Mia Doreen George
Professor Meaks
ENGL 21001-R
CCNY: S-209
5/19/26

Introduction: For this essay I approached it with revelation as I experienced my semester all over again in my own written words. In the future I’d like to maybe implement more of my own active thinking processes as I worked on some of the pieces I incorporated into this essay. Overall, I loved this class, and everything about it. Have a wonderful Summer!

                        A Personal Self Assessment:

I entered my class of Writing for the Humanities & Arts knowing I wanted to push myself to become a better writer and conversationalist, and I believe I was successful in this endeavor.
When I ask myself what writing is, I immediately think of writing as an artform. A piece of scripture reflecting the writer’s unique perspective and character during their time on Earth.
When it comes to my personal writing, especially when it comes to the writing I’ve done for my ‘Writing for the Humanities & Arts’ class, I typically handle it as I would an artform, as I mentioned before; focusing on opening people up to different perspectives, or unique outlooks on whatever the topic at hand is.

As a whole my perceptions of writing have changed this semester in terms of altering the entire mindset I applied to organizing my written work to make it digestible for an audience. I can see that I’ve evolved in many ways through this course. Before when I would write my essays, I struggled immensely with where to put my evidence, as well as how to organize it as a whole. I also struggled with trying to appease a general audience rather than an academic one, which led me to overexplaining my essays and causing unnecessary confusing messes on the pages.

Throughout this course however, through analyzing the readings more in depth, practice, peer reviews, and professor given criticism, I learned to better mold my drafts, and therefore build a better, and stronger foundation for my pieces. I learned to, essentially, tailor my words to better get my points across. This satisfied my goal of achieving the course learning objective that contained enhancing strategies for editing, reading, drafting, and overall writing and assessment.

For example, with the Conference Paper assignment. I spoke to my professor on how to better organize my paper and implement evidence into it in an efficient manner. I am happy with where the paper ended up after that conversation. An excerpt from it showcases this well would be:

“Before I get too ahead of myself, let me ask you all a question first. What would your response be if I asked you to give your anger a shape? May it be thorny, or round, or melted, or a set of bars? How does it move? Slow or fast? Have you ever been demonized for it by those around you, or even by yourself? Finally, do you feel like your anger sometimes makes you a bad person, or alters you negatively? What rips at your stitches?
In “METABOLIZING ANGER: A TANTRIC BUDDHIST SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF MORAL ANGER” by McRae, Emily, written 2015, she says: “ One of the main obstacles to thinking clearly about the morality of anger is that we tend to have two competing intuitions: we think that the effects of anger—for both self and others—are often bad, destroying both our relationships and our peace of mind(…)” McRae helps to illustrate a part of the perception of anger, and how it has changed from a mere emotion into a symbol of the ill-intentioned.”

Continuing with my Conference Paper Essay, I had to use the school’s library and database to find good sources to input into my essay. My essay surrounded anger, and most of my sources stemmed from psychological or spiritual sources that explained anger as not being inherently bad, nor good, but just being a tool capable of aid or harm depending on how one saw and used it. This not only helped me learn to navigate the CCNY databases, but also gave me the practice needed to strengthen my writing through analyzing the sources I chose, quoting, and integrating them. My Conference Paper, and select blog posts, also allowed me to use multimedia to get my ideas across, such as my reflection on my Sickle Cell Community paper where I got to use a photo of a hospital bed to further implement my point of sick kids needing community too, if not the most.

The one thing I remember the most about my Conference Paper was presenting it to my class as required. As a whole, this experience taught me how safe presenting could be. I was of course nervous as I walked to the forefront of the class ready to present, excited to get it over with, but the fear quickly melted when I realized that everyone was treating me as they’d want to be treated. Respectful silence, attention, and some smiles from peers I didn’t yet get the chance to talk to really comforted me and melted at my frayed nerves. By the time I was done with the presentation, still shaking, but not as badly as before, I sighed from relief and silently thanked everyone for letting me speak, and fumble a bit, but most of all, for being so civil and kind.

Speaking of speaking, I also got significantly more comfortable speaking my mind when it came to my own opinions, within a group setting, like when me and some classmates were tasked with not only reading ‘Mother’ by Carmen Machado, but also with individually writing and discussing 10 questions with our peers about it in front of them. I wrote questions such as:

“How does the story make us think deeper about the ideas of what makes someone good or bad?
We don’t get the character Bad’s monologue throughout the story. Do we think Bad loved
the narrator or like the love the narrator gave her?
Do you think the narrator knows what love is, or does she operate on infatuation?”

As displayed, as I became more comfortable with my words, both verbally and on paper, I was able to continue pursuing my own strong arguments through discussion questions, and learn more during my experience in this class through growing, not only strength, but bravery with my own intellect.

Before when thinking of something to add to academic conversations, I worried of offending, instilling my shyness. However, my professor and classmates made it clear that a part of the educational experience was the open mindedness needed to have a discussion that may be a bit awkward to therefore pursue gaining more knowledge about the topic from interacting with different perspectives. This allowed me to achieve the course learning objective acknowledging the range of others perspectives as material for purposeful discussion and intentional writing.
An example of this would stem from my OP-ED essay in which I wrote: “The purposeful deterioration of our attention spans is one of these poisons. The overuse and improper use of AI as a means to take over our lives and overshadow our art and education is also a poison. The propaganda and stereotypes. In place of truths are lies and over time we will be nothing but statistics and cogs in a grander destructive machine that do not acknowledge the fact that we are being used under false pretenses. We are the convicts responsible for stealing our own joy by creating man made concepts such as racism, money, capitalism, weaponry wars, etc.”

Regarding how my words affect an audience, in my in class written essay exam that I chose to write on Machado’s ‘The Husband Stitch’, I focused on my audience. I specifically had to understand that a part of the assignment was understanding that the audience I was writing for already had an idea of ‘The Husband Stitch’ and didn’t need an over-explanation of the topic. I immediately went about doing a quick summary and then bending my writing around the macabre genre of the story. I formulated an articulate stance, as I illustrated the great risk of losing oneself to their relationship, if not careful and observant. “As hard as it may be to see or come to terms with; people often forget the person under the title of wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, or significant other. When that piece is forgotten, it leaves the relationship to turn into a void where loneliness and abuse can run rampant.” I said in my essay.

Overall, for this class, I not only made good friends, made good conversation, and made good memories, but I also surprised myself multiple times. I worried my skill of organizational writing would never elevate, but it did. I worried I would never get over my shyness to discuss heavier topics thoughtfully with my peers, but I pushed myself to where I thought my limit was, and walked over it. The gentle push and confidences in me from my professor and peers were the catalyst to such change.

– Mia Doreen George