1. Describing a Place: Leo’s Coney Island

November 2010

English 125

 

This paper was assigned in my First Year Writing Requirement class at the University of Michigan for English 125. I believe that it was the very first paper I had ever written for college and, looking back on it now, I can see the attempt at being creative and personal with my storytelling, but did not have the knowledge necessary to execute that skill better. The assignment was to go to a place that is familiar to us in our hometown, or a place that we go to often, and to sit down and describe everything that we see: interactions with people, the colors, lighting, conversations, etc. I chose a restaurant that I go to frequently when I am at home and described all of the things that happened while I was there. In the end we were supposed to reveal something new that we learned or saw and describe what significance that held for us. I hoped that after I wrote this paper that I would better understand why people go back to the places that they go back to, or why people in a small town choose the places that they do to congregate. For Leo’s Coney Island, it was never about the mediocre food and service, it was about seeing people that you knew, or having the local high school girls wait on you and the younger guys be the bus boys. It was a community experience that “outsiders” never really understand, unless you become a part of it. When I read it now, I see a glimpse of the writer that I was hoping to one day be, and luckily, I believe that if I were given this same assignment now, I would be able to richly describe the restaurant, but for my first writing assignment it was a valiant effort. I executed it fairly well, but I can tell that I had trouble with such loose guidelines, and would’ve felt more comfortable with a strictly academic paper with a decisive thesis and subsequent paragraphs.

 

I criticize this paper mostly for it’s lack of physical organization, it’s stupid grammatical errors, and it’s less-than-complex culmination of ideas. I don’t think that I really thought through the assignment and what it really meant to describe a place in order to find something new and fascinating, or how to apply it on a universal level so that it is interesting or important to other people besides myself. It is currently useful to me because it shows the very first piece of writing that I did here at the University of Michigan, and that class, and probably that first draft, led me to want to pursue the Minor in Writing program. I think that it shows my lack of style and tone, and throughout the program and throughout my several following English classes I feel like I have developed a strong writing voice and have learned how to find deeper meaning in personal stories and narratives, and have better been able to find the applicability to all people.

 

 

 

2. Why I Write

September 2012

Writing 220

 

This piece of writing’s purpose is best explained by its title: Why I Write. It was assigned in my gateway course for the Minor in Writing program, and it was meant for us to go deeper into the reasons why we enjoy writing, what we can improve by learning to write better, and what the function of writing is for our world. I chose to write about how creativity is kind of being stifled by modern-day education, and the focus has turned from storytelling to strictly academic writing. Maybe I argued this because that is how I felt my academic experience has been, but with enough research, I noticed that this is how a lot of professors felt about what they were required to teach their students. This paper was written, as I stated earlier, for my gateway-writing course so I feel like I took it fairly seriously and really wanted to expose the reasons that I write. I felt like I was writing this for myself, and to learn more about my views on writing, since I had never exactly thought through it before – I just wrote when I was told to write.

 

Fortunately, I’ve been able to have experiences since the gateway course that have allowed for me to better develop my creative writing skills. This paper was the turning point for me in my evolution as a writer, and this is where I feel I started to value the art of essay writing and storytelling. I intend on applying it to my final essay by using for the very simply reason of showing why I write, and the complete change that I have made since that very first Minor in Writing course.

 

 

 

3. Globalization of McDonald’s

September 2012

English 225

 

The Globalization of McDonald’s essay was written for my “Nutrition and Food” English class. The goal throughout the semester was to research common food myths, and expose some of the negative features of the FDA and the food industry at large for our country. As a Political Science major, as well as a minor in writing student, I chose an issue that correlated with my studies of globalization and how this applied to my research on food. I had never studied the food industry, so I was excited to be able to write about something that really affected my every day life. This paper helped with my progress as a creative writer, and was one of the important pieces of writing that allowed for me to choose a topic on my own and to develop personal opinions on it, and apply it to the larger political world.

 

Although I enjoyed writing and researching for this essay, I feel like I did not take the class seriously enough, so it was a semi-shallow analysis of the topic. I want to use it in my evolution essay as another example of me choosing topics that I didn’t necessarily agree with before, doing research and writing on it in a creative way, applying it to me in a personal way, and then not only finding out something new in my research, but developing my own opinions and feelings on the matter that shaped the way that I wrote the essays that followed.

