SELF REFLECTION

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Kayla Pena

Tyson Ward

English Honors

December 20, 2018

 

Self-Reflection

In this class I have actually tried to rebuild my previous writing habits. I was never really taught how to write essays so his class was a challenge for me. I made sure to take advantage of my professors’ willingness to meet and tried to absorb all the comments he gave me during our meetings. I genuinely wanted to learn to fix my writing. In the beginning of the semester. Remember our professor going over how we can work on our writing processes. I normally would wait for the night before to write my papers for school, but in this class, I learned that I should give myself time. I enjoyed writing my paper a week or two before it was due so I had time to research, outline, draft, meet for comments, and finalize my paper. I think learning this writing process was the biggest thing I got out of this semester.

The brainstorming piece always remained the most difficult part for me. These assignments, especially the definition assignment, were so open for creativity. Being creative is hard for me. When there are such a limited number of boundaries I don’t know how to act. This is why the narrative essay was my least favorite. It had such a broad number of topics I could choose from.

The argumentative essay was my favorite because it was more formatted and I could create a solid outline for how I wanted to go about my paper. I approached it like a puzzle. I laid out all of my subject’s opinions and had to find a way to twist them and find counterarguments to them.  It was a challenging task, but one I knew I could tackle through research rather than my own creativity.

At first for the definition assignment I didn’t understand what was being asked of me, but once I talked with classmates and chose my topic I was on a roll. One source would lead me to another source and I had to catch myself from going on tangents that were too farfetched. I wish I gave this essay more time. It was the one essay that I didn’t stick to a good planning schedule.

I also reformed my writing style and figured out how important smooth transitions were to making an essay seem flawless. I really enjoyed this class this semester as it forced me to tap into my inner creativity and to come out of my writing comfort zone.

 

 

 

DEFINITION ESSAY REFLECTION

To strengthen my essay, I wanted to add a literary element. I discussed the Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare because as I was writing my paper I was reminded of this play. The setting of Venice during the times of ghettos reminded me of Shylock and I thought it would be unique to add a well-known playwright such as Shakespeare into my essay. It added a sense of legitimacy to what I writing as I tracked the etymology of the word.

I left a few parts in the passive construct because I thought it as nice to mix it up. I felt as if my essay had a very fluent feeling and wanted to add some variety. I fixed all of my typos and grammatical errors throughout my paper.I clarified some sentences that I thought were straightforward but could have confused my reader. When I talk about slang I use as having a negative connotation I meant in relation to my parents or those from different generations who wouldn’t understand current trends as well.

I didn’t want to include how African American used the word and “flipped” the meaning because I was going for a more negative approach with my essay. If I talked about how they adopted the word then it would have been a positive thing. I talked about how ghetto was used in Venice and in Nazi Germany and how it had these negative meanings. I only mentioned my experience with my cousins from rural America to present this kind of counterargument. I was talking about my experience with the word and how it was a positive one.

I then brought in the whole definition of it having a meaning of being racist because in all past times it has been used- Venice, Germany, inner cities- it has been to segregate a certain group of people and to make them seem lesser. They were put in these ghettos to be singled out and always had few to no resources or any hope of getting out. I wanted to define “ghetto” as a negative word and talking about how African Americans flipped the meaning would defeat that purpose.

EDITIED DEFINITION ESSAY

The word “ghetto” has been appropriated by many different social groups in the past. While each appropriations definition at first seems different, they are all essentially the same definition. Through history the word “ghetto” has gone from predominately being a noun to more recently being used as an adjective.

The etymology of the word “ghetto” is actually unknown according to the Oxford University Press (Domonoske).  In Hebrew it means” get”, in Italian it means “little town”, in Venetian it means “foundry”, and in German it means “street”. All possibilities have fairly different meanings which leads the etymology of the word to be a mystery.

The first occurrence of a ghetto was in Venice during the early 1500s (Roth). Jewish people fled to Venice in June 1509 as refugees during the War of the League of Cambrai. Most of them settled in San Cassiano, but they began to run into issues with the Christians who wanted to expel them. The Christians, however, wanted to expel the Jews from their cities, but needed them for their money lending. The solution the Christians made to appease their anti-Semitist feelings, but maintain their economic relationship was the segregate the Jews in the city from the Christians. In March 1516 the Venetian State approved the proposal that the Jewish people would have to live in the Ghetto Nuovo, which means “New Foundry”(Finlay). This forced segregation of the ghettos was upheld by the law in Venice.

