Rhetorical Analysis Inquiry Project

Click on link: Final Paper

Final Reflection

Dear Lil,

          Even in those two words alone, a clear distinction can be made between where I started at the beginning of my studies in writing, rhetoric, and identity and where I now stand. My initial understanding of identity largely drew upon my own religious affiliation and my undergraduate thesis where I explored the identity of Lewis Carroll's Alice as she made her way into Wonderland and through The Looking Glass. I point to my thesis so often because it is the "landmarking" artifact that drove me to graduate study, to taking myself as a researcher seriously, to an unrelenting interest in children's literature, and finally to a close analysis of identity as it pertained to child v. adult consciousness. Identity to me at that time was what I would call a "two-way street". Identity was a composite of my nature (or soul) and the social experiences impressing upon me. Even upon pressing further into the coursework and conversations of our class, I maintained this ideology for my own self-security. That is, until my security blanket was pulled from my hands. And like a child, I was left wide-eyed and wobbly.

       
          Upon reflection, I credit Julian Baggini's TED talk for the shift in my understanding of identity and the shattering of my former premise. I see now that I had to be taken aback in order to re-evaluate my idea of identity before I could move forward to begin recognizing the significance of discourse as "building-block" of identity construction. Recognizing identity as a social construction (with no illusions of a natural self) was not without its challenges. But in relenting my own authority over my own ideology of identity, I came to recognize that the "natural self" was an impression used to cover the errors of social injustice.

          If people believed that their identity and social situation was in their control, there would be no reason to seek out the social pressures which violated their own power. It felt like nothing short of a paradox. As soon as I was ready to let go of my tight grip on the core and individualized self (similar to its sister, the American myth of individuality) I could begin to see the possibilities and potential for (albeit minimal) agency.

          Upon drafting the piece, Who Am I Bringing To Class?, online dialogues began to form between myself, my peers, and my writing group. I point to the artifact below which documents my conversation on the fluidity and improvisation of identity. It wasn't until crafting and reading these pieces, Who Am I Bringing To Class, that I became aware of how much of my identity and others I associated with the past, including experiences, activities, and emotions that build layer upon layer to construct the individuals of any present time. Never once did I consider to draw attention to the possibility that identity could be influenced by future predictions or motivations. Agency then became more feasible, rather than a distance impossibility.

          The next task on the agenda, and "landmark" for my learning over the course of the term, was the Critical Narrative Project in which my examination of identity began to take a focus and streamline into my plans for a Rhetorical Analysis. 

          In this project, I chose to examine the identity of the fan (or fandom) using a narrative assemblage of perspectives from fans, non fans, society, and scholars. In doing so, Holland's figured worlds became clearer as the project came to illustrate the multiple performances that identity can convey depending upon the figured world in which it acts and improvises. Because identities are developed in social practice, they are fluid, improvised, and constantly in flux from the varied figured worlds in which people act and live. For the fan, I realized that a specific performance was being made possible through the practices of curation. A composition practice which strattles the art of creating and consuming.

After "practicing" with Gee's Building Tasks my first "aha" moment in applying these methods of discourse analysis came to me late at night with my back towards my couch and my artifacts thrown abt me on my apartment floor.

          This was the first time that I began to articulate (albeit in a disjointed format, but my thoughts were coming too quickly for my hand to keep up) how my artifacts were using language to convey an identity, draw significance to an activity, perform a relationship, or discard relevance to gender, class, or race.This artifact was one of several which had the good fortune of making it into my paper. 



          One of the many challenges of this course was reigning in my "inner geek". The amount of material that kept flooding to mind, ripe with the potential for analysis, was overwhelming and oddly reassuring at the same time.






          Above all else, this course has enlightened me to the potential and struggle that may lay ahead of me if I choose to pursue the possibilities that discourse analysis provides for fandom (participatory) culture.In conflict with the conventional assuredness that students are "supposed" to leave a course feeling, I in fact feel the opposite. I'm unsettled. I can't leave my rhetorical analysis alone. And I probably won't. I am leaving this course (but not my studies in writing, rhetoric, and identity) with more questions than answers. But I think that's the point. The signifying marker that something is going on beneath the surface. Something that will take hold.

