December 22, 2017 - 07:43
I recently realized that my understanding of disability was rather shallow when I joined this course. Now, I can say for sure that I have a much broader grasp of disability, its impact and the people in and associated with the disability community. I think that was mostly because of all the different stimuli, specifically authors that I was exposed to over the period of this semester. Looking back on my earlier posts on Serendip I found that I was way more unsure about the messages that were being conveyed through texts and portraits at the start of the semester than at the end of it. I believe I became more confident and sure of my interpretations of what we studied but I still feel like I could improve on that. It is hard for me to pinpoint a particular text or lesson that really impacted my way of thinking but if I had to I would pick Garland-Thomson’s idea of the four rhetorics, the “debate” between Peter Singer and writers such as McBryde Johnson and Mairs, as well as Deaf Jam and Good Kings, Bad Kings. Even though I did not write about all of these topics, I would say that my essays and the topics I chose for them show how my understanding of disability evolved the best.
Class discussion and tutorials were certainly very helpful over this past semester. I felt like I understood the material we had to read way more after it was discussed in class because other people’s views on it were usually very insightful and interesting. The tutorials were also fascinating as they allowed everyone to read someone else’s work, understand their way of thinking and their view on certain topics that were brought up in class. I want to say that I contributed to everyone else’s learning the way they contributed to mine and hopefully I am right. Posts on Serendip were surely another factor that helped my learning, outside of the actual texts we studied of course.
I believe that I developed significantly as a writer this semester. Coming from a system that required our writing to be completely different in some ways I feel like I adjusted fairly well and that was mainly due to the existence of tutorials. I had never participated in anything like a tutorial before and I was honestly a bit scared of other people reading and criticizing my writing so I was a bit hesitant before my first one. However, the experience was a very pleasant surprise as it really helped me approach my paper critically and identify the flaws in my writing more clearly than ever before. I also think that class discussion enabled me to develop as a speaker and a listener, skills that I have definitely not mastered yet. My reading and comprehension skills really improved, too. In addition, this class gave me the opportunity to have a bigger say in what I write about than I had ever experienced before and that was something very exciting and refreshing. As far as improving further goes there is definitely room for improvement. I will surely keep in mind all the advice and guidance I received this semester and try to incorporate peer reviews in my future essays either through my friends or the Writing Center.
Overall, I honestly did not expect this class to be this helpful and interesting so I will make sure never to underestimate another class in the future. I will definitely try to implement everything that we learned about the disability community to any suitable situations in my everyday life, even if that simply means perceiving a person with disability a bit differently than I would have five months ago.