Through many arduous essays and debilitating papers, I have always found writing as a whole to be an interesting challenge. Within my academic journey in the IAS program at UW-Bothell, I have been presented with many different writing trials (and tribulations, of course), all designed to open my mind and communicative abilities up to both inquiry and exploration. Many of these assignments required me to restructure my normal writing methods, in order to develop ideas and support claims in ways which best serve my needs. My time in IAS has enlightened me in regards to how one may most effectively communicate their purposes, and helped me develop the ability to indicate in a clear and self-reflexive way the means by which specific acts of communication can often relate to the works of others.
Inspired by pieces like “Fountain” (1917) by Marcel Duchamp, The Modern Student's Dictionary is a piece of writing shock art that I created last year, as my take on an absurdist dictionary that mentions at every level how absolutely damned a student is while in the classroom, focused around gun violence in our schools. It is a piece that is intentionally very humorous, but also extremely pessimistic. My dictionary gives faux definitions of terms, framing them against the backdrop of a school shooting/shooter. This piece is an example of my ability to communicate my purpose effectively to various audiences, through an alternative form of writing. This piece does not directly claim anything or mention that it is a critique of how poorly American school-systems are prepared for school shootings, but rather is aware of the interconnected relationship between the audience and the context, and tells its story and attempts to achieve its purpose that way. As someone who is looking to go into education as a career path, I know that I will be spending a lot of time looking at how people communicate with me. And I have learned through my time in IAS that even indirect or sarcastic forms and means of communication can have a serious message, much like my piece itself does.
Another piece of mine that displays how my abilities have grown while in the IAS program is titled Crowd Response and How Politicians Change Their Speeches. This piece is a research-proposal that synthesizes and references the works of thirteen different writers, all used in my proposition as to why the research I want to conduct is important and why the data are important to society’s understanding of political speeches. As a whole, this research proposal aims to view and generate data based on how a politician changes their communication with their audience, particularly in regards to how they may change their speech or go off-script based on how the crowd is responding to their words. This piece exemplifies my capabilities in relating my work to the works of several other people, and explains how someone may be able to utilize my information in order to create work of their own one day too. It also relates to the skills I will one day need for my future career path. As someone intending to be an educator, being able to communicate with others in a clear and effective way, relate my communication with and to them, and remain conscious of my audience, purpose, and the context in which I am writing, are all vital and applicable skills to utilize.
These pieces, built through my time in and with the support of the IAS program at UW-Bothell, have grown both my writing and communication skills and capabilities, and have allowed me to create purposeful and meaningful work with others and utilizing the works already created by other talented writers too. And one day, I hope to utilize these skills to help the next generations of students improve their writing and communication skills much like mine have.