Shakespeare displayed this relationship between the Christians and Jews in the Ghetto in his comedy play The Merchant of Venice. In this play a character had to enter a ghetto to find Shylock, a Jewish man who lent money to the Christians. The ghetto was described as having poor living conditions and the streets being filled with people. This was written in London during 1598 and noted major stereotypes of Jews during this time. The ghetto was a product of the disregard and hatred of a group of people who were apart of the minority. As the nineteenth century approached, the number of ghettos began to decrease as Jews weren’t legally forced to continue living in them.

The next instance of ghettos being formed was during the Holocaust. Hitler forced the Jews to be segregated in Germany. This segregation was on a whole new level compared to in Venice. The Nazis also enforced the ghettos through law and the living conditions were meant to hurt the Jewish people. The ghettos were poor, densely packed cities that received very limited amounts of resources. The amount of food that was brought in was strictly regulated. Ghettos were formed to gain better control of the Jews. The Nazis controlled their lives and restricted the Jewish people from being able to gain economic status. The ghettos weren’t only created to control the Jewish population, but also used them to make their genocide easier. Everyone was gathered in one place and it was easy to load them up on a train in their ghetto and take them to a Nazi camp.

One of the bigger ghettos during this time was Warsaw. Warsaw was literally fenced off from the rest of civilization. This ghetto was surrounded by brick walls, fences covered in barbed wire, and was heavily watched over by guards. The use of ghettos was to take control of a minority and to belittle them by stripping away their resources and providing poor living conditions with no help or way to escape. If someone tried to escape they would be shot right away. Ghettos ceased to exist as the war began to decline and the Nazis were losing their power.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, one definition of ghetto is, “A quarter in a city, esp. a thickly populated slum area, inhabited by a minority group or groups, usually as a result of economic or social pressures; an area, etc., occupied by an isolated group; an isolated or segregated group, community, or area.” This definition matches the descriptions of the ghettos in Venice and in Nazi Germany. The Jewish people, who were the minority group in both Venice and Nazi Germany, were segregate as a result of social pressure and pushed to live in populated slum areas. This definition however can also be applicable to some communities today. During the late 19th  century ghettos in Brazil began forming. These impoverish slums calls favelas began to get filled with former slaves. More people began moving from the countryside of Brazil to the city. The is a common trend where lower income groups would move into cities to be closer to work. The amount of people in the city rise, but conditions never improve.

Also by 1960 African Americans reclaimed the word “ghetto” from the Jewish predecessors.  Unlike the Jewish, African Americans were not directly forced into ghettos. They were passively forced into ghettos because of race prejudice, economic situations, and cultural differences. After World War Two, “white flight” happened where white city-dwellers began moving to more suburban areas to avoid the increasing amounts of minorities. This only caused the cities to fit the definition of a ghetto more. Since high income families weren’t living in the neighborhoods the conditions quickly fell as the white people in power didn’t find the imminent need to upkeep the neighborhoods. Realtors would use illegal strategies such as redlining to keep these minority groups stuck together in poor conditions.

It was when minorities in ghettos were denied loans and if they were given a loan it would be very expensive. This practice was not done only because the realtors were racists but also because they didn’t want minorities spreading out wherever they wanted. Eventually redlining became illegal in America, but it didn’t stop smaller towns and areas from continuing the practice is shady manners. Also, the effects of red lining are still felt today. “Three out of four neighborhoods ‘redlined’ on government maps 80 years ago continue to struggle economically” (Jan). This was not the only reason why these neighborhoods started to become severely segregated. The racial violence was so intense that some white supremacist believed touching a minority could give them disease. They fiercely protected their properties against incoming minorities. It would be dangerous for an African American family to move into a predominately white neighborhood. They had to stay in the ghettos to remain safe.

Big ghettos that were main cultural conversation points in the 60s were in cities like Chicago, New York, and Detroit. In 1966 the Ebony editorial called out their concern for the poverty and families who lived in these areas saying something had to be done (Domonoske). Not only did editorials call out these conditions, but so did big rock stars like Elvis Presley. In 1969 Elvis released a song called “In the Ghetto” which talks about a small boy who grows up poor in the ghetto. As he follows the boy growing up as he gets involved in learning to steal and fight in the streets at night. By writing this song Elvis addresses the vicious cycle that exists in these ghettos that passively bind its residents to be stuck there. This cycle was heavily influenced by racist government policies that never gave the people a chance to excel in life and move out of the ghettos.

While these ghettos were mainly talked about for their poor living conditions and poor socioeconomic status, great culture bloomed from these crowded areas of minorities. Harlem was one of the well-known ghettos and is also accredited for the Harlem renaissance in the 1920s. Harlem still maintains this hub of great culture that has a lot of influence in pop culture today. Some of the best rappers have grown up in Harlem such as A$AP Rocky and Azealia Banks.

