Month: November 2023

The process of creating an argument using the format of a Pecha Kucha required further use of consolidating all of my ideas into a single argument. I have used this process throughout the semester, the most prominent example being my Literacy Narrative and the accompanying comic.

One of the advantages of this format was the requirement to use pictures to go along with the argument. The pictures provided additional context to my argument while also allowing me to explain my own ideas, using the images as a guide rather than the central focus.

I also tried to use a linear path while forming my argument, specifically the “step-by-step” structure that Judith Lewis Herman uses in the provided excerpt.

The most difficult part about this presentation was learning how to pace myself in order to meet the 20 second time limit for each slide; this involved slowing down during slides where I didn’t have a lot to talk about (eliminating long, awkward pauses), or talking faster (while remaining understandable to the audience) on slides with more ideas I wanted to discuss.

Overall, I feel that this presentation challenged me in all the right ways, especially in my confidence with giving presentations in a clear and concise manner. I can definitely see myself using the presentation techniques I learned in the future, both in school and professionally.

*link to slideshow presentation here

• How has the entire literacy narrative project helped you to meet the Learning Outcomes for this class?

This entire project has helped me meet all the learning outcomes. Briefly, through this project I have composed literature of different mediums, gone through many drafts, and used a website to successfully display my works.

• How was it to return to the alphabetic literacy narrative after having created your comic? How did you think differently after having worked in the visual medium and now returning to a text narrative?

Returning to the alphabetic literacy narrative was quite different since I now felt I had to be much more specific to convey my messages. With pictures, half the story is the reader’s interpretation but it’s not like that with words. That being said, from my drawings, I found new perspectives and words to include in my last narrative which added more detail. I like to think that both part 2 and 3 are adaptations of each other since each version has subtle influences from each other.

• How do you see the story you are trying to tell in different terms now? Was your analytical thinking process any different?

My story overall was pretty much the same. The major difference between part 1 and 3 is part 3 is much more refined and its flow is better. This is partly due to creating part 2 which made me focus on the most important parts of my writing/reading journey I wanted to convey, so part 3 highlights these important events more.

I have always loved reading. As far as my first memories stretch back, there was always a series I was reading: Percy Jackson, classic fairy tales, Harry Potter, among many more. My favorite genre was always fiction and whether it was mystery, fantasy, or science-fiction, each story captivated my imagination in its unique way. Often, I would go on a reading frenzy and finish these books in a few days and re-read my favorite parts again and again, until more books finally came in. I would read everywhere during my free time– on the bed, on the floor, or on the couch. My sense of time would be lost, reading for hours on end which usually ended in my mom yelling at me to get back to work.

School was a place where teachers constantly encouraged you to read, and as an early teen who loved reading, I was puzzled why some people were so averse to it. To me, reading was an escape from reality, a time to fully immerse myself in the amazing world created by the author. However, I do admit I was never that “perfect” reader. Occasionally, there were periods when I did not read for reasons such as laziness to find more books to read or the mindset that reading wouldn’t be as enjoyable as it appeared in my memories. However, once a book was picked up again, it all came back to me. The thrill, the excitement, and the anticipation for the next page: I remembered why reading was one of my favorite hobbies.
Although reading was one of my strong passions, my relationship with writing was more of a chore. In my writing journey, consistent investment in English writing projects and university preparation were the main ways I improved my writing.
My parents always said I would be a great writer because of all the literature I consumed. However, that statement turned out to be false. Although I was exposed to many unfamiliar words, I was never an active reader, so I regretfully say I never took the time to find their definitions. And even though yes, I could differentiate between the writing styles of different authors, I could never effectively replicate the techniques that worked; the hooks that drew readers in, the perfect word choices, and the cliffhangers that left the readers wanting more. To put it simply, writing never came easy for me.

On the other hand, math was never a hard subject. Growing up, especially in middle school, it was difficult to empathize with other students who struggled with it. In 7th grade, I vividly recall one English class where I came to the random conclusion that writing for me was just how struggling students felt with math. To be on the same level as my peers, I would need to put in more effort, and I felt jealous. I don’t believe my writing is subpar, however, I have often received “low” grades that I did not think I deserved. I was also influenced by my peers. For them, words and ideas flowed onto paper like the movement of water through a dam. They took much less time to complete an assignment with many more words. I wondered if writing was an innate skill since I felt my writing had stayed stagnant throughout high school; I felt like there were no major life-changing improvements to my process.

Each year in English class, I had a new teacher. At the start of each year, they would read the course syllabus, and each time they never failed to convince me that this was the year where I would finally become that great writer, or half-decent one, that I’ve always wanted to be. Maybe it was the way they spoke with their English teacher-style diction or my gullibility, but either way, I was led to believe that this was the year. Looking back on each year, I can’t say I had that eye-opening experience. Every year felt like I was just practicing my writing skills with my current skillset; no new writing techniques were being taught. However, with practice came improvements, and through each small free write or major assignment, my writing was slowly but surely becoming more refined.

