6 Autoethnography

Decorative

Autoethnography Assignment Description

This unit offers an exciting opportunity to focus on connecting the personal to the cultural. This simply means that we will be exploring the ways in which our individual identities are necessarily tied to the culture(s) in which we were raised and in which we are currently living and articulating what that means to us as members of a larger society. For, although many of us prefer to think of ourselves as unique, much of our behaviors and thoughts are intrinsically tied to the people and ideas that surround us. Indeed, a common definition for culture is the learned behaviors, values, and beliefs that are shared and practiced by a group of people. Our larger society is composed, then, of these “groups of people,” and we form expectations and rules based on our recognition of them. For example, have you ever noticed how your behavior changes, however slightly, throughout a typical day of encounters on campus: with friends, roommates, acquaintances/classmates, professors and instructors, the person who sells your morning coffee? Or, how you use different language to speak with your parents as opposed to your romantic partner? Your roommates and your bosses? These (often) seamless decisions you make actually play into a complex and dynamic social system that both acknowledges your role in the situation and evaluates your contribution to maintaining the social order. What does it mean to be a woman, we might observe, or to be a member of a particular racial or ethnic group, and what happens if we challenge conventional expectations?

decorative

This approach to theorizing the self is a new answer to an old question: Who am I?

Contemporary philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah further describes the socially constructed nature of identity, noting “Our families and schools, our churches and temples, our professional associations and clubs, provide two essential elements in the tool kit of self-creation: first, they provide ready-made identities—son, lover, husband, doctor, teacher, Methodist…—whose shapes are constituted by norms and expectations, stereotypes and demands, rights and obligations; second, they give us a language in which to think about these identities and with which we may shape new ones.”[1]

The language that we use to explore identities in our society often primarily focuses on how we conceive of gender, socioeconomic status (class), and race, and how we allocate power accordingly. For example, as we’ll discuss in the next chapter, ideas of what it means to be a man or woman are culturally negotiated, meaning that while there are biological sex differences, gender differences enjoy a varied spectrum that in itself contains expectations of behaviors. And, when thinking about the social construction of class in the U.S. (a topic we’ll explore in Unit 3), you might be familiar with the notion of the “American dream,” where hard work and perseverance are rewarded with social power in the form of status and higher income. Such line of thought goes something like this: if you work hard, you will be able to succeed, no matter the conditions of your birth. This theory of social mobility has deep roots in the U.S. and yet is challenged by increasing gaps in wealth and access to education. How our society grapples with that increased stratification supports Appiah’s assertion that language can help us shape new identities, for, what would we call the “American dream” today. Further, what do you think about the revelation that race is a social invention based not on biological distinctions but rather on shifting political and demographic landscapes? Social psychologist Marilynn Brewer explains that such social identities as gender, class, and race,“are based on collective beliefs about shared attributes, values, and experiences that constitute the content of specific social identities.”[2] In other words, writers like Appiah and Brewer want us to know that in order to really understand ourselves as individuals, we need to do at least two things: reflect on personal experience and analyze how those personal experiences reflect and contribute to larger social structures, and/or challenge those social expectations.

society word cloud

 

We will continue to explore these concepts throughout the semester, but how you see yourself as an individual is likely to be connected to at least one of these key identifying factors. Your ability to describe and reflect upon that sense of self is what we will be exploring in the first essay, the Autoethnography.

What Is The Autoethnography And Who Will Read It?

While there will be many occasions during this course to conduct outside research, the autoethnography asks you to focus instead on the personal, subjective experience of your own life, and to explore the ways in which an individual experience acts in dialogue with the larger structures of society. Your essay will concentrate on one “snapshot” moment of your life in which you learned something about how others see you as part of our larger society. Perhaps you have a vivid memory of realizing yourself as middle-class, for example, or of the first time in which you saw yourself as a man. Such moments of self-awareness require quite a bit of reflective thinking as you search your past for examples and then analyze what they mean in connection to your socially constructed identity. The heart of your essay will be the analysis, those connections you make between your own sense-of-self and the broader social meaning: what does it mean to be middle-class in our society today? What does it mean to be a man or woman? What does it mean to be a member of a particular ethnic group? How do we describe and define those terms, and what meaning do they hold for us and for those around us?

Your writing will include narrative techniques and well-developed analysis that makes connections between your personal experience and the larger social structure for a general, interested academic community of readers that includes your classmates and instructor.

What Will Your Autoethnography Look Like?

Your autoethnography will have two parts: a narrative that illustrates a single moment connected to a part of your cultural identity, and an analysis that explains how the narrative reveals something significant about that cultural identity and what you think it reveals about your place in society. This assignment should be a total of 1000-1250 words. The narrative will provide the sensory focus of the essay—the who, what, when, and where— and should be contained to 250-300 words. It follows, then, that the analysis—the why and “what does it all mean” part—will be 750-1000 words. While this is meant to read as a single essay, breaking it into two sections helps you in two important ways. First, offering your narrative as a snapshot moment allows you the space to really invite the readers into your experience. They want to understand you better and stories are a powerful way of letting them do that. Second, analyzing how the narrated moment relates to your own sense of identity further shapes the readers’ understanding of who you are, which is an important part of being in a community. Most importantly, that explanation will lead you to more deeply explore the meaning of your social identity. To fully understand that broader meaning, you’ll have to ask questions of your narrative, the types of which are provided as examples here: What are the terms and implications of being a member of the middle-class in our society? How do we understand the values and significance of gender roles as they relate to our own lives? What does it mean to be a young African American adult in today’s culture? This analysis will provide critical insight into your “place” in society and will deepen your understanding of how that society functions.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this assignment, you should be able to do the following:

  • Demonstrate awareness of how you are positioned as a member of a particular cultural group.
  • Narrate a specific experience that is relevant in illustrating cultural identity.
  • Use descriptive strategies to vividly create impressions for the readier.
  • Identify how identity is influenced by the structures of gender, class, and/or race.
  • Analyze implications of social systems in your life, particularly as revealed in your experience.

Rationale

This assignment gives you the opportunity to focus on diversity and to connect analysis—the type of writing that we normally expect to see at the college level—with creative nonfiction and storytelling strategies. The type of flexibility that is required to connect these two different purposes of writing is important to your development as an academic writer; it also helps to meet both the critical thinking and communication Student Learning Outcomes for K-State.

How Should I Think About Analysis?

As human beings, we are often content to stay within our comfort zones, believing in the truth of our experiences and the value of our traditions. This essay, and this class in general, challenges you to go beyond the surface of your experiences and consider the reasons why and how those truths, and/or traditions, came to be. Challenging commonly held beliefs does not mean that they are wrong or inaccurate (although some may be), but the act of reconsidering itself helps to deepen your understanding of the world and to strengthen your critical thinking skills. Such goals are fundamental to a college education.