Now the word ghetto takes on a whole new meaning. Previously it has been used as a noun to name the place that minorities live, but now it is being used as an adjective. As I went to high school I started to learn a lot more slang and indirectly began to pick it up from my peers. During high school people would say this slang sounded “ghetto”. This automatically gave my new way of speaking a negative connotation. As I became a little older, I began to appreciate this slang. It’s something that helped me identify as a New Yorker. If I talked with my cousins from Ohio they were fascinated by all of the “New York City slang” and made me sit down and teach them everything I knew. This slang that originated in the ghetto also brought together people online on social media. On Instagram, New York City memes began popping up and gaining popularity.

Even in pop culture the word “ghetto” has been used as an adjective. On a Saturday Night Live sketch, four women compared the parts of their lives that were. “so ghetto”. One talked about a date that asked to split the bill and called it “so ghetto”(Barford).This word ghetto is beginning to detach from its original meaning and is beginning to be used to describe actions that are considered unsophisticated or lacking class. This however, begins to spark conversation about whether or not using the word “ghetto” in this way is offensive and possibly racist

This word that was used to name a place that the Jewish minority was forced to live is now being debated as a racist term. When someone describes an action as being ghetto, it typically comes with a negative connotation. It’s hard to dissociate the word ghetto from African Americans, so it’s hard to adopt the definition of ghetto to describe actions that are considered unsophisticated. When a person describes an outfit, slang, or action as ghetto it makes the lives of the people who live in ghettos to be put down and belittled. . I believe that using this word as a way to describe something of low quality or low class is extremely offensive and puts down the minorities. Many of these people struggle in the ghettos and do try everything they can to move out, but this oppression has been a long time in the making and is extremely hard to break.

The evolution of this word is extremely interesting. Seeing it grow to be a part of the culture is very interesting. Ghettos will probably be around for a long time in the future as this oppression and will probably grow in its usage and definition as more people hopefully stand up and talk about the poor conditions of ghettos.

 

 

 

Barford, Vanessa. “Is the Word ‘Ghetto’ Racist?” BBC News, BBC, 15 Jan. 2016,                                         www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35296993.

Finlay, Robert. “The Foundation of the Ghetto: Venice, the Jews, and the War of the League of   Cambrai.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 126, no. 2, 1982, pp.        140–154. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/986357.

Goudsouzian, Aram. “Evolution of a Place Called the Ghetto.” The Washington Post, WP                          Company, 22 Apr. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/evolution-of-a-place- called-the-ghetto/2016/04/20/b10702b0-c90c-11e5-88ff-  e2d1b4289c2f_story.html?utm_term=.cbfa264bbcd5.

Jan, Tracy. “Redlining Was Banned 50 Years Ago. It’s Still Hurting Minorities Today.” The                          Washington Post, WP Company, 28 Mar. 2018,   www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/28/redlining-was-banned-50-        years-ago-its-still-hurting-minorities-today/?utm_term=.2d2825952163.

Roth, C. “The Origin of Ghetto, a Final Word.” Romania, vol. 60, no. 238, 1934, pp. 67–76.,                      doi:10.3406/roma.1934.4192.

PERSONAL REFLECTION ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

PERSONAL REFLECTION ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

This assignment was originally hard for me, but I thought it was interesting how we had to send it to someone directly. For this assignment, I chose euthanasia because I thought it was a topic of hot debate. I did not realize how iffy it would be to write about. The whole time I was writing I felt as if I was treading on thin ice trying not to offend my reader.

I came across as patronizing in a few sections and found extremely difficult to change my tone. I tried to maintain a respectful tone throughout my essay because if I did not it could have turned my reader away immediately. I took the format of a counter-argumentative essay for the first few paragraphs which I think strengthen everything.

I found different sources where the judge shared his opinions on euthanasia and tried to dance around his opinions and beliefs. This was hard because a lot of people’s opinions on euthanasia are strongly tied to their morals and even religious beliefs. These are hard topics to convince someone to change their opinion about as they are strongly rooted. It is also easy to offend someone if you are trying to change their opinion on because it is often very personal to them.

This is why I went with a more logical approach while writing this paper.  I needed to provide logical counter-arguments to his beliefs that held not too much emotional belief. I decided to propose other options so that my reader and topics that’s weren’t so black and white. For example, I brought up disabled peoples who fall in this weird position on the topic of euthanasia.

In the end I tried proposing a new course of action. While my professor commented that it could be “squishy” I left it in because I still believed it was a good alternative. I “buttered” up my reader by saying his opinion was held high and well respected so I think that it balanced out the proposition I put forward after.

