English 2010 builds on what you know and what you have already learned during previous writing and in English 1010. It increases the engagement of ideas concerning economic or political theories and policies. Writing as a process, critical reading, academic writing practices and revisions are something you continue to work on. You also learn how to add emphasis to these things on top of using genre as a tool for writing, writing using research and sources, writing in different modes and writing for public contexts.
This semester we were asked to choose a social justice issue that we would be able to focus on for the remainder of the semester. I really wanted to choose a topic that meant something to me that I would be able to. After a lot of thought I chose to go with suicide. Everybody is effected by suicide in some way or another whether they realize it or not, but for me suicide means more than it might for most. I had someone that was very close to me chose suicide was a way to get out of depression and stress. The projects I chose this semester all reflected on bringing more knowledge and publicity to suicide so we all know what to look for, hopefully bringing down the raising suicide rates.
Throughout the course I really tried my best to choose the genres that I felt would get my point across and help the reader realize how important suicide really is. Suicide is not an easy topic to talk about, keeping that in mind I chose very carefully what genres I wanted to use to change this for the reader. I really wanted my readers to not feel alone, I wanted them to feel like they always have someone to talk to because I think this is one part of helping those that are suicidal. The Profile and Information Effect were the pieces that I was most proud of. I feel like these pieces really get the attention of the reader in a way that I wanted to accomplish. The Profile shows a great example of how the people that we think are the happiest can be effected by suicide. It really opens your eyes and makes you want to keep an eye on those you know and love. I think by using a Profile for this genre I really got the point to the reader that literally anyone and everyone can be effected by suicide so we really have to be cautious. For the Information Effect I used pictures to show the importance of suicide in our lives. While creating this project I really studied into what pictures would be most effective to the reader. A lot of the time I think that pictures speak louder than words. With suicide being such a hard topic to talk about I used pictures instead to hopefully help it an easier thing to talk about.
Deciding how to translate or adapt a piece to become part of our Magazine project was one of my favorite parts of this semester. While I was deciding how I wanted to create my pieces throughout the semester I always had the thought of how it would look on an online magazine so I only had to translate the project hopefully once instead of having to change the layout and things for every single one of my projects at the end of the semester. This really helped me think outside the box and write in a way that I normally wouldn’t. I learned so many different ways to write to a reader besides a simple essay and I know that will be extremely helpful throughout the rest of my college career.
There are many factors that play into suicide and each victim’s story is different. In our group magazine that we created as our final project for the course describe how mental illness in a whole can effect so many people in so many different ways. I’ve always had a very strong perspective on suicide and it stayed pretty steady throughout the semester but after creating this magazine I looked at suicide differently. Comparing suicide to all the other mental illness that individuals may be facing I realized that most likely if someone is suicidal they have other things going through their head as well, but they feel like they are at the last step and suicide is the only answer. This really touched me and I hope that those who read through our magazine get the same impact that I did from it.
As the Managing Editor in my magazine group I really realized the importance of doing your part in a group project. It was really hard for me to make sure everybody was doing what they were supposed to and turning things in on time. It made me realize that if everybody just put in an equal amount of effort and did their work on time everything would move so much smoother. I felt like I had to almost be the babysitter in the group even if everybody was doing what they were supposed to just to make sure the whole group was on track and I didn’t like that, I felt like it was ruining my relationships with my peers. It was really easy for us to decide as a group what we wanted the magazine to look like and what we wanted the final outcome to be, which I am very grateful for. We decided from the very beginning what the magazine was going to be at the end so there were no arguments or anything while we were creating the project which I think really helped with the designing collaboration.