Initial Draft of Rhetorical Analysis Project

Click on link: Draft of Final Paper

Reading & Reflecting: Composing (Media) = Composing (Embodiment)

Reflecting

          Kristin Arola and Anne Wysocki argue for the need that students (compositionists) explore and engage with a variety of new media texts. The basis for this argument is the understanding that writing in new media is a composing of the body (or embodiment). After engaging with this collection of essays which interweave to support and explore how different texts (including new media) interact with the human experience- the body, identity (the self) and the writing processing/composing process, I have begun asking the question- what is writing?

          Or, what is not writing? How do we classify or define it? These essays have given me pause to re-evaluate the term writing. What am I doing as a "writer"?

          I am fond of the term compositionists because it implies that what we're doing with new media is not just writing (in the traditional sense- expository, creative, etc) but composing, creating, constructing, and contributing. In considering this shift in student identification (from writer to composer), I think back on my own research for my ethnography on fandom culture within Tumblr when CEO of Tumblr,  David Karp, was quoted saying,"Today there are millions of people making stuff and putting it into the world: that's become a part of our identity, and it shouldn't be limited to people who fancy themselves writers, or who are particularly witty or talented: curation is a new, more accessibly way to express yourself." [note: curating -according to Karp- is somewhere between creating and consuming: you pull together stuff you like... Tumblr is about using the found to say something different]

          What I'm trying to consider now is whether writing is composing (curating), or is the use of new media separate from the process of "writing"? Are writing and composing/engaging new media texts one and the same? Is this "embodiment" a new and fascinating process or is it something we've been doing all along- have we been utilizing our writing to create/assume our roles/identities this entire time, only to find new way of doing it through new media texts?

          I'm also interested in the issues surrounding the binary of public v. private as it pertains to new media texts. For example, when does composing in new media become private? Is it private? And was there anything such as personal writing in existence to being with? If identity is all performance, then how does that reflect on our "personal" writing? If we're always performing, then who is our audience? More specifically, if we are composing ourselves (body, self, etc.) using new media texts, then who are we composing for? Who is our audience? And is the use of new media texts (as an influence in the composing of our identity) inherent, required, inescapable?

Reading & Reflecting: Women Without Class

Reflection

          Julie Bettie discusses the "exceptions to the rule" when examining the phenomenon of class origin determining class future. It was refreshing and even a relief to know that attention was being paid in acknowledging the agency that does (although rarely) happen for a diverse working class population. But Bettie doesn't just stop there. She asks the important questions:

          Asking how is this possible? Why are they exceptional?

          Bettie looks at both white and Mexican-American working class girls who display a potential for upward class mobility by preparing for college attendance. After examining factors including environment and family/home life (Bettie points out the urban environment where a greater access to education is present), and motivation I was particularly interested in the tensions surrounding motivation. Where it comes from? How is it evaluated?

          Bettie also evaluates the relationships between various groups of girls across race and class and concludes with addressing the forces that influences mobility in the lives of young girls. I'd like to draw attention to an issue addressed in Betti'e section, Race Matters (p161). In observing the working class (college-prep) groups of girls, Bettie notes that they articulated a "distancing" from their community (Mexican-American girls) or individual family (white girls). Bettie goes on to state that the difference in these feelings of distance is due to unavailable language for class difference. My dilemma/question comes from examining these feelings of distance. That is, how to encourage an upward mobility in class without discouraging the discourse that connects one to their respective (lower class) community/family.

          Although an upward mobility of class provides access to opportunities, education, etc. is it possible to mourn a loss of class "status" when it is perceived as closely tied to community and even one's individual family?

Critical Narrative Project

Participatory and fandom culture are figured worlds which have grown to warrant attention and significance both on the device and in the classroom. Having first become enthralled with fandom studies in my first year of graduate study while sitting under Dr. Balaka Basu’s Digital Narratives for Young People, I became intrigued by the interactions and perceptions of the fan identity. With technology and modalities strengthening participatory culture, the platform which houses this figured world has fostered the fandom identity. But this is why it’s important to look beyond the fan within its figured world. To take a step back is to examine the discourses whose commentary may commend or criticize, giving a better understanding of the identity as it creates new ways of being outside of its home platform.

Because of the social tension surrounding the fandom over what is “real” and what is “fiction” or “fantasy”, the dominant discourses of “real life” often casts the fandom as Other. In the narrative that follows these “real life” discourses are illustrated as outsider (parents, teachers, non-fandom friends, society, and scholar). However, this narrative also includes a metaperspective as the fan (fandom) indulges in the practice of commenting upon itself with a perspective it imagines outside discourses attribute.

