite the ways in which she attempted to cure the afflicted, many would return healthy despite being viewed as a spiritual ritual that mock the dermatological science we possess today. Shafak discusses how as a child in school, there were many different nationalities, but rather than each student being viewed as their own person, they were viewed as a representation of their own country. Shafak, later, attended college in the United States and began writing and loved it. She loved writing stories, but was often questioned for not writing about serious stories of social and political experience. She realized that she really enjoyed writing fictional stories because it is a great way to express herself and create her identity by writing what she “feels” rather than what she