In "Reflections on Indexing My Lynching Book," Ashraf H.A. Rushdy meditates and reflects on another work he has nearly finished completing. In this way, he uses nostalgia to interrogate his own writing process as well as the historical contexts and traumas that formed the subject of his books.
1. If you were to look back on something you've written for another class that affected you and that left you feeling "lost," what assignment would that be?
Rushdy begins his essay by using the second-person pronoun "you" to create a scenario and put the reader into the writer's experience.
2. With what sort of scenario could you use the second-person perspective in a similar way in your "Lost & Found" essay?
One way Rushdy organizes his essay is to divide and classify the people in his books (and in American history).
3. In your essay, who would be on your list of "someone who stood up for justice and righteousness, someone who performed a daring intellectual or heroic deed" (174)? Who would be on your "personal axis of evil" (176)?
1. The writing that left me feeling lost was the one I did some years back in my humanities class. It was an essay on an aspect of my culture which I knew nothing about, because I was born in a Christian home.
ReplyDeleteI was enlightened about my people, who they are, and why they hold certain beliefs which might not be in conformity with my Christian faith.
2. I will use the second-person perspective in a similar way in the essay while describing the thoughts that went through my mind when I lost my dad.
3. I will mention my dad, some leaders in my community, as people who stood for justice, I can’t think of any “personal axis of evil” yet but will add them if am able to come up with any.
1. Because I am a science major I haven't experienced many classes where I wrote something that struck close to home. My paper topics are frequently very technical and relatively sterile of emotion. I can imagine that had I taken more humanities coursework I may have been sensitive about certain subjects. Topics which directly relate to human suffering, or equality/rights of different groups of traditionally oppressed people would probably affect me most.
ReplyDelete2. I believe that most people can relate to some feeling of loss. It might not be profound loss, but the majority of us have lost something at some point. With that in mind, I would use a second-person perspective to elicit empathy from the reader and draw them in to my essay.
3. My person who stood up for justice and righteousness, who also would be my someone who performed a heroic deed, would be my husband. The person who would be on my personal axis of evil would be my adopted father.
ReplyDelete1. In my culture anthropology class I wrote a paper about abuse in different cultures. What was abuse in our culture was actually a rite of passage in their culture. Learning about child brides, lotus feet and many other traditions, was an eye opining experience to me. Completing that assignment was very challenging because I had to keep an open mind in trying to understand why a culture would have such traditions, especially because I can from a household with abuse.
2. I do not think I could use a second- person perspective in my essay. My essay is about being in constant abusive relationships and trying to break the cycle of abuse.
3. My person who reached out to me during my abusive relationships was my sister, who witnesses my abuse first hand and spoke out in my defense. She encouraged me to leave and to continue my education.
1. In a religious class, we were required to write an essay on the different religions discussed in prior lectures. When learning all of these religions I was amazed on how religious and involved people were. I begin to feel lost because I do classify myself as a catholic and participate in yearly customs (e.g. lent), but I do not go to church every Sunday or pray every night. I always thought of myself as a strong believer, but I begin to second guess myself as if I am a good enough catholic.
ReplyDelete2. Second person would not be something I am interested in using in my essay, but that could change as I am writing my essay. Following along with my answer to the first question I could possibly use, "Imagine sitting in a church surrounded by people, bibles, and heads bowed down in prayer. As you sit there you are wondering do I belong here? Hoping to be accepted into a place that you are familiar with, but not contain the knowledge that those around you contain".
3. The people I would recognize throughout my life the most would be my parents. I have seen the struggles of them transforming from teens into parents. Watch them struggle through jobs to support and maintain the little they were able to get.
1. In my Spanish class we had to write an essay about where we were from and our culture. I was born in Mexico but I have been living in the United States since I was two. Even though I am Mexican, I know nothing about my culture. My parents occasionally talk to my siblings and I about all holidays they celebrate and what they do. For example, when its Cinco De Mayo I don’t tend to celebrate it in my house to me it feels like another normal day.
ReplyDelete2. I am not sure if I would want to use second-person perspective in my essay, but if I do I could use it because I know a lot of people who could relate about not knowing enough about their culture.
3. Someone who will always stand up for me no matter the circumstance would be both of my parents. My parents will always be my motivation and inspiration to be someone in life. Seeing them go through struggles to always provide for their family motivates me to always do better in life.
The writing that left me lost was from a class last quarter. I took "meaning of death" and for our final, we had to write three essays about different religions and their views on death. My grandfather died the first day of finals and while writing those essays, I found myself lost and scared not knowing if there was an actual spirit of his floating through a cosmic order the way hinduism believes, or just falling into a deep sleep as the another religion believes, or if he went to heaven or hell the way the catholic bible believes. Living hours away from all of my friends and family, I felt so lost having to mourn by myself.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe I would use a second- person perspective because I will be writing about the way I view my life and all of my thoughts.