To help you develop strong critical thinking skills, we’ll be asking you questions that will vary for each assignment but that build upon the following foundations of analytic thinking: [3]

  • Purpose—What is the objective or goal of this text? Of this activity?
  • Information—What examples are provided to support the purpose? What types of examples are they?
  • Conclusions—How do I interpret the information provided? Are my conclusions different from the writer’s?
  • Concepts—What are the underlying theories, principles, or definitions that I must know in order to understand the text?
  • Point of View—What are the assumptions the writer makes about the topic? How does that perspective reveal his or her worldview? Am I as the reader applying my own presuppositions? What clarifying questions would I like to ask the writer?
  • Implications/Consequences—What is the significance of this topic or idea? Why and how does it matter to the world beyond the writer? This is the “so what” question.

Developing critical thinking skills requires a type of intellectual courage; you must be exposed to different perspectives and engage with them in order to better understand yourself and, thus, better understand how you operate in the world.

Activity: Getting to Know Yourself

Many social psychologists and sociologists argue that “the groups we belong to profoundly influence how others know us—they are the lens through which people view us.”[4] Reflecting on how others know us and how we know ourselves is the first step in both thinking critically about your identity and drafting your Autoethnography. Below is a series of prompts that will help you begin.

  • What are some of your “ready-made” identities as characterized in the introductory paragraphs of this chapter? Are you someone’s son or daughter, for example, and/or were you raised in a particular religious tradition? These are types of identity categories to which you belong purely by chance/birth. List as many of these “ready-made” identities that you can think of.
  • What are some groups of which you are a part voluntarily, your “self-created” identities? You might think here about political affiliations and occupational interests. Again, list as many as you can think of. Now, think about how others might view the same groups, for, as social psychologists would continue, “Although some of our self-views are gained by direct experience with our environment, most of what we know about ourselves is derived from others.”[5] Looking at the list you just created to describe aspects of your own identity, respond to the following prompts.
  • How have you heard other people who share in your “ready-made” and “self- created” identities describe or characterize themselves?
  • How have you heard others who do not share in those identities characterize those identities? For example, if you identify as a member of a particular political party, how have you heard others of opposing or alternative parties describe yours? How do such characterizations make you feel?

Activity: Getting To Know Each Other

Before we go further in drafting the Autoethnography, it is important to get to know a part of the audience to which you will be writing: your classmates. Indeed, your classmates will be your writing community for an entire semester, serving as readers of your work at all stages of the writing process. And, as the main theme of this course is the relationship between communities and identities, we think it’s good to begin that conversation about how our identities intersect with or differ from others in our community by officially introducing ourselves in a brief essay.

This first writing activity provides a chance to continue flexing your self-reflective muscles and will help you get to know the other members of your writing community. You will share it with your classmates and turn it in to your instructor for informal evaluation as a kind of “diagnostic” moment. This means that while the activity will not be formally graded, it will serve to introduce you as a writer to your instructor who will be looking for signs of writing strengths and weaknesses.

To complete this introduction, you should respond to this question: What do others need to know in order to understand what it’s like to be me? In addition to the responses from the previous writing activity, you might also find it useful to think about the following social demographic categories:

  • Age
  • Ethnic Heritage
  • Gender
  • Region
  • Race
  • Class
  • Marital status
  • Able-bodiedness

As you draft this introduction be sure to be explicit about what has influenced you and how it has influenced you. You might also consider writing about the relationship between more than one factor, e.g. divorced woman or young Latino. Offer your readers specific details and examples to explain your points, and be sure to provide enough of that explanation to help them understand where you’re coming from.

Your instructor might have you complete the writing task in-class, or may assign it as homework. When you have finished the activity, you will join your classmates in a circle and do a round- robin reading of the introductions. As you read your classmates’ work, look for both shared experiences (common ground) as well differing perspectives, not to judge or critique them, but to better understand where each of your classmates is coming from. You should also keep some notes of your own to help you remember names. This is a dynamic way to engage with your peers immediately, and to build a strong foundation from which you’ll work together throughout the semester.

Activity: Choosing a Topic for the Autoethnography

Beginning an essay can be challenging, especially if we sit down to write thinking that we have to find the “best” idea or the most “correct” answer right away. And, as your previous reflective work on pages 35–37, the introductory essay, and the discussion of Reyes’ essay likely demonstrate, there are many ways in which our self-perceptions are both shaped and reflected—and sometimes challenged—by the way society sees us.

typewriter, photos, notebook, pen, camera, mug, and newspaper on desk

Beyond the reflective work you’ve already completed, then, a helpful strategy at this stage of the essay is to explore your history, looking for events and situations that hold some meaning for you and reflect the ways in which your identity is influenced by social expectations. Perhaps you vividly remember conversations in the kitchen with your mom, discussing your emerging political views; or maybe you recall a holiday during which your brother received very different toys than you did. Writing a list—without stopping for details just yet—can help you get some ideas on the page.

How Matt Discovered His Story

When Matt first started to think about his Autoethnography topic, he thought he would never find an idea. “I don’t have a cultural identity,” he told his instructor. “I’m just a regular white guy from Salina.”

Matt’s instructor suggested that he generate a list of meaningful events in his life. She told him not to worry about the cultural identity part of the assignment as he made his lists. Matt followed his instructor’s advice, and his list is reproduced below.

Events

  • Teaching guitar lessons
  • Graduation trip
  • Graduation ceremony
  • Leaving my best guitar at home
  • Learning to ride a horse
  • Learning to drive the tractor
  • Getting grandpa’s watch from dad
  • Jenna’s accident

After creating his list of meaningful events, Matt chose two of the ideas on which to freewrite: getting his grandpa’s watch and leaving his guitar at home. You can read those freewrites below. [A note here on freewriting: Your goal in this stage of the writing process is to get down on paper any and all ideas that come to mind when you think about the prompt. Aim to write without stopping for at least several minutes, or as directed by your instructor, and do not stop to edit or censor your words and ideas. This strategy helps you access your thoughts without restraint.]

Grandpa’s Watch

My dad gave me his father’s watch when I was 18. His father had given it to him, too. It’s an old pocket watch and it doesn’t work anymore, but it was important to my dad so it’s important to me, especially since my grandpa died from stomach cancer two years ago. When he gave it to me, my dad told me that I should hang onto it and give it to my son someday, so that’s what I’m going to do.

My Guitars

I have six guitars. Three of them are acoustic and three are electric. Guitar playing has always been a hobby of mine, and my mom plays guitar too. I brought two of my guitars with me to

school. The best guitar I have is an acoustic made of Brazilian Rosewood. It makes other guitars sound like crap. I left it at home though when I came to K-State because my mom was afraid someone might try to rip it off. It cost almost $3000.

