Final Reflection
Throughout this whole English 21002 class semester, it was a great mind-changing experience because I was able to get out of my comfort zone. I was able to try new assignments that I haven’t done before which included interviewing classmates and interviewing people outside of my class like never before. I was able to understand my own culture more and deeper look into it as well as other cultures and subcultures.
One of my favorite assignments that I remember being in was finding a cultural artifact object in my culture/subculture that had a meaning to it and what it meant. This was such a unique assignment because I never really looked into my culture’s objects and what they meant to me. When being assigned this assignment I thought of what in my pentecostal subculture stands out from other cultures/subcultures. I looked around my house and found an old tambourine which was an object that has been used by generations of families. I was able to speak about how the tambourine was a basic instrument that is used to play church songs. I also spoke about how it has bells attached to it and has a circular wooden base covering on top. In doing this essay I received feedback from my classmate and got lots of help. I remember my classmate saying that he saw that I had a very religious background which was a good start. I knew that I was on the right track because I wanted my audience to understand that the tambourine in my culture was used to worship God by singing songs and playing it. He also corrected some of my grammar which made me more aware and alerted to my grammar and punctuation. My overall reaction was that It was a fun essay to do because it allowed me to share my background with others and made me think more about the little things that are in my household that have important meanings. The aspects of the revision process were that from the feedback I received it was easier than revising it yourself because some people can see things differently from another perspective which was helpful in the revision process. The class readings helped me understand and choose my cultural artifact better. Like the example of a basket in the reading which showed me that a cultural artifact didn’t need to be the best-looking one, it could be anything in my household that had meanings to my culture. This assignment allowed me to really seek my family’s history and background and how important an object like a tambourine really is to my family. This assignment was led by examples to do with readings from the textbook FieldWorking Reading and Writing 4th edition the class read that showed different examples and stories of cultural artifacts.
In the class, I read different ethnographies that ranged from homeless shelters to truck stops which really shaped my way of viewing the world in different ways. One of my favorite ethnographies was Iowa 80which was about a student named Rick Zollo and him asking questions to different Truck stoppers and what they did. The ethnographic provided me examples of how to effectively do an ethnographic research study because it showed me how to approach certain people. For example, make sure to ask open and closed questions when necessary. The ethnographies in the reading gave me a new way to see people such as the homeless. An ethnography in the textbook titled “House for the Homeless: A Place to Hang Your Hat” by Ivana Nikolic was another personal favorite. It was about how a young refugee when moving to the U.S noticed homeless people caught her attention always. She always had perspectives from other people that have shown that homeless people were seen as bad people who didn’t want to work and were lazy. Ivana wanted to see for herself and volunteered at a homeless shelter called Ramsey House and she was able to talk to different homeless people. The people at the shelter were teachers and had educational backgrounds and some were young and abandoned. Ivana talked to a girl named Hope who had mental issues and she shared her story with her which stuck with me. This is because Hope explained to her how she beat a girl and lost her baby in a calm voice. Hope was eventually kicked out of the shelter and was never seen again.
This allowed me to learn never to judge a book by its cover and to never assume something from another person’s experience and instead to see for yourself. These ethnographies allowed me to be better prepared when interviewing people for an assignment. I learned how to be an outsider and an insider when speaking to others. I was able to learn to ask the right questions and make people feel comfortable to have an effective interview experience.
In this class, I was able to interview my classmate Abigail Flores and figure out her subculture and find out information about her subculture. I remember My personal favorite question I asked her was what was one word to describe herself and she said “weird”. She had said something weird because she would talk to herself a lot which I thought was pretty normal. After all, sometimes we all just talk to ourselves in our head. I gave her a question that wasn’t part of my original question because I felt that it was a big part of getting to know her better. what did she work as? She told me “Retail Worker” I was complimenting her because It can be hard being a full-time college student and having work to deal with which can be very stressful.
This assignment was so great especially when Abigail seemed to have enjoyed the questions because It allowed her to elaborate more on her responses like when I asked her about her motivations and she responded with so much thought into it and gave me personal reasons that made me co connect with her and made the interview seem more like a conversation between us. The most important question I asked was about her subculture which she shared to me that she identified as the “artsy subculture….anything that has to do with drawing and art” After figuring Abigail’s subculture I was able to write a reflection on my full experience in the interview with my peer.
My last interview was about a culture that I had no idea about. I had selected which was Anime and it allowed me to view Anime and do my research on it. While researching Anime I found out that the government had supported Anime with millions and that a character in Anime called “Goku” had his own national day in Japan. After researching Anime I had to do an interview with someone who knows a lot about this topic. The first person that came to mind was my friend Madyan Shammak. One of the best questions that he gave me the best response was when I asked how Anime affected his lifestyle? And to sum it up he said it taught him life lessons. He gave an example in Naruto where it taught how to not give up on hopes and dreams which I thought was a great lesson to learn especially when watching something you love.
Ultimately I was able to effectively use my prior knowledge when reading the ethnographic studies in the Field working book when it came to all the interviews I was doing whether with Abigail or Madyan. This semester I was able to become an interviewer like never before and be able to express my cultural background to my classmates. I learned while in the class the free wrote we constantly did allow me to get out of my comfort zone and get my brain working at 9:30 in the morning. Overall it was a challenging yet fun unique experience I ever had before.
