When initially enrolling into this course section, I was curious as to what Writing for the Humanities and the Arts entailed. I was of course excited to be in a class that allowed freedom in topic choice, but I had no idea what style of papers it would require of me. Last semester, I was in a FIQWS course about assistive technologies; despite the material being interested, I didn’t feel like I was really learning about the writing process or my writing style really.
The first paper assigned for this class was the environmental narrative essay; the objective for the piece was to reflect on our opinions over the environment or nature over a period. I struggled with getting my ideas out cohesively throughout my narrative, endlessly confusing myself around elements of imagery. Through peer reviewing, I was able to catch where I had gotten too wordy or missed the mark on what I was trying to describe to the reader. By the due date of the narrative essay, I had revised and edited my work to make sure I properly organized my thesis.
The Op-Ed piece was by far my favorite paper to write, I had found my calling to writing through analyzing examples and formulating possible topics to write about. It was during the process of writing this paper that I had become better acquainted with source citing as well as using CCNY’s online library resources. Only being introduced to them last semester with little implementation, I struggled with navigating the site. After learning a bit more about sifting through online resources, I was able to compile and access a bunch of scholarly works that backed up my thesis, the only part that took me a minute to catch up with was the actual content of the paper. The objective of this paper, to inform the reader of a body of work and create an opinion based off the work, was extremely interesting to me. I had been accustomed to having topic ideas given to me, not having much creative liberty at creating a thesis and defending it over different bodies of work. I chose Euphoria because it was at the forefront of my mind at the time of writing, this previous season had me thinking and changing some aspects of my life; since this show had established so much within me, why not defend its reputation for a school paper? Surprisingly, I discovered my tone and writing techniques while writing this. During peer review, this almost conversational approach I had picked up during the writing process paid off when reading to others. I was able to explain exactly what I needed to in a way that did not sound complex or incomplete. This paper was by far my favorite to write and develop.
Finally, the critical analysis was a complex yet intriguing paper to tackle. Although the op-ed and the critical analysis are similar in nature, they are both drastically different approaches of analysis. When beginning the brainstorm process for possible topics, I was struck by a concept that I wanted to see to the end: the concept of internet trolling and mental illness. It was here that I practically had the outline of my paper all set up, yet I couldn’t find the proper place to start writing. I knew that I had to take a non-biased approach to presenting the text I chose, but it was difficult to separate my opinion from the information itself. Here, peer reviewing the proposal and sharing some context about my topic. I was able to remain true to my almost conversational approach to writing but elevate the language and pace of my sentences to keep up with such a complex history of information. Through writing this paper, I learned how to keep my thesis alive within my essay without ditching it shortly after its introduction.
Overall, this course taught me a lot about maintaining a form of individuality within the constraints of an academic paper. Intentional or completely accidental, I was able to elevate my language and technique as the papers for this course progressed. Along the way, I found categories of papers that I genuinely enjoy reading/writing.
