Annotated Bibliography

 

Choi, Rachel. (2011). Psych Nature vs. Nurture. PSYCH 111: Intro to psychology.

 

            For this research paper, I was asked to pick one trait about myself and argue whether or not this trait or skill was something innate given to me genetically by my parents, or if it was something that I had grown to do because of my surrounding environment. I interpreted this as a dialogue that I could have with myself to convince the reader that I couldn’t really pick one side, but saw the importance of both. Because I thought both were necessary, I included both sides in my essay and argued that these aspects had to come together in order for me to have this trait or talent. This was the first research paper that I had written coming into college and it was possibly the first essay I had to write. I wrote it very methodically and as organized as I could because it was a research paper. This essay was an opportunity for me to learn how to write scientifically and structurally in a way that differed from a standard five-paragraph essay. It taught me how to focus more on paragraph by paragraph to see that it fit my overall argument.

 

Choi, Rachel. (2011). The Ring: An object of many meanings beyond true human understanding. LHSP 125: The rest is madness.

 

            For this essay, we were assigned to pick an everyday object that people use and research about it and then write on the different meanings it carries based on different angles of looking at it. I decided to take the ring and interpret it from different angles such as historically, culturally, in terms of gender differences, in literature, and finally also what it can mean on a global basis. I wanted to find the characteristic that was consistent in all of these angles; the most common meaning attributed to the ring. And I also wanted to prove that the ring was used more than just for wedding purposes, hence why I chose so many different angles and sources. This was the first essay that I wrote where I was genuinely intrigued by the topic and where I had the freedom to choose what I wanted to write about. This essay was the longest essay that I had ever written (at that point) as an 8-page paper, so it challenged me to go in depth with the topic without writing things to take up space. I found that I had to do more research and more speculating because my original ideas didn’t fill up the page count, and so it taught me how much deeper I could go in depth with one single idea.

 

 

 

Choi, Rachel. (2012). The Lorax. LHSP 230: Stories and pictures: re-envisioning children’s literature.

 

            In my children’s book making class, we were assigned to take a children’s book that we really enjoyed as a kid, and re-read it and analyze the deeper meaning underlying the story that we perhaps didn’t see as a kid. So I took The Lorax and wrote about how the world of the Lorax and our world were parallel universes and how it was an allegorical commentary on the history of neglecting/exploiting the environment. I wanted to show that children’s books sometimes hold a more serious, sober meaning that is hard to be interpreted by little children, but hold more weight to the story when we read them again as adults. And so I interpreted the book differently with a more sobering tone differently than if I was writing about it as a child. This essay was a blueprint for how I wrote my future communications media analysis papers because it was in essence the same thing. It helped me see deeper than just the surface level interpretations because we had to discover an underlying meaning beneath the story. This essay taught me how to analyze a book’s overall message and tie it in to something significance in life. It taught me to think outside the box because I had to interpret this children’s book differently than when I had read is a kid.

 

 

 

Choi, Rachel. (2012). How Stories are Blueprints for Kingship. ACABS 261: Ancient Egyptian religion.

           

            For my Egyptians mythology and the afterlife class, we were assigned to write about the importance of stories in regards to kingship and the reason for why those stories existed. After looking through the stories of the kings, I interpreted the stories as blueprints that explained how kings were supposed to act in ancient Egypt. This essay was the first historical based essay that I wrote where I had to interpret the reasoning behind historical documents. Not only did I have to know what the documents were talking about, but I also had to know all the history behind Egyptian mythology and it’s gods and goddesses in order to properly write this essay. This paper taught me the importance of knowing the greater history and cultural information about a subject before truly writing about it. I found that if I had not known the historical backdrop, the significances of objects and characters, or other cultural traditions, I would not have known how to interpret these stories or understand the significance of them. It showed me the value of researching or learning about subject in its entirety before writing an interpretive analysis on one part of the topic.

 

 

 

Choi, Rachel. (2013). Hobo Chess. LHSP 230: Publishing and editing.

 

            For one of my assignments, I was assigned to curate a literary journal with artwork and creative writing from people I knew. I wanted some of my work to be in there, so I wrote a short story about a group of friends who go out to eat frozen yogurt but one of them gets distracted and ends up playing chess with a bunch of hobos. It’s based on a true story that happened to my brother and I in Hawaii. This was the first time that I had ever dabbled in creative writing for a class, and it was the first time I had other people read my creative writing in college. I wanted to make the writing sound reminiscent and silly, like I was recounting this story to a friend of mine. It was very much an exploration of creative writing because I had never taken a class on it but I wanted to have my work in my own journal somehow. It challenged me to learn how to put a story into words (because usually I'm telling the story to people), and it helped me explore creative writing and fiction in general. It started making me curious about trying different styles of writing and learning how to tell a story well in a way that engages people.

 

 

Choi, Rachel. (2014). Comm 380 Paper. COMM 380: persuasion & campaigns.

