What:
Our epigraph from the syllabus “If we’re not your animals, if these are adult things, accept the risk. There is a risk, Gatoi, in dealing with a partner” goes to show that from “Bloodchild” our character Gan is afraid and confused about being the host for T’Gatoi’s eggs. T’Gatoi is noticing that Gan is learning to take responsibility and matters into his own hands. This only makes T’Gatoi question his next move, and if he’s not willing to be the host she is willing to find someone else for her eggs. T’Gatoi chooses to do it to his sister instead. This leads Gan to change his mind and take the risk of becoming her host. He was not willing to accept risking his sister in favor of being her host. I believe the epigraph does very strongly form a throughline for the work engaged throughout this semester. It has taught me how this can relate very much to being a college student. As a college student, we have to have the ability to own ownership of the choices that we make in our lives and taking responsibility. When starting college we make the decision of choosing the course of study is in our best interest. Although through time sometimes we are taught that what we learn may not be for us, and it is in our power to take action and choose between changing majors. Every little aspect of our life is considered taking risks. We opt to take risks to reach a certain accomplishment no matter what your goal is. Throughout this course, it has taught me that if my goal was to achieve a better standing grade I had to get out of my comfort zone and reach that level. It taught me to be more open, share any thoughts that I had in mind, ask questions if I was confused, set the tone to everything so that people would better understand what your trying to say. It also taught me how to ask the right questions, and how to respond back regarding our read “They say/I say”.
At the beginning of the semester within this course, I believed to think that this class would be more of just writing personal papers based on what we read, which is true but rather really focusing on how to better express and set the tone in your writing. I believed this because it was something I was always learned to live by. This course was mostly based upon the structure of building a well-written paper. It was a process of how to get you to think differently about what you read, look at the opposing view, and build a well-written paper on it. I did not expect this at all, but I do believe that this course has taught me how to better strengthen my writing, it has taught me how to further expand my thoughts, and feelings while I am writing. Writing to me was something that I thought of to be a slow and long process, but in reality, it is a process that is quick but thoughtful and caring. You have to show your paper that you care about it. What I mean by this is that it’s just as if you were feeding it like you would feed your pet, you want to show it you care by treating it with kindness and care. It is a piece of art. It really is like a psychological process, your pouring out your heart all into one paper. This is how I have come to think of it all along through this course. My perspective of writing has drastically changed, I used to get lazy about it and bored but I am actually amazed by how writing can be such a huge part of someone.
My writing before I arrived in this course was messy, not understandable, and underrepresented. It was not clear enough for the reader. I struggled with grammar, run-on sentences, setting the tone, placing commas, etc. In other words, the form of my writing was all over the place. I believed what went well for me was reading more into how to check grammar error checks, when to place a comma, receiving feedback on my most recent papers is what helped me build a much better one. I trust that feedback plays a huge role in one’s writing. One of the things that didn’t go so well for me throughout this course was making connections, drawing it back to the reading. I struggled with understanding the overall idea of what was happening in the book. If I didn’t understand the reading it was really hard to write a good paper. Giving feedback, making connections, and socializing with others was a challenge for me because I felt that I need support and feedback in order to do well on my paper. I needed more advice and suggestions on what should be my go-to for the very next time. The changes that I decided to make to improve the overall structure of my writing, was to continue going back to the book, take notes, or research information to better help me understand what was going on. Relating it back to some of our class discussions with professor McCoy has strengthened the language in my paper. For example, because of Professor McCoy’s feedback “This is much tighter, more clear, easier to follow. It reflects the spirit of the first draft but takes care of the reader and crafts a true, thought-provoking so-what conclusion. Remember this going forward: draft, walk away, get some space, return to thinking, revise” this feedback has allowed me to take a break from my writing and keep on going back into thinking outside of the box.
So-what?
The feedback that I get often from Professor McCoy has helped to direct me onto a different path. For example, when writing the facilities/Heating plant essay and explaining how integrative learning plays an important role when connecting it to “Bloodchild’, the heating plant, and the facilities page, professor McCoy had emphasized that “As your introduction, teach your readers what integrative learning is. Imagine your writing for someone who says “Integrative learning is STUPID! use a good blend of well attributed direct quotation and paraphrase.” I believed my only issue here was being able to backup my resources. Professor McCoy also states “Can you see a way that you can drag a version of integrative learning as a throughline uniting the facilities, the heating plant, and “Bloodchild”. This allowed me to go back to my resources reread them and apply it to my writing, take any piece of information that was useful to me and connect it to how it applies to integrative learning today. I took this opportunity to apply it to my writing by just using what I already knew and building it up. I got really lazy with putting things into my own thought and explaining it in a different and easier way so the reader can understand. The plan is to get the reader to understand me but think through things differently. I learned to
want to make the reader dig deeper into what they are reading but make their own connections as well.
Writer’s Credibility:
In conversation with our guests robbie routenberg, Sasha Eloi-Evans, and Joe Cope has given me the opportunity to connect to inside of SUNY Geneseo as well as in the outside. It has led me to think of how the many roles being played within the campus can be played with many other factors. Such as what it is like as a college student, applying consent, holding responsibility, commitment, trust, and more. The conversations have prepared me enough for the future on what I plan to do when it comes to an open opportunity. It guides me to think about the reasons that drive me to such a commitment, or how I am showing up. robbie’s conversation has guided me on how to understand resolution and how to progress in things. In order to progress it requires a much slower process in order to understand and learn. I’ve learned that you have to be willing to be present, ready to learn, take notes, and apply to be part of any conversation. This has had a huge impact on my understanding of partnership and my own growth as said by robbie, if you are willing to want to be a part of something you got to be willing to want to show up. You cannot commit to something expecting not to show up. This connected so well with applying to college, robbie stated that when a student is first interested in a school and applies when they get accepted they are committing to the school. They are committing to everything the school has yet to offer them. This goes to show that they must be present and willing to learn to bring awareness to the community and succeed.
In conclusion, according to GLOBE’s insistence on that Geneseo students should “gain practice in the ability to reflect upon changes in learning and outlook over time” matters because in order to learn and see things differently you have to start somewhere, start small, make mistakes and grow from it. Some of the work and thinking that needs to be done has to come from drafting your work overtime, redoing it over and over again. Once this is done your more able to dig deeper and make outside connections. You must always remain a student in everything that you do, take notes, research, study it, do it all over again, fail a test, and improve. Everything is a working process, you have to be willing to do the work and fail to move forward. You cannot be afraid of doing the work, that’s how I thought of it at first but I realized throughout all of the feedback received, the conversations, the discussions within this course I was better able to do the work and prepare myself to fail. By failing to prepare, you are actually preparing to fail. So don’t be afraid of the process. Some actions I decided to take on recently for myself are to stay positive, and if it becomes difficult to think to write, it’s just like professor McCoy says “walk away and go back into the thinkING process.” Don’t leave the discussion undone, review your reading or notes, and put it together into all in one thought and write it out. If I’ll leave a record for myself ill say that to keep on asking questions to gain feedback even if it’s from somebody you don’t know, and to keep reading and rereading because sometimes the thinkING process may not come to you just yet but it will later. Don’t get discouraged by the paper. Be more willing to listen and share your feedback with others. This is something I’ve known to struggle and hold back more on. To follow up with this something I would advise myself for future references is to be more willing to be open, and share what others can take into effect even if you think it is a dumb response. I may be more willing to learn a thing or two from the conversation.