A Look Back
English was never my favorite subject in school. I was never particularly skilled at writing and from a young age, I struggled to read at an adequate level. After years of out-of-class tutoring, my reading proficiency did manage to improve, but my love of reading and writing was ultimately left in shambles. Throughout high school, I was well aware of the importance of writing in higher education, yet I still could not bring myself to care enough. In all honesty, my English classes were structured in such a way that if I memorized the exact essay format, I would pass the class with an easy A. Such a structured form of writing completely drained any creativity from English class and further fed my growing disdain for the subject.
Writing 150 offered a completely different approach to writing that forced me to recontextualize my understanding of my own identity and my relationship with writing. This semester pushed me to think of writing not as a robotic concrete process, but instead to think of writing as a tool I can use to communicate messages that I find to be important. Even though I initially struggled to shift my mindset about writing, consistent practice with writing my posts had inadvertently pushed me to center my writing around ideas above all else. By far one of my best writing projects this semester was WP3 as it was the project where I was easily able to break free from that very structured form of writing. Every paragraph introduced a new idea and connected each idea back to the overall purpose of the project. It also forced me to deeply self analyze my relationship with my own identity. This ultimately made me realize how I still have a lot more to explore about who I am.
The scope of the project and the class also allowed me to explore the wide range of components that make up my identity. Before starting the semester, I believed much of my identity could boil down to my age, ethnicity, skin color, and gender. I was truly unaware of how important language, religion, culture, hobbies, passions, and lifestyle play in forming an individual’s identity. Moreover, even within one aspect of identity, there are even smaller components that branch off from that one overarching category. For instance, culture is made up of fashion, traditions, food, and even societal roles. When it comes to identity, we are the only ones that can limit the endless amount of things that make us who we are.
This semester also taught me how a person’s identity is entirely unique to them but is subject to change as they grow and mature. My WP2 consisted of a survey of Hispanic students at USC to identify some commonalities that exist between the college experience among Hispanics within a private institution. The surveys revealed a wide range of interesting findings, but one thing that was only briefly discussed in the piece was that every student had a different idea of what it meant to be Hispanic. Some people associated their Hispanic identity with the culture, while others associated with the similar experiences all Hispanics endure. Regardless of the reason, the surveys made me realize that even within a group of people who identify within the same category, there are still differences in terms of how we view the category itself.
Grammar was another key component of my previous English classes that also damaged my relationship with writing as a whole. The obsession with arbitrary details, such as where exactly a comma should be placed in a sentence, proves too frustrating and takes away from the purpose of a piece. Strict grammar rules also prevent writers from being able to express themselves using the language they are most familiar with. For instance, before this semester I had never written a bilingual piece. But after being encouraged to explore different modes of writing, I was able to communicate with my audience in the language that I am most comfortable with.
Throughout my first and second writing projects, I included some bits and pieces of Spanish where it felt natural. The inclusion of these Spanish portions helped me more effectively explain my idea, while also ensuring that the way I engaged my audience was inherently unique to me. As I explored earlier in the semester, language plays a crucial role in understanding identity. Thus being allowed to display this aspect of my identity through my work enabled me to take pride in what I had created, a feeling that I did not fully realize until this semester.
I was very proud of many of the pieces I wrote this year because I was able to discuss topics that meant something to me. My most meaningful work would probably have to be WP3 as it is the project in which I was able to learn more about my own identity and one of my better-performing projects in terms of a grade. However, my most meaningful project would have to be WP2. While preparing for WP2, I had to find other Hispanics that were willing to participate in my survey. The sheer difficulty in finding other Hispanics highlighted the lack of diversity within certain areas of the school and surprisingly left me feeling a little isolated. This is a realization that I had never experienced before because I was always surrounded by people of similar backgrounds while growing up. WP2 really underlined the importance of diversity to me as I never thought it was an important issue prior to this class. It is for this reason that WP2 is my most meaningful work.
All in all, there are countless valuable lessons taken away from Writ 150, but by far the most important thing I’ve learned is to stay true to myself. It may sound cheesy and cliche to say aloud, but the entire course is centered around being able to navigate and understand who we are as individuals. Even though I have yet to uncover the entirety of my identity, I have learned to be proud of who I am and where I come from. I will continue to self-analyze and explore the different aspects of myself, as my identity will forever be evolving and growing alongside me.
