Hey Everybody!

At the beginning of My FIWQS Writing course, I was told to view two images and write a literacy narrative essay about the rhetorical situation of the Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby Bridges and Glenn McCoy’s cartoon of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. The essay had to contain my opinionated stance, genres, media, etc. This essay challenged me to write in the first person and go in depth of how the situation of the illustrations made me feel and address my take on the problem by relating it to society. Below is my introductory paragraph for my literacy narrative essay.

In the first day of our FIWQS course, we were shown two images that looked very similar in an art form. We were shown Norman Rockwell’s painting “The Problem We All Live With” which is of a 6-year old African American girl, Ruby Bridges who stands in the lower class. And Glenn McCoy’s cartoon of Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos who is in the upper class. The images looked very similar side by side, which made me aggravated to see them compared, it made me question; why did cartoonist Glenn McCoy imitate the famous Rockwell painting? Was he trying to say that these two events and situations are alike? Or was he simply trying to make people angry at the sight of it, in order for it to gain popularity and recognition?

For my summary and response essay, I wrote about the neglection of mental illness by doctors around the 1900’s. My topic was based around Freud’s first lectures and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” regarding the new diagnosis from doctors found called ‘hysteria’ led to the neglection of mental disorders in women. In my essay I had to analyze how women were treated throughout the beginnings of the recognizing of mental illness and connect it back to Freud.

For this literacy narrative essay, my class was able to peer review each other’s work and give any feedback that might be beneficial to improving our essays before submitting it before the deadline. I was able to edit and reread my first draft by taking my peers feedback and criticism into account. By doing so, I feel my essay was written well and my grammar was fixed. For submitting my essay, I felt confident in my writing to not improve it drastically. I ended up getting a 90%, though I did revise it more and resubmitted it changing my grade to 95%.

I’ve always been terrible at citing for some reason, I never really understood it properly. At first, I didn’t know how to cite the quotes and my paraphrased version of what my intake on a specific part of the texts. So, when I was informed that I’d have to be doing that with all my essays this semester I was very hesitant and still confused about how to do so in order for me not to be told I was plagiarizing. But, with the help from my FIQWS Writing course, my professor Ms. Killebrew gave us a few ways of how to cite properly, as well as giving us many informative articles and examples of how to give credit when credit is due. Using her examples, I was able to cite accordingly on my critical research paper. Below is a body paragraph of my citation from a text

Bruno Bettelheim’s ideas are that using fairy tales can be beneficial for children in their developing years. Fairy tales are essential for children to understand the rights and wrongs within society. They also provide a sense of fulfillment of wishful desires because children have innocent fantasies. By using fairy tales, they can satisfy their wishes in contrast from their egos. Bettelheim states, “Further, the fairy tale offers solutions in ways that the child can grasp on his level of understanding.” This means a child can decipher the good from the bad, and to be able to recognize their actions which can lead to consequences or not. This includes acknowledging their feelings as being normal reactions when they are faced with life’s challenges. (Bettelheim 10)

 

For my exploratory essay, I was able to access the CCNY Library website that I was taught in a researching workshop for my writing class. The workshop gave informative insight for a way to researching properly and efficiently so that it can be much easier to access articles, journal entries, etc., without the use of Google or any other unreliable search engine. This information made it easier for me to look up any articles that could’ve strengthened my thesis for my Critical Research Paper. Below is my bibliography from my CRP.

Work Cited:  

−Freud, Sigmund. “New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis: The Dissection of the Psychical Personality.” 1933. PDF File. 

−Freud, Sigmund. “On Dreams” 1952. PDF File −Bettelheim, Bruno. “The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales.” 1976. PDF File
−Brothers Grimm “Rumpelstiltskin” 1812. https://www.grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/rumpelstiltskin
− Brothers Grimm. “Hansel and Gretel.” 1812. https://www.grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/hansel_and_gretel 

− Peller, Lili. “The Psychoanalytic Study of The Child: Daydreams and Children’s Favorite Books.” 1959. PDF File.

For the summary & response, exploratory essay, critical research analysis paper I was able to bring on the authors and prompt ideas, as well as including my own opinions about the prompts. I was able to incorporate my stance and point of view to express myself on the topics and give my take on how I absorbed the information and material given to me in my FIQWS content course.