Reflection Journals

Journal 1: Composition Goals

In this class, my main goals are to work on my critical writing skills. What I mean by this is I often feel that the ideas in my head don’t translate as clearly into my writing. I find this happens after reading texts or when making an outline and deciding what to include in my writing. Other times, I feel that my writing could be made more concise. In ENL last Spring, I worked a lot on elevating a thesis statement and taking out unnecessary information from my essays. I hope to continue working at this process to better improve the way I present information.

I also want to get better at writing longer pieces of work since I don’t have too much practice with that. I find myself getting overwhelmed pretty easily when looking at word or page counts and I’m hoping to make that less intimidating in the future. Even though I think I’m a deep thinker, I also feel like it’s really easy to get lost in my own thoughts so I think practice with organizing my ideas will help. Especially when writing papers, I personally think it’s easy to lose sight of the main purpose or theme of the whole paper when writing the individual supporting elements.

My final goal for this class is to also get better at peer review. I think it’s a really interesting process because I see it as an opportunity to view another person’s thought process. However, I’d like to get better at actually understanding the viewpoints of others and ways to help them as well. Even though it’s something that I do have previous experience with, I enjoy getting the chance to read something that someone else has written because they may have thought of something that I have not.

Journal 5: Thinking Through Genre

The album Under Pressure by Logic is one of my top favorite Hip-hop albums. The album focuses heavily on Logic’s past and the way that he worked from a Section 8 household to world renowned rapper. The road to success is a popular topic in Hip-hop covered by countless artists before Logic. Through genre, listeners expect to hear what it was like to be poor and mistreated in a social environment. The album covers many other Hip-hop staples such as sampling, punchlines, speedy flows, and a decent amount of cursing. The art of sampling is a common practice in music where one artist takes a piece of a song from another artist (with permission) and incorporates it into their own song. Sampling has always been a keystone in Hip hop culture and Logic emanates this concept in Under Pressure. The melodies themselves also pay tribute to the roots of Hip-hop. The constant use of vocal chops, pianos, and vibrant cymbals are just a few examples of the soulful influence on the album. The almost jazz like percussion is very reminiscent of the 90s Hip-hop scene. The particular percussion style dubbed “boom bap” can be heard throughout each track.

Even though the album contains many features that Hip-hop listeners expect to hear, there are also elements that push the boundaries of the genre. In music, genre suggests that song length is around 3 minutes long. Because songs are meant to be enjoyed in relatively short times, mainstream music usually rests in this boundary so the listener doesn’t lose interest. The title track “Under Pressure” is a 9 minute song. Even though the length of this song extends the reach of the Hip-hop genre, it is still recognized as a Hip-hop song through the other notable features such as the “boom bap” percussion.