In the conference for project 1, Mat and I talked about the genre and subgenre I chose for my personal essay which was Instagram pictures and the hashtag #behinfthefilter respectively. First, we talked about the importance of making sure I explained what Instagram and hashtag is to make my essay more reachable and detailed to all the readers. We also agreed that Mr. Wenzel also recommended the use of different examples to describe the two different situations I was trying to talk about. I figured I had to find an example of account on Instagram that posts “perfect pictures” that can generate social pressure on teenage girls and describe how it could do so. I also decided to find examples of pictures in the subgenre I decided to write about, the #behindthefilter. Thus, I searched for the posts my group of friends posted in this subgenre and described their picture, caption and consequently their intention behind the posts. This helped me create a more visual essay for my audience, in which they could “see” my point of view instead of just read an essay full of words of what I saw and understood from my analysis of the pictures. Therefore, I explained my point of view but also allowed the audience to interpret the pictures on their own way.
At the beginning of the project 2 I was focusing a lot on the scientific research aspects from my research paper. I wanted to include multiple studies and quotes without really explaining their connection to my experience or the community I was talking about. After the conference week, when Mr. Wenzel suggested me to add more details about how the scientific researches applied to the topic I wanted to talk about, I stated to focus more on my own description of my experience in the community and then connect it to the scientific research, instead of the other way around. I deleted multiple quotes that were briefly explained, that did not add a lot to my paper and only made it confusing and overwhelmed with information. Then I stated to explain some aspects of the genre and community and connected it to the scientific researches that defended their use. Finally, I was able to connect the two aspects better, showing the relationship between my experience and the studies I found online in a easier and more tangent way for the readers, who might not be so much into science like I am.
For project 3, I had a hard time at the beginning trying to figure out the message I wanted to pass to my classmates. I knew I was going to talk about the WILD community, but I wasn’t sure about what. So, I went over my notes from the WILD meetings and decided I would explain to the class what WILD is and show examples of what they do there. I first made a PowerPoint with all the pictures, videos and explanations about WILD, to give my audience a background into what I was going to do. Then, I projected it into a pamphlet to distribute to my class in case they had any questions or wanted to keep the information in a more tangent form than just listening to me. Finally, I decided to talk about the things we talk about in the WILD meetings, such as internal understanding and acceptance and self-worth. I used the notes of the 10 steps to reach a wholehearted life and made it into a collage in the form of a game or path in which the athletes should follow to reach excellence. To reach their goals it is important for the athletes to be psychologically strong and that’s what the collage is focusing to transmit. The final poster I made was the creative Instagram post which tries to transmit the message of “be proud of the real you”. The Instagram page in the form of a poster has a hole in the area where the picture should be, supporting the idea of sharing you in your typical environment, with your usual appearance, without filters.
Therefore, over the course of my English class I focused on one community I was part of, the WILD community of female student-athletes at FSU. In the first project I talked about my experience in the form of a personal narrative in which I could focus on the sub-genre of Instagram pictures with the hashtag #behindthefilter, which was strongly emphasized during the meetings. In this project I was able to improve my skills in writing from describing the events on my own way to describing it in a visual way without my opinion on it, allowing the readers to visualize the information and analyze it by themselves. In project 2, I started adding too many scientific information to my paper and not enough analysis of application into the real world. I added multiple quotes and scientific terms that did not add anything to my project, only made it confusing. So, with time, I was able to decrease the amount of scientific information and add more applicable details such as descriptions of my experience and explanations of how they connected to each other. This change greatly improved my paper and made it easier for the readers to read and understand the message I was trying to share. For my project 3, I tried to use more visual descriptions of the WILD community and of the information it shares with its members, thus I used multiple pictures in my PowerPoints, posters and pamphlets to share my message. Therefore, throughout this course I was able to improve my writing skills to a method that allowed my audience to visualize better the information I shared and it also made it easier for them analyze the info by they own and still understand my point of view, which added much to my 3 projects.