Writing has never been my strongest area in school. Trying to write down everything you are thinking in a way that everyone will understand is something I have always struggled with. When we first started this course, we would receive PowerPoint presentations to help with creating a thesis and how to change a sentence to make it sound better. This gave me insight in the importance of having a thesis because the reader needs to have something to look forward to through the essay. As we continued to progress throughout the course I felt as if I was behind and need to catch up which made it difficult for me in the course. The days that we would practice in our sentences helped me because I was about to see that there’s many ways of say something and having the ready understand the mean of the sentence. 

In the first assignment I choose gun control because in my opinion is something that we as a country need to discuss. I decided to write about gun laws because I believe that we need to change laws to make it harder for people to get a hold of guns. As part of my argumentative essay I decide to write to Susan Collin because she’s for loose gun laws and being able to get a gun without extreme measures. 

While researching I made sure to take notes and jot down important arguments that’s I could use later on in my essay for both the rebuttals and the affirmative side. In my essay, I made sure to bring up mass shooting such as Sandy Hook, Columbine High School and the Orlando nightclub shooting because these are prime example of what happens when a person gets ahold of a gun easily. In the Las Vegas shooting the gunman had over 21 cases that held 24 firearms and lots of ammunition. This is shocking and makes you start to question why he would do something so bad? How was he able to buy so many guns? How many years did it take for him to purchase 24 guns and not be question or look suspicious? We should have a system imposed that tells officials how many a person has registered under their name. Something we need to do after all of these incidents is to change gun laws but in reality, barely anything was done. 

Prioritizing is something us Americans lack lots of. To show and tell this I decided to use the song “This is America” by Childish Gambino to bring insight on what Americans do rather than prioritize the important event that are occurring. I used this song and described the visuals because this video showed an important message about our society that’s we all need to reflect on. In the visuals for “This is America” the guy “Glover” (Childish Gambino) is seen throughout the video dancing and going around killing innocent people. At first he is seen passing through performers as they sing “ get your money, black man, get you money” he then is handed a gun and shoots all the performer and walk away as a way of showing how we tend to normalize death like it never happened. This was a mimic of a mass shooting that occurred at the Charleston Church by Dylan Roof. This should have been a reason to make getting a gun harder especially since this insensitive act has caused the death of so many innocent people. And he continues through the video we see him dancing while there’s chaos going on in the background. This show us that we would rather ignore what’s really going on and focus on the latest dance challenge that has gone viral. We can see how we lack the time and effort into things that really matter. 

Using theses example I wanted to write to Susan Collins so that she could see the importance of trying to prioritize this issue instead of opposing it and wanting loose gun laws so that when people go to gun shows it becomes easier to trade and buy guns with any restrictions. While researching I wanted to present the opposing sides argument, so I decided to write about main point that’s the opposing sides mentions. One argument was that gun laws infringes with our second amendment rights because it states, “Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home”. Another argument that many opposing believe is the idea of a good gunman can stop a bad gunman. After finding the opposing side I reread the essay. One thing I could have done was try to get Susan Collins thought more in my essay because I was speaking to her directly so if I had more of her opinion it would have made my letter stronger.

The second assignment we were given was to write about a poet and analysis what they are trying to say in their writing. Looking a poet that I haven’t learned about prior was a challenge. While I was searching on google, I came across Audre Lorde and as I read who she was and what she used her writing for I was immediately certain I wanted to write about her. This was the first time I have learned about a poet that openly express that she “self-described as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”. She’s continues to express her confidence and her voice as she fights for social and racial reform. For my literary criticism essay, I decided use two of Lorde’s poems called “Power” and “Afterimages” that projected a powerful insight of our society such as the racial injustices, the police brutality that occurs and racism with it our society

            In the poem “Power” Lorde speaks on the killing of a 10-year-old named Clifford Glover to address the injustice of police brutality. In this case police justify their killing by saying that Clifford had a gun on him but after killing him they realized that he didn’t have a weapon. I used this poem because racism is clearly being presented especially when the “policemen who shot down ten-year-old in queens stood over the boy” and said “die you little motherfucker” while being recorded. He was then able to claim at trial that he “didn’t notice the size nor nothing else only the color” of the little boy. He was also recorded saying this in court as well which shows how easy it was for him to kill Clifford because of who he was and his skin color. “That 37-year-old white man with 13 years of police forcing was set free… By eleven white men who said they were satisfied”. This shows the corruption within our justice system that Lorde is trying to get people to recognize. A white male decides to kill a black child and he is able to walk away with no jail time because a predominantly white system said it was okay. 

            In the poem “Afterimages” Lorde speaks of Emmett Till’s brutal killing by two white men. Emmett was accused of grabbing Carolyn Bryant making advances towards her and wolf whistling at her. Two white males decided to beat him shot him and even gouge his eye out to reach him a lesson. The men that killed Emmett “were originally prosecuted on murder charges, but in a closely watched case, an all-white jury found them not guilty”. Similar to Clifford Glover the justice system was predominantly white making it difficult to gain justice.

            The last assignment we had to write was a creative writing piece which I wrote about our American society. I think that questioning the society we live in is critical because understand why things are done and why we represent certain thing is important. I decided to write my creative piece as a poem that questions everything in our society as a way to make people think why this is done and since when we decided that it was okay to do certain things. My piece took arguments I used in my letter to the officials and my literary criticism writing assignment with Audre Lorde. I made sure to connect all three pieces because we can question why don’t change gun laws and why don’t address police brutality, racism and change our socials and racial injustices.

 I started my poem by saying she walks around wondering when she will gain her respect. When no one will choose for her, when she will be seen as strong. When did America take the choice away from women and their bodies? When did we question if women should be in combat; these are all question that’s make you wonder since when should me decide if women can get an abortion or not? Who gave men so much power? These are topic need to be discussed because if the problem is women, we need to re-evaluate who actually can get over 365 women pregnant which are men. We need to prioritize and take time to educate yourself. Trying to progress is what we should focus on rather than try to change what was already imposed back then. 

I continued my poem by questioning the reason behind the police brutality. We walk around wondering if our skin color is part of the reason people keep dying from police brutality. Whether being black is still used to discriminate against a group of individuals. When did ethnicity make us criminals? These are thing we need to question because this is part of that racism that lies deep in our society and goes back many years. When did American’s believe all Muslims want to hurt us? When did your religion classify you as a criminal? 

When did “being an American” become so hard and a club membership? America was built upon immigration so it hard to understand why we aren’t letting people in and why are we closing borders. Racism plays a role in these decisions. Americans need to reevaluate the society we are forming and building; We the people mold the society. We need to start questioning why, how and when we started to think this way. Why and how can we start to change this way of thinking.

            After completed all of these assignments I have learned the importance to present both sides of an argument, have a complete understand of a topic and the importance to analysis a given text well enough to connect it to the main idea. I learned this through the sentence rearrangement, the worksheet that shows us different ways to quote a text or passage, etc. one thing I need to take away from this course is that’s when writing a piece it’s very important to ask other their option and allow others to view you writing so they can make correction because they can catch something you and the computer didn’t.