The person I view on personal axis of evil would be my dads mother. someone who stood up to injustice would be my dad. Both my parents have dealth with so much racism because of their broken english, but my dad made it known that although he was not born in this country and does not know all of his rights, he does know enough to defend himself.
1. The writing assignment that left me feeling lost was on a topic about whether or not Science refutes God. This assignment left me feeling lost and confused because I did not know which to believe. I explained the reasons why people believe in a God and contrasted with the idea that science explains "lives miracles" Science can explain and show proof of how why life is created, yet people believe that it was God who gave someone his/her life. This topic, after talking about the belief of God and how science refutes God I was lost. Science can explain a lot about our world, but there is little known about the worlds beyond ours. Does science show a little we know about life itself? I still am lost on the topic.
ReplyDelete2. I do not think that i would use the second-person perspective because I feel as if it will not flow in my essay
3. Someone I know who has stood up for justice and righteousness would be my Grandfather for is acts of bravery. He served in the Navy a minesweeper ship. The person on my personal axis of evil would be my father.
1. One thing I would look back on was a research paper I did in English I did my first year of college. We had to speak about beliefs and our spirits, but I was stuck for so long because I never really thought about these things.
ReplyDelete2.I have never really used second person in an essay because I was always taught that was incorrect for an essay. "You" in an essay is not specific to me, and I feel like it can damage an essay.
3. My mother and father have always stood up for justice and what is right. I have never really came across someone who showed pure evil, and I am happy to say that I have never experienced that.
1. In a previous English class we had to write about if we believe religion or science ran our life more, but because I’m completely lost when it comes to religion I felt like I couldn’t really write that paper correctly.
ReplyDelete2. I could use second-person perspective by asking the reader if they have ever had a moment in their life in which they were peacefully happy.
3. Someone I would use for the heroic role in my essay would be my mom and my boyfriend, both of who have gone through traumatic instances and continued to be happy and look at the positives in life. I don’t think I would have anyone for the “personal axis of evil.”
1. If I were to look back on something that I’ve written for another class that has affected me and left me feeling lost is when I had to write a research paper on “Eating Disorder in Teens” because I found a lot of research of how these teenagers who have an eating disorder suffer everyday and that they are at risk of dying, but what affected me the most was that during that time one of my best friend had anorexia and I felt lost because I didn’t know how to help her and it hurt me seeing all the bad things she was going through.
ReplyDelete2. I don’t think I am going to be using a second-perspective in my essay. I don’t think my essay needs one because I am going to write how I view my life not how others do so.
3. My parents have always stood up for justice and what is right and have taught us (my siblings and I to also do so), so I will be writing about them in my essay. The person on my personal axis of evil would be my aunt.
1) The one thing that I have written on that had confused me was a creative writing assignment about free will versus determinism. I was supposed to create dialogue between these two people in a scenario. I was able to think of something, but as I wrote and the words seemed to flow, I struggled with my own ideas of this aspect. Growing up a christian we are led to believe that an all knowing being is able to foresee our lives, but then are the choices ours? I had set these ideas aside until now, but as my life is in transition, I feel it may be time to return to the philosophical quandaries that plagued my mind in that class.
ReplyDelete2) The only way I could think to use you in my paper is in the form of asking if anyone has ever felt completely lost. In the sense of where they are, what their doing, or even who they are.
3) As I come to the final year of my nursing program, I see that community health nurses truly stand for social justice. That is, seeing to it that everyone in a community has a chance to be helped and educated about their changing health, whether they have insurance or not.
1) The one thing that I have written on that had confused me was a creative writing assignment about free will versus determinism. I was supposed to create dialogue between these two people in a scenario. I was able to think of something, but as I wrote and the words seemed to flow, I struggled with my own ideas of this aspect. Growing up a christian we are led to believe that an all knowing being is able to foresee our lives, but then are the choices ours? I had set these ideas aside until now, but as my life is in transition, I feel it may be time to return to the philosophical quandaries that plagued my mind in that class.
ReplyDelete2) The only way I could think to use you in my paper is in the form of asking if anyone has ever felt completely lost. In the sense of where they are, what their doing, or even who they are.
3) As I come to the final year of my nursing program, I see that community health nurses truly stand for social justice. That is, seeing to it that everyone in a community has a chance to be helped and educated about their changing health, whether they have insurance or not.
