Narrative Essay Reflection

Looking back at the experience of writing my narrative essay, there are some observations that I made about the changes in rhetorical terms and strategies in my work, as well as how the collaborative writing process of having my narrative reviewed and reviewing that of a classmate, impacted my final draft. The shift in rhetorical strategies from my first to final draft involves the use of more colloquial language for the purpose of providing the audience an accurate depiction of the setting. The social aspect of having my narrative peer-reviewed influenced some of the most significant changes in the narrative such as the diction which went from more formal, to conversational. Through my review of a classmate’s essay I was inspired to use some rhetorical strategies which I found effective in their narrative and adapted them to my own. Their use of rhetorical questions was their way of identifying the struggles they were facing, and using that strategy helped me highlight the emotions that I felt as an outsider.

Comparing the diction used in my first draft  to that in the second, differences would be found specifically in the replacement of more formal language by conversational and cultural speech. The shift in this rhetorical strategy creates a more effective narrative because it invokes pathos, by allowing the audience to have an easier time connecting to and visualizing the story, although they may not understand the meanings of all the phrases I used. In the first draft one of the sentences says, “The audience is in peak euphoria, roaring with excited screams of anticipation, awaiting Mr.Eazi, the headlining performer of the concert.” In this sentence I am “telling” my emotions and not depicting them in a way that makes the audience sense it. In the final draft however, I attempt to convey the same sentiment but this time by “showing”, “Mr.Eazi runs onto the stage and shouts his catch-phrase “ZAG-A-DIS”! Then the large crowd of Afro-beats fans screams back “ZAG-A-DAT!”. With this change, the audience can hopefully have a more vivid sense of what actually happened, and as an author I am being more honest in my portrayal of the event. In my draft there were sprinkles of Nigerian terminology such as “Oyinbo, Wahala, and Okada”, but in the final draft I also used Nigerian pidgin English to communicate my emotions such as when I write, “but since it’s cheaper here I no dey vex (I’m not mad about it).” Going from simply using a couple of Nigerian words as adjectives or nouns, to using phrases in my direct conversation with my audience, gives them more proof that I do in fact identify greatly with the Nigerian culture. It also contrasts the fact that the main conflict in the narrative is that I cannot speak with my real accent so I don’t get charged more, but here I am conversing in Nigerian slang with my audience.

The collaborative aspect of the peer review greatly impacted the transformation of my narrative piece into one that was more conversational. In her peer review Mellissa said, “ In the beginning, the language did seem a bit advanced and less casual ( I enjoyed the casual language.” This comment on my work gave me the inspiration to convey the narrative in a more casual way. Parts of the narrative sound like I’m recounting a story to a friend, such as when I write “It’s in Ibadan, that my abilities to be low-key are put to the test.” I think such an addition displays my personality by showcasing the way I talk/write. Looking at it now, I could have made it more conversational by writing “my abilities to be lowkey were tested”. Another reason that the casual language inspired by the peer-review was the right reason is because when Nigerians speak to each other there is a banterous quality to it, and if I maintained a formal way of writing I would not be portraying Nigeria in the most authentic light.

The collaborative aspect of peer-reviewing a classmates narrative also positively impacted my own. In Temi’s narrative essay draft, he had a couple rhetorical questions, which was his way of trying to understand the reasons he was being treated as an outsider. I think this is an effective way to convey an author’s feelings of confusion and hurt in a narrative. In my narrative I used rhetorical questions to try to wrap my head around the fact that I was being treated as an outsider and the possible reasons why. “Why are they trying to charge me extra like I’m Oyinbo? Why do I have to change my voice to fit in? Am I not Nigerian like them?” This quote gives the audience a glimpse into what is going on in my mind as I fully realize that I am an outsider in Nigeria. It is more effective than telling the audience that realizing that I am an outsider partly confuses and upsets me, since they can read the rhetorical questions that mimics my mind racing. Collaboration is important because there is much to be gained from learning how others write and communicate.

———————————————————————————————–

Critical Lens reflection

For this reflection, I’d like you to detail your writing process for the critical lens essay.

How did you get started?