Now that Matt has two paragraphs written, one for each idea, he must choose which topic seems best suited to the objectives of the Autoethnography. Play the role of Matt’s classmate by helping him test his topic ideas through this talk-it-out activity.

  1.  Can you see a way that his grandpa’s watch or his guitars could relate to his gender, class, or race? What kind of story might he think about telling?
  2. Look back at his original list. Do any of the other possible topics relate to gender, class, or race? In what ways?
  3. As a reader, what do you think Matt’s best potential topic is and why do you think so?

Now it’s time to choose YOUR topic. Using the work you have already completed as a starting point, create your own quick list of important events. Then, choose two or three topics over which to freewrite.

Once you have written those paragraphs, get into small groups with your classmates and talk-it- through.

  1. Share your freewrite paragraphs with your peers. For each classmate, identify the connection between the topic and the writer’s cultural identity (gender, class, race, etc.). What is that connection?
  2. Look back to each group member’s original list. For each of the other topics, can you see a possible connection to an aspect of the writer’s cultural identity—race, class, gender? What are those connections? [Note: asking the writers questions here is as useful as telling them what you see.]
  3. As a reader, what do you think is each writer’s best potential topic and why do you think so? It would be useful to review the assignment guidelines first.

After you have written your responses to these prompts for each of your group members, discuss your findings with each other, ask clarifying questions, and offer further feedback. Such talking-it-through moments support the writing process by letting you informally test ideas before committing to just one on paper.

Another Approach

If you’re still struggling to find a topic for the narrative portion of your Autoethnography, try starting with social identity lenses instead. Do you remember a moment in which you were made aware of your gender? For example, was there a holiday in which your sister received more stereotypically feminine toys (dolls and doll houses, for example) and you were given more stereotypically masculine toys (a football or baseball, cars, or building blocks)? Do you remember a moment in which you were made aware of your racial identity? Or a moment in which you were made aware of your (or your family’s) socioeconomic class?

Student Examples

Moving Into My Gender Identity

Katie Brophy

We have reached a point in the writing process where looking at examples of the assignment may prove useful. As you read the following essays, pay close attention to the moment the writers chose to narrate and consider how your potential topic relates.

Katie Brophy wrote this autoethnography in Emi Griess’s Expos I class when it was a slightly different assignment. Your autoethnography does not require outside research.

I remember the day very clearly. It was a sunny spring day, with the faint aroma of flowers beginning to blossom. I had just gotten home from school, where I was in the third grade. My mom had picked up my brother, sister, and me from school that day, and we were all just talking about how our days had been. It was really nothing out of the norm. That was until she told us the news. My Uncle Tim was moving back to Kansas City. After all these years of just seeing him on holidays, I was finally going to be able to see him more. I couldn’t believe it. Uncle Tim was my favorite uncle. I was looking forward to showing him the strong independent young lady I was becoming, and he would see the difference. As the days passed, I began to get antsy. I began to periodically check the clock, as if I were waiting for it to miraculously skip forward to the time when I would be leaving to go to my Uncle Tim’s new place. I was ready to do everything in my power to ensure that my Uncle Tim would stay here in Kansas City permanently. After what seemed like forever, the day finally came. It was move in day. Not only was he coming back, but I would get to help him move into his new house.

I remember the sense of excitement I felt when I saw that big, white truck with an orange stripe and the writing “U-Haul” on its side. And there beside it stood my Uncle Tim. He had not changed one bit. His hair was still jet black, and he called me over in his soft, inviting voice, which, until that moment, I had not realized how much I had missed it. “Katarina,” he said. It was his pet name for me. I absolutely could not wait now to get into the truck and start helping out my uncle. There is just something about a huge truck that seems to open up endless possibilities when you are young. I kept imagining what might be in it. As my uncle and dad opened the truck and began unloading everything from it, I decided I wanted to help. My dad began telling me things to grab and ways I could help out, and I quickly got to work. I grabbed whatever my little body could hold. The dry, rough, dirty cardboard boxes began scratching up my soft tender skin. But I didn’t care about how hard it was, nor did I mind the musty smell of the truck that was now masking the spring scent of flower blossoms. In my mind, it was a lot of fun proving how grown up I was. The fact that I was capable of helping my dad and uncle, two men whom I really looked up to, was a new experience. By helping them unload the truck, I was proving to myself that I was beginning to become strong and capable like them. It was so intoxicating that I started to get carried away. I began picking up boxes that were heavier and heavier and heavier.

Right about then would probably have to be when my Great Aunt Mimi came out. I will never forget that moment. She came out in the evening as the sun was setting. It was the ending to what had to have been a perfect spring day. She was wearing her favorite dress, blue and white plaid, and she was walking out with the support of her old, beat up walker. But to be honest, I didn’t even notice her at first. I was so wrapped up in my unpacking that I didn’t know what was going on around me. That is, until her persistent waving caught my attention. There I was, standing up in the truck, with a box of miscellaneous items I had just picked up. She was right beside the truck, not threatening or anything of that nature, just simply standing there, trying to capture my attention. Little did I know what she was about to tell me.

As I was standing in the truck holding the box, she yelled at me, “Katie, honey, why don’t we leave the unpacking for the stronger men?” At first I didn’t think much about it. I just simply replied, “It’s all right. I can get it!” She wouldn’t take that as an answer. She said, “Katie, you need to come in. After all, who is going to help me make some lemonade for the men?” I was shocked by her words. Lemonade? Are you serious? Can’t they make their own? My mind began to wander thinking about the lemonade. I began to imagine the taste of a sweet tall glass.

Almost immediately my mouth began to salivate. After realizing what I was doing, I quickly snapped back to reality. People have survived without lemonade, and if anyone wanted it so badly, they were fully capable of making some. Why should I give up something fun to do something so boring, like making their lemonade? I could see the slight look of disgust in her face. Her disapproval now was obvious. She was not pleased to see me working like my dad or uncle. I was even more upset and puzzled. I tried to understand why my great aunt would ask me to stop helping. After all, I was older and supposed to be taking on more responsibility.

After what seemed like forever, but probably really was only a few seconds, a light bulb finally went off in my head. I had done nothing wrong. In fact, the problem was that I was doing too much. I was a young girl trying to do a man’s job, or at least that’s how my great aunt saw it.

Looking back now, I can’t remember a time where I felt more distant from my great aunt. I felt out of place, like I didn’t belong anywhere. She was telling me I didn’t belong working beside the men. However, I certainly knew I did not belong inside making lemonade for two men who were perfectly capable of making it themselves. My world had been flipped upside down. I was in charge of who I was and nobody else! It wasn’t until later that I realized how one’s environment could affect one’s gender identity.

