HST 102 - Ordinary Men Essay:
For this writing assignment in HST 102 – Modern European History, I analyses the behavior of Police Battalion 101, the Nazi fighting force that facilitated a near genocide in WWII. This essay is in response to the book written by Christopher Browning, “Ordinary Men”, in which Browning reflects upon the behavior of this infamous Nazi group consisting of a collection of everyday German farmers. How were these pedestrian, average seeming men able to usher one of the greatest atrocities of the modern era? I begin the essay by pointing to the popular (mostly fictional) stories of everyday people being thrown into desperate circumstances that reveal a violent, barbaric side to their otherwise harmless persona. I go on to outline how most people believe that they are not capable of such gruesomeness. However, the story of Police Battalion 101 disproves that idea. Everyday people are in fact capable of atrocity, such as the holocaust. Everyday people can become Nazis. Throughout the essay, I describe the factors that enable the “ordinary men” of Police Battalion 101 to carry out the ghastly orders of the Nazi regime. One of the primary reasons the Nazi’s were able to corrupt these average people is through a concept called “dissociative responsibility”. The soldiers were lead to believe that they were just following orders and that the blame for their action rests with those in authority. Couple this with a strict hierarchy and relentless propaganda, the Nazi regime was able to convert a nation of ordinary German men into a ruthless fighting force capable of mass genocide with little remorse. The writing assignment was used to think more deeply about both the human physique but also the conditions that enabled a German country to fall to Nazi rule, in the context of this larger European history discussion.
BEM 261 – Group Dissection Essay:
I wrote this essay as part of my business law course, and the essay was written as a three person group. This is the first essay I ever wrote as a group with forced me to practice a variety of new skills that other writing assignments neglect. It is one thing to organize and communicate the thoughts in your head yourself. It is an entirely different skill set to collaborate with two other writers and construct a cohesive argument. The essay was predicated around the Wells Fargo scandal and legal orders issued by regulatory agencies (CFPB and OCC) in late 2016. This remedial action was brought about by the creation of millions of fraudulent savings and checking accounts on the behalf of Wells Fargo clients without their consent. The purpose of the essay was to asses these regulatory agencies capacity to hold large financial institutions like Wells Fargo accountable for any violations and in check from operating outside of its legal or ethical boundaries. We were tasked with outlining the various actions and objectives Wells Fargo was required to fulfill in compliance with these orders, and if they are sufficiently punitive and remedial in action to prevent such future behavior both in Wells Fargo and other organizations. Our group came to the conclusion that the action required by the orders was sufficient because of the magnitude of the penalties, the required consistent organizational change, and the mandatory documentation of each order’s completion. Additionally, from a learning perspective, the purpose of this assignment was to assess students’ ability to read, comprehend, and analyze complex legal orders. The assignment challenged our knowledge of class concepts and whet a long way as far as solidifying my understanding of the material.
JOU 278 Final Essay – AIDS Epidemic and the Influence of Media
One of the courses I chose to take while pursuing the WRI minor was journalism, but specifically News Literacy which focused on identifying the difference between reliable and unreliable, biased and unbiased news sources (which in the modern era is very valuable). However, the class curriculum also highlighted major events in journalistic history and discussed the media’s effect on the portrayal and public opinion of those events at the time. We learned a lot about the develop of news journalism over the years and were tasked with examining a seminal event in American history through the reportage of news media. My professor was looking for us to evaluate the quality of the coverage based on journalistic principles we discussed in class. I wrote my essay about the American media’s response to the AIDs epidemic during early and late 80s. I begin the essay by discussing the confusion that was circling through the public during the early years of the outbreak, with the Reagan administration hesitating to acknowledge the epidemic formally the CDC was left without formal funding to address the situation. As a result of the growing crisis and limited financing, inaccurate information spread to major media outlets pinning the outbreak on the homosexual community, calling it a “gay plague” and inciting serious homophobia across the nation. The narrative shifted as more research became available of the nature of the AIDs virus, and studies concluded that it was not specific to homosexuals. In the mid 80s the media switched narratives, and rather than blaming the gay community, held them up as victims and survivors of this horrible outbreak. The nuances of this shift are outlined throughout the essay in the lens of proper journalistic practice. My biggest critique was the minimal attention the media assigned to the Reagan administration during the time of the outbreak for withholding federal funding from outbreak prevention. More focus was brought to the administration’s action later, but I feel the media was holding back from that aspect of the story in the moment.