This narrative serves as a precursor to my Rhetorical Analysis project and pushes to explore an identity using both the perspective and language of academic, social, and online discourse. In doing so, the reader will notice the ways in which these discourses appear, interact, and attribute meaning through language and image.

http://prezi.com/bchvyeuk81yx/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Reading & Reflecting: Not Quite White

Reflection

          Matt Wray's Not Quite White does an excellent job of bringing the (hidden) history of whiteness to the forefront of readers minds, especially in the context of cultural studies. But I don't believe the text manages this on solely through the organization of its content but through the choices and uses of its language. The read was engaging and clear while ideas and theory complex.

          What was perhaps most interesting was the ideas regarding Boundary Theory. It was a theory I was not otherwise familiar with but Wray introduces its purpose as a way of, "asking how categories shape our perceptions of the world" (7). And while meaning is derived from difference, I then began to ask myself what difference does the difference make? I do not think the classification and categorization of our surroundings and selves is in itself negative; however, Wray's work does give me pause to contemplate the uses and abuses that this classification practice and how it evolves over time and history.

Reflection on Who Am I Bringing to Class Revisions

          Rather than expand and elaborate, I feel I did more rearranging and carving of a specific identity (or sense of person) I wanted to display. It felt overwhelming to expound upon every surface of my identity, and so instead, I settled on the discovery and portrayal of my student self, which I hope will lead to an echo of my perspective(s) on education (both as a teacher and as a student). I neglected to include my class and race, although indicators of these faucets of identity are sprinkled throughout the piece.
         
          My intentions for cutting and moving parts of my answer to Who Am I Bringing to Class, were to portray a specific story or narrative of myself. And I'm intrigued by what I've learned from the process of this piece alone. It feels impossible to solidify my identity even as I craft it in narrative form. When sharing and elaborating on the experiences, beliefs, etc. that have interwoven to create the form that is me, I find that I can still mold and shape (and reshape) that image. I feel as though I'm a moving target.

Who am I bringing to class? (Revised)

Dear Dr. Brannon,

          "It's about how much you want it." Those are the works JJB, director of Gardner-Webb's writing center, said to me while I was sitting in her office. All the educational baggage that I thought I'd checked in when starting my undergraduate career was suddenly coming off the baggage claim belt and moving closer towards me. But JJB had faith in me. I respected her opinion, and I trusted her to tell me not what I wanted to hear but what I deserved to hear. And if she could tell me that higher education was a matter of work ethic as well as intelligence, then I was in luck. I was confident that I had at least one of those ingredients. If I wanted to continue to work with people and study the craft of writing, then a graduate degree was the next brick to be laid on my path.

          And so the road leading to who I am bringing to class began. But a look back (or in the rearview mirror) is in order.

          I was born in Durham, NC (that's right, I'm going back that far). But I can't tell you much. My early years are lost on me. Faded photographs of two-year old me sitting in my dad's lap are the best I can manage. These photographs are all lying in a box in my apartment, along with just about every artifact from every memorable experience of my life. I'm not a pack rat. I'm sentimental. Very sentimental. It's funny though, last week my parents came to Charlotte to visit me, and we started going through the box together. My mother kept pulling picture after picture from the box with a baffled expression. She turned to my dad, who was almost asleep on the couch with his eyes nearly closed, and said, "She's taken everything, Ronnie. We're not even dead yet." The corners of my dad's mouth turned up slightly before he dozed off. Mom just smiled and shook her head while I shrugged my shoulders.

         Okay, so I'm overly sentimental.

          I have all the family artifacts that are supposed to be handed down over time. I just got a little impatient. My family history is valuable to me, mostly because I know very little about it. Like a 1,000 jigsaw puzzle with chipped and missing pieces, I'm trying to piece together a picture, hoping it can tell me something. I'll let you know if the pieces start fitting together during our time together this summer.

          Twenty-three years have passed and I'm still an only child, so I think it's safe to say that I will remain so. I am the daughter of a high school dropout and a welder, who lived in the same place since she was five so I feel a little out of my time. After spending eighteen years on the same road with tobacco on my right, sweet potatoes on my left, and a pasture of cows across the street, (I'm not exaggerating) I knew I did not want to become another community college, firm believing Baptist, who married before she was twenty-five. (I swear, if I have one more sweet little o'l lady shake my hand and tell me that I need a man, I may do something I regret). I wanted something different. Something I couldn't quite name.

