Statement about me as a thinker/composer/designer

I am realizing now that as a thinker I am someone who sometimes gets overwhelmed with my passion. I feel as though I am someone who has too many questions sometimes, and I get so excited about discussing those questions that I forget to find an answer. I also think that I struggle when it comes to my attention to detail as a designer. I focus on some of the big picture aspects without properly refining the smaller details. I think sometimes I also get in my own head while writing, I write the way I talk so sometimes it comes across as rambling rather then something more articulate and well written.

Project 1 (Blog)

Commentary on redesign for text:

I realized that I needed to provide an explanation for why women are fascinated with serial killers. I think my issue was that I felt weird making this statement when I don’t know exactly the reason why. I have read the opinions of doctors and psychologists, and I have read interviews with women who were interested in serial killers, but I was concerned about making a generalization. I think this time around I managed to explain why they were in an accurate way that did not feel like a generalization or like I was leaving the question unanswered.

Original Project: https://leilalane.wixsite.com/mysite

Revised Writing: Project (Blog) 1 (Edited)

Project 2

Commentary on redesign for text:

I decided that the best thing I could do for this project was ensure that the data I collected correlated with information others had found. I decided that I did not want to just base my knowledge on my own opinion and what I personally found. I am also realizing now that if I were to do the poll again, I would word some of my questions differently so that I could display the results in a better way.

Original Project: https://leilalane.medium.com/comfort-shows-during-a-pandemic-2c949097767c

Revised Project: Project 2 (Edited)

Project 3

Commentary on redesign for text:

For these blog posts I realized that I was going about them like they were all the same kind of movie, which simply isn't the case. Despite the fact that each one is based on a true story, the creative style for each one needed to be different to help make the story interesting. A story about a real tsunami that killed and injured a large number of people is not the same as a 16 year old who scammed people, and that is not the same as a figure skater who famously helped injure an opponent. While revising I decided to acknowledge that important aspect more which I think added to the overall point I was trying to make.

Original Project: https://leilalane.wixsite.com/my-site

Revised Project: Project (Blog) 3 (Edited)

Reflection on What I learned:

I feel like when reflecting upon what I learned in the class, my biggest take away was the importance of other forms of writing. When we were initially given these projects where we had to get out of our comfort zone and write in a different format, I was upset. I do not like change and I did not want to change the way I write. But upon doing the first project I found myself really having to think in a different way, which I feel overall benefitted my writing experience. I found myself having to think more about the audience and less about myself. Sometimes when writing for school I feel like I am only doing it to pass a class or because someone told me to, but being able to write about things I was actually interested in and in a way that I was not used to made me more engaged in what I was doing. I found myself explaining what I was writing about to more people, listening to their responses, and then thinking about how I could improve my writing. It felt like there was actually a purpose to what I was doing.

Another big thing I learned was that there is always more to write. Sometimes my writing feels so final. I feel like there are no questions left to be answered, nothing more I can elaborate on, and no where to go with the topic. This did not feel like the case with these projects. I found myself passionate about the first project I worked on and then frustrated I couldn’t keep going, but then I became passionate about the second project. While revising the projects I found myself better understanding what I was trying to say, and finding more things that I wanted to say. I thought it was sad not being able to work on these projects in person because I feel like I would have liked to have actual in person conversations about some of the topics people chose.

One big thing I also realized is that I struggled with the second project the most. Relying on strictly visual and aural vs words was a challenge. I am so used to the typical way of writing that having to rely more on the visual aspects was hard. I had to figure out new and creative ways to get my point across without just rambling on. I think doing that helped me go back to the first and third project and see some of the issues I didn’t see before.

Overall I know this class helped me a lot when it came to understanding diffrent forms of media and my writing. I know this because I used the tools I learned in this class to help me develop my research presentation for my history class (a blog about the “scary black man” trope in film and how that has affected the medias perspective on African American men). I appreciate what I learned despite it being a challenge for me to step out of my comfort zone.