Analysis

To this day, my stomach still does a flip every time I think of what Great Aunt Mimi said to me. Not only did she ruin my fun that day, but she opened up a whole new aspect of society which I had never known. Before this moment, I had never really comprehended that society had expectations related to one’s gender. I was me. I was young. Yes, I was a girl. However, I was still strong and capable. At least that’s what I had always previously believed. No one had ever told me before that who I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to act was determined by my gender. I realized I was a part of society, and as a member of society, I needed to figure out where I belonged. After thinking about it, I could not help but laugh at my great aunt telling me to “leave the lifting for the stronger men” and “come make some lemonade.” She was caught up in an older, more traditional culture, and was not able to see that times were clearly changing.

Women were establishing their independence more and more each day, changing expectations and surpassing limitations that society had originally placed on them, leaving some women confused.

Looking back on it, of course, I was pretty torn apart when I was first informed of these “traditional” gender expectations of society. These were quite different from the expectations which I was raised with. My dad and my Uncle Tim both wanted me to help out and become independent, while my great aunt wanted the complete opposite of me. It was like I was being torn between two very different extremes with no middle ground. One side was telling me to be independent and break away from old traditional ideas. The other was telling me to stick to traditional views, relying completely on men. I found that my dad and uncle’s expectations of women in society conflicted with those of my great aunt’s. Rick Nauer describes this conflict in his article, “Media Influences Change in Female Roles,” when he says, “Women are expected to be both more independent and ambitious and more socially connected and nurturing.” The fact is that today, the identity which women are expected to fulfill in society is inconsistent and very diverse, depending upon one’s environment. For me, the idea that I was expected to do something because of my gender was a new monumental idea.

I think this experience will always be remembered by me because it was a true epiphany. It ruined my day, yes, but it opened my eyes. I finally had to face reality. I had entered a new time in my life where not only was everything I thought and believed important, but so was everything else that went on around me. I realized that there was a lot more to life than I originally thought. Yes, it was important to be yourself and who you are, but it was also important to succeed in life. And in order to succeed in life, it was necessary to become a part of society, find your place in it, and face the expectations. It didn’t mean you had to accept these expectations or live by them in any way. It meant you had to at least  understand they were there.

While I was listening to my great aunt talk, I learned a lot. I learned that I would and could never fully fit into a society where I was expected to be dependent upon men. I began realizing how lucky I was to have grown up in an environment and day and age where women’s expectations were centered on independence. In the past it was not always this way. In fact, the movement towards women’s independence really did not pick up until recently. According to writer Cynthia Harrison’s article, “The Changing Role of Women in American Society,” women began establishing their independence in 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution (10). She goes on to explain the evolution of women’s roles in society since the 1920’s, saying, “The change in women’s status in the decades since World War II has been dramatic. The right of a married woman to work outside the home is no longer in question, especially because most families with two parents depend on a second income” (12). Harrison’s article proves that times are changing, along with women’s roles in society. Not only were women’s roles changing in the 1920’s, but they are still evolving even today. My experience validated this fact. I realized that in today’s society women were still seen to be weak and defenseless at times, although these expectations were changing. Thinking about the women in my own life whom I admired, specifically my mom, I realized that I did not have to be this way. Even if society was telling me to act needy and defenseless, I did not have to agree or live by it. I learned that a woman could still be a part of society today, even if she was not the stereotypical woman who followed gender expectations from the past. Even if there were these expectations, she could still be true to herself.

I am thankful for this experience. It was upsetting, but I believe it made me into the person I am today. I take pride in my abilities and would rather work by myself. I accept help when I need it, but I challenge myself to be as independent as I can. I took what my great aunt claimed was my identity in society, considered it, and then created my own new gender identity. I learned that even though society places expectations on its members, you can still choose who you want to be. No one can force you. I saw that I was very fortunate to be where I am today, in a society which accepts the changing identity and roles of women. The truth is that we need society to survive. By creating societies, we have created certain identities, or generalizations, as to how people should fit in. Everybody is a part of society, and by being a part of society we are affected by the expectations which it places upon us. It is our duty to ourselves, as individuals, to choose to accept or form our own identity. Even though society affects who we are, it cannot determine our whole identity. We decide that for ourselves.

Works Cited

Harrison, Cynthia. “From the Home to the House: The Changing Role of Women in American Society.” U.S. Society and Values, vol. 2, no. 2, June 1997, pp. 10-12.

Nauert, Rick. “Media Influences Change in Female Roles.” PsychCentral, psychcentral.com/news/2011/04/02/media-influences-change-in-female- roles/24902.html.

Post-Reading Questions

  1. What aspect of Brophy’s social identity is explored in this essay? How can you tell?
  2. Once Brophy has articulated something about her own identity, the Autoethnography requires that she connect that knowledge to the larger society. Where do you see Brophy making those connections in the analysis?
  3. How does Brophy answer the “so what” question once she has established her social positionality? Or, in other words, what are the implications of her insight as it relates to her place in society? What will she do with that knowledge?

Keeping these types of questions in mind, please read the following autoethnography. What major differences do you see, in how the writer is using her narrative, identifying a social identity, and exploring its significance?

Claiming My Ancestry

Sophia Shaar

Sophia Shaar wrote this autoethnography in Ryan Ellis’s Expos I class.

Rubbing my eyes, I stared again at the two emojis that had popped up on my screen: a man with a turban and a bomb. I had been texting a friend before I went to bed, joking casually, when he sent me those two emojis, completely unrelated to any previous text. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I simply sent back a few question marks. Maybe it was a mistake, and he had not meant to send those two specific emojis with no other context like I was supposed to catch onto a joke. I doubted it as I lay there with my amusement from a few moments ago fading. Within a few minutes, I felt my phone buzz in my hand and checked for his response.

“What don’t you get? He’s from the Middle East so he’s a terrorist.” Just as I suspected, my friend was trying to make a “joke” that I had seen and heard many times before. Feeling unsettled, I quickly typed back a response to my friend that explained how uncomfortable I felt hearing that joke since my dad’s side of the family is Middle Eastern, making me of Middle Eastern descent as well, and asked him to stop making comments like that. In minutes, my friend replied with apologies, claiming he never would have been so insensitive if he had known I had such a personal connection with the subject matter and promising that he wouldn’t do it again. I thanked him but ended the conversation quickly after that, saying I needed to get to bed when in actuality I just felt uncomfortable talking to him after that comment and decided to give it a break for a bit.

As I stayed awake reflecting upon the incident, I considered his and others’ perception of Middle Eastern people—which obviously was not positive. Even though my friend apologized to me after making a racist generalization, it still did not detract from the fact that he thought it was acceptable to make such a comment in the first place. When I thought about my own attitude towards people of Middle Eastern descent, I realized that these negative opinions surrounding me had affected my viewpoints and acceptance of my heritage. I had chosen to keep that part of myself concealed for the most part in order to avoid people associating me with adverse conceptions they held about people from the Middle East.