1. All the time when I had to write I feel stuck or lost. It makes me feel worthless, stupid, and I start to give up. This goes back to feeling depressed.
ReplyDelete2. I would like to ask a person who is coping with depression, how are they treating it? Is someone there to help? I need help.
3. This is actually very personal to me. The person who helped me was myself. I had to be individually strong, but I'm stuck in a world with the evil that put me in depression. It's very hard for me to say and it hurts that, that very person is very well in my family. I want to be strong and heard, but they just take my energy away all time. I'm sick and tired of it, but I can't give up, can't ignore them, and I'm done avoiding them.
1.One time in communication I had to write an essay/speech about special needs kids. I learned a lot about them, but if I had to take care of them, I would still need a lot more help. Learning about something, doesn’t mean you will be ready.
ReplyDelete2.In your senior seminar class, where everyone is about to graduate within the year. And you think are all these people ready for the future, do they know where to go, or are they in the same situation as you….lost.
3.Someone heroic would be my brother and someone not would be nobody. In my essay, I don’t have anybody negative.
1. If I were to look back on something that I’ve written for another class that has affected me and left me feeling “lost” it would be a paper I had to write in one of my religious studies class. We were to write a paper on a religion we have learned throughout the quarter. There were 3 religions taught. The religion I chose to write about was Christianity. Considering I come from a religious family in the Christianity background, I still felt lost while writing this paper. I do classify myself as a Christian and participate in Christian customs because of my religious family. I don’t think myself as a strong believer because of my doubtfulness and confusions on the topic.
ReplyDelete2. A scenario I could use the second- person perspective in a similar way in my essay would be being lost with future plans. Considering I am about to graduate, I’m lost and not ready for the future, are you ready?
3. Someone who will always stand up for me is my mother and father. Seeing my parents struggle with finances and giving me and my sisters the necessities, it motivates me to always work hard and do my best in life. My mom and dad are my motivation and inspiration to be like them and to always work hard to provide for family.
1. Since we are being honest I have always struggled with writing since English was my second language even though I was born in the U.S I have Mexican parents that had no English background. Ever professor I’ve had has given me feel back that when they read they feel lost since my paper is all over the place. I have worked on my papers and continue to grow and learn from any grammatical mistakes I have made.
ReplyDelete2. When I read the topic of the essay I could not imagine writing in second person, because every person lives differently there might be some similarities, but every person is unique and has their personal lost and gains.
3. There have been a few people that will stand up for me no matter what is my immediate family. Just like any family we fight and make up, but that doesn’t change family is family.
1. I have been lucky in that no assignment has really affected me so profoundly that I felt lost. I do remember in elementary school, and junior high becoming interested in WWII, and reading about the atrocities committed, which did stick with me and bother me a great deal.
ReplyDelete2. In my essay I talk about motherhood, and starting a family. This is a good place where I could use the ‘you’ perspective.
3. My essay will not touch on the heroes and villains of my life, but if it did they would be my mother and father, in that order.
. If you were to look back on something you've written for another class that affected you and that left you feeling "lost," what assignment would that be?
ReplyDeleteI can’t say I’ve ever written anything that I can recall that left me feeling this way. Quite honestly I’ve never felt like writing has inspired this in me because most of my writing is technical writing. I am an engineering major so research is primarily the focal point of my writing.
2. With what sort of scenario could you use the second-person perspective in a similar way in your "Lost & Found" essay?
Using “you” or “your” to generalize my life experiences and to create a common ground between my own personal essay and the experience. This will help those reading connect with what I was feeling at that time by including them.
3. In your essay, who would be on your list of "someone who stood up for justice and righteousness, someone who performed a daring intellectual or heroic deed" (174)? Who would be on your "personal axis of evil" (176)?
I would say that those who stood up for justice or righteousness would have to be my parents. They were married a young age and have raised me quite well in my opinion through perseverance and they have established values that have shaped me into the person I am becoming.
My personal axis of evil would include those that have been hateful towards those less fortunate, or people who have tried to sway me into a negative place.
1. Something that has made a huge impact and made me feeling alone would be an essay about the loss of my father. When I get the chance to write about the time my father past struck me. Losing him at a young age and around Christmas, which is supposed to be the happiest time of the year, kept me feeling confused about what was all happening; thus makes me thinking about what exactly occurred at that very moment.
ReplyDelete2. Lost and found is perceived differently to many people. Lost can mean losing an important aspect of their life such as an important figure or event, which leads them to finding themselves.
3. My sister is my righteous and intellectual who performed a heroic deed. I’m not sure who would be my personal axis of evil.