Upon reflecting on my own writing, I notice myself doing something that I do far too often. When outlining and writing rough drafts I get a great, foundation idea and try to cram it into a big sentence. I edit and revise the sentence many times. Yet each time I move on, then reread it, I want to change the sentence again. I think I need to get better at separating myself from my ideas. I can’t be afraid to delete my great sentence if it simply doesn’t work.
CRW 287 Essay 1 – “The Adolescent Struggles of a Natural Racer”
Another course I took on path to my WRI minor was Creative Non-Fiction Workshop. The workshop aspect of this course was very new to me. There was a lot of trust between classmate but also a lot of pressure to give them meaningful feedback for their trust. This was the first Creative Non-Fiction essay I was asked to write and share for workshop. Many of the other students in the class were writing stories centered around very personal events in their lives but I didn’t really want to do that, especially not for my first ever workshop. So instead I wrote about something light hearted. I wrote about how I got my license suspended when I was in high school. On the surface this seems like a frustrating and fairly uneventful premise to write a non-fiction story about. However, I series of highly unlucky but, upon reflection, highly comical mishaps behind the wheel in the first 12 months of having my license. While the essay did not mirror the ones from the other students, I feel everyone enjoyed my essay. It was funny and easy to read which I feel was a welcome break from the dense, tear jerking, mood killers we had been accustom the working with. The essay gave me the opportunity to harp on story telling skills that I felt I always had, but was never able to utilize in a class setting before. It also introduced me the process creative writers engage with and has prepared me to organize and articulate my thoughts in a new way. Having said that, my professor did comment on my lack of literary ambition in this essay, which at the time I didn’t understand what he meant. My essay was fun to read but it was also powerless. There really was no purpose behind it other than to write an easy essay people can laugh with. I realize now that he was pushing me to write something more emotionally meaningful because those types of essays require a lot of reflection, are much more taxing to write, and often carry real purpose.
WRI 210 Essay - Profile of Academic Writing in the Statistical Analysis Discipline
The WRI 210 course I took with Professor Smart focused on the nuances of academic writing across disciplines and the discourse/genre communities that exist there. The class highlighted specifically academic journal writing, and varying customs or norms that exist within different fields of study. For the essay, the class was tasked with interviewing a professor from one of the courses in our major that has published a work of academic writing in a scholarly journal within their field of expertise. I chose to interview my Quantitative Analysis professor Alireza Lari, who is an expert in the Statistical Analysis field and has published multiple academic articles in reputable journals about his work. Professor Smart outlined the process we should go through in preparation for the interview. So, I prepped appropriate leading questions about writing in the Statistical Analysis discipline and developed a familiarity with the norms associated with publishing in that field. Professor Lari and I discussed the customs that exist in his field, the process of getting an article published, and the dynamic between teaching at a University and publishing work. I learned a lot from my interview and it allowed me to develop a sort of report with this professor who I can learn a great deal from.
The essay itself allowed me to practice interview skills from the side of the interviewee, something we rarely get the opportunity to experience but will become more valuable later in life. The assignment also gave me exposure to what writing in the scholarly setting looks and feels like. There is such a large academic community that exists far outside the classroom that I was unaware of until the interview I had with Professor Lari. I was also able to hone in on statistical writing skills which is also something I rarely get to do. Much of class is more focused on the actual analysis rather than writing.
WRI 212 – Essay 1
In the course Literary Nonfiction: The Art of the Essay or WRI 212, we discussed at length the nuances of the various forms and styles of essay writing in the nonfiction genre. We developed our skills in this genre by reading accomplished authors of nonfiction essays discuss their process. One of the authors we read in class talked about the concept of analytic meditation, which is all about not controlling your thoughts but rather letting them arise and bubble up naturally. For the first essay assignment, Professor Branch tasked the class with writing our own form of analytic meditation. When I wrote this essay, I was beginning my first semester of sophomore year. I was in the process of applying to the Business School at Wake and I was struggling with finding my academic path, questioning what the proper route was to discover what I wanted to do. I challenged the question of “what do you want to do when you grow up” and allowed my thoughts to flow naturally as I wrote. I arrive at the conflict between doing what makes you happy versus doing what will make you successful. If I were to revise this essay I would continue more deeply with that concept. I feel that I touched on a very sensitive, sharp point in my writing that I let drift past. I wrote about the uncertainty of choosing a career and maybe got nervous because that seemed so far away. Everyone always tells you to “do what you love”. But often times what you love is not what is truly best for you or your career. I thought heavily on these issues as my college experience went on.