Analysis

The conversation with my friend made me more aware of the kind of discrimination that many people of Middle Eastern ancestry face in everyday life. I likely have escaped this so far because my ethnicity is not obvious from my appearance—any observation would lead many to believe that I am only white. However, for others whose race is more distinguishably Middle Eastern, life becomes more complicated as they face generalizations, bias, and discrimination from parts of the population living in the United States. Distrusted and labelled as terrorists, people from the Middle East often alter their habits and behavior to avoid facing the prejudices of society.

While texting my friend, he had assumed I would catch his reference as if the supposed fact that all Middle Eastern people are terrorists is common, widespread knowledge. Unfortunately, though clearly false, this idea is disturbingly prevalent in our society. Most news coverage of the Middle East focuses on negative situations in that region: the war-torn countries, the fleeing refuges, and the radical groups vying for control. This obviously does not provide a complete picture of this region or the people that inhabit it; however, the negative and narrow coverage of the Middle East is often the only information much of America uses to form their opinions.

And since all this coverage shows is destruction and despair at the hands of a few terrorists, people assume that this is the nature of the whole population living within the Middle East and conclude that any person from that region is also a terrorist. This ingrained perception leads to bigotry and prejudice towards people from the Middle East, causing them to tamp down some of their culture in order to avoid discrimination.

People of Middle Eastern descent sometimes feel the need to make their ethnicity less obvious to escape the attention of hostile eyes who may believe the stereotypes and generalizations made about this population. For example, many women from this culture wear head coverings such as hijabs, burqas, or scarves, but these coverings draw attention to the individuals wearing them since they are not as common in this region of the world. To prevent from bringing attention to themselves, the women “that chose, or had to, go into public would wear their scarves in a manner that could not be recognized” in order to avoid notice and, consequentially, discrimination (Jolls et al. 5). Middle Eastern women can feel uncomfortable wearing their head coverings since they are unfortunately signifiers of their culture to unsympathetic members of society, sometimes leading to confrontation between women wearing the coverings and the people who hold negative opinions of people from the Middle East. Many people from the Middle East might also refrain from speaking in a language other than English in public, even if it’s more comfortable. Speaking in another language also attracts attention from people nearby who, again, may hold unfavorable opinions of people originating from the Middle East, and so speaking only in English when in public is a precaution many people from this population take in order to avoid generating unwanted interest.

The incident with my friend made me realize how much the perceptions of society had become present in my own thinking. Of course, I was not and never had been under the impression that a whole population of people could all be terrorists. However, I know I deliberately kept the specifics of my ethnicity to myself most of the time because I had always felt that my Middle Eastern heritage was not to be shared widely with my peers. I was never ashamed of who I was or where my family was from, but a small part of me felt uneasy revealing that detail to people because I was worried about what they might think of me or my relatives. Until this incident, I had succumbed to the perception that being Middle Eastern was forbidden and unmentionable lest I wanted to be looked upon differently by my classmates or the adults I interacted with.

However, now that I have come to terms with how I view my ethnicity after this incident and decided it was not acceptable, I have no issue with claiming that part of my identity publicly.

Additionally, I have grown more comfortable with my relatives’ culture as a result of this incident. They have always embraced their traditions and continued to dress, eat, and speak the same after immigrating to the United States as they did back home in Syria. When I was younger and more under the influence of the perceptions of people around me because those were the most present sentiments I was exposed to, I felt slightly uncomfortable with how “different” my relatives acted. The dresses they wore, the food they cooked, and the language they spoke and watched television in were so different than the culture I was exposed to most of the time, and I shied away from labeling and including myself as the same ethnicity as them. As I grew older, however, and had experiences like the one in my narrative, I realized that I should claim my heritage because it was something I should be proud of rather than something I should feel uncomfortable expressing or seeing.

Overall, this incident raised my awareness of not only the perceptions of the people surrounding me but also my own perceptions of people of Middle Eastern ancestry. I realized that many people hold unfavorable opinions of this ethnicity, resulting from mostly negative news coverage, which leads to discrimination against people from the Middle East. This discrimination affects how the general population of Middle Eastern people residing within the United States acts as well as my own perceptions of my race. After receiving the offensive comment from my friend, I recognized the fact that I had been avoiding my Middle Eastern roots and decided to start embracing that part of my identity. Today, I am proud of my heritage and celebrate the culture that I share with my family.

Work Cited

Jolls, Heather, et al. “The View of Muslims and Arabs in America Before and After September 11th.” California State University Northridge, www.csun.edu/~sm60012/GRCS- Files/Muslims-post-9-11.htm.

Activity: Finding the Right Details

Once you’ve chosen a productive moment on which to focus, you can utilize some strategies from the genre known as creative nonfiction, which offers essays that are factually accurate, often research-based, but with an attention to literary style. What do we mean by literary style here? Mostly this: show us more than you tell us. You want to create dramatic tension by using important sensory details. Compare the following examples:

The ceramic bread bowl that has been in my family for five generations has a nice, reassuring feel to it that I realize my foremothers must have felt as well.

  • These “tell” words interpret the scene without describing it. “Tell” words deliver prepackaged ideas to the reader (pleasant, happy, depressing, annoying, pretty, etc.). Try to keep these words in balance within your narrative.

As the bowl’s smooth, solid, ceramic interior guides my hands back to a forming ball of dough, I imagine my great-grandmother’s hands brushing against the sides of this same bowl as she spent hours kneading dough that would be made into countless zwiebach, bierrocks, and verenike for her family’s sustenance.

  •  These “show” words describe a scene through sensory details and repetitious phrases. The description itself evokes the desired effect without requiring the writer to state it overtly.

You should notice, too, how the second example demonstrates a sense of pacing. Effective narratives center on just one moment, rather than a string of events, and provide readers with temporal details—that is, there is a beginning, middle, and an end. As you plot your experience, remember that something has to happen, even if it’s not an actual physical occurrence (an accident, for example, or an argument). That “something to happen” is often what we think of as a point of learning—an aha! moment—when we realize a powerful truth or recognize an unexpected flaw.

Activity: Writing the Plot

At this point, you should have tested a few ideas through freewriting and peer conversation and chosen your best idea for the autoethnography. You have also discussed the role of sensory details in your narrative. Now it’s time to focus on the plot itself. There are many strategies that can help you move forward with your ideas. For example, you could diagram the plot using a storyboard, a visual representation of the scenes or events that make up a story. A storyboard uses sketches and words to present an outline of the story. Writers use them to map out the plot of their stories and to help them decide what details to include. Making a storyboard can also help you decide the best place for the point of learning in your story.