 

 

 

4. Legalization of Marijuana

December 2012

English 225

 

For this essay, our professor gave us a list of basic topics that we could write our final essay on, but encouraged us to think outside the box and come up with something controversial. Normally, I think I would have chose one of the topics from the list, but instead, I chose something that has obviously been recently controversial. I hoped to challenge myself in writing about something that seemed to go against the grain of the research that I found on the topic. I never really cared about whether or not marijuana was legalized, but after researching the positive effects that could come from it, it changed my views to the point where I was staunchly in support of it and what it can do for our economy. I think that it was executed pretty well; the form of the essay was an annotated bibliography, which helped with my progression as a writer and learning how to write creatively about a topic I wasn’t initially knowledgeable about.

 

I hope to use this in my evolution as a writer essay as, yet again; another piece of writing that has helped me to develop my creative confidence when it comes to essays and controversial topics. It was the idea of these “write whatever you want” papers that used to make me the most uncomfortable, and after this class and after the gateway course, I gladly welcome those kinds of assignments because it seems that that is where I grow and learn the most, rather than what I thought I was initially good at: purely academic writing with strict guidelines.

 

 

 

5. Expanding Feminism: Benefits, Risks, and Cultural Implications

March 2012

Political Science 401

 

This was one of my least favorite classes that I have taken at the University of Michigan, but it was by far the most influential over my views of feminist political theory. My goal of this essay was to probe some of the complex challenges that feminism involves, and the risks and debates over the political project that it represents. I also hoped to expand it to not only westernized women, or women specifically in the United States, but what feminism means to different sexualities, cultures, traditions, and religions around the world. I think that the ideas were well thought out, but the writing was not up to the standards that I would hold of myself today. It absolutely sparked my interest in theories of feminism and the complexities that the debate over feminist icons has.

 

I disliked the class mostly because of the extreme view points that some of my classmates held, which forced me to develop my opinions on the topic. This piece of writing will be a critical part of my evolution essay, as it was the driving force behind me choosing to focus my future writings on feminist topics. I make criticisms only on the basis that my viewpoints have since changed and that if I were given the assignment today, or given the opportunity to rewrite it, I would have a much more developed thesis. Regardless, it is still one of the most important pieces of my progression as a writer throughout the Minor in Writing program.

 

 

 

6. Our Pro-Slavery Constitution

April 2013

Political Science 318

 

This essay was assigned as my final essay for my political science class focused on the history of the United States Constitution. I took this class during my junior year, and my second semester in the Minor in Writing program. The point was to argue one way or another about whether we felt the Constitution was really a pro-slavery document, or if it served as a protection against slavery. I hoped to expose that the Constitution was in fact a pro-slavery document that protected the institution of slavery. It was an unusual perspective to take, and although it brought me back to my strictly academic writing (writing for or against one defined topic), it still challenged my evolution as a writer because of the stance that I took on it.

 

While it was an important piece, and it will be used as fulfilling the requirement for an upper-level writing class that was in my concentration, it is definitely not the piece of writing that embodies my evolution of writing throughout the program. It does, however, show to me that I fell out of interest with academic writing, and was no longer as invested in the essays that I had to write in that way. My evolution through my English classes and the classes that I had to write in for my Political Science concentration shows my distinct shift in interest toward creative writing and exploring topics of feminism.

 

 

 

7. Inanimate Object: Cubby

November 2013

English 325

 

This essay was written for one of my favorite classes, English 325, and was an assignment on describing an inanimate object. This class by far was the pivotal point where I felt confident in writing creatively and personally about experiences that had no right or wrong thesis, and were graded solely on my ability to tell a compelling story and explore the ways in which it connected to a larger human experience. I hoped to show through writing this essay the attachment that people feel to inanimate objects, like a stuffed animal. This essay was one of my most well executed pieces of writing and I continue to be very proud of it today.