I began the critical lens essay by trying to understand what writing a critical lens essay actually entailed, since I had never written one before. After reading the assignment sheet several times and doing some research of my own, I started looking for my target text. I had already decided that my lens text would be Lennard Davis’ “Constructing Normalcy” since more time was spent on this text in both sections of FIQWS, and I felt like a had a firmer grasp of Davis’ central argument. The exercise we did in class on “chunking” was of great assistance in helping me narrow down the lenses that Davis used to support his argument that normalcy creates disability. The specific lenses I was trying to choose between were “eugenics” and Davis’ use of statistical terms such as “extremes” and “ranking”, since they both could both be applied to physical appearances, and that is the direction I was leaning towards with my target text. I then decided that my target text would be the beauty standard put on and perpetrated by Victoria Secret, and searched for articles that would contain content that could be integrated into my paper. I used multiple articles since the entirety of my target subject could not be found in a single one. This was followed, by outlining my ideas and the structure, since structure seems to be one of the most vital components of a critical lens essay. My outline consisted of the frames I would be choosing from Davis and how I would end up applying them to the target. The relationships between the frames from both texts ended up being my topic sentences such as, “throughout “Constructing Normalcy” Lennard Davis, states that statistical norms favor certain extremes, which is exemplified through the preferences used in selecting models for the Victoria Secret Fashion Show”. I created the thesis statement I would use, “Through the focus on statistics to achieve perfectibility in Lennard Davis’ “Constructing Normalcy”, the strict beauty standards of Victoria Secret are exposed”, and then I had to organize and integrate the quotes and analysis from the lens and target texts.

How did you choose your target?

I chose my target after deciding that I was using Davis’ “Constructing Normalcy” as my lens text, specifically the lens dealing with statistical terms and their implication on creating norms. Physical appearance was the predominant topic that I visualized as my target text since several social norms are present in physical appearances. Women’s physical appearances being the most scrutinized by society, led me to the modeling industry. The modeling industry is infamous for the beauty standards it places on its models. Tackling the model industry was quite dauting and too general, which is why I narrowed it to lingerie, Victoria Secret specifically. Through the sentence, “thus several people end up striving for improbable bodies, and end up feeling inadequate as a result”, I communicate the negative association with the norms that Victoria Secret perpetuates. The methods with which norms are applied to the selection of the Victoria Secrete Angels mirrored those stated in in the lens text, which lent itself to my analysis.

Where was the sticking point? In other words, what difficulties did you have composing the essay?

I certainly had difficulties in the writing of the critical lens essay, the first one was understanding the structure and the purpose of the essay. It made sense when it was applied to “Writing about Africa” and the music video “Fatty Fatty Boom Boom”, but when it came time to replicate the process on my own, there was some lagging-time for my brain to understand what to do. The preeminent struggle I faced while composing this essay involved making it structurally different from the metaphor essay. During the earliest parts of writing this essay I actually had two target texts. The other target text was going to be Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty lingerie line, which disregards norms through its inclusivity. Comparing and contrasting the relationships of the lens text with both target texts, was going to be the bulk of the essay. It was the in-class revision of a previous essay written by a student that made me realize that I was not moving in the right direction. Instead of completely disregarding my idea of including Savage X Fenty in my essay I decided to bring it up in my conclusion, “through the inclusivity of the models at the Savage X Fenty Show, extremely tall and thin women are no longer the ideal.” The problem that the class found while revising the previous student’s essay was that it compared and contrasted too much, like the comparative metaphor essay we had previously written. Since I had chosen two target texts, I also made this mistake. I’m glad that we looked over that previous essay as a class so I could correct what I was doing.

What was the easiest part of writing the essay?

The easiest part of writing the essay for me was the analysis that had to be drawn between the lens and target text. When I finally understood that the topics of the lens and target text had to be integrated and that I could not spend too much time writing about a single one, it allowed me to integrate both texts effectively. I applied the analytical skills that were sharpened up while writing the metaphor paper. One of the connections I made in my essay that I’m proudest of and that came with the help of Professor Geoghan was, “afterall, there is not much that is as flawless as an angel. This angelic imagery parallels Davis’ argument that only divine beings can achieve perfection (Davis 10). While being called “Angels” does not make the models divine, they are far from ordinary in their ability to maintain their bodies through their strict diets and rigorous gym sessions.” I especially liked this connection because it extended beyond the lens I was initially looking at into the lens of the ideal, and I was able to include it briefly without taking away from the other lens that my paper focused on.

What was the focus of your revision?

The focus of my revision consisted of formatting, and adding some extra analysis, as well as finalizing my conclusion. Formatting is something that I am being exposed to in college, so I need to make sure that I put double-spacing, and citations in the fore-front, instead of leaving them as an after-thought and almost forgetting to include it. The extra analysis that I added was to make sure that I did write similar amount on both texts. I added the quote, “the characteristics that Galton considered to be positive extremes, are also those which are ranked the highest” to make sure that I did not get carried about talking about Victoria Secret, and made sure to refer to the target text. Lastly, concerning my conclusion I contrasted the effect of Victoria Secrete on norms of women’s physical appearance with Rihanna’s Fenty beauty, and explained the Fenty beauties contribution as my peer-reviewer Kareem, suggested.