Patrice+W.+Reflective+Essay

There was a quote shared in class about the process of writing, that suggested thinking is the most lengthy and critical part of the writing process. I can attest that in my writing thinking, and more specifically thinking aloud, is the lengthiest process of my writing. When I think of myself as a __writer__ I can honestly say that I am like a yodeler and people are my echo mountain. I start by bouncing an idea off of a friend or family member and they often echo back to me what I am saying. If they can pick up on my enthusiasm and it results in a conversation that is worthwhile, then I know that the idea is worth my time in developing. I spend that time discussing then thinking and thinking some more, until finally I have decided what I want to write has the potential to be well thought out. Once I have written something, I take it back to my echo mountain and get feedback before I change anything. For each of the pieces I have included in this portfolio the process has followed the same basic pattern; thinking, talking it out, writing, sharing out loud, and then revising. Each of the pieces I wrote were concerning something that is currently important in my life. I cannot write about anything with any ease if I am having a hard time connecting it to something that really matters to me in the moment. My portfolio artifacts represent things that I am passionate about in my personal life; therefore I enjoyed writing each one.
 * Patrice W. Reflective Letter **

 My R & B ballad is my most treasured piece in the portfolio, because it was the most difficult for me to write. I am proud of it because I am not a poet/songwriter but I managed to write something that sounds like it could actually be a song. Learning about the patterns and processes involved with writing ballads was eye opening. I am a frequent listener to this type of music, but I was unaware the challenges I would face in creating R & B. My biggest concern in this piece was conveying the depth of emotion that makes a great song great. In my favorite song, I wrote “Please don’t listen to me/
 * __UFG __**

 don’t take me seriously/ I need you to see straight to the heart of me”. This was an example of me exploring the complexity of wanting to guard your heart from being loved by someone out of fear, but realizing you really do want to be loved. Asking to be ignored, in one sense, does not seem like a choice that demonstrates love. In another sense, it is a desperate cry not to be taken at face value. The character in the song is presenting a self that wants to be distant and cool, but deep down wants to be loved. I am proud of being able to get something down that is deeper than simply saying I want you to love me. I am strong at analytical writing, but I am not as strong at creative writing. I believe a part of what makes creative writing a weaker area for me is that it requires processing things in an emotional way. As a writer is it easy for me to remain distant and un-attached. More importantly, I have had the most practice and success writing in this way. My song challenged me to get out of my __comfort__ zone and use writing to convey emotion and creativity. I spent a lot of time thinking about what to write and I found this to be an ineffective way to approach writing a song. I eventually started to just jot down ideas like, experiences of love, situations in a relationship, and others to get myself out of my creative rut. I actually wrote the bridge (quoted above) to the song I shared in the portfolio after breaking out of my usual pattern of writing. Once I did this, I was able to come up with enough ideas to start sharing them with other people. This is the only part of my natural process that worked for me when writing the ballad. As I was sharing with others, I got a sense of what emotions I was capturing with the choices I made in the chorus and verses. I also got suggestions that were very helpful.


 * __WRITING TO INFORM __**

To demonstrate this purpose for writing, I chose to write an open letter to prospective mothers of black female children. I decided to write this letter for a combination of reasons. First, I have daughter who is African-American and I have had to learn how to care for her hair as she has grown up. Second, I believe that moms sharing knowledge is one of the most important parts of learning to be a mother. Lastly, I am a strong believer in families being created in many ways (biological, adopted, etc.). Many women who may not be black are raising black daughters. I wrote this letter because I would have liked someone to have written something like it to me concerning caring for my child’s hair. I had to search for information and wisdom in order to be able to successfully care for my little one’s hair. I could imagine posting this letter to a blog or hair care website.  My process for writing this letter started with telling my husband (who is often my sounding board for ideas) what I wanted to write. For this type of writing my echo chamber process worked well. I was able to talk to my husband and moms in my life about the concepts I wanted to include in the letter. I wrote the letter trying to capture the things I felt were important to say. I wanted to create a letter that did not alienate any kind of mom or any kind of black daughter. I am a subscriber to a blog written by a White mom of an adopted black child, and what impresses me about her site is that moms of all kind come to find and share wisdom. I have seen posts from biological and adoptive moms, black moms, moms of bi-racial children, and moms of curly headed children in general. I wanted to write a letter that would speak to all kinds of moms that could learn from what I have learned. Honestly, I am not sure if my letter accomplished this successfully, but I made an effort to identify with my supposed audience. Initially, I had addressed the letter to “Prospective Moms (Adopted or Biological) of a black female child”. I changed this to “An Open Letter to Prospective Moms of Black Female Children Anywhere”. I thought this would be a better choice since an open letter is intended to be read by a large open audience. I included anywhere because; again I did not want to alienate any type of family structure. My goal was to write to moms who would want to know what to do with their daughter’s hair. I believe this was a good choice.


 * __WRITING TO PROPOSE A SOLUTION __**

I chose to write this piece, because I was taking a finance class at my church that explored some of the ideas that I shared. I am invested personally in the topic, because I am making some of the changes I suggested in my own life. As I stated earlier, I have more experience writing in genres that fall into an analytical and interpretive purpose. When I wrote my piece about getting out of debt, this was also a bit outside my comfort zone. I patterned the piece after a prompt in our text. I made this decision because I felt the mentor text provided a framework for me to organize my thoughts. I included this piece because it was the piece that I had to do the most revision on to be satisfied with it. (I am still not satisfied).  The model only had the short list, which I mimicked in my first draft. I felt like this list was a good beginning, but it did nothing to present the problem. Having only the list was not sufficient to demonstrate what the problem was (debt mentality) and how to begin to solve it. I started the piece over with an introductory paragraph to “set up” the problem. I liked the piece much more after I did this. I felt that making the problem “debt mentality” by listing our governmental debt, helped to capture the pervasiveness of debt. Also, setting up the ways that debt is at every level of our society showed the difficulty that would be involved in changing this pattern—even on an individual level. After the second draft I was still not convinced that it was complete. I added a concluding paragraph to summarize and encourage readers to get started on some practical actions to eliminate debt. I think this was an effective ending that made the piece feel complete.

For each of my artifacts, I had peer, instructor, and friend/family feedback. This is not the extent to which I normally allow my writing to be critiqued. I usually choose one person to read and give me feedback. What I have learned from having multiple feedback sources is that different people can point out different things that could strengthen the piece. Another thing that I have learned is that different people can point out the same thing about your writing. This second point is one that I feel is most important for me to take away. Sometimes it is hard to know whether or not a peer’s suggestion is just based on their preference and biases in writing. With that concern in mind, I admit in times past that I have completed the peer response part (for other assignments in other classes) just “going through the motions” with no intention of changing anything of significance in my writing. Having multiple people notice a similar area for growth in my writing, rules out that concern. The main lesson that I have taken away from this portfolio experience is that the same process of writing may not work for different genres. In order to write in an unfamiliar genre I had to change my process a bit. I have also learned that whatever I can do to get into the mind of my intended audience is crucial. For both my ballad and my open letter to moms I had to put my thinking toward what the audience would need to read in order for them to get what I was trying to convey. I don’t think I have thought much about audience as a writer, since my audience is generally my instructors. Lastly, I cannot stress the importance of writing about what matters to the writer. Each piece falls into that category and thus they were easier to write. As a pre-service teacher I have to give my students similar opportunities. They should be able to see the value of peer editing, have opportunities to connect to an audience beyond the instructor, and have some choice in what they write about.
 * __LESSONS FROM PEER EDITING & CONCLUDING THOUGHTS __**