Hello!
Project One
The first draft of my personal narrative was beyond shitty. Writing the paper seemed like an easy task in the beginning, but it was harder than expected. As I was writing my personal narrative I noticed that it was beginning to sound like a scholarly essay instead of something personal, which wasn’t the goal of completing a personal narrative. Fortunately, I chose my conference with Mat during the first week of conferences which forced me to write the entire paper early so that I would have sufficient time to make corrections based on Mat’s feedback.
During my conference, I read little snippets from my draft to Mat and explained to him what I felt was “off” about my personal narrative. Mat recommended that I focused on different impactful moments of my life before coming to America or being accepted to Florida State University. While my project 2 would pick up or go into depth, rather, of the CARE (Center for Academic Retention and Enhancement) program. I practically had to write a whole new essay, this explains why my “shitty draft” looks nothing to my final draft. Since my conference was on a Friday, the following two days I spent reading the final drafts of the personal narratives of Mat’s past classes to get an idea as to what I needed to do to accomplish an excellent personal narrative. I don’t know why I didn’t do this in the first place.
After reading a couple of past personal narratives, I started a new outline for my essay by listing the most dramatic and impactful moments from my life. Now I’m looking back and I’m thinking it was important for my personal narrative to look on those moments because they shaped me into the person I am today; my identity. What’s a personal narrative without an identity? After doing the outline I began to write a new paper which I expected to be the last draft for my personal narrative. This did not happen!
After I thought I was finished, I read it and was uncertain about a few parts to which I made an appointment at the Williams Writing Center to have a tutor read my personal narrative and give me a feedback. Luckily, in class Mat created a rubric, which would be used to grade our personal narratives, the day before I had my appointment at the writing center, which gave me more time to add-on to my essay if it was needed. When I went to the writing center, I brought the rubric with me and gave it to my tutor so that she could tell me if my essay followed the rubric. It did for the most part! She suggested that I can incorporate more of my thoughts to show how I felt during every “episode”.
Adding the finishing touches to my personal narrative, I was pleased with the final product with zero uncertainty. With that, I earned an A on my final draft, which was exciting. Semester looking good!
Project Two
Initially, I thought the first draft of my project 1 was bad but I was mistaken. Project 2 took the win. I thought Project 2 wouldn’t be difficult because I knew which community I was focusing on and practically started with my first draft of project 1. I should’ve known. At first, I was having trouble finding sources for my annotated bibliography because the CARE program is specific to Florida State University. Yes, other institutions have summer bridge programs, but the CARE program extended beyond the summer semester. Mat suggested that I could use sources specific to something mentioned in my essay, which I did, and I ended up with ten sources, i.e. one spoke about summer bridge programs and another spoke about diversity. However, starting my interviews caused my work cited list to increase. Some interviews and sources didn’t make the final draft of my paper.
I went to a conference with Mat, during the first week of conferencing as I did before with project 1, and I brought my community profile with me. I always aim to have something done before going to a conference or an appointment at the writing center because I use feedback to get quality work done and that cannot happen if there isn’t any initial work to get feedback. I explained what I was doing and what I did in regard to my research essay and at that time I was on track.
Over spring break, I began writing my essay. Every draft I wrote wasn’t what I vision for my research paper. Yes, I had the word count, but my paper was practically a word count mess. I knew what I was writing about, but I couldn’t put it together how I wanted it. My friends called it a writer’s block. Furthermore, my text was causing the issue as it kept on changing throughout the essay which because I was finding great difficulty in presenting the text. For some odd reason, I didn’t go to the writing center but now I’m thinking the paper wasn’t ready for the world. The deadline was approaching, and I had written the paper over a couple of times until I mustered the best I could knowing I might have to revise it again after Mat sees it. I was okay with this because I needed a break from the research essay.
After reading my paper, Mat said that my personal exigency was good, I was worried about writing too much about myself, but was texts were confusing and the mention of CARE’s vision as well. I received a passing grade on the paper and I contemplated revising the research essay because I was enjoying not having it to worry about. Eventually, I came to my senses and sent Mat a revised plan. I went to the writing center and showed my tutor both my essay and Mat’s feedback. She read my essay and said It wasn’t a bad essay it was good and all I needed was to rearrange a couple of sentences, add a few sentences especially one that explicitly states what the vision of CARE is. Also, she helped me fixed my citations.
Revising my essay, I decided to read the entire essay first. Reading the essay, I couldn’t believe I wrote all that mess and I laughed because I dubbed that draft as the best and it was horrific; I was wondering how bad the other drafts were. Starting the revision process, I created a new word document and worked on each paragraph, paying the most attention to the sections that Mat’s comments highlighted. I made sure to explicitly state the vision of CARE and I changed my tests to the materials that the CARE staff give to us rather than the CARE staff themselves. I had a hard time presenting the identities of the people within my community because they were either ashamed or embarrassed by their circumstances and I didn’t want to share their stories knowing this. I guess this is a reason why I spoke about myself the most.
When I got to the conclusion of my research essay, I realized that the CARE staff upholds the CARE program’s mission and not its vision because mission defines what they are doing while vision tells what they want to do. With this revelation, I replaced every mention of the word ‘vision’ to ‘mission’ and explicitly stated what the CARE program’s mission was. Proud to say my grade for the research paper went up.
Project Three
Project three was the best out of the three projects. I chose three genres that were creative in my mind but one of them took a little longer to create than I had expected. This means I was not ready for my presentation, but I presented anyway. The first genre was a Word Search which I called “Search with CARE” because it has a double meaning to it. The first meaning relates to the CARE program because I designed the word search to be a little time passing activity that would be on the coffee tables in the CARE lab. Where CARE students, staff or visitors can take a break from working or studying to do a word search about the CARE program or use the search as a means to pass time in the waiting room of the 3rd floor of Thagard. The second meaning was more of a funny warning because I tried doing the word search and it was difficult to find the words until I made it a little easier.
The second genre was a catalog/ magazine, made using Flipsnack, which I called “The Retention”. It focused on highlighting the interaction between the CARE staff and students and the CARE students interacting with the resources provided by the CARE staff. I called the magazine “the Retention” because the pictures used in it showed how the CARE program’s staff upholds the organization’s mission by continuously providing CARE students with the tools needed to ensure that they are successful and remain in college.
The final genre was a video, made using Moovly, showcasing the CARE program from my perspective. This genre took the most time to be completed because I was having issues with shrinking the information I wanted to present while adding creativity to the video which caused different scenes in the video to overlap.I showed the CARE program from my perspective because I’ve learned so much about the program through my first year with it and what I’ve learnt I discovered on my own because the CARE program didn’t advertise these attributes in the best way. I don’t think this was intentional as every CARE student is different and need different needs. I made this video to congratulate, welcome and inform the new CARE class. I think it’s important to tell the new class about my testimony about the CARE program from an early start so that they can take advantage of their opportunities rather than dropping out of college because they were unaware of the resources that the CARE staff have.
Overall
Overall, projects one to three were somewhat difficult has they required a lot of time and planning in order to get satisfactory grades for them. Writing about myself and about the CARE program in ENC 2135 made me appreciate all the things that happened to me in life and made me become a better writer for the most part. Reflecting on my time in ENC 2135 , Mat made me see things or life rather for more than what it presents itself has for which I’m grateful because the world isn’t black and white.
I didn’t completely understand what Mat meant about texts and genres and how they functioned in our society until I did project three. I honestly went with the flow the entire time Mat. Now I do, and I’m inspired to become a CARE ambassador or delegate to utilize showoff my new talents. Thank you Mat J.