However, one large milestone occurred when I was preparing my application to apply to universities. Studying for the SAT greatly improved my grammar, especially redundancy and proper punctuation. When writing my personal statement for applying to university, the exercises, and techniques for crafting an essay truly opened my eyes to sentence flow and structure. Writing my personal statement was the longest and most thorough free writing I have ever done. I spent countless hours revising each word, giving it to peers and family to check over, and attempting to read it through the eyes of a college admission officer. That experience boosted my confidence in writing since I not only got accepted, that piece was widely praised by everyone who read it.
Now as a current university student, I am utilizing my writing skills at a higher level. At Emory, there are many opportunities to expand my knowledge and I am already learning new things, for “real” this time. So, here I am now, continuing my writing journey and ready for what is yet to come.

Track List:

1. Take Me Home, Country Roads — John Denver
2. Sleep Well — d4vd
3. Rock Your Body — Justin Timberlake
4. Bad Luck — BoyWithUke
5. Stronger — Kanye West
6. Annihilate — Metro Boomin
7. Spot Theme Epic Version — Carameii
8. Life Goes On — Oliver Tree
9. We Didn’t Start The Fire — Billy Joel
10. Don’t Stop Believin’ — Journey
11. All I Do Is Win — DJ Khaled
12. We Are The Champions — Queen
13. Sleep Well — d4vd

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5PVtVuI7T3Bgk6eb3RFrN5?si=464be03ed9144318, the mixtape cover is a photo of the team that was taken after winning the tournament.

This past weekend, the Barkley Forum at Emory competed in the largest debate tournament of the fall semester: the Franklin R. Shirley hosted by Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. Because of the long road trip to and from Wake Forest, as well as constant self-prescribed music breaks during the more anxiety-inducing moments of the debate competition, music was a large part of the trip. The playlist I created consists of not only music that I enjoy, but also tells a story of how the debate trip went:

Starting off with Take Me Home, Country Roads (1971) by John Denver, the trip begins with a trip across the east coast — a first for me, who lived in Taiwan. Although I was excited for what I could see on the highways, I quickly realized that there wasn’t anything more than a mildly interesting billboard to keep me entertained. This made me understand that the quickest way for me to pass time was to sleep through the trip and catch up with the sleep debt I accrued the week before — a sentiment that I felt was captured in Sleep Well (2023) by d4vd.

After an uneventful and exhausting drive, check-in process, and below-average sleep, I surprisingly woke up with the energy to see the first day of the competition through to the end with the ambition and passion of Justin Timberlake’s Rock Your Body (2002). However, I was quickly struck with bad luck (a reference to Bad Luck (2021) by BoyWithUke), as our first opponent was one of the teams that were expected to win it all. The debate itself was as expected: we got crushed. However, I didn’t let that deter me from moving on with the day, knowing from Stronger (2007) by Kanye West that what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.

The next two rounds went very well, going two-for-two. I felt in my zone, like Spiderman felt as Annihilate (2023) by Metro Boomin played in the background. However, in the last round of the day, disaster struck as we were presented with yet another difficult opponent. As we needed to win at least three rounds on the first day, my heart sank as though Spot’s Theme (2023) was playing in the movie theatre, and I knew that something bad was going to happen (spoiler alert: we lost).

With the first day done, I knew that there was nothing we could do about the undesirable pairings. I knew that life goes on (a reference to Life Goes On (2021) by Oliver Tree), and that was the mentality I held coming into the second day. After all, our coaches made it clear that the tournament wasn’t over until the last one of us gets knocked out of the tournament.

Like Billy Joel tells us in We Didn’t Start the Fire (1989), it’s up to us to continue fighting on. Like a montage scene straight out of a movie, the enthusiasm everyone had on the second day resembled the cheesy yet uplifting tune of Don’t Stop Believin’ (1981) by Journey. The first round of the day was the sweet sixteen, yet it seemed as if our senior was out for blood as they won round after round after round (a reference to All I Do Is Win (2010) by DJ Khaled), eventually reaching the final round.

We won that finals debate! It would be criminal for me to use any song except We Are The Champions (1977) by Queen to describe how elated the whole team was. With the tournament over and the trophy on the bus, there was nothing else to do but bask in victory and sleep well (a reference to Sleep Well (2023) by d4vd) knowing that the trip was a success.

Throughout the entire literacy narrative project, I thought about my writing as a process. I did multiple drafts and revisions to get to the final product. I used the writing center as a tool throughout the process to help where I lacked. I was also able to compose texts in a different mode, such as a comic and in alphabetical text.

After finishing the comic and returning back to the alphabetic literacy narrative, I was able to expand on my essay. With my first paragraph, the feedback I received was about my vagueness and how I needed to use certain example to show my readers how my experience was. My thought process was to explain as much I could without the visuals. For instance with the comic I used visual and less explanation to show how my experience was. In the alphabetical, I used more explanation to substitute the visuals that are missing. It was interesting doing both alphabetic and comic style. I got to see my writing come to life and share piece of my story with my audience through visual components.

