Ashanti Nedrick

ENGL 21002

Joseph Furlong

Final Reflection

May 18th, 2021

      I have learned a lot in my English class “Writing for Social Sciences” from my professor. It was a long journey of getting to know the different cultures amongst many different people in other communities and societies as well. We were given multiple assignments that led up to our final project which was the Mini ethnography.

    During the first few weeks of class, we focused on culture. There are cultures of different backgrounds, cultures that can be identified as a tradition, or even an object that can symbolize something for a specific culture. For homework, we were asked to read about cultural artifacts and answer questions about them on Blackboard, that way, we have an idea of what cultural artifacts of our own that we would want to choose to write about for our essay. We would also have discussions as a class so that we fully understand the content behind each assignment we were given. Starting with our first essay assignment which was the Personal Artifact essay about an artifact of our choosing. The essay process was all right for me because writing about my own culture is something that I knew well. I decided to write about my jewelry from my home country and what it means to me and my family. The purpose of this essay was to inform others about my artifact and push ourselves to write about something that is connected to our culture in a way and to also to improve my writing as I move along the course. The assignments that we were assigned for this essay helped me with my writing and gave me an idea of what to write and how to write this essay. I was also given feedback on my essay by elaborating on my strengths and what I need to work on in making my piece better. The reading assignments helped me negotiate my own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of the genre, medium, and rhetorical situation. My overall reaction to this assignment was very confused at first but understood in the end. I didn’t know what to write at first because I didn’t know what would be considered a personal artifact but after reading, I realized that anything can be a personal artifact to you. I found revising hard with this essay because I barely got any feedback so it was difficult to see what I needed to work on. Although, I was able to see some aspects of my writing that I needed to fix after rereading it for a second time. 

     Our next assignment was the Peer Interview. I was given a partner from class to interview them about their chosen subculture that they have decided to write about. We had many in-class discussions on what kind of questions are good to ask people and also read different examples of ethnography’s so that we are getting the perception of how an ethnographic is suppose to look like. There are 3 kinds of questions which are open-ended,close-ended, and also follow-up questions as well. Open-ended questions reveal more information about the person in which it involves more details while close-ended questions are only a simple answer of “yes” or “no”. Follow-up questions are the kind of questions with information that was picked up from the interviewee which shows that you, as the interviewer, are listening. I had to come up with my questions for my assigned partner and set up a meeting so that I can interview my partner and take notes. From the duration of the last few weeks, I’ve learned a bit about the interview process and also more about my partner and the subculture they have chosen. The essay process for this assignment was very interesting for me because I got to make up questions of my own to ask my partner and I like interviewing others as well. I wrote my essay on my partner who is named Fernando and his subculture that he has chosen to talk about which was sports. The interview essay was based upon our knowledge of subculture and the different kinds of ethnography that I have viewed in class. The purpose of this interview essay is to gain information using different kinds of questions and getting to know our partners on a personal level to understand the kind of person they are and why they have chosen their subculture. My overall reaction to this essay was that I found the process very engaging. I liked how we got the opportunity to interview someone and also get interviewed myself because it showed me what the interview process is like and why different types of questions are important. 

   The next assignment was the Research Paper on a subculture that interests me but would also be a subculture that I am not a part of as well. After brainstorming many ideas of many potential subcultures to write about, I had chosen the goth subculture because I didn’t know much about them and it seemed interesting to me by the way that they were labeled as weird just by their appearance. I had thought that it would be a great topic to research as well. I have learned a little bit about the goth community and what they are like too. The essay process for my research paper was fascinating to me because I got to know what goth people like and dislike as a community. They are normal people like others my be but to many people, they are evil or dangerous as they are stereotyped almost all the time. I researched the things that they might enjoy, their behavior, the kinds of music they listen to, and many more. The genre of this essay would be considered a research essay. The exigence of this essay is to explore another subculture and dive deep into the kinds of information that I would need to know to interview someone in this subculture. The purpose of this essay was to identify another subculture to get to know more about this community of people and learn more about their lifestyle too. My intended audience are my professor and cuny students who might associate themselves to this culture. The relationship between me as a writer and my audience is that we share a connecetion about this subculture. Some of the research made me very curious about what this subculture may be about and the assumptions that may come up too. The assignments leading up to this essay has shown me the importance of locating research sources in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias. My overall reaction towards this essay is very curious because I never heard good things about the goth community and it was really interesting to learn more about them. The revision process was very helpful to me as well. I got really good feedback and I revised my essay but still think that corrections can be made. I think that the brainstorm activity we did as a class really helped choose a subculture that we are interested in writing about and thinking about what research question can influence our thinking when researching about my topic.

    Our final assignment was the Mini Ethnography with 3 parts that needed to be completed. The first part was a mini ethnography of an interview that I’ve conducted with a person who is a part of the subculture that we researched about. The second part of this project I have chosen to do is write about a film that relates to the subculture that I chose to research on. The last part includes a collage that also relates to the subculture that I researched about as well. This essay process was kind of difficult because it was very challenging to find a potential interviewee for my ethnography. I went to a goth store and eventually found someone to interview who was considered to be a part of the goth community. Then I found a documentary pertaining to the different kinds of music that gothic people enjoy and wrote about the history and context of where goth started in history. At last, I made a little collage filled with pictures that also relate to the goth subculture and included citations. My research question was asking about the lifestyle of goth people and I included different pictures of how they are usually seen, their appearance, the way they dress, and even the kinds of music they listen to. The exigence of this project was to get to know people in different subcultures other than mine and get to know more about them as well. The purpose of this project is to persuade us to use knowledge from the previous essay and use it conduct an interview while learning more about the subculture itself. After writing my first draft, I had to revise it so that I am aware of the little errors I’ve made within the essay. I also went to a tutor so that changes were made and I got to revise it as well which was very helpful during the revision process. The mini-assignments, small homework submissions, peer reviews, instructor feedback, and class discussions helped me shape my writing piece into the ethnography that I wanted and helped me understand what it is, what it looks like, and other examples of different ethnographies too. The Course Learning Outcomes helped me progress as a writer by acknowledging the standards of what a writer must do in order to have a good writing piece. It also made me realized that I learned a lot from each writing piece and made me a better writer from the beginning of the class until now. I enjoyed this class and learned a lot about what an ethnography should contain and more about the interview process as well.