John Saunders
Retrospective essay
Completed 5 December 2020
No S*** there I was in the midst of a viral pandemic, winter tightening it's frigid grip on the city and I was narrowing the end of my W131 Eportfolio stuck for a beginning to my retrospective essay...
Reading, writing and inquiry (W131) has given me exposure to some great articles I would otherwise never have come across which helped me to learn with greater confidence. Jennifer Percy's "My Terrifying Night with Afghanistan’s Only Female Warlord" was a fantastic read and an insight into the painfully plain and harsh way of life in Afghanistan. Even though I have never been, having been enlisted in the Army for a few years now one can't help but feel a remote connection to the country with so many other soldiers coming back and explaining the simple but brutal lifestyle over there which Percy reinforced with her brief piece. Percy being an experienced war correspondent eluded to her admiration for a female war lord in the very male dominated and backwards Afghanistan. She builds the story with her journey to the remote location of Commander Pigeon only to have her modern Joan of arc image shattered by a dumpy, grotesque and crass old woman.
Perhaps I am just partial to international stories having immigrated to the US from Australia but I thoroughly enjoyed Daniel Berehulak's “They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals” as horrible and violent as the situation in the article depicts within the Philippines, it is very well written and fantastically illustrated with photos, it sets the standard for online journalism and is a piece I might not have found outside of this class.
Although I had already initiated an immersion experience prior to starting W131, having to reflect and write about it gave me the opportunity to delve deeper into the why I was doing it. Starting Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was something I had been thinking about during the lockdown earlier this year and started as soon as the gym opened back up. It is a subculture much different from the main stream where participants voluntarily put their body through painful positions in a violent, tactical mess of limbs with another human. Not many stick with it, it is a very cognitive sport that requires personal fortitude which my research and writing for this class helped solidify.
When I have had the time since high school I have read a reasonable amount of non fiction and autobiographical books, a lot of news articles but I have not read as in-depth ones, rich in creativity like the required reading for this class which has opened my eyes to be more expressive in writing. I was able to shape, revise, and edit writing to meet concerns of purpose and audience. Reading the first draft of my Immersion experience and comparing it to my revised final edition, the addition of the final paragraph that expanded on the deeper meaning behind Jiu Jitsu and really breaking it down for people that have not experienced martial arts was a good way to emphasize and conclude my deeper motivation and the underlaying concept. I think it created a clear focus and strong thesis that provide additional support.
Like most, the only writing I have done since school has been work emails, memos and reports, an utter desert, desolate of creativity. I have become very critical of government and big business. W131 has given me the opportunity to try more creative writing and I would like to submit some op-eds in the hope of being published in a news paper. Learning to reflect on writing practices to improve them from this class I think will help me do that. This class has made me want to seek out better journalists and articles to read instead of swiping through the factory conveyor belt of headlines I have slumped into over the years.
My major is Paramedic Science and this is by far my highest scoring class, maybe reading and writing is something I should be putting more time into...
