Reflective Essay Workshop

There are three key components to a good reflective essay: selection, analysis, and organization.

I.  Selection

How do you choose a good passage from which to work?  What are you looking for?  Consider the passages below:

A.  Perhaps I’m too “straight” as the novel would put it, but I was thinking throughout a good portion of the reading that I really didn’t like many characters. I found Jenny more sympathetic toward the end, when she started doubting her past, and for a little while I felt for Pauline, but not for very long. I saw the three comrades as harsh radicals that didn’t understand The People in the least and had an abhorrent disregard for life. Juan constantly makes references to Jenny being “Third World,” despite her resistance to these comments. Pauline doesn’t know economic hardship and only wants to belong. Yvonne is along for whatever ride Juan takes her on. I know this sounds harsh, since Choi works so hard humanizing these characters, but I still found most of them difficult. Where do the moral lines lie and where do the importance of these morals become inferior to these “greater” ideals?

B.  Like Anne, I spent a lot of time trying to find the parallels between Sin Nombre and elements and themes we’ve seen so far in Asian American texts. I think Cary Fukunaga did an excellent job with the film, and I feel like search for the parallels marks the film as a success in a post-racial context.

And just as I was typing that, I wondered what the film was really about. Was it really about the Mexican experience of illegal immigration and gang life, or was it more about the more generalized experience of being trapped and needing to escape, an idea that can be tied in with our previous assessments of Vietnam and Japanese internment? Just as we’ve been trying to establish what qualifies an Asian-American experience all semester, so this film begs that question of what defines a Mexican experience. Is this question even valid, since this particular Mexican experience is contextualized by its Asian American director, and has been distributed to an English-speaking audience (though I suppose this does not necessarily denote Caucasian)? There are several filters in place here, so I’m still left wondering how I should view the film. Who’s lens am I supposed to be looking through?

Selection Criteria: questions; awareness of the author’s aims/work of the text; awareness of self; a move from the personal to the objective; audience awareness; moments of failure or disconnection; passage identifies a number of textual functions and explains their importance; explains complexities (e.g., different ethnicities’ experiences); broadens specific experiences/observations to a more general consideration or audience.

II.  Analysis

Once you’ve chosen good passages, what do you do with them?  What evidence do you see that can help you answer the question?  How do you interpret that evidence in order to extend and complicate your answer to the question?

Example: “the last two sentences, ‘There are several filters in place here, so I’m still left wondering how I should view the film. Who’s lens am I supposed to be looking through?’ provide a clear understanding of what a Humanities student would need to understand and identify in a particular text of a post-racial era.  In particular, those ‘filters’ that refer to the questions above in the passage (e.g., Mexican gang life, English-speaking audiences, etc.) exemplify the variety of specific but sometimes intersecting positions that would effect viewership and interpretation of elements like the identity and motives of the characters.  Since the post-racial era has been described as one in which individuals identify with a constellation of cultures and sub-cultures inclusive and sometimes exclusive of race, the recognition of these ‘filters’ is a necessary tool for navigating the post-racial era.  Furthermore, as per Susan Koshy’s argument about the ways in which sociological and legal discourses are dedicated to strict definitions and boundaries of race, it falls to another sector of cultural life to identify the places where a constellation of cultures and influences come together.  In the passage above, then, I notice that the identification and realization of the complexities of intersecting filters becomes a key set of skills that is unique to the ways that Humanities scholars understand the texts and events of a post-racial era.”

III.  Now that you have a series of interpretations of your passages, how might you articulate an answer to the reflective essay question?