reflective essay

Have you ever had to write a paper that really stumped you to the point you didn’t even know how to start? The paper I had to write did exactly that. This wasn’t your however wasn’t just your ordinary English paper. The challenge to this assignment was that it was an interpretive essay. Therefore there was no right or wrong answer, or way to go about it; thus making it a very complex essay.
This assignment derived from my English 101 class. For this particular project we were instructed to organize groups containing three members. For my group I selected Katilin, and Becky to work with. We were then given a sheet of paper which contained a series of different ideas and questions of which we were to form a bigger question pertaining to three of those ideas/questions on the sheet. From the three base questions we were then each assigned one that we had to compose a four page paper, using three stories from our composition reader as references. After each individual paper was constructed we then had to combine the three separate papers into one large paper. Each of the essays’s had to collaborate to answer the big question for the final paper. Our main question that assembled, from the smaller questions, was “Do one’s own experiences and the history we read in textbooks influence the way we would solve a social demographic situation?” The three questions in which this question was created are as follows: What makes differences in social demographics (race, economic class, gender, nationality, ethnicity, etc) so difficult to resolve? What does memory have to do with making an argument? And what relationships do myths have with memory and history?
As a result of the three small questions getting divided amongst us, I was designated to write on the topic of “What does memory have to do with making an agreement?” So once I started to dissect and pick apart my question I had to determine what was the question really saying/asking; who would be reading my paper, and what details would be most fitting to put in. After I determined that my paper would directed towards readers not in my class; I decided to stay away from referencing the actual assignment in the essay. I also prepared it for a more mature audience by expanding my vocabulary, and including questions that would really make the reader think, such as “how can you base an agreement off a memory if memories can’t be held accountable for being truthful?”
The toughest part about composing my individual paper was trying to contemplate how to write it, and where to even start. I decided the easiest way would be to pick a side of the agreement and take it from there. My main choice of topic was that memories cannot be the only thing an argument is based off since memories are often altered. I then went on and explained how memories are often altered, what happens when a memory is altered, and how people tend to fabricate their memories in their minds, but believe that it’s the truth. The three sources that I received information from for references were: The Method of Memory, by Jonah Lehrer, My Father’s Brain, by Jonathan Franzen, and A Photograph Is Not an Opinion, Or is it? by Susan Songtag.
I set my paper up by first explaining my take on the topic, and then continuing onto why I thought this using the details from my resources. I made the paragraphs flow into each other by taking the topic of one and slightly altering it and forming it into another question which would then be a new paragraph. To grab and keep the reader’s attention and really make them think, I threw some questions in some of the paragraphs, with the intent that they would have to stop their reading and think for a minute about the question proposed. Even though we did have to use three resources, my topic was broad enough, and opinionated enough that I could take my own ideas and conform them into the same ideas of the writers from the composition reader, so most of the paper was indeed using my own ideas. While thinking about my own paper in its entirety, I also had to remember that my paper would be combined with the other two papers so I had to maintain a theme so that the papers would easily fit together.
When the time came to combine all three papers, we were then stuck with the predicament of how we would get these entirely different papers to conform into one. We wrote an introduction for the large new paper, that used the idea that myths are derived from memories, since information can be added to memories making them false and fabricated thus turning them into a myth, and from these memories which are turned into fabricated myths, social demographics are formed. We formed our introduction in a way that we felt best represented all of our papers as a whole. We started the introduction paper out using three questions that we pulled from each of our papers. We then took those questions and made three separate paragraphs giving a brief overview of what each paper would be about. Following those paragraphs we continued to write about how these papers tied together to form one, and answer our main topic question. Once the intro was done, we then just used title headings to transfer from paper to paper.
The most difficult part of writing the intro as a team was just that. We had to work as team, not individuals. Everyone has different writing styles, different vocabulary, and different ways to go about writing a paper. The hardest part about that for me was the fact that we would be stumped on how to go about writing a sentence and they would just want to skip it and come back, and for me I need everything to go in sequential order. Also I like to try to expand the vocabulary of a paper, but they didn’t agree on some of the words I suggested to use. It was also difficult because we all had such diverse schedules we had a rough time finding enough time to meet in a group making it very rushed to try and achieve a good paper.
Although it was a new experience writing in a group, which got a little stressful at times it was also very beneficial. I took away different ideas of how to go about writing a paper, like waiting until the end to turn the format to double space instead of doing it right at the beginning. I also gained new vocabulary from them, and different ways to proof read a paper. I learned that team work can make a project easier in the fact that you have other people’s opinions, and ideas to use, or give you ideas. It makes you look at a project in a new light, it brings more enjoyment out of it knowing you have teammates to support you and cheer you on.
Over all, this assignment turned out to be very educational. I learned how to go about writing an interpretive essay, how different people write papers, and most of all that team work really is the key to success. If we wouldn’t have collaborated together and made compromises here and there we would have never been able to compose a paper. So even though it got tough at times and I wanted to cry, it was all worth it for the sense and feeling of accomplishment.