A Writer's World
"In the beginning, was the WORD"
The Ring: An object of many meanings beyond true human understanding
This essay is the source of everything. It started out as only a potential candidate. In fact, I didn't really want to re-purpose it at the time, but I chose it as a potential because I was interested in rings. Plus it was one of the few essays that I still had. I decided to use it as the source when my peer group members suggested to re-purpose it as a feminist blog article. I was immediately interested because I've always wanted to learn more about gender stereotyping and underlying sexist ideologies in our society. I didn't really have an argument but I decided to pick the essay for re-purposing to explore how rings and feminism were related. I was curious to see what connections could be made.
It's Not About Putting A Ring On It
After deciding to re-purpose my ring article, it took time to figure out what I wanted my argument to be. At first, I figured I would just write an informative article like the national geographic, where I would discuss the many different meanings behind rings. But I wasn't really sure of what to argue. All I knew was that women seemed to be obsessed with engagement rings and I knew society had something to do with it. Gender stereotyping and sexist ideologies have always been topics of interest to me. Growing up, I noticed that boys were always trying to define me into this small, tiny box of womanhood. When I took a women's studies class at U of M, I learned a lot about subtle influences of society that shape a woman's identity and worth. I wanted to write an article that would influence women to stop and think about their rings and the implications behind them. We as women are constantly defined by society to be a certain way. I was hoping this article would help me to understand those influences so that I could encourage women to be free to define themselves.
Not About Putting A Ring On It Video
When our class began thinking about re-mediation, I knew that I didn't want to do a video. I wanted to make a podcast because I was unfamiliar with it. Also, it was because I didn't want to put in the time to make a video. But the more I researched on podcasts, the more I realized I wanted to make a video podcast. I realized that visuals could actually enhance an argument as long as they weren't distracting. I found that listening to a podcast vs watching a video podcast was like listening to a just a voice vs watching a powerpoint presentation. The visuals helped with the conceptualization of what I was discussing. And because I was discussing so much information, I wanted visuals to keep the listener interested. So I opted to make a video podcast instead. In the end, a college essay became a blog post, which became a video podcast. In the beginning, it was just about the many different meanings behinds the symbol of the ring. But the end result was a message that asked women to take back the meaning behind rings and make it for their own.
The Process of Creating
At first, the connection between all my projects wasn't really there. But as I started to carve out each of my papers, I started to see how they were all related. In the end, I realized they were three important components to a greater project, like different parts to a living organism.
Please click the images below to receive the respective articles and essays.
