Kurt Vonnegut's Writing with Style, excerpt was very informal and helpful when entering English 1103. This was one of the first assignments I completed as a "warm-up" when trying to find myself as a writer. It allowed me to think about my life outside of the box and put it down on paper. This assignment opened my eyes to a new way to view my life and how I live day to day. I began my response describing myself as "A small town girl with big time dreams". Then continued on to address my past experiences in a broken home where I was infatuated with coloring. Coloring was my escape and also an expressive technique that set me a part from my surroundings. Ms. Andrews left several positive comments throughout my assignments which boosted my confidence coming into my first college English course. Comments included "This is a really cool subject to write about to tell me who you are -- well done!", and "It's great to know what's a good escape for you!". Encouraging words are always beneficial when you're in a new environment, or trying something new. College is a new environment for me and finding myself as a writer is the element of trying something new.
My personal literacy narrative was the first major writing piece I composed in English. As a class, we went through multiple steps to ensure everyone had a clear grasp on the definition of literacy. Through daybook entries, reading excerpts, and classroom discussions, the definition of literacy started to become clear to me. Once I was able to define literacy, writing my personal narrative became much easier to write. The words just seemed to follow from my fingers onto my keyboard until I was looking at my finished, typed rough draft. Four complete pages of my life journey, and the impact literacy has had on me as an individual. I always loved reading, writing, and spelling; I guess you could say not much has changed. I used to enjoy using magnetic alphabet letters to form words and phrases on an easel when i was younger. This was my first personal encounter with literacy that had a huge impact on my development. I still thoroughly enjoy writing and finding new ways to express myself with my pencil. I could compare my pencil to a magic wand, one that has the ability to crack me and force me to open up and express my true inner feelings. I'm definitely not one to express my feelings to others, but this assignment paved the way for me to put more emotion into my writing, while making it more personal for my audience. In my opinion, making one's writing personal and relatable is key to a successful piece. If your audience can't correlate to your thoughts and feelings, then you have failed as an author.
The Nacerima assignment was the most memorable assignment for me throughout the course. When we first read the excerpt as a class, I was completely thrown off by the content. The rituals the Nacerima were partaking in were so off-the-wall and seemed so bizarre. After reading the piece several times through and analyzing each paragraph to a "T", things started to make sense to the class. The more we picked each "ceremony" apart, the more the Nacerima people appeared very similar to the American people. Once these realizations had been addressed and brought to everyone's attention, the perception of the excerpt changed from crazy and strange to normal and sterotypical in our society. I also enjoyed getting to work with a partner to create our own device to manipulate by coming up with our own secret language to describe it to the audience. This allowed me to think outside of the box, yet frustrated me to a certain extent because it was a challenge. The amount of effort I had to put into coming up with my own version of Nacerima was more difficult than I had anticipated, but was well worth it.