Reflection Letter to My Readers

My name is Anna Schmidt. I am a wife and mother of two, a nurse's assistant at a Seattle hospital and I hope one day to gain my degree in nursing. I absolutely love to read. When I'm not working, cleaning, cooking or taking care of my children, I'm reading. Writing, on the other hand, while I'm not horrible at it and actually enjoy it most of the time, can be quite challenging when I have to follow guidelines and clear objectives. One of my favorite quotes from the movie "Finding Forrester," the movie I watched for Intermission 1 in this class, was by the fictional Pulitzer Prize winner William Forrester: "No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!" I loved this line because when I write at home, in my journal, for instance, there is no thinking involved, no analysis, no synthesis. This is why English 101 was so important for me, though. I needed it to make me think. I needed it to make me recognize how analysis and structure and synthesis can not only strengthen my writing, but how I read and take in what I'm reading as well. It allowed me to not only read some great essays by some amazing writers (from the text and by my fellow students) but also to learn to read between the lines, not just enjoying the words but enjoying the meaning as well.

The themes of English 101 were identity, community and tradition. Its focus was on belonging and individuals who challenged the idea of acceptance, whether in real-life characters in the essays we read, or fictional characters in movies. The material we used to shape and stretch our thinking about this theme did without a doubt make me more aware of these three aspects of my life and the world. I'm not necessarily an unobservant person but it's easy to get caught up with diapers and dinner and bills without realizing how complex the world is around me. The idea of being a part of so many communities, for instance, was something I'm not sure I thoroughly recognized until now. I had identified myself as someone with a simple, basic life - a mother, a wife, a hospital assistant, a reader. In reality, I was really someone who belonged to so much than that. I wrote one of my blog assignments on commuting to work and how this represents a community. The idea that I have something in common with a huge number of other individuals with the same goal, the same desire (a smooth, traffic free commute, in this case) was almost comical. Writing about it was interesting, fun and made me more appreciative of all the other communities I'm a part of.

My ideas about diversity were stretched in interesting ways as well. Before taking this class, I had kind of forgotten that diversity is not just different cultures but also distinctiveness; it is different people with different views, appearances, and ideas to share with society. This distinctiveness is especially apparent when those distinctive individuals are accepting and unapologetic of the fact that they may be viewed as outcasts and outsiders as a result. Kathy Wilson in "Dude Looks Like a Lady," Gloria Anzaldua in "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," Richard Rodriguez in "Blaxicans," and even Ellen Ullman's "Museum of Me" (even though her essay infuriated me) are all examples of writers who used their life and ideas to emphasize how diversity can be compelling and open the minds of their readers in stimulating ways. It was a reminder of how wonderful and amazing the world would be if everyone were able to understand that diversity does not limit us as a people, but allows us to be better.

My writing for the quarter was an attempt to integrate the ideas that I formed about diversity and people who exemplify it so well. The pieces I chose to include in this e-portfolio are representative of two types of writing styles, I believe. I selected two of my formal papers and two of my blog assignment. The papers were lengthy, structured and focused, even the one that needed revising. The blog assignments were focused in the sense that they were following a prompt, but they are more relaxed and casual. I'm certainly not implying that I didn't think about what I was writing when I completed the blog assignments, but they didn't feel forced in anyway, which made them more pleasurable to write, I think. I believe that both the papers and both the blogs exhibit the best of my writing abilities and I hope that they will be enjoyed by those who view this blog!