Angelina Brown
Self Assessment Essay
In my last semester of high school, I took a college writing class where I discovered my love for writing. I came into English 1100 nervous about speaking to and in front of people, to professors and peers alike. I was nervous that my writing skills wouldn’t hold up since I felt as though I had only recently become good at it. I was also nervous about the class being an 8am class, but honestly I think that was for the best, I always enjoyed starting out my day with this class. I was wrong about everything, I was constantly encouraged to do better and be confident and proud of my projects and ideas. Once I felt comfortable speaking up in the classroom, I felt better about speaking to my peers and professor.
The class began with all of us being encouraged to respect all dialects and forms of language, and to acknowledge the history behind them. Accent discrimination is something I’ve always been aware of but never directly addressed, or at least not formally and definitely not in an institution. I had never seen a professor or teacher of English be so aware and embracing of dialects and accents outside of the standard accent in the US. Usually, teachers reprimanded students for sounding different from that. Getting personal for myself wasn’t difficult, as I was made painfully aware of the way I speak from a very young age from my family and my peers. I have never been too harmfully discriminated against for my accent. I certainly wouldn’t not be considered for a job, but I am afro-caribbean and afro -latina, and I witness so many of my family members face discrimination for the way that they speak. In my assignment, I made a video essay addressing the reasons why I speak so ‘properly’ and the danger that people of color face when they don’t.
We moved on to phase two, a rhetorical analysis. I had the most trouble with this assignment and it is definitely my least favorite of my work. I felt like I rushed, didn’t understand the assignment, and was not pleased with the final result. I wrote about the glorification of alcoholism, which is a topic I care deeply about.I felt bad discussing that topic and not being proud of the discussion. The bulk of my disappointment came from me misunderstanding the prompt, and looking back I could have done things differently to understand better but I still learned from it. My cover letter for the phase 2 assignment started like this : “I was honestly confused by this project. I know that my confidence in my writing will fluctuate and this time is low. I enjoyed the topic that I researched, and I care deeply about it, but from the beginning the way that I was going to approach it was unclear.” After being upset with myself and realizing that it wasn’t my best work, I realized that I only wanted to put my best work forth, and I am grateful for that. Although it isn’t my favorite essay or media I’ve made, I still got to discuss a topic that I’m passionate about, and I learned a lot about myself. I’m thankful for the motivation it gave me.
Lastly, we entered Phase 3, the research essay. I had some trouble starting this, only because I had full creative freedom and there are so many topics I wanted to choose from. When we first were assigned the essay I was reading the book Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall. It’s summarized as “Notes from women that a movement forgot” and it revolves around intersection (or lack thereof) in the feminist movement. I decided that I would use that topic for my essay, and I was even given a previous student’s work to use to help me. I quickly became tired of the topic, I was reading about it in my free time, and I felt unoriginal; there wasn’t much more for me to add or explain. I ended up choosing another feminist issue that I have strong opinions about: the danger of the sex industry and if it can be safe with law changes. It was an extremely large and complex topic to write about, but at this point I was up for the challenge and excited to bring attention to the discussion. This was the first essay that I both entered and exited with confidence in. I was able to simplify the topic into subsections and back up every single claim. Phase 3 is definitely one of my favorite essays I’ve ever written.
I’ve seen clear growth in my writing and in myself since my first day in English 1100. I came in shy, intimidated, and afraid. Although I still experience all of those feelings in my academics, my confidence in speaking up and presenting my ideas have skyrocketed, I feel ready to face challenges rather than feeling intimidated by them, and I’ve realized there isn’t much to be afraid of. The main fear I had was making mistakes, but making mistakes is what gave me the motivation to have a new best every time.