Overall, I did not change too much in my essay because the flow and ideas were there. I just changed a few sentences to remove the negative connotations and to avoid being patronizing.

NARRATIVE ESSAY REFLECTION

NARRATIVE ESSAY REFLECTION

For my narrative essay, I knew I wanted to explore the inner battle and thoughts that someone goes through after a standout moment happens. I felt as if this would be a good topic for this essay because it left a lot of space for concrete language.

In the assignment, it says a good narrative shows how an event alters/ reveals character and this is something that really guided me in my essay.  As I said before I wanted to explore the internal battle through concrete language. This was hard because I didn’t know how to put these personal feelings into physical words. By sharing the internal questioning, I think it shows the confusion the character felt.

I learned more towards an anecdote when writing my essay.  I was retelling a moment, but also providing the insight into the narrator’s feelings.  In the first paragraph I was mainly trying to set the scene. I knew I wanted to jump between the two events at the lab and with my robotics team and thought the beautiful image of my surroundings would be a good way to start. This explained the narrator as an innocent person who was genuinely interested in learning and gave a small insight into how serious she takes science. This was important for me to add so that you can better understand the character later in the climax.

The climax scene was tracked with the concrete language about the heat rising in the narrator’s ears and when the climax was over it was stated that the blood in her ears cooled. The ending was a little difficult to write and then rewrite according to the professor’s comments. I didn’t know how to make something puzzling without making it vague. To me that sounded very contradictory, so I tried to edit it as best as I could by taking the word “ flaw” out. The word created confusion because it drew a lot of attention, which isn’t what I originally intended.

Overall this essay was very challenging for me, but that’s what made it more interesting. Exploring this internal topic was a unique way to take on a simpler narrative.

EDITED NARRATIVE ESSAY

EDITED NARRATIVE ESSAY

Kayla Peña

Tyson Ward

English Honors

September 27, 2018

Narrative Essay

Stepping out of the Biology lab at Rockefeller University, my senses were overcome by the sweet smell of roses and the sleek modern buildings around me. The glass panels of the buildings were reflecting the golden rays of the sun, making everything feel warmer. I felt like I was walking on clouds while my group followed our Urban Barcode Research Program instructor as she led us around the campus. My inner nerd started to take over as I explored this professional research institution. As we toured the campus, I dreamt of one day wearing a pristine white lab coat with my name embroidered on the pocket as I cultured cells in a lab.

During my senior year of high school, I joined the robotics team at my school. I had no ulterior motive of using the robotics team as some type of resume builder. Everyone had their unique and quirky personalities. Even the socially awkward boys came alive on the team, their full personalities flourishing as they got more comfortable with each other. The team did have one flaw that I slowly began to realize as the season proceeded. I subconsciously ignored this problem until enough happened for me to finally accept that my perfect team wasn’t so perfect.

I was tinkering with a few pieces trying to prototype a retractable claw that I spent the previous week designing.  Due to my stubborn nature, I refused to ask anyone for help. I was determined to create this claw on my own, which led to the process taking longer than it should have. I was huddled on the bench corner typing away trying to Google how to create lateral motion from a rotational motor. I was engrossed in my Google search when I felt my prototype being snatched out of my hands. I gasped and wondered if this was a result of me not hearing someone call my attention, but immediately realized that was not the case. “You’re wasting time and parts that we need, just go write some public relation proposal letter to get us sponsorship money. I can take over from here” snapped one of the guys as he towered over me.  My voice got caught in the base of my throat so I opted for a submissive nod. I proceeded to write a sponsorship proposal with shaky hands and a clouded mind, my thoughts often drifting to the event that happened just moments ago.

After that meeting, I walked towards the subway with the only other female on our team. We walked in a comfortable silence. The events of the meeting and my acceptance of my team’s flaw was the only thing running through my brain. I subconsciously wondered if she picked up on this flaw also. I couldn’t allow myself to internalize my feelings so finally decided to break the silence, “Hey, what do you think of the team’s social progress?” Her head shot up as my voice broke the silence. “Um, socially I think the guys have really come out of their shell, but I think they don’t know how to work that well with everyone.” I pondered for a few seconds on what she meant by that. “I think they just struggle with accepting my ideas and accepting my help in the building circle,” she added politely, clearing my obvious confusion. I didn’t respond, but we both mutually understood what we weren’t willing to directly admit out loud. We finished our journey to the subway in a comfortable silence until we bid our goodbyes and got on different trains.