WRI 111 Essay 3 – Peer Editing
When first rereading this essay I forgot the specifics of the assignment but I was able to access the grading rubric regarding the requirements. The essay was assigned primarily to give students exposure peer editing classmate’s work. That is a skill that I utilized greatly throughout my time at Wake and the groundwork was laid in these early classes like WRI 111. I remember having a lot of experience peer editing writing because I worked in the writing center at my high school. Even still, being a freshman in my first WRI class, I was a little nervous to let another student read my work. The essay itself was a research based essay discussing the AIDS epidemic and how it was addressed in American media (which I later repurposed and greatly revised for my JOU class). There was a lot of research done for the essay and a lot of time was put into citing sources and creating a bibliography. However, if I were to revise this essay I would draw more directly from the sources I gathered. I feel I did the research simply to complete the bibliography requirement. I think the essay would go a long way if I incorporated and addressed some of the opinions and findings of experts in the field. The writing itself was very emotional and provocative which could be largely because of the subject matter but also could stem from being nervous for someone else to read my writing. I was also able to look at the comments that the other students gave me in class on my writing. It is clear to see that everyone has come a long way as far as their rhetorical skill.
BEM 261 – Class Reflection
I am a business major and one of my required courses is BEM 261, an introductory course to business law. I learned quiet a lot from this class. I had never experienced a true law class before and I gained exposure language and process that exists in the legal world. Towards the end of BEM 261, Professor Bliss asked us to take the time to reflect on some of our experiences both in the class and in the Wake business school as a whole. The professor prompted us for the assignment with some questions she asked us to answer. One asked for a reflection of your experience in the larger business school, one asked us to critique a solution to a problem we proposed in class discussions, and one asked us to describe how we will continue to develop our “proprietary” capacities beyond the BEM 261 classroom. I greatly enjoyed responding to these questions because it was one of the first true assignments that required me to reflect on not just my experience in the classroom but my educational experience in general. I also did not have much practice with reflection writing at the time and this assignment really opened up mind to the importance of reflecting and the proper style to write reflections in. If I were to revise this essay, I would focus more deeply on my feelings and emotional responses to experiences. I think that I often shy away from that type of personal exploration because it feels awkward to write about. However what I have come to find, as my college career comes to an end, is that it is only through this type of writing that you discover true meaning in your work.
CRW 287 – Essay 2
CRW 287 is a creative nonfiction workshop and one the things I quickly learned about creative nonfiction writing is it often gets very personal. I am not a very open person by nature in that I often like to keep sensitive, emotional things close to my chest. The first months of the class were spent reading critically acclaimed creative nonfiction essays as well as workshopping our own classmate’s essays. Almost every story we read we personally and emotionally revealing in one form or another. I tried to avoid doing that as much as possible so for my first essay in the class I wrote about something lighthearted and fun. It turned out to be a good essay but my professor felt that it lacked literary ambition. What I found this to mean is that my essay was missing drive and force that comes from the sensitive, hard-to-write parts of our lives. So for my second CRW essay, I wrote about something much more personal, much more powerful. I’d rather not discuss the specifics of the story because I still feel uneasy sharing those type of experiences, but for this essay I ventured out of comfort zone and tested my writing’s “ambition”. At the end I feel that I learned about myself, about why I was feeling that way I was, and about how to describe my most severe and sensitive emotions. In the end, I am thankful more my professor pushing me the way he did but I don’t think I’ll be writing like that again.
HST 102 Essay 2 – King Leopold’s Ghost
As one of my divisional course I took Modern European History or HST 102. To be totally honest, the class covered a huge amount of information spread over multiple centuries and didn’t seem particularly modern to me. Part of the course focused on imperial European nation’s influence on developing Africa. Specifically, we discussed the ways European nations exploited African natural resources and tribal communities for their own country’s profit and gain. Professor Charles asked the class to read “King Leopold's Ghost” by Adam Hochschild, which explore the exploitation of the Congo (then a free state) by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908. The book documents the gruesome and inhumane treatment of native Congo tribes at the hand of the Belgians under King Leopold. It also describes how the King was able to get funding from powerful nations like the United States for his operations in the Congo by hiding what was actually happening there. The book itself was incredibly eye opening and raised my awareness to something that I was not previously aware of. The Belgian occupation of the Congo was simply a horrific displays of inhumanity and the violent potential of mankind. The essay itself I felt was very good. However, if I were to revise the writing I would say it falls short of highlighting the importance in today’s world. I would comment on the condition of the Congo state today and point to some of the ramifications of the Belgian occupation. That would make the argument a little more poignant and relevant.