          I graduated high school from a small private, Christian school in Zebulon, NC. And when I say small, I mean small. I was Salutatorian...of a class of seven. But if history is an example, then I guess you could say my class was "large" because at least I wasn't in the class of three that graduated at least two years prior. When senior year came around applying to colleges felt like a standing joke among my classmates and me. We all knew our education was a flop. Even with a class our size, you'd be amazed at how we could yank teachers around. I've seen test answers stolen, teachers in tears, and I've had enough free periods that I think it qualifies as truancy. It's like we knew (we just wouldn't say) that only one or two of us would actually "make it". Sure we'd all get out. But we'd go about it different ways. Marriage. Military. I knew the way I wanted to go. It had to be education. And I guess it was kind of expected of me. I was the "good student". Although, if "good" qualified as sitting in the back of the classroom, taking notes, and making sure everyone had their homework then yeah, I guess I was the good student. "Hannah, do we have a test today?" "Hannah, can I see your notes?" or "Hannah, what's the answer to number 7?" Okay, I did draw the line there. I felt like the mother of six.

          In 2009 I was admitted and enrolled at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, NC. I think it goes without saying that I was terribly self-conscious about my education. Within my first year, I had issues with self-doubt. I put myself in a constant comparison game with my peers. And when you're constantly measuring yourself against everyone around you, it takes your focus off of your own growth. But I was fortunate. I met someone who jarred my views on education and eventually writing.

          Sitting in English 101, Freshman Composition, I was reading my professor's first response on my work. And it made me feel good about my writing. It wasn't at all what I expected, which was a few markings and a grade at the top. Instead it was a letter from Dr. Shana Hartman, who at the time was Dr. Woodward. Over the term, I started to see my writing as less of a product and more of a conversation between myself and my reader. My time under Dr. Hartman was when I started to take my writing seriously. And when I started sharing it with others.

          I did a lot of growing up in college. But then, I think college does that to you. Whether it be a theory coined from a scholar you've never heard of or a 2 a.m. conversation you never forget, a lot of learning takes place. For me, these sites included a space on the second floor of the Student Center with a glass door labeled, Writing Center; an office in the back corner of a Craig Hall, and a seat in a classroom on the bottom floor of Craig Hall where I and three other education students sat.

            The classroom where I now reside is on the second floor of the Fretwell building. I can't pin point the exact event or moment in which I decided on the path that places me in a room with what I would describe as a growing ensemble, I suppose I’m still improvising my identity even as I speak (or type). It’s not that I made the decision lightly or in passing, but rather, the decision to go to graduate school snuck up behind me. It practically mugged me. In my mind, it wasn't even a possibility. Sure, I'd grown as writer. I adored my time in the writing center, writing with people, writing for people. But graduate school was for other people, smarter people.


Sincerely,

Hannah Mayfield

Pinterest Board 2: Critical Narrative Project

Pinterest Board 1: Rhetorical Analysis/Inquiry Project

Reading & Reflecting: A Place to Stand

Reflection

          

          After reading through Julie Lindquist's A Place to Stand, I became particularly engaged in a clear and informative commentary on thoughts/ideas about culture. What it is. What it means. After calling for a lens or way of looking at culture, Lindquist moves on to explain how she approaches class. She clarifies that class must be understood as a function of culture, and culture of class in order for her project (an ethnography of working-class rhetoric) to sustain.

          In light of the knowledge that this text serves as a "mentor" text for the rhetorical analysis or inquiry project, I am beginning to consider questions which require an examination of fandom culture.

What are fans saying?

What "stories" or assemblages of texts build fandom culture?

What relationship does fandom culture have with class? 

What tensions are present? (producer/consumer v. creator/contributor)

What norms/established patterns have been created?

Jing Screencast of Who Am I Bringing to Class?

Reading & Reflecting: Identity & Agency in Cultural Worlds continued

Reflection

          

          In reading the above two paragraphs, I find it interesting that the words beginning each paragraph are "Human life" and "Human play", and I wonder at the difference between the two.

          Given my last reflection on the connections between identity and performance, it is no surprise that when reading remainder of Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds I became engaged in the conversation surrounding children and their mastery over play. 