Follow these directions:

Make a storyboard for your own personal ethnography narrative. Be sure to include a point of learning (an “aha!” moment) as you outline your plot. If you find that your storyboard has more than five sections, you may be trying to include too many details in your story. Don’t worry about the quality of your artwork. Instead, focus on using the visual structure to help you better see the arch of your narrative.

  • Read your narrative carefully, looking for the point of learning.
  • Divide the story into sections based on where the action is taking place and what is happening. (You will likely have four or five sections.)
  • Divide a sheet of paper into sections or boxes and draw one sketch for each section of the story, using captions as necessary to support a more complex drawing.

You can also create a linear outline to diagram your narrative, following much the same pattern as the storyboard but without the sketches. For your own draft, capture the most important plot features in the order they happened, and begin to assess where the point of learning takes place.

Activity: Testing Your Narrative

Once your narrative is planned, through either the storyboard or linear outline, you should feel ready to put more words on the page by filling in the gaps between your sections. These questions might help you as write:

  • What is the beginning, middle, and end of my story? How am I guiding my readers along this path? Am I using words like first, next, then, for example?
  • What are the most important moments within my narrative? Am I including enough detail in those moments to help draw a reader’s attention to them?
  • If part of my narrative recalls a conversation, do I include dialogue? How can I make that dialogue sound realistic? [Note: it’s almost impossible to remember conversations verbatim; you should aim for recreating the truth of the scene.] When using dialogue, keep in mind the following conventions: –Start a new paragraph each time a different character speaks. –Place periods and commas inside the quotation marks. –Be clear about which character is speaking.
  • Where does the point of learning best fit in my narrative? Do I want that aha! moment to be implied or made explicit? Why? What’s the impact of either choice?

After you have completed a rough draft of your narrative, 1–1.5 pages, your instructor might ask you to bring a copy to class in order to workshop it with your peers

Analyzing the Narrative

Of the 4–5 pages you will write for your autoethnography, at least three of them will share your analysis of the narrative by connecting your experience to a specific aspect of your social identity—usually in terms of gender, socioeconomic status, race and/or ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Often the tension that exists in the space between how we see ourselves and how society views us lends itself to significant exploration that can prove useful both in sharpening our critical thinking skills and our self-awareness. As members of an academic community, we find value in this exercise. Educational psychologists Linda Elder and Richard Paul describe it as living “in a world, both personal and social, in which every situation is “defined,” that is, given a meaning. How a situation is defined determines not only how we feel about it, but also how we act in it, and what implications it has for us.”[6] The autoethnography analysis encourages you to define your “situation” and articulate its meaning—both for you, personally, and for the larger society of which you are a part.

Writing as Thinking

One way to begin drafting this section is to approach your narrative with the lens of a social researcher who would ask the following questions:

magnifying glass with arrows radiating out representing race, class, gender, sexual orientation

  • With what social lens are you going to examine your experience? (Gender? Socio- economic status? Race and/or Ethnicity?) Remember here your talk-it-out activity from choosing a topic. What were your classmates’ ideas then? What are the details in your narrative that connect most clearly to this lens?
  • What is significant about this social lens? You might think about revelations of power, and/or about the purpose of the social category. For what reasons would a society want structured gender roles, for example, or a broadly defined middle- class?

Tips on Writing the Analysis

Because this is the first essay you’re writing for this course, it makes sense to talk a little more generally about strategies writers utilize to develop their ideas. When writing, you are always making choices as to how to organize your thoughts and explain your information and becoming more aware of those choices is an important step in developing thoughtful essays. Generally, it is possible to identify the different elements of an essay with the terms, exposition, example, and explanation. A sentence of exposition, for instance, establishes the purpose of an essay (like a thesis statement or controlling idea) as well provides a topic sentence for individual paragraphs within the essay; an example might be anecdotal or experience-based, as in the Autoethnography, or it might be discovered through outside research and be a fact, definition, quote, etc. The explanatory sentence makes connections between the example and the exposition and should make up the majority of a well-developed essay. The explanation is also the heart of your analysis section for the Autoethnography.

However, some sentences may serve more than one function, and complex sentences may do all three at once (plus provide a transition). So, be careful not to over-apply these terms. Rather than forcing you to write formulaically, these categories are meant to assist you in developing your ideas.

It’s useful to be familiar with other terms for these categories: some textbooks might call exposition, “points” and examples, “particulars.” A summary of an article is the points without the particulars (or the exposition without the examples). Most expressive and informative writing, however, includes much more than just your points. Generally, readers need examples (evidence) to understand your points, as well as further explanation of how you came up with your points or how your examples add up to illustrate your generalizations.

Depending on your rhetorical situation, it might be necessary to be quite explicit about your points. On the other hand, sometimes a well-chosen example speaks for itself; in fact, if you too often spell out your main point and offer several supporting examples, readers might be offended by the way you seem to be “dumbing things down” for them. On the other hand, if you’re discussing a complex topic, readers will be frustrated if you do not slow down to explain complicated points or offer enough illustrative examples. It all depends on the interplay of topic, purpose, audience, and genre (also called the rhetorical situation).

Important Facts about Exposition. Not every paragraph has a statement of exposition. Dustin Furrey’s first paragraph on pg. 53 creates a compelling picture of a big fight between the writer’s parents, a big fight that led to the family’s economic decline. The writer has chosen to tell the story before he offers any sentences summing up his meaning or reflecting on the significance of this event.

Some paragraphs, though, do include explicit statements of a writer’s points. In Furrey’s second paragraph, “I was in a working-class household that had finally achieved the lower ranks of the middle class,” is a statement of exposition, following a transitional phrase (“Prior to the ‘big fight’”) which reminds readers of the story the writer has already shared with them.

Important Facts about Examples. As discussed earlier, examples include concrete details that offer a clear illustration of a writer’s points. The sample below includes several concrete details, notably “the inescapable stench of hard liquor in the air” in the first paragraph, and “cracks along the walls” in the second paragraph. Details such as these help readers visualize the description.

Though summaries do not include specific examples, almost every other kind of writing you do will require examples. Examples are an especially crucial aspect of “open-form” writing—writing that relies on more implicit statements of meaning. In this common type of writing, examples are deployed to actually make the writer’s points; readers are expected to read between the lines in order to determine the writer’s meaning.

Important Facts about Explanation. As writers, you will need to do more than just state the points about your topic in sentences of exposition and illustrate those points in sentences which include examples. You also need to provide a broader context for your ideas by explaining how you got from Point A to Point B in your thinking: by explaining how one point relates to other points in an essay; by explaining how an experience is specifically relevant to an articulated point; by explaining the significance of an example; or by explaining what a quote means for your larger point. In the example below, the writer spends a lot of time explaining how his family’s situation changed throughout time—how they bought a house and then lost a house.

