Letter

My name is Tannisha Curless and this is my second quarter studying at Everett Community College. As a student, my only goal right now is to further my education and better myself as a person. I would like to gain a better understanding of the world in general so that I can gain enough perspective to one day achieve my dream of being a guidance or drug/alcohol counselor. I try my hardest to give meaning to everyday things and find new ways to describe things. I do not consider myself a particularly strong writer, but I do enjoy the mental release of a nice long essay.

This course has allowed me to delve deeper into my thoughts on identity. I do not believe that my opinions have necessarily changed, but they have definitely come out from hiding. Though aware of the importance of identity in a person’s life, I had never really given much thought to why that was true. Also, it was really interesting and enlightening to read about what people felt defined them. Since I have never really felt that ethnicity was a key factor in my identity, it was fascinating to read about people like Firoozeh Dumas who seems almost solely defined by her ethnicity as well as Gloria Anzaldua who found a great importance in her native tongue.

It was also interesting to read about all the different communities people belonged to. Unless I am looking, I do not notice how many different types of communities there truly are. I feel like the community unit really opened my eyes to what it means to be a part of a community and what a community truly is.

The tradition unit was not my favorite because I am not a person who is big on tradition. I like when things change and are different every time. While traditions are not personally important or relevant to me, it was a little interesting to read about some of the traditions like arranged marriages. It is interesting how much freedom people will give up in the name of religion or tradition.

My piece that demonstrates my critical thinking skills is my timed write after watching and discussing “Edward Scissorhands.” I chose this piece because I believe that my analysis of outsider themes in the movie was detailed and well-written. The paper that I chose to revise was my tradition unit paper titled “Facebook.” I chose to revise it because I believe it was missing a lot in the description and conclusion department. I chose a blog about tradition titled “American Stereotypes,” to demonstrate how I write when considering the audience and my personal voice. The final piece I chose was my identity unit paper, cleverly titled “Identity.” In this paper I discuss in detail what identity is and how ethnicity, gender, and appearance shape and define it. I believe that my portfolio could not do without this piece because it was my strongest work this quarter.

This quarter helped me to gain a deeper understanding of identity, community, tradition, and me. My educational growth can be examined by the pieces I have chosen. The mental journey that I took through this class is obvious. I had strong pieces of work and some that probably could have used a little more thought or effort, but all in all, I bettered myself as a writer and a reader by taking this course.