For my Assembly sketch, I decided to use the metaphor of growing a flower in order to represent my growth in this class. The five seeds are representative of the five learning outcomes that were established at the beginning of the course. The dirt represents the foundation that I already had before starting this course. The water symbolized the various books and texts that we read over the course of the semester. Plants need to be watered daily in order to grow, so it was important that we were constantly reading in the class. Sunlight has a similar importance to water, and the weekly sketch assignments helped us build up towards writing a comic and improved our writing skills. When we wrote our first and second literary narratives, we were still sprouting out of the dirt – not fully developed as writers yet in the course. By the end of this semester, we bloomed into flowers, representative of our third literacy narrative.
The cake-making process is extensive but well worth it at the end. One starts with a bunch of primarily inedible ingredients that taste very bland for the most part separated: cake flour, eggs, butter, and a whisk. However, when put together, the long process leaves one with a tasty cake ready to be devoured. Much like the cake, I see my semester-long process as a long but rewarding journey, going from someone who had many creative ideas indiiually but not being able to organize them properly to learning how to concisely and effectively communicate.
Personally, eggs are not a favorite of mine. The egg itself is tough for me to crack. I usually end up with shells in my yolk bowl when cracking an egg. On top of this, I find raw eggs, disgusting, as the taste has never been a favorite of mine. The eggs symbolize the three significant assignments this semester- the literacy narrative, the tracing pages essay, and the half-kucha presentation. Like an egg, each assignment is tough to crack, starting with multiple brainstorming sessions to see what would best fit the assignment, then going into the writing process in which I have to revise, edit, and repeat. However, by the end of the process, the assignments, like the eggs, when adequately dealt with, led me to polished essays and assignments that left me with unrivaled educational benefits.
A whisk is the most essential tool when creating a cake. One needs a whisk to mix all the critical ingredients within a cake. This process takes time. Like how a whisk must beat into the various ingredients and grind them down, through the comics read, we were required to use intense analytical thinking, creativity, and our unique point of view to point out thoughts on the book we read in class. This thinking process at the beginning of the semester especially took a long time. However, as time went on, our brains got accustomed to this thinking style, leading to long processes that resulted in more efficient and even deeper thinking of literary analysis.
The bi-weekly class discussions, like butter, were smooth, enjoyable and , formative. They helped me shape my thoughts about the readings by allowing us to delve into characters, plots, themes, and the author’s perspective. These conversations made the material more familiar and comfortable, influencing how I saw the book. Moreover, they sparked ideas for assignments, thanks to insights from Professor Morgen and my classmates. Just as I’ve come to appreciate melted butter, I’ve realized that comics, like “Butter,” are often undervalued for the depth of literary lessons they offer.
Toy Story isn’t my favorite children’s movie, but it was for my cousin. Thus I had to rewatch it every time I visited their house, and it gradually became an important part of my childhood memory. I especially like the worldview that the toys have to pretend to be unanimated in front of people, and thus I chose to imitate this scene. I don’t have any toys from the movie itself, so I used my own toy in place of it.
The Cognitive Priming Procedures present stimuli to the participants and measure their immediate, automatic reactions, compared to IAT which involves a contrast in participants’ reactions to different stimuli. They also lack the ability to eliminate participants’ attempts to mask their real reactions.
One of my important take-aways from the class is my potential interests and advantage in using visual mediums to create stories in place of using alphabetical ones. I realized through the process of creating the second draft of my literacy narrative that I might be a more visual thinker, and visual mediums provide a more easy, diverse, and concrete way to portray my imaginations.
Another skill that the course helped me develop was my imagination. The Sunday sketch assignments expanded my concept of how to represent certain ideas metaphorically and abstractly.
The course also trained my revision skills through the literacy narrative assignment. I felt that with each revision I became closer to having a central theme or focus in my essay. I learned how having various drafts can help filtering out the unnecessary points and clarify the main point that I try to convey. It also helps me to spot issues in my writing more clearly. I represented this part as the cup as I think that this skill applies both to visual and alphabetical mediums.
At last, I felt like the course, especially the literacy narrative project, helped me see more clearly my motive and passion behind reading and writing. I drew this concept as the chopsticks because my interest to some extent controls how I use the skills in the class.
While constructing this argument, I really had to narrow down what I wanted to say. This allowed me to clarify and refine my ideas, rather than elaborating on not-so-relevant points (if I was writing an essay). I chose to structure my argument in three main talking points, which were the stages of recovery. I chose one comic to talk about for each stage, and analyzed one one specific character who demonstrated a specific stage of recovery most visibly. I also decided to present the information chronologically, focusing on one comic book at a time. When thinking about the written work that I’ve done this year, I also followed the chronological structure. I think by using that format, I organize and present my ideas more thoroughly.
I visually organized my presentation by not using any words or captions, as I wanted the chosen images to be the only information that’s physically emphasized. I was intentional about the background color of my slides too, so I chose a dark hue that made the illustrations pop. I think that this choice of color helped to create an impact in my oral presentation.