I continued the same structure I used in my first draft. Starting from coming to America/elementary school, middle school, high school, and current life.

It was in the 4th grade when I first came to America from Ethiopia.I attended a predominantly white school with a majority of ignorant kids who questioned if I could speak English or not. Being one of the only students to not speak, read, or write in English was very intimidating. I hated the idea of bringing any more attention to myself because I already stood out by being one of the five students who were of color. I used to sit in class wondering about how great America would be, the education I would receive, all the new friends I would make, and so on. All the time I spent fantasizing about my future home was crushed when I stepped into a classroom where I couldn’t find any other kids who resembled me. My teacher, Ms.Nelson, constantly pressured me to speak aloud to the entire class, solely for her amusement in hearing my distinct accent .She would use me as an example to teach the kids that if that didn’t practice they would eventually become like me. Consequently, from that day forward until my time in middle school, I refrained from acquiring skills in reading, writing, and speaking English within an educational setting.

 However, I never stopped practicing outside of school. My love of writing never faded away completely; I just avoided practicing in class to avoid being bullied. I spent countless hours practicing reading and writing until I felt I had mastered it. I used writing as a way to express myself easily because I found it hard to speak in English. I practiced every day until 6th grade and that’s when I felt comfortable enough to start getting out of my shell. I even started to sign up for writing and poem competitions. Despite the fact that I never fully committed to the competitions because of fear, little Kidist would have been pleased  for having the bravery to sign up. However, the process of learning to read was very challenging due to my lack of knowledge of the alphabet, grammatical conventions, and vocabulary. It wasn’t until middle school when I started to learn more about grammar, sentence structure, and so on. Regardless of this development, procuring resources like books, computers, notebooks – vital tools for practice – remained a challenge for me. I constantly found myself at the library watching random “How to pronounce English words” youtube videos and repeatedly reading one of my favorite children’s books, The Very Busy Spider.

 Yet, when I began high school I started to lose my passion for writing. With the gradual disappearance of my heavy Ethiopian accent and the nurturing companionship of understanding peers,I felt more at ease in my social group. It eventually caused me to abandon the craft that had formerly provided me great joy.  Although this was when I gained proficiency with the language and felt confident, I stopped using writing as an escape. I began viewing writing as a chore rather than a way to express myself. Trying to balance school work, writing supplements, and my personal statement, I was tired of writing.I discontinued journaling because it began feeling like an assignment rather than something I could do to destress or for my pleasure. I was constantly hitting the burnout stage and having to force myself to write and write just to complete the assignment. Often feeling discouraged, I began to stop writing for fun and only when necessary for school. 

Even to this day ,the true stance of my relationship with writing and reading is uncertain. I’ve overcome this big obstacle that hindered me from learning, but does it necessarily mean that I have to enjoy writing and reading because I finally understand how to? As future semesters unfold in my college years, I anticipate my journey with writing and reading to grow as it is an essential part of being a student. While I’m unsure of how my growth will change my opinion of reading and writing, I hope I gradually regain that passion I once had in middle school. 

Mixtape

This is a mixtape where songs include the lyric “sorry.” As I was first diving into this assignment, I couldn’t think of a rhetorical situation my mixtape so I followed one of the examples of findings songs that include a word. I thought using one word like “sorry” would be too easy so I added an additional rule of songs that I’ve heard before.

My album cover inspiration comes from my dorm room. Many of the songs I listened to were about apologizing to someone and I thought gambling, or poker chips could represent the regret that people had.

Link to Literacy Narrative Pt. 3

The literacy narrative project has encouraged me to think critically about my personal experiences and how to convey them effectively through different mediums. I was better able to meet the Writing as a Process learning outcome because the literacy narrative was split into three parts. After writing my first draft, converting it into a comic helped me visualize exactly what I was trying to express and understand which parts of my essay were unnecessary. That way, when it came time to turn it back into an alphabetic narrative, I knew what revisions and edits needed to be added to make my essay more cohesive. Rearranging my writing into the comic medium also helped me meet the Visual Thinking learning outcome. The visual format of the project meant I was required to experiment with different ways of arranging my narrative so it would convey the ideas outlined in my first draft.
Returning to the alphabetic literacy narrative, I understood that several portions of my writing needed to be re-written, especially towards the end. I didn’t feel a need to change much from the first half of my essay, where I described reading and writing from childhood to middle school, but the comic gave me insight into the significance of those events. I realized instead of focusing on re-reading or returning to the enthusiasm for reading I once had as a kid, the true importance of being in my junior year English class was that it allowed me to reflect on my mentality towards reading and writing. That’s how I came to see my story in a different way; I understood how to get to the heart of how the evolution of my attitude has shaped the way I read and write.