1. The closest thing to the feeling of unfamiliarity was when reading the Grim’s brothers tales. Growing up we had Disney’s version of the story telling us how the witches were these evil ugly old ladies and when reading the story of snow white my point of view was completely changed. The ugly evil witch was really just a middle aged women who use to be the most beautiful girl a younger beautiful girl took her place and the end shows how this is just a vicious cycle.
ReplyDelete2. I will organize my essay in chronological order to help the reader understand why each event happened.
3. My mother really is my hero in this story. She helped me realized that just because I don’t do what she wants me to she will always love and support me.
1. When I was first starting out as a writer I took Theatre 404, which was Play Writing at the time, I wrote a one act play (which essentially acted as our final) that was very bad and made me question the future I had decided upon for myself.
ReplyDelete2. I could open my essay with something along the lines of: "You decided to be a writer at 19 years old and when the opportunity to take a play writing class came up you took it, and by the end of the quarter, you had written the worst thing you had ever written." Something like this is a gut-punch to the reader's heart (or it could be with refinement) and gives a reason behind being lost without having to use the actual word.
3. The class T.A. and the professor himself would be on the list of "Those Fighting for Good Writing" and I would be on the list of "Those Doubting our Heroes Abilities" alongside the people in class (whom I no longer remember) that were intimidatingly confident and fostered in me a sense of paranoia that is still surprisingly prevalent in my brain cells.
1. A previous assignment that has left me "lost" was when I wrote about Nikola Tesla six years ago in my English 110 class. I wondered how his invention of the Wardenclyffe Tower would have changed the world if it was improved.
ReplyDelete2. Perphaps I can use the second perspective in the process of creating art. everyone makes art in their lifetime, whether it is doodling in class or working in a studio with other artists.
3. The first that come to mind as "someone who stood up for justice and righteousness, someone who performed a daring intellectual or heroic dead" would be my parents. They both walked and protested with Cesear Chavez during the grape boycotts. As for "the personal axis of evil" would be every bully I have had to deal with in high school.
1. I am taking senior seminar this quarter and for every issue we are to take either a free will or deterministic stand. Now I am writing a paper where I analyzed all my issues and turns out I am deterministic and not free will as I thought I was. I always believed in general that people have a choice to choose who and what they want to be, but according to my issues, determinism outweighed free will. It left me a bit lost because I am usually using intuition and correlations rather than validating if people had no choice to do and be who they are.
ReplyDeletei would use the a second person perspective in my essay when trying to relate my situation to others. Since my essay is mainly based on how sometimes you need to explore and eliminate what you are not to find out who you are, I feel that many people can fall into this category. Not everyone is born knowing what their reason was to be on this earth and so sometimes a process of elimination can help in finding it out.
The people I would choose who stood up for justice and righteousness and performed a daring intellectual or heroic deed would have to be my CASA advocate supervisor. Advocates make more home visits than social workers and probably know the family on a different level and making the decision to extend the case and go against what the social worker decided was definitely pretty brave. As of now I do not have anyone I can think of that would be on my personal axis of evil list, but if I did it would be person that caused any kind of harm to a loved one.
Claudia Sotelo
ReplyDelete1. For one of my classes I had to write a paper about myself and how my childhood, family, and environment shaped the person I was when I was writing the paper. I had to include culture, religion, travel, friends, beliefs, etc. into my paper and then apply as many theories as I could to it. I had a really difficult time writing it and almost did not turn it in because it felt like I was giving a stranger access to my life. It made me uncomfortable to write down so much of my life and then have it receive a grade.
2. I could see myself using second person perspective when I would want the reader to feel an emotion. Not just read about the emotion but have them feel and experience it too.
3. A person that stood up for righteousness would be my aunt. Someone that performed a daring intellectual or heroic deed would be my mother. I have been fortunate enough to not have met anyone that I would consider to be my personal axis of evil.
1. I wouldn't say this assignment made me feel lost, but I had an assignment to give a verbal presentation to a registered nurse on an article of my choice (of course it had to be medically relevant to the area of work in which I was studying). I used an article titled "Improving Human Milk and Breastfeeding Practices in the NICU." This article inspired me to help moms breastfeed. I am very passionate about breastfeeding but often mothers who have babies in the NICU don't have adequate resources and education to ensure they supply human milk for their ill children. This article inspired me to share this knowledge with mothers who have children in the NICU.
ReplyDelete2. In my lost and found essay, I could use the word you, to relate to and connect with other mothers who could be reading the essay. I can ask a question in the form of second-person, to make it feel as if I am talking directly to them.
3. My essay doesn't have a direct antagonist who would be on my "personal axis of evil." The list of hero's would just be my mom.