 

I submitted this essay to a large-group workshop in my class so I got plenty of feedback from my peers, as well as my instructor, so if there were ever an essay where I was totally committed to the final product and the thought processes that are required for a well-developed piece of writing, this essay would be it. It is currently useful to me for my evolution as a writer essay, because I truly feel like it embodies my ability to write creatively – this is honestly my greatest accomplishment (and most unexpected accomplishment) as a writer in the Minor in Writing program.

 

 

 

8. Complicated Relationships: Allie

November 2013

English 325

 

This essay was assigned for my Upper-Level Writing Requirement class in the English Department. The assignment was to describe and analyze a complicated person or relationship that you have with someone. I chose my best friend Allie who had recently told me she was gay while we were at lunch together. I had hoped to not only describe Allie’s life and relationship with me as we grew up together for the past 10 years, but to also share things about myself and my need to “fix” people, or save them. I think that this paper is pretty well executed, however, when we met with our small groups they gave me some advice that I wish I had followed about the flow and organization of my essay. In this class, I found my true creative confidence and my love for storytelling. It is truly one of the most important parts of my evolution as a writer that eventually will lead to these papers being highly showcased in my final portfolio.

 

I criticize this paper because of its organization and its tendency to drift a little bit away from the main point and jump around where it may confuse the reader. I think that it did function as a really wonderful way for me to access my thoughts and feelings about my very best friend being gay, and how that made me view our relationship differently, and for me to question whether it was fair or necessary to do that. My intent on applying it to my essay is to further show my development as a creative writer and how my abilities to tell a story really flourished in this English class. The skills that I used to writer these papers are going to be the most useful when it comes to creating my final portfolio, and especially my final project.

 

 

 

9. Vice President of Philanthropy Memo

August 2011

Alpha Chi Omega Sorority Newsletter

 

This memo was created to send out to my sorority chapter to inform them about what would be expected of them when they returned from summer vacation in regards to our philanthropic cause. While the writing in this memo does not exactly showcase my evolution as a writer, the topic of conversation and the events that followed after this memo, and after holding my position as the Vice President of Philanthropy, allowed for me to contribute to something that I was passionate about – victims of domestic violence and women’s issues. Shortly after this memo was sent out, we held a silent auction where we raised over $11,000 for the Women’s Center of Southeastern Michigan. This auction, and by connection the memo, really sparked my interest that would eventually lead to me choosing to do my final project on the evolution of women in entertainment and the changing roles of women in our world, especially the analysis of violence of women.

 

I assess this specific piece of writing pretty informally because the purpose and the format for the writing were meant to be informal. Obviously, grammatical errors and syntax problems should have been fixed, but the purpose of the memo is the reason behind its inclusion in my annotated bibliography and a large part of my evolution as a writer. I will apply it to my final portfolio and final project in order to show how my passion for feminist issues were culminated throughout my time in the Minor in Writing program, and this piece of writing will display another reason why I became truly passionate and excited to research these kinds of issues and shed new light on them.

 

 

 

10. Women in Entertainment

October 2013

English 325

 

The purpose of this essay was to do extensive research on a topic of our choice. There were no other guidelines besides that – just to pick a topic that we were excited to spend a lot of time with. The purpose of me choosing this topic was because of my deep interest in tracking the evolution of women throughout entertainment and to try to see where the role of women in entertainment and our society would be in the future. While this paper was mostly on women in comedic roles, throughout my research I came upon several debates over Beyoncé and whether or not she fits into the entertainment world as a positive or negative feminist icon. This paper is executed very well for its purpose, but if I were to rewrite it now, I would focus on a wider range of women in entertainment rather than just women in comedy. I think that that would create an obviously richer and more extensive analysis of the topic, but it would also help me more for my final project and portfolio.

 

This essay is the most important piece for the puzzle that is my project and portfolio. It shows explicitly the interest and passion that I have for issues affecting women and most specifically women in entertainment and how they affect “normal” lives of everyday women. I want to use this essay as a driving force behind my Evolution of Women project, and to really draw on the material and research that I wrote about in this essay as a large part of my project about Beyoncé. I want to show how Beyoncé is truly a positive feminist icon and why my research that I did for this essay, and the research that I will eventually do for my final project, supports that claim.