          The text seems to engage in the idea of children's play as the precursor to adult social constructions and organized behavior, yet the idea of play has links to culture, which causes me to wonder at the origin of children's play and even further, children's culture. If children's play is related to the engagements of adult life, where does the seed of imagination originate?

Reading & Reflecting: Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds

Reflection

          In Holland's Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds, I found my attention gravitate to "Figured Worlds" where our authors say that, "Fantasy and game play serve as precursors to participation in an institutional life," (51). Given the examples about children's play and the thread(s) connecting the examples of play to more serious, institutional experiences, I would agree.

          Granted, while my studies in child development and even children's literature is limited, I do hear echoes of this idea throughout my studies in digital narratives (for young adults). A child's suspension of meaning is not so different from our own assignments of meaning that we place throughout our experiences and sites of being. I wonder, are we now older "children" just playing a more serious game with a set of explicit rules? What's at stake in our performance?

         I'm curious about the connections and/or differences between identity and performance/play. I would rather not concede that my identity is a performance dependent upon the actions/forces around me, but can I confidently say that it's not? Never before have I become so acutely aware that identity is something of a paradox which takes on the personal and intimate, while also unshakably tied to the social and cultural. As I annotated/highlighted above, the authors note identity as the key to unlocking the concerns and cares of people. I think this is largely due to an assumption that we are in complete control of our identity. If you had asked me five years ago whether I controlled my identity, I would have said yes. Initial assumptions mark identity as a private and personal belonging. Identity theft (at least to me) seems like the most frighting form of theft imaginable and plays on the idea of identity as a possession. Identity is how we act, making agency possible. But if we acknowledge the complexity of identity as a performance, maybe then we can begin to ask who is pulling the strings.

Who am I bringing to class?

Dear Dr. Brannon,

          It has been some time since I've written a letter to a professor. Well, probably not as long ago as I might like to think. Reflection letters were a common practice during my college career as an English major. But let me back up a bit. In order to tell you exactly who I'm bringing to class, I think I should tell you more about my history than a college experience can tell.

          I was born in Durham, NC (that's right, I'm going back that far). But I can't tell you much. My early years are lost on me. Faded photographs of two-year old me sitting in my dad's lap are the best I can manage. These photographs are all lying in a box in my apartment, along with just about every artifact from every memorable experience of my life. I'm not a pack rat. I'm sentimental. Very sentimental. It's funny though, last week my parents came to Charlotte to visit me, and we started going through the box together. My mother kept pulling picture after picture from the box with a baffled expression. She turned to my dad, who was almost asleep on the couch with his eyes nearly closed, and said, "She's taken everything, Ronnie. We're not even dead yet." The corners of my dad's mouth turned up slightly before he dozed off. Mom just smiled and shook her head while I shrugged my shoulders.

         Okay, so I'm overly sentimental.

          I have all the family artifacts that are supposed to be handed down over time. I just got a little impatient. My family history is valuable to me, mostly because I know very little about it. Like a 1,000 piece puzzle with missing pieces, I'm trying to put it together to create a picture, hoping it can tell me something. I'll let you know if the pieces start fitting together during our time together this summer.

          Twenty-three years have passed and I'm still an only child, so I think it's safe to say that I will remain so. I am the daughter of a high school dropout and a welder, who lived in the same place since she was five so I feel a little out of my time. After spending eighteen years on the same road with tobacco on my right, sweet potatoes on my left, and a pasture of cows across the street, (I'm not exaggerating) I knew I did not want to become another community college, firm believing Baptist, who married before she was twenty-five. (I swear, if I have one more sweet little o'l lady shake my hand and tell me that I need a man, I may do something I regret). I wanted something different. Something I couldn't quite name.

          I graduated high school from a small private, Christian school in Zebulon, NC. And when I say small, I mean small. I was Salutatorian...of a class of seven. But if history is an example, then I guess you could say my class was "large" because at least I wasn't in the class of three that graduated at least two years prior. When senior year came around applying to colleges felt like a standing joke among me and my classmates. We all knew our education was a flop. Even with a class our size, you'd be amazed at how we could yank teachers around. I've seen test answers stolen, teachers in tears, and  I've had enough free periods that I think it qualifies as truancy. It's like we knew (we just wouldn't say) that only one or two of us would actually "make it". Sure we'd all get out. But we'd go about it different ways. Marriage. Military. I knew the way I wanted to go. It had to be education. And I guess it was kind of expected of me. I was the "good student". Although, if "good" qualified as sitting in the back of the classroom, taking notes, and making sure everyone had their homework then yeah, I guess I was the good student. "Hannah, do we have a test today?" "Hannah, can I see your notes?" or "Hannah, what's the answer to number 7?" Okay, I did draw the line there. I felt like the mother of six.

