Writing Project 1

Part 1: Zoom out 

I have never thought of myself as a particularly strong writer or a strong writer at all. The good grades that have followed me from high school through to my college years have been somewhat of a mystery to me. While this is partially the youthful insecurity talking, telling me that my high academic achievements are misplaced, there is a part of even the logical side of myself that asks how I have come so far. Writing for me has always been something that I do for my teacher or professor, and I never think it has any real-world implications. That is to say, I mostly think that my writing is pointless. I have never been published and I have rarely written a paper whose thesis is not painfully obvious or generic. Part of me thinks that I missed the point in time when one stops writing elementary five-paragraph essays and moves on to writing groundbreaking, thought-provoking, and relevant works. In light of this, I thought it would be interesting to look at 3 of my most memorable papers; one from freshman year, one from sophomore, and one from junior. I do this to test my skill development, or, at least, to observe if there have been any. I am only focusing on pieces written for classes because I have not written cover letters or statements of intent as my extracurriculars and internships did not require them. 

The first essay I wrote my freshman fall, when I was studying in Rome as a spring admit. Covid was in full swing but vaccines had not yet been developed which enforced a kind of anxious undertone to my whole time abroad. This essay, entitled “Botticelli's Primavera” was an informational essay on not only the Italian Renaissance artist but also one of his most famous works. It did not have a thesis but instead included a brief biography of Filippo Boticelli, the background of the painting, and a more detailed analysis of the painting itself. I did not truly enjoy in this class, not because of the material, but because of the professor. I found him to be somewhat distant in teaching and not very approachable. If I feel comfortable with the professor, I succeed more in a class because I can ask questions and converse with them. However, in this class, I did not feel this. Moreover, for the final paper for which I wrote the paper on Botticelli, we were given very little guidance, and I did not feel as though he would respond well to being asked for more details. Because of this, and because I had at this point returned home because of Covid, I was very much on my own in terms of crafting the paper. I remember sitting in my living room with my mom while writing this paper, and I was very lost in terms of what to write and I ended up using many sources and including practically no analysis because I truly didn’t know what to analyze. Moreover, my family dynamics were greatly shifting at that time, and in a period of change such as that I find my anxiety skyrockets. This added to my feeling of being lost and eventually led to writing a somewhat subpar paper. 

The second piece that I will focus on is a legal analysis from my sophomore year in which we were tasked with deciding if Congress has the power to enforce a nationwide mask mandate by looking at the precedents set in various court cases. I am not a law student but I chose to take a couple of classes to explore the field and gauge my interest. When I was assigned this piece, I procrastinated immensely because I was so nervous about writing it. I truly had no idea how to write it, or even how to format it. Law papers have a very specific format which I was not familiar with, making this a daunting task. Eventually, I asked a group of my friends if anyone had written a legal analysis before and I was generously gifted various sources and literature on the topic. Once I started writing, it turned out to be far easier than I had anticipated. It was as if I was following a very specific rubric, where I had to simply insert my own information without having to do too much contemplating. It almost reminded me of a math problem. For this paper, as soon as I reached out to my community for help, I was pleasantly surprised by how the assignment unfolded before me. I remember receiving a high grade, and the TA who graded it left a very encouraging and positive comment which strengthened my confidence. I am the type of person who doesn’t try new things because I am so afraid of failure, which is a habit I truly want to break. This writing assignment was a good life lesson that helped make me feel capable and, even though it was a small win, made me less nervous to try new things. 

The last piece that I will look at is a paper written for my Native North American anthropology class from my junior year. It was an argumentative essay in which I contended that the forced sterilization of Native American women is a continuation of the Indigenous genocide and should be treated as such. I enjoyed writing this paper not only because it was a topic that truly interested me but also I learned so much about Native American history and governmental practices that I was not aware of before. I looked at newspaper articles, doctor’s accounts of sterilizations, academic literature, and documentaries, all discussing these racist and sexist practices against Native women. The documentaries were crucial for me because seeing the actual faces of the women who this happened to and hearing their voices made the experiences even more real. This assignment followed a more structured process than my first two. We did preliminary research, completed a literature review, a rough draft, and finally we turned in a final paper. This was very helpful because with a paper as long as this one was, having more guidance helps me to stay on track and keeps me accountable. Moreover, I made an effort to engage directly with the TA and I discussed with her my paper at various points in my writing process at her office hours. Feeling this extra support was beneficial to me because I didn’t feel like I was in the dark or doing everything on my own but instead I was gaining feedback throughout the different stages so by the time I was done with my paper I felt very confident. 

