Week 3: The advice that Adichie gives in her Ted talk is to not look at one version of a story but to look at all. By looking at all the sides you will learn more about the people involved and about people of different cultures and beliefs. Another thing that she mentions a lot is to be aware of stereotypes. Stereotypes can be very harmful to the truth of a story as it can make you believe something that might not be true because of the way certain people push stereotypes on others. I will use this advice this semester to try to understand everyone’s point of view and not be biased when writing. I also will take into consideration not feeding into stereotypes as it can cause lots of confusion or problems.

Week 4: The cultures and subcultures see. in the readings was Korean immigrant culture in Lee’s reading and Chinese immigrant culture in Tan’s. Both talk about immigration and being part of Asian- American culture. Academic culture is seen more in Tan’s reading compared to Lee’s which was more on language. But both talk about language barrier and immigrant silence subculture where many immigrants are forced to be silenced by others. The outsiders and insider perspective seen in both readings is the authors’ views on their lived experiences and what they felt about their mothers’ experiences with being in a new country that speak another language. The outsider perspective is seen-by both readings is how others used to see both authors’ mothers as dumb because they did not know English or didn’t speak it as well. They made them feel ashamed of their parents because of how they were treated by others. I would have liked for the authors to include a comparison between how their mothers were treated in their country and compare that to how they are treated in the United States. I feel like it would have made the readers think more. I will approach my transcultural interview by making sure to ask about background and questions that are personal so that additional questions like these get answered.

Week 6: What I have learned about my knowledge of field working in the observation I completed was how many patterns and themes you find when observing a room full of people. You get to see everyone from an outside perspective and you notice small things that you might have not noticed before. What I have learned from myself as a field worker while doing the observation was that I didn’t expect to be able to write so many notes on people just living their lives. At first, I found the idea creepy and I still kind of do but I understand more now why this is done.

Week 7: What I understood from reading Mama’s day by Gloria Naylor was that there was this woman who killed her slave owner and saved her people by doing so. There is this symbolic number that represents the island’s history and power that it holds. Outsiders like Reema seem to not see the deeper meanings and just see it as something to make theories about. The people of willow springs kept their history alive by storytelling and what they have experienced. There isn’t a movie or a book that reminds me of this story since it’s so unique and I don’t really read or watch stories like these. I would describe her writing style as mixing magic but also making sound very realistic. She also used lots of repetition and rhythms. What sounded out was how detailed the story was even though it was nonfiction it felt real. What I discovered when rereading the reading was the meaning of “18 & 23” . At first I wasn’t sure or didn’t really understand what it meant but now I have a better understanding of it. What I noted about culture in the reading was how outsiders seem to misinterpret the culture and make assumptions without knowing the truth. This happens a lot where outsiders misinterpret different cultures because they are different or have a certain stereotype they believe to be true.

Week 8: The elements of field working that I found in Wehle’s essay will be self observation, lived experience, reflection, and memory. She used these to write her experience in losing her parents and how that felt for her. She used all these elements to write a heartfelt and detailed essay, so you feel this piece through her perspective and her pain. She also reflects and analyses what the things like her parents’ bed meant to her, what it could symbolize. The strategy that I will use in my observation essay that Wehle’s use will be reelection. How I will use this will be by reflecting on what I saw in the online community and analyzing how people act or speak in the group to understand the individuals more.

Week 9: The culture information that Baldwin’s essay includes is black people’s experiences with the police in Harlem. A question that a field worker will ask to further undercover the culture the article describes can be “How often does this happen where the police tend to cause problems?” Another question can be “Why kind of problems do people who live in Harlem face?” A source of information that field workers can use to go through the insider perspective can be to do more research on black history or the history of Harlem. What I think of the passage of time between the two readings is that both readings have an age gap, but the experience is still similar even if years have passed their still problems caused by the police to black people. The police still highly rely on stereotypes made against black people. The next step that both articles offer is for people to look at all this and learn from these experiences. The next step I would add will be finding why police officers think it’s ok for them to act this way because they would not want to be disrespected in that way as-well.

Week 10: One learning objective or one component that I have engaged with this semester was to develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes. I used this in all three of my essays and I used it for each draft of my essays. I found it useful for my writing to be seen by others so I can get another perspective on what I need to fix or add that I didn’t see before. How I have developed in this area is getting better at giving feedback to others. I was never good at giving feedback to others because I was afraid to offend or upset anyone but during this semester, I feel like I tried to remove that fear. I feel like I improved by seeing it as helpful instead of rude.

Week 13: The benefits I see of a literature review in the social sciences will be having research on a certain topic that is relevant and important today. It can also be beneficial for those who need to do research on a topic and need scholarly articles to prove their points or to be seen as reliable. How the work that I’m doing aligns with those aspects can be having to go and use other articles similar or the same as a literature review to use in my essay. It can also be people who want to learn more of the topic I picked can learn about it as something not biased but informative.

The aspects and details that interest me the most in my literature review has to be the pay gap between men and women in the workplace. It’s such a huge issue with women getting discriminated against when they are doing the same if not more than most men in the industry. I find it to be interesting how that isn’t talked about as much as it should be nowadays. The intended point of my literature review is to open people’s eyes to gender discrimination in the workplace, especially for women and the problems it can cause to those individuals. Why I need to bring this point to the forefront of my document is because many might not see this as a problem or aren’t aware of this happening. Some might believe that this isn’t the 1950s and” women are allowed to work so why so much complaining”? I think it’s good for those who do not believe or even believe that gender discrimination is a huge issue and still has lots of work to be done for things to be equal.

Week 14: I think writing a reverse outline helped me stick to writing about one topic out of time in each paragraph and not getting carried away. It also helped me with what to put in my MMT as I could easily pick out the key information from my essay that I would include in my slide show. I will use the reverse outline in the future. Maybe when I have to turn my essay into something simpler, I could use a reverse outline to do so. I could also use it in the future as-well to make sure my essay has the information that is needed and organized.

Week 15: Something that I have learned that has been the most helpful for me when writing has been having an outline of a broken-down plan for my essay before writing it. I have never written down each thing that has to be in the essay like our professor did on the board. Even though it feels like something obvious to do I never thought of it, so I always found it to be the most helpful and made my writing less difficult to start. It helped me stay organized and focused on what should be included and what shouldn’t be. I would definitely use this in the future when having to draft essays.