 

            For my Communications ULWR class, we were assigned a 15-page analytical research paper where we had to take an advertisement or a campaign and discuss what made it successful or unsuccessful based on what we had learned. Because I was interested in gender portrayals and implications, I decided to study the Axe Hero advertisements and talked about how their constant comparison of the consumer and the models in the commercial as well as their emphasis on a certain type of manhood was what made their advertisements and their products so successful. But I also brought up negative issues that arose with having people watch these commercials. This research paper was the longest paper that I had ever written, but for some reason, it didn’t feel long at all because we broke up the process and focused on each part of the paper in depth. Because of this process, I learned how to start thinking ahead, preparing for the process, and learning how to effectively argue a point. During our discussions, our GSI taught us effective word choices and phrases that would persuade our readers to agree with our opinions. It made me realize that depending on the genre or style of writing, there were different styles and tones that we had to use. It also made me realize how in depth I could go with one topic or specific subject.

 

Choi, Rachel. (2014). Blog #9. WRITING 220: Writing minor intro.

           

            For my minor in writing blog, we were asked to blog about our reflections of our class and our writing. I decided to write about how my perception of writing changed throughout the class. I found that previously, my writing was very broad and unfocused because I didn’t really plan out what I was going to write about. But because of this class, I said that I began to think intentionally about the audience that I was communicating to. Instead of writing mindlessly, I learned how to write with my mind focused. This blog post helped me to reflect on my writing process and confirmed my hunch that I had to start changing the ways in which I wrote. Before, I would writing very freely and felt that if my writing was not good, it was because I wasn’t a good writer. But after this class and after I thought about it through this blog post, I realized that every beginning post or piece of writing will always sound rusty, and that it was editing and planning that made writing better every time. And since then, I’ve changed my writing process thus.

 

 

 

Choi, Rachel. (2014). It’s Not About Putting a Ring On It. WRITING 220: Writing minor intro.

 

            For my writing minor gateway class, we were asked to take a paper that we had written for a previous class and re-purpose it, so I took a previous paper I wrote, The Ring, and re-purposed it as a feminist magazine opinion piece about wedding rings and why women should take back the meaning of the ring. It was similar in topic, but the angle of the piece was more opinionated and focused than my previous essay. I also took those facts that I had learned before as evidence for my argument rather than just showing them as different meanings of the ring. This was the first writing assignment where I didn’t write it in a formal essay form. I was able to explore beyond the typical academic essay format and was able to make it more personal and opinionated, which made me more engaged and intentional about my writing. This opinion piece challenged me to be free of my academic writing style and experiment with creating my own opinionated voice. It also taught me how to take a piece of writing and completely morph it into something else depending on the angle of the writing and the audience that was reading it. I was able to learn more about writing for an audience and always being conscious about how my writing as being communicated to others.

 

 

Choi, Rachel. (2014). The Selfie Project. WRITING 200: New media writing.

 

            For my New Media Writing class, we were assigned to take four selfies using the knowledge and skills we learned in class. Then we were told to explain the techniques and reasoning behind our selfies and why we took them in that way. The four selfies we had to take were discourse, identity, good character, and persuasion. For persuasion, I took a selfie with my glasses on, and with my War & Peace book to persuade the audience that I was a smart person. For good character, I took a picture with a stuffed animal and smiled. For identity, I took a picture wearing my Michigan gear, and for discourse, I took a picture with some Korean food I ate at Thanksgiving. This project and this class were significant to my writing because it taught me that not all writing has to be in the traditional sense. Our professor explained that even taking selfies was considered writing if there was intentional thought and process in forming our argument through the pictures. It challenged me to think outside of the box about what it meant to be a writer, and it also taught me how to persuade people and communicate to people visually in a way that I never had before. It changed the ways in which I view new media and even writing. And it made me want to explore more with different mediums of writing.

 

 

 

 

Choi, Rachel. (2014). The Woman who revealed Two Sides of a Man. RUSSIAN 347: Survey of Russian literature.

  

            For my Russian literature class, our essay prompt was about how Pechorin, the main character from the novel A Hero of Our Time treated women differently, and if there was a character that he treated contrary to the others. Taking this prompt, I wrote a deep character analysis on how Vera brings out a different side of Pechorin in a way that’s contradictory to how he acts around other women. But instead of talking more about how he treated women, I made the focus more about Pechorin’s character and how his inner conflict between heart and mind led him to treat these women in this way. Vera’s character happened to reveal that to the readers more because she was from his past and his present. This was the first essay where I had taken the essay prompt and diverted a bit from the topic instead of staying true to what was asked. Because I had loved this book so much, I was more interested in figuring out the mind behind Pechorin rather than the ways in which he treated women. And so I only used the treatment of women as evidence for the bigger character analysis of Pechorin. This essay stretched my writing to really go in depth with one single character. It taught me a lot about how to go beyond what was asked of me and experiment with a topic that I was originally interested in while I was reading the book. That interest made me much more intentional about the essay and therefore strengthening my argumentation strength because I would think about the topic weeks in advance and mark up evidence earlier to properly formulate my argument.