Through the “zoom out” portion of this assignment, I have become more aware of a few different trends with my writing. Firstly, I have gained confidence over the course of my college career as it relates to reaching out to people for help, which has drastically improved my writing. Moreover, when I am writing about something that I care about and truly interests me, such as forced sterilization among Native women, my writing is sharper, better researched, and I am more proud of my work. Overall, as my writing career progressed and I gained confidence and the freedom to write what I wanted, my writing saw a vast improvement. 

Part 2: Zoom in

For the second part of this assignment, I have decided to focus on an argumentative essay that I wrote for a different law class my junior fall, Law, Slavery, and Race. I remember my professor as a strikingly intelligent woman who taught extremely organized and detailed lectures which covered a broad range of topics and a large time period. For this essay, we were tasked to write an argumentative essay in which we took a stance on practically anything we had touched on, using material from the class and outside research to construct a well-researched and clear essay.

The subject of the essay was how racist and sexist pre-colonial policies surrounding the objectification of Black women’s bodies were instrumental in the nation’s success and this continued oppression. The vocabulary of the paper is academic and clear, using as few words as possible to convey the intended point, as most people were taught to do in a paper such as this. Moreover, it follows a rather common pattern in which a new idea is introduced, then evidence is brought in to back it up, and then that evidence is analyzed. An introduction and conclusion surround body paragraphs which all follow the aforementioned pattern.

After reading over it a year later, I am able to critique it more than I could at the time of writing it. Some of my sentences are simply not well-constructed and end up sounding rather choppy and incomplete. However, I am impressed with the level of knowledge I seem to have on the topic and the writing itself. While the only people who read the essay were my TA and perhaps my professor, the audience in general would have been students or scholars studying this field, which is apparent in the academic tone in which I wrote it. While I do not discuss anything too complex, there are key historical aspects of the essay that would not be widely known to people who were not purposely familiar with them, thus this essay had a limited audience. I could easily go back and add more details about certain laws or events which would make this paper far more approachable and accessible, however, that was not its original purpose.

Its original intent was to compile information and sources to lay out a picture which helps to describe a point of view not often thought about or reflected upon. In short, it was a call for reflection as opposed to a call for action. I thought it was an interesting topic looking at how pre-Colonial policies shaped the disadvantageous position of Black women during that time and how that has affected these women today. During my college career through my various social work classes I have learned a lot about the position of women of color in today’s society. I did not necessarily realize it then but I think I was making a connection between these two tracts of learning and connecting them, creating a bridge in my mind of what I was learning historically in this law class and what I was learning about modern day in my social work classes. The intent of my paper, it seems, was not simply to bring up a seldom discussed observation, but to close the loop of information that I had contained in my head into one paper where I track an event/theme/occurence from where it started to now. This call to reflection was then hoping to share my knowledge that I had learned in other classes with my professor and TA about how instrumental what we were learning about Black women from the 1600s-1800s was in terms of Black women in the 21st century. While I mentioned the modern day in my paper, I wish I had said more about it but there were word limit constraints.

In the essay I wrote sequentially from the first law that targeted Black women, and I then mentioned various others. I wrote in this kind of timeline so that I could easily move and show progression, ending with today. As this text relates to the discussion in part 1 of WP1, I would say that my confidence is really visible in this paper, not necessarily because of my interaction with the professor or because of deadlines and discipline but rather because of my prior knowledge on the topic. This is, no doubt, why I was attracted to this topic to begin with. However, I now realize that being attracted to a writing topic because of familiarity with it is extremely limiting and I should steer clear of this pattern in the future.