          In 2009 I was admitted and enrolled at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, NC. I think it goes without saying that I was terribly self-conscious about my education. Within my first year, I had issues with self-doubt. I put myself in a constant comparison game with my peers. And when you're constantly measuring yourself against everyone around you, it takes your focus off of your own growth. But I was fortunate. I met someone who jarred my views on education and eventually writing.

          Sitting in English 101, Freshman Composition, I was reading my professor's first response on my work. And it made me feel good about my writing. It wasn't at all what I expected, which was a few markings and a grade at the top. Instead it was a letter from Dr. Shana Hartman, who at the time was Dr. Woodward. Over the term, I started to see my writing as less of a product and more of a conversation between myself and my reader. My time under Dr. Hartman was when I started to take my writing seriously. And when I started sharing it with others.

          I did a lot of growing up in college. But then, I think college does that to you. Whether it be a theory coined from a scholar you've never heard of or a 2 a.m. conversation you never forget, a lot of learning takes place. So naturally a lot of events shaped me and I can't lend the changes to a single influence. So to save time, I think I'll just list them.

          I left the country for the first time.

          In fact, I flew for the first time and spent two weeks in Ireland. I actually like flying. Weird for someone terribly afraid of heights.

          I started working in my university's writing center and stayed there for three years. I formed a lot of relationships with peers as a consultant and tutor.

          My mother's kidney transplant of thirty years nearly went into failure. I turned my car left out of our driveway and headed back to school after fall break. Ten minutes earlier, my parents had turned the car right towards the hospital.

          My mother went to the ER.

          Then to a hospital room.

          Then on dialysis for the next three months. Merry Christmas!

          Her kidney bounced back, and even made it to her 31st anniversary that we celebrated last week. Do you believe in miracles?

          I left the country again and spent spring break in Italy.

          I came back and started on my thesis.

          I lost said, thirty-five page thesis, a week before it was due.

          I sobbed intensely with my writing group.

          I found my thesis (via USB) on the floorboard of my friends car. (note to self: save your work in multiple places!) Now do you believe in miracles?

          I celebrated with my writing group... and later confessed what happened to my advisor.

          I completed my exit interview and graduated college.

          What I've left out from this list is my decision to attend graduate school. But I think the reason I've left it out is because I can't pin point an exact event or moment in which I decided. Not that I made the decision lightly or in passing, but rather, the decision to go to graduate school snuck up behind me. It practically mugged me. In my mind, it wasn't a possibility. Sure, I'd grown as writer. I adored my time in the writing center. I worked well with other students. Talking about writing, writing with other people, writing for people made me happy. But graduate school was for other people, smarter people.

          "It's about how much you want it." Those are the works JJB, director of Gardner-Webb's writing center, told me. I was sitting in her office, telling her what I've just told you now. All the educational baggage that I thought I'd checked in when starting college was suddenly coming off the belt and moving closer towards me. But JJB had faith in me, and I trusted her to be honest. I respected her opinion. If she could tell me that higher education was a matter of work ethic as well as intelligence, then I was in luck. I was confident that I had at least one of those ingredients. If I wanted to continue to work with people and study writing, then a graduate degree was the next brick to be laid on my path.

          So who am I bringing to class?

          Well, not the girl you heard about in the first few paragraphs of this piece. Instead, you're meeting a young woman who has been out from under her parents roof for almost a year. Still adjusting to a new city. Still single. Someone who finally lost the excess educational baggage but kept the boarding pass. That is, my early educational experiences are not completely lost on me. They've influenced the respect I have for higher education and the attention I pay to its accessibility. In some small way, I'd like to believe I've experienced a form of agency. Whether that's true or not, I suppose this class will help me answer. I'm excited about the possibilities of thought that this class holds. I almost anticipate my views being changed, challenged, influenced. And I welcome that change. I think I'm more comfortable in being unsure of exactly who I am bringing to class. She isn't the same person who walked into a classroom five years ago, and she will most certainly be a different person when she walks out of this one.

Sincerely,

Hannah Mayfield