While the second paragraph includes several concrete details and explicit statements of meaning, the bulk of the paragraph can be seen as “explanation,” articulating to readers how the writer interprets his family’s rise and fall—in terms of both class status and happiness.

Thus, the best writers spend a lot of time providing analysis of their ideas and examples; conversely, if you only have “explanation” that is not grounded by “examples” and “exposition,” you are likely to have written a rant—potentially a lot of grammatically fluent sentences that explore a subject for yourself without considering readers’ needs for specificity.

Activity 1: Working on Analysis

Now that you’ve drafted a possible narrative, it’s time to start testing potential analytical lenses. Remember that for this assignment, you will need to analyze how your narrative illustrates the social construction of an aspect of your identity. Testing out a number of analytical lenses can also help you determine whether or not your narrative will work for this assignment.

For this activity, you will try reading your potential narrative through a number of social lenses to see what each reveals. While you’ll choose only one for your actual analysis, trying a variety of lenses can help you choose which one is most productive for this assignment.

  1. If you have not already drafted your narrative, take a few minutes to sketch out the moment. This is just a crash-through draft, so don’t worry yet about things such as spelling or grammar. You’re simply trying to get down the important details—the gist of this moment.
  2. Once you have a brief draft of your potential narrative moment, freewrite about what that narrative moment reflects in terms of your gender identity. Is there anything in your story that illustrates what it’s like to be a man, a woman, to be transgender (if that’s how you identify)? Is there a way it reveals something about what it means to be a man in this society? About what’s expected of you as a woman in this society? Even if you believe your story does not reflect something about gender, try to imagine ways that it might. Think hard. One thing that can help is to imagine if this story might have turned out differently if you were a different gender than the one with which you currently identify. In other words, if you’re a young woman who wrote about learning how to make pie with your mom, how might that story be different if you were a young man?
  3. Now freewrite about what the same narrative moment reflects in terms of your racial identity. Is there anything in your story that illustrates about what it’s like to be white, for example? Is there a way it reveals something about what it means to be a white man in this society? About what it means to be a Latina woman in this society? Again, even if you believe your story does not reflect something about race, try to imagine ways that it might. In order to help, you could again imagine how your story might be different if you were a different race.
  4. Finally, freewrite about what the same narrative moment reflects in terms of your socioeconomic class (in the most basic sense—although we’ll complicate this later in the semester—socioeconomic class is about how much wealth you and your family have). Is there anything in your story that illustrates about what it’s like to be wealthy in this society? Middle-class? Working class? To be worried about money? Even if you believe your story does not reflect something about socioeconomic class, try to imagine ways that it might. In order to help, try imagining how your story might be different if you were part of a different socioeconomic class.
  5. Read back through your freewrites to see if any of these lenses seems particularly fruitful for this assignment. Or perhaps trying to analyze your narrative moment in this way has led you to realize that you need a new narrative moment. If that’s the case, did your freewriting spark memories of other stories that might be more productive?

Activity 2: Activity 2: Sketching Out Your Full Draft

Remember, the basic goal for your Autoethnography is to analyze how one aspect of your own identity is socially constructed. Social construction relies on social expectations of identity—of gender, or race, or ethnicity, or socioeconomic class, or sexual orientation. Even if we don’t agree with the expectations society places on men or women or members of the lower socioeconomic class, we learn them through television, music, ads, our families, our friends, and everyday interactions. For example, those in the upper socioeconomic classes are often imagined to be educated, proper, and physically weak. Even if you do not believe that the social expectations are fair or correct (and many are not), understanding those social expectations can help us analyze the social construction of identity.

The following activity will help you clarify those social expectations of one aspect of your identity and make clearer the connections between the narrative and analytical portions of your essay.

On a separate sheet of paper, answer the following questions.

  1. What identity (gender, race, socioeconomic class) are you attempting to analyze? Write it at the top of the page.
  2. What are the social expectations typically associated with that identity?
  3. Now how does your story illustrate a moment when you realized these social expectations? Write out a brief explanation of how your narrative moment illustrates how and why you were expected to act in a way that society imagines is true of people in your gender, race, or class.
  4. If your original story doesn’t illustrate those social expectations, then what story might you write about instead? Sketch it out.

Once you have answered these questions, spend some time (re)writing and revising your narrative and analysis, making sure to be explicit about the social expectations associated with your identity, as well as drawing clear connections between the narrative and analysis.

A Strong Foundation

Excerpt from Dustin Furrey’s Autoethnography

The following excerpts from another student example will continue to help you see how a writer can make connections between the narrative and the analysis.

Dad told my sister, Kelli, and me to go to bed. The peace didn’t last long. Screams soon ensued from both parents, drawing Kelli back downstairs and luring me from the safety of my bedroom. I remember coming out of my room to stand in the hallway, half hidden behind the entryway to the living room, finding Mom in an aggressive stance, as if ready to battle a fierce gladiator to the death, and smelling the inescapable stench of hard liquor in the air. In between thrown objects and the occasional slap, Mom was accusing Dad of everything from infidelity to abuse and beyond.

Prior to “the big fight,” I was in a working-class household that had finally achieved the lower ranks of the middle class. We had often moved around town, until we were able to afford that house. Every other home that I can remember had cracks along the walls, rotting porches, or neighbors who were louder and visibly more abusive than my family. I was so happy to finally have my own room, after sharing one with my sister for as long as I can remember. This new house was the symbol of our new life as a family, of a better life in general.

Activity: Analysis Practice: Identifying the Supporting Details in the Narrative

In the example below (taken from Katie Brophy’s essay, which you read earlier in this chapter), find the details that help us get a sense of the cultural identity this writer is exploring. The analysis section needs to explain the narrative within a larger cultural frame and we can do that by being consistent in the connections we make to the details:

She said, “Katie, you need to come in. After all, who is going to help me make some lemonade for the men?” I was shocked by her words. Lemonade? Are you serious? Can’t they make their own? My mind began to wander thinking about the lemonade. I began to imagine the taste of a sweet tall glass. Almost immediately my mouth began to salivate. After realizing what I was doing, I quickly snapped back to reality. People have survived without lemonade, and if anyone wanted it so badly, they were fully capable of making some. Why should I give up something fun to do something so boring, like making their lemonade?

What is the aspect of Brophy’s cultural identity being examined here? How do you know? What specific details in this section reflect that cultural identity?

Activity: Analysis Practice: Presenting Your Information Clearly in the Analysis

What has the writer done in the example below to articulate her social identity? How does she connect her personal experience to the larger implications of rigid gender roles? What further information would you like to see her include? Why? What would that information add?

