A Blog of My Reflections
Sticky Notes, CC0 Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Like I stated in a previous blog the stakeholders are in my project are: Black students at private high schools and colleges, Non-black Students who attend private high schools and colleges, Family and Friends of black private school students, and Faculty and staff at these private schools. I believe the main audience is also made up of these same groups, however, I believe that people beyond those groups could also be included in that audience. Black students will be able to relate to this project more than any of the other groups. I still believe that anyone who is in a private school environment, or has a friend or relative in this environment, has observed what the black students have experienced. I felt that I needed to write about this topic for all of the black students who have been in a private school environment and have faced issues. In some schools these students don’t have a voice, and nothing is being done to address their issues. I thought that through this project I could being out their voice, and share it with others. I also think that I felt the need to write about this topic to educate others. The main goal of his project was to raise awareness about all of the issues, and provide solutions to some of the problems.
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I’m not sure how I will use my domain once English 101 is over. For right now, I know I will share my project with my friends, family, and others to educate them on this issue that I’m very passionate about addressing and fixing. I might use the domain in the future to showcase other work and research that I will do in the future. I plan on doing more research during my time at Emory, and I could use my domain to highlight that work. Once I have a lot of information and work on my website, this could potentially be something I could show my future employers. Even when I’m talking with others that I meet in the future and I’m telling them about projects that I’ve worked on, I could refer them to my domain if I maintain it.
I don’t write other than if it is required for classes in school. Through all of this writing I have definitely seen a change in my writing. I think my writing has gotten clearer. When I’m writing about something I’m passionate about, I think I’m able to articulate my ideas very clearly. I don’t really enjoy writing, unless I’m writing about a topic that I’m really interested in. I enjoy writing for this project because I was able to pick a topic that I can relate to and that I’m very passionate about. The most stressful part of the writing process for me is creating an outline and organizing my thoughts. Whenever I compile research, readings, and my own thoughts, I often end up with too much information. It’s hard for me to narrow down all of my resources and ideas, and pick the best ones to include in my writing. After I create my outline, the writing comes easily. Writing is also difficult for me because of the editing process. I get attached to my words sometimes, and this makes it hard for me to cut our unnecessary or redundant parts of early drafts of my works.
A lot of what I learned in high school writing courses has helped me work on citing, grammar, organization, and flow. I try to keep those things in mind every time I write. I don’t think my writing has changed much since high school, and I think writing gets better with practice. I used to run track in high school, and I think writing can be related to running. You have to practice your form, train, and strengthen in order to get faster times on the track. This also applies to writing; you have to practice good writing skills every time you write in order to improve. In order to master anything, you have to practice, so I have to continue to write more in order to improve my skills. For this autoethnography project we are required to have 10 pages of content. 5 webpages will be: my review of literature, infographic, artifact analysis, and two interviews. The final 5 pages will be the following:
1. A slideshow showing the progress of the project 2. A page on how much and positive affirmations can be useful to black students at private schools 3. A word bubble using quotes from black students at private schools 4. A page highlighting the Black Student Union at Emory (a safe space) 5. A page discussing labels, and why people should divert their attention from them During class today we discussed chapter three of "Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects", which discussed pitching your project. We ended up focusing on who the stakeholders are for our individual autoethnography projects. Stakeholders are those who would be particularly interested in or affected by the project. Stakeholders don't have to be people who are directly impacted by the topic of the project, but could be people who are associated or related to the topic or the people involved. I have developed a list of stakeholders for my autoethnograhy:
1. Black students at private high schools and colleges 2. Non-black Students who attend private high schools and colleges 3. Family and Friends of black private school students 4. Faculty and staff at these private schools I plan to interview two people for my autoethnography project. The first interviewee will be my friend Jillian who I attended private school with from kindergarten through 12th grade. She now attends a private university, and I believe that she will be able to provide an interesting perspective as a student who has attended private school for her entire life. The questions I will ask her are as follows:
Why do you think your parents placed you in private schools for K-12? Why did you want to continue your education at a private university? Did you ever feel like you were the minority in high school? Have you felt that way at Northwestern? Have you been in any classes (high school or college) where you were the only, or one of the few, black students in the classroom? Are there any negatives to being the only black student in the classroom? Positives? How did this make you feel? Have you had to deal with any microaggressions, stereotypes, or preconceived notions in academic or social settings? If you’re comfortable sharing, what were they? Based on research, studies, and talking to other Emory students, some black students have felt like they have to prove that they are worthy to be at whichever institution they go to (this is based off of assumptions: affirmative action, “schools want black people to increase diversity”, special scholarships, etc.). Have you experienced any of this? Do you feel like you have to “prove you’re worthy enough” to be at your school? Based on research, studies, and talking to other Emory students, some black students have felt like they were ignored in the classroom until there was a race-related discussion. For example, people staring at the black students in the classroom when talking about slavery, or being expected to speak up when discussing a topic like the Civil Rights Movement. Have you experienced any of this? If so, how did this make you feel? Have you ever felt as if you were excluded from social scenes or events due to your race? Overall, how did you feel about diversity at your schools? Do you wish they were more diverse? The second interviewee will be my friend Kiana who is currently a student at Emory. I believe that she will be