One Tuesday afternoon, while with the robotics team I was typing away on my laptop, I was withdrawn from the clanging and clashing of metal parts around me. The bustling was music to my hectic mind as I typed up drafts of proposal letters. I slightly flinched when I saw two feet in my peripheral vision. I looked up to see my teammate’s soft features scrunched up as she gathered her long silky hair into a bun. She stealthily snatched a shiny silver robotics piece in her right hand. Her chest rose and fell as she let out a harsh breath. My fingers sped across my keyboard as I started to direct my glance back down to my work.  The feet came closer in my peripheral vision catching my attention yet again.  The rushed words drew my eyes away from my laptop. “Ugh, I’m being pushed out of the building circle again and it’s so irritating,” she said.  My blood boiled and I felt it rise to the tips of my ears. I felt like a bulldozer ready to destroy anything in my way. I swiftly jumped up on a nearby stool and yelled at the nine boys in the building circle, “This team is sexist and discriminatory.  You close out the girls and it’s not fair.”  It was as if a bright spotlight was shining on me illuminating me in the darkness when I felt all eyes stare back at me in shock. The boys who were previously engrossed in numbers, angles, and metal pieces froze like a deer in headlights. My booming voice hit them like a dip in an ice-cold pool. All nine pairs of eyes put me on trial as they singled me out with their glares.

The blood remained at the tips of my ears, but this time not out of fury but out of embarrassment as the realization of what I just did hit me like a truck. I shakily jumped off the stool and avoided eye contact as I crossed my arms over my chest. I just wanted a hole to form underneath me and swallow me away from this moment. The clash of a screwdriver being tossed down by a boy drew my eyes up as I caught him motioning for us to join them. The other boys resumed their work as the initial shock of my words quickly wore off. My glare darted to the girl who scurried over and picked up the screwdriver as if the offer would be retracted at any moment. I rolled my shoulders back and continued typing on my laptop as my blood returned to a normal temperature and my muscles relaxed slowly.

At the end of our long meeting, I dragged my feet to shove my laptop into my backpack. The pulsing beats flooding from my headphones consumed my brain while I mechanically hurried towards the exit. My automatic exit was abruptly stopped when my path became blocked. I saw the same familiar shoes, which was then followed by the soft subdued demeanor of the girl’s face. She tucked a piece of her jet-black hair behind her ear and her eyes fluttered up to make eye contact with me.

“Hey, thank you so much for reacting like that. It was really unexpected, but you don’t understand how much I appreciated it.” I chuckled an airy laugh and responded,

“Girls gotta stand up for each other.” In this moment, I contemplated if my outburst even accomplished anything at all. They let us help this one time, but I doubted that this would be the new standard. I would probably need to have a dramatic, attention-grabbing show just to feel included in a team that I already earned my place on.

Looking back, I try to rationalize my actions– was I being over dramatic and quick to jump to conclusions? What if they weren’t shutting us out because we were girls? The possibility that they were just so enthralled by the task at hand is very probable.  It is easy to not think of others when you have a looming time restricted task over your head. When a person entered the lab, they would be hit by the stagnant metallic air that smelled of teenage boys and a bustling mess of robotics parts, but when you were a part of that bustling mess it didn’t quite feel like a mess. You would feel a hum of anxious excitement and there was this energetic buzz that everyone on the team drew from. Our other teammates could have just been so caught up that they didn’t realize we were trying to help. I don’t like to think of the possibility that we weren’t asserting ourselves enough. That Tuesday afternoon at robotics was plaguing my thoughts and I knew I had to do something to fix the uneasy feeling inside of me. I was angry that the guys didn’t know how to respond to me, but then I felt guilty. Not everyone knows how to respond back to an intense accusation such as the one I presented them with that day. Even though the guys didn’t realize something that day, I did realize things about myself. Reflecting back on that day at Rockefeller University I remembered a distinct moment.

Entering Caspary Auditorium, our group stopped at some glass panels. Engraved on the glass were the faces of the alumnus of Rockefeller University who were Nobel Peace Prize and Pulitzer Prize recipients. My heart dropped. As my eyes scanned the faces, the optimism that once filled my heart began to dissipate.  My eyes helplessly searched through the faces yet again trying to find what they were looking for but fell short yet again. My arms dropped to my sides and my rigid spine slumped at my realization. There was not a single female from this prestigious institution engraved in the glass panels.  After gathering my composure, I lifted my chin and rolled my shoulders back as I leaned over to a friend and said, “I’m going to be the first woman to have my picture up there.”

My team might not want to change themselves to fix their flaw, but I knew I wanted to change myself to fix my flaw. That Tuesday at my robotics meeting was just the first step toward changing my perspective on the situation. Instead of looking at its effect on my team, I began to look at its effect on myself and I was finally able to move past it.