After thinking about it, I could not help but laugh at my great aunt telling me to “leave the lifting for the stronger men” and “come make some lemonade.” She was caught up in an older, more traditional culture, and was not able to see that times were clearly changing. Women were establishing their independence more and more each day, changing expectations and surpassing limitations that society had originally placed on them, leaving some women confused.

Return to the page you have already drafted of your analysis and apply the analytical skills you have just practiced with Furrey’s excerpt and Brophy’s essay. Continue drafting, stopping at the end of each paragraph to ask:

  • Where am I making clear connections to my narrative?
  • When I make those connections, do I spend a few sentences explaining what the connection is and how it matters to my cultural identity?
  • Where have I articulated my cultural identity?
  • Where do I demonstrate my understanding of the social construction of identity? Do I explore and explain what that means to me?

You are now at the rewarding point of the writing process where you are ready to put together a full draft of the Autoethnography in order to prepare for your peer workshop. While your narrative and analysis are separate sections, you do want to provide connections between them so that the readers are more likely to understand your shared experience in the ways that you want them to. The best strategy rests on your point-of-learning: use that aha! moment to generate a controlling theme for your analysis.

Autoethnography Workshop Guide

As you may remember from the textbook introduction, peer workshops provide a valuable space for both writers and readers to develop close-reading and writing-strategy skills, and an immediate benefit of being a part of a writing community is access to generous readers, ones who take their time with our drafts and carefully offer suggestions to make our writing sharper and more fully developed. As you read through your peers’ drafts, keep the importance of that role in mind. As a member of this academic community, it is your responsibility to provide helpful feedback and a focused readerly response to others’ writing. Similarly, if you feel as though you are not receiving this kind of close reading and useful feedback from your peers, make sure to ask more specific questions and make the workshop work for you. While it is an instructor’s responsibility to construct productive workshops, it is the responsibility of the students in the class to really make the workshop work. To begin, you should use the workshop questions below as a guide to reading and responding to your peers’ drafts.

Narrative

1. Does the narrative reveal a clear sense of plot? Do you have an easy understanding of it? What is happening in the story? What do you think that story is?

2.  Does this part of the essay include some kind of dramatic tension? [Consider this example of dramatic tension from Katie Brophy’s essay to help you remember what that means: “By helping them unload the truck, I was proving to myself that I was beginning to become strong and capable like them. It was so intoxicating that I started to get carried away. I began picking up boxes that were heavier and heavier and heavier.”] Where do you see/feel such tension in your classmate’s paper?

3.  Highlight for the writer your favorite sensory details and explain how they impacted you as a reader. Conversely, highlight for the writer any unclear descriptions and indicate why you find them to be so.

4.  Sometimes writers can get a little “detail happy” and include so many details that it becomes overwhelming. Are there any places in the narrative where the writer might need to cut back on details or remove some descriptive words? If so, note those for the writer.

Analysis

5.  What cultural identity does the writer examine? You’re looking for sentences that articulate the writer’s sense of self-awareness, as Brophy does here: “No one had ever told me before that who I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to act was determined by my gender. I realized I was a part of society, and as a member of society, I needed to figure out where I belonged.”

If the cultural identity is not yet clearly articulated, make a note for the writer.

6.  What are the supporting details that help connect the narrative and the analysis? [Remember how Brophy used making lemonade to connect her narrative to the analysis.] Do you think they are consistent and engaging?

If there are not supporting details, or if they are yet unclear, please offer some suggestions for the writer on how to add some.

7.  Highlight for the writer sentences that offer explanation of the cultural identity—what it means to the individual and for the larger society. You’re looking here for sentences that explore the implications of the writer’s cultural identity, such as Brophy does when she discusses what it means to be a woman in today’s society, thinking herself independent but realizing that notion is in conflict with what others expect of her.

Do you, as a reader, find the explanation sufficient in exploring the significance of this socially- constructed self? Are you left with more questions? What are they?

If you are unable to locate places that offer clear explanation, please find a place or two where you think the writer might add them.

Overall

8.  List two things the writer does especially well in this draft.

9.  List two things that could be improved in this draft.

What Happens Next?

Now you must thoughtfully consider your workshop feedback and revise your Autoethnography, employing revision strategies that so far you have only read about and perhaps discussed with your class. Revision entails a complete “re-vision” of your work, looking for clarity in the overall purpose and focus, and for consistent organization that supports that purpose. Once you have looked at the big picture, you can turn your attention to the final editing and proofreading stages where you refine your word choice and correct any grammatical errors.

After you have submitted this first assignment, you can take a moment to ponder the self- reflective journey that writing has just taken you on. In the writing of this essay, you have accessed the power that “cultures provide individuals [with, a] spatiotemporal orientation, in which recall of past events that are associated with the self become the foundation of self- identity and self-continuity. This orientation specifies what is to be remembered about one’s past and how it influences the individual’s current and future behavior.”[7] Hopefully you have a clearer sense of who you are as an individual amidst the context of a broad, powerful society that mitigates your choices. Carry that knowledge with you into the next discussions and written assignments, always aware of how your own sense of self is in conversation with others’ perceptions.

  1. Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “Cosmopolitan Patriots.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 23, 2011, p. 625. ↵
  2. Brewer, Marilyn B. “Optimal Distinctiveness, Social Identity, and the Self.” Handbook of Self and Identity, 2nd ed, edited by Mark R. Leary and June Price Tangney, Guilford Press, 2003, p. 480. ↵
  3. Elder, Linda and Richard Paul. The Thinker’s Guide to Analytic Thinking: How to Take Thinking Apart and What to Look for When You Do. 2nd ed., Foundation for Critical Thinking Press, 2007. ↵
  4. Hogg, Michael A. “Social Identity.” Handbook of Self and Identity, 2nd ed, edited by Mark R. Leary and June Price Tangney, Guilford Press, 2003, p. 462. ↵
  5. Burke, Peter J. and Jan E. Stats. “A Sociological Approach to Self and Identity.” Handbook of Self and Identity, 2nd ed., edited by Mark R. Leary and June Price Tangney, Guilford Press, 2003, p. 131. ↵
  6. Paul, R. and L. Elder. “Critical Thinking in Everyday Life: 9 Strategies.” The Critical Thinking Community, March 2014. Foundation for Critical Thinking, www.criticalthinking.org/pages/critical-thinking-in-everyday-life-9- strategies/512. ↵
  7. Cross, Susan E. and Jonathan S. Gore. “Cultural Models of the Self.” Handbook of Self and Identity, edited by Mark R. Leary and June Price Tangney, Guilford Press, 2003, p. 537. ↵

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

(Re)Writing Communities and Identities Copyright © by Phillip Marzluf, Cindy Debes, Anna Goins, Stacia Gray, A. Abby Knoblauch, Cameron Leader-Picone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book