able to provide an interesting perspective as a student who has attended public school and then came to a private university. The questions I will ask her are as follows: Why did you want to continue your education at a private university? Have you felt a big transition from high school to college in terms of the diversity? Have you been in any classes (high school or college) where you were the only, or one of the few, black students in the classroom? Are there any negatives to being the only black student in the classroom? Positives? How did this make you feel? Have you had to deal with any microaggressions, stereotypes, or preconceived notions in academic or social settings? If you’re comfortable sharing, what were they? Based on research, studies, and talking to other Emory students, some black students have felt like they have to prove that they are worthy to be at whichever institution they go to (this is based off of assumptions: affirmative action, “schools want black people to increase diversity”, special scholarships, etc.). Have you experienced any of this? Do you feel like you have to “prove you’re worthy enough” to be at your school? Based on research, studies, and talking to other Emory students, some black students have felt like they were ignored in the classroom until there was a race-related discussion. For example, people staring at the black students in the classroom when talking about slavery, or being expected to speak up when discussing a topic like the Civil Rights Movement. Have you experienced any of this? If so, how did this make you feel? Have you ever felt as if you were excluded from social scenes or events due to your race? Overall, how did you feel about diversity at your schools? Do you wish they were more diverse? A good infographic is a visual representation that communicates statistical or researched information to a reader. It is important to balance an infographic with words, photos, and images. Sometimes infographics can be overcrowded with images, and this can make the it look cluttered and confusing. It is also an issue when there are too many words because this can crowd the page and the images. Images and texts that are too big can overcrowd the page. However, the words and images that are too small can make it more difficult for the auidence to view your infographic, thus destroying it's purpose. The key to making a well-designed infographic is balance. In addition to balancing the words and images you use, it is also important to balance the fonts and colors. Using a different color for every block and a different font for every text box can ruin the uniformity of the infographic. Using multiple colors and fonts in an infographic is important because they can help convey the messages or ideas of the creator by contrasting the colors and themes.
As I design my infographic I will keep all of these rules and ideas in mind. My infographic will have three major sections, and my infographic is based on research and studies done on Emory and other predominately white institutions in the United States. The first section will use bar graphs to provide the audile with a visual representation of the difference in percentages of black students versus white students at top private universities. The second section will focus on microaggressions, stereotypes, and issues black students face at private schools, and a bubble web connecting how students can deal with these issues. The final section provides resources for black students at Emory. Each section will have it's own design- bar graph, bubble map, bulleted list- to vary the visuals and keep the audience engaged. However, the colors schemes and fonts will be similar in each section to maintain uniformity for the entire infographic. Before reading through chapter one of the Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects I didn’t know that all text is multimodal. There are so many texts and that we read on a daily basis that are multimodal that I didn’t even consider or realize were multimodal. This not only includes just articles or formal written works, but also informal written pieces, like Facebook posts. Looking through the chapter and the examples I learned the five major modes: linguistic, visual, aural, spatial, and gestural. It is important to keep these modes in mind as you create any kind written work for an audience in order to make the pieces more effective, appealing, and meaningful. The writing itself should always be clear, concise, and well written, however, there are so many factors that one must also consider within the other modes when writing. For example, the font, spacing of the words, and adding visuals within your written work are all important things to consider in order to appeal to the readers visually. The visual mode is extremely important when creating a written work for websites or digital media.
The first two chapters of Writing & Editing for Digital Media discussed the importance of quality writing in digital media, and tips for writing pieces for websites. The writer of this book, Brian Carroll, emphasized the importance of creating websites that look professional and that are easy to navigate. This has an impact on the reader’s interest in the site, and the website’s credibility. While I design my site, I will try to compare mine to other sites that I think are well-designed and can be easily navigated. I also developed four goals for my writing based off of these first few chapters of the book:
When I was first given the autoethnography assignment for this class, I struggled to come up with a group of people that I could observe and study. Over the past few years I have developed an interest in learning more about black history, and getting involved in more events surrounding black culture at my school and in my community. The freedom I was given to create this project has allowed me to develop a research topic that aligns with my interests.
My research question is: What issues, challenges, and judgements do black students at private institutions face, and what has been developed or created in order to help combat these? I also want to explore the advantages – regarding college acceptances and job placement – of attending private schools, and find statistical evidence to prove these to be true. This topic is particularly interesting to me because I have attended private schools for all of my education, and I’ve decided to continue my college education at a private institution – Emory University. Throughout my education, I have had some issues surrounding stereotyping, and have had to confront others’ preconceived notions about me because of my skin color. Through some of the interviews and research I will conduct for this project I will have the opportunity to hear about other students’ experiences. I chose not to focus specifically on colleges because I just began my college career at Emory, and I am better equipped to research this topic from a high school perspective. However, I do plan to also incorporate research from the college perspective into my autoethnography as well as I get deeper into my first semester. The goal of this project is to raise awareness about the struggles black students face attending private schools – particularly schools where they are the minorities. I am excited to begin working on this project, and share everything I’ve learned and observed with my readers! |
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