From this presentation style, I learned that the absence of text helps me to think more thoroughly about the ideas that I want to present. To fill the 20 seconds, I needed to think through my argument, simplify it, and then present it in a concise way that still holds meaning. Something that I noticed in my classmates’ presentations was that they structured their information in a compare and contrast format, instead of chronologically. I think that that structure could be something I incorporate in my future writing assignments as it allows the viewer to think more critically about the argument that you’re trying to make.
My playlist is called “50×50”, representing two ways that I deal with my gloomy periods. A lot of my worries come from the social pressure of feeling not having enough friends and feeling unneeded by others. I have this eccentric obsession of wanting to be valued emotionally by others. Thus when I feel unneeded, I would sink into this swamp of anxiety and convince myself that I am the loneliest person in the entire world. This playlist provides songs that correspond to my two mental states in this situation: either renouncing and letting the distress paralyze momentarily me, during which I would listen to songs that express similar anxieties of defeat and loneliness; or picking myself up and convincing myself to not let others to rob me of my ability to be happy on my own, during which I would listen to the “I’m the best” type of songs.
To make the presentation clearer, I decided to divide the presentation into two parts and talk about the two comics separately. I compared the two comics mainly during the transition in the middle. However, looking back now, I think the comparisons might have been clearer if I had mixed the two parts. For example, for each category the two comics differ, I should have followed slides about one comic by slides about another, creating an immediate contrast, instead of separating the two.
I think one part that I could have improved on is that I did not structure my presentation that much differently than how I would structure an essay. To enhance the presentation, I could have included a conclusion to summarize and expand my argument. I also could have restated my argument in the beginning, middle, and the end of the essay.
For the visual representation, I did my best to arrange the pictures on my slides in the order of how I mentioned them. I think some of the techniques that my classmates used, such as circling the important parts of the pictures or using signs(such as equal and unequal signs) to indicate the relationship between the two comics. Since there is a time limit for each slide, I have to condense the words spoken for each of them, making it difficult to find the points to emphasize. Also, it takes more time to practice in order to ensure that my pace of speaking matches the pace of the slides. I think that I would need to practice this kind of presentation more in order to improve.
I think the Literacy Narrative project helps me improve my revision skills as each draft helps me to focus closer on a particular theme and eliminate the parts that seem to digress from the topic. Part two of this project also introduces me to the visual medium which might be a better alternative to the alphabetic for me.
Drawing the visual comic helped me recognize a frequently-mentioned theme–how both books and writing help people communicate their ideas. Thus, I decided to focus my essay mainly on how my wish to voice myself drove me to improve my reading and writing. However, I still found it easier and perhaps more interesting to create the visual medium. Maybe it’s because of the fact that my language barrier still persists, the visual medium provides a more diverse and vivid way to represent my idea.
In the first draft I tried my best to summarize all of the elements that contributed to how my process of reading and writing evolved. Since I thought that my original essay had too loose of a structure, I tried to seek a theme when creating the comic and tried applying it to my third draft.
This diagram represents my thought/writing process as I took on the major writing assignments given this semester. Stage one represents a blank slate, me, before I receive the prompt. The second stage, hot water, represents the introduction of the prompt. No ideas have been circulated yet. Stage three, the tea bag, represents the infusion of ideas and thoughts. In this stage, the first draft is being produced, however, there is not much “flavor” or “depth” to my writing yet. In the next stage of my writing process, the flavor, or revisions, are added. However, after reflecting, more edits need to be added to my “tea.” Finally, in the last stage, my tea, or writing, is finished.
Looking back on this semester, I’ve noticed that each draft are just add-ons to my original writing. And with these add-ons, my writing becomes even more enriched with storytelling or literary devices.
Just like how doing laundry is a multi-stage process, writing is also a process. The dirty clothes represent my initial thoughts and ideas. Those ideas serve as the foundation for constructing my writing, but they are raw and messy. That’s why I’ve begun incorporating a visual outline to help visualize what my first draft will look like. Just like how detergent helps wash clothes, visual information helps me assemble and arrange my ideas into a draft. For example, turning my literacy narrative into a comic allowed me to visualize how I wanted to restructure my narrative in a more effective way. The washing machine represents combining all my ideas of what I’m going to write with a visual outline to facilitate properly organizing my writing. Just like how a washing machine spins and mixes all the clothes together, I envision the first draft to be a mixing and processing of my ideas. Doing laundry isn’t just about washing the clothes, however. It also involves drying the clothes. Once the rough draft has been completed, the next component of the process is editing and revising. A lot can go into this. After rereading and reflecting on what I had previously written, I’ve learned to listen to other people’s thoughts. When constructing a final draft, I try to combine the suggestions given from both peers and professors into my writing, just like how a dryer turns and mixes the clothes. In that way, similar to how the process of drying my laundry ends with nice, clean clothes, the process of editing, revising and reflecting helps produce a polished final draft.
