Upon entering FIQWS 10008, I had high hopes that this class would allow me to grow as a writer and overall improve my English skills. This was my first class ever at a university and I was nervous to see how it would go. In high school, English has always been one of my weaker subjects. Over the course of the semester, we were given different projects and assignments that were meant to help us develop our writing and creativity.  Such things included making a project utilizing two different genres, learning how to research using scholarly websites, and writing essays. Before the class started, I specifically chose the class so I can be more educated about literature and mental illness in general. I am happy to say that I achieved both of the goals and developed more respect for them. While doing all of these things we were to keep in mind the learning objective of the course and evaluate to what extent have I achieved them. 

I remember when we were assigned to our first assignment. It was our personal reflection. I had a flashback of writing a college essay: it was challenging. The assignment required us to choose a story that we most relate to. I told myself, is my life that unproblematic and bland that I can’t relate to any one of the stories. I had to turn to my family members for help. In exchange, I got to have a deep and personal talk after a long time. I realized I don’t talk to my family much about their struggle and maybe it is time I get out of my comfort zone and neighborhood. In my personal narrative, I walked the audience through the life of immigrant women in doctor’s offices. Not every service in America is presented the same for everyone. The implicit bias of doctors and other professionals can affect their service quality and behavior. My mother had to struggle to achieve the proper treatment from a doctor similar to the short story “Colloquy”. 

The character profile assignment is one of my weakest performances in this class and I’m fully aware of why. I regret making such a silly mistake. I know I made grammatical mistakes but the other mistake is more unforgivable. In this assignment I said, yellow wallpaper was written by Shirley Jackson. It is incorrect because Charlotte Perkins Gilman is the author of this legendary story that has become a beloved story of feminism in this era. From this assignment, I learned it is important to revise before submitting. I was honestly ashamed when I got my grade and professor comment, that’s why I fixed the mistake in the portfolio. 

One skill that resonated the most in me is identifying genre. I have used setting, POV, and diction during class but I already learned about these literary elements in high school. Utilizing genre to develop a thesis is new and interesting to me. It is fascinating that there is a different genre for email and a different one for an elevator-speech. Professor has given many class-works to engrave the use of genes in our writing regiment. 

The third assignment was the 2 genre project. I have the most fun doing this project because this project allowed us to explore any genre. I read the book “The Devil in Silver”. I quickly chose comics because I read webcomics every day and what better chance do I have to prove my experience. It was hard. I thought of doing one drawing, however, making a comic attracted me more. I am grateful to have all the technology and access to resources to complete this assignment without any worry. For the second genre poem, I knew I wanted to represent the devil somehow, but I have never written a poem in my life and I am ashamed to admit that the only poetry I remember reading is Rupi Kaur’s  “milk and honey”. To complete the assignment, I decided to show how one became the devil This experience was cathartic to me and helped me sympathize with the devil character in the book more personally and emotionally. 

For the inquiry research paper, I  had to use all the skills I have been taught in this class. I wrote a paper surrounding the question, How do stereotypes in 20th-century literature and film shape our understanding of mental illness?. Initially, I wrote, how do stereotypes undermine the representation of mental illness in the media? Now looking I understand how vague this question is. Writing this question was difficult for me because it is vague. I wanted to ask, how stereotypes ruin our movie/literature experience and vice versa. For example, The author/director might include this character for awareness but it may be difficult for the audience to identify a female character with OCD unless it is announced because of our positive implicit bias of women being detail-oriented. I got this idea because, in my country, Bangladesh, women being meticulous in their daily activities is praiseworthy. However, some women are uncomfortably obsessed with order, like my aunt. When my sibling and I sit on her bed she will tell us not to lean because it will wrinkle the fabric. Sometimes, It was uncomfortable but she was praised for her neatness. This was where I got my question of how stereotypes hindered the audience to fully understand movie/literature messages. On the other hand, in the lecture section of FIQWS 10008, we read a CNN article about the movie Split. The article discussed how this movie contributes to the stereotype that all individuals with DID are dangerous when it is not. The audience of the movie may start to concede this stereotype. This article made me question how movies and literature assign or contribute to developing stereotypes. These two questions are opposite to each other and I want to address both in the paper, however, I had difficulty merging the question. That’s why I chose to rely on the professor’s revised question for my idea. When I started writing the essay the first problem I faced, was to collect the data. There was all of the information to cover. I wonder if anyone thought of the 1st question as I did. 

By the end of FIQWS 10008, I feel more confident in being able to write essays. I plan on continuing to improve my skills within each learning objective to allow myself to grow even more in my writing. There is always room for improvement and mindfully reading, writing, and reflecting can allow for these improvements in writing essays. In general, I have learned a great amount about writing and that writing is a cathartic exercise for me, even if it’s a research essay. I will continue to apply this knowledge in future classes.