Portfolio

Throughout this class we have been analyzing the work of others by identifying patterns in their writing and trying to uncover hidden narratives in their writing.  At first it was quite difficult to read between the lines of a particular text, because it’s so easy for the mind to just read words and accept it as face value.  So when we began reading for hidden narratives it was challenging, but once I was able to identify which techniques work best for me the process became a little less rocky.  Now that I must take a look at my own work and now do to myself what I have done to others, I’m finding that I needed a new approach.  

When I first attempted to find the hidden narratives in my own work I kept coming back to the same conclusions: my thesis.  But I know that my thesis is not a hidden narrative, I must dig deeper and try to read my own work without bias and without my personal perspective (a very tricky task indeed).  Nonetheless, this was a challenge for me as well, I have never been asked to analyze my own writing so this was very new for me.  When I decided to re-read over my work again, I decided to do so with absolutely no prior opinion of the topic and really just trying to uncover things that I was telling my audience without directly saying it.  After I had this in mind, it suddenly became a little easier to identify the invisible narratives, after all I did write it haha.  In my first blog, I discussed and analyzed the issue with how black media is portrayed.  

Furthermore, I supported this idea with examples from the movie and comparing representations of the characters to actual african americans in real life.  I found that the invisible narrative was the misrepresentation media displays of minorities.  In fact my next blog which was actually more in depth about media, and how words are manipulated to portray a certain image.  The invisible narrative here was to always question a source, always critically think for yourself about a subject before believing someone elses idea as fact.  

Lastly, my third blog was about the representation of women in America and how we underappreciated as a whole.  This blog was geared towards women, in hopes to encourage them to go against the norms society has created for us; to pave your own road, one that speaks to you as an individual and as a women.  With that being said, males may take away a different invisible narrative from this blog since my opinion of the issue was clearly prevalent.  But my conclusion would be that the invisible narrative isn’t actually geared to a specific audience, because anyone and everyone can take a lesson away from this. 

Thus, the invisible narrative is actually just to create your own idea of who you should be, while completely ignoring the stigmas American society has placed on us.  Overall, I would say that my voice throughout all of my pieces remains the same: think deeply about social determinants that affect you (both directly and indirectly), break through ‘social norms’ that are not even normal to you as an individual, and lastly to have a voice.  It is okay to go against the grain and disagree with actions/events/situations that are not suitable to you. And as I ask my audience to follow through with these challenges in hopes to grow as a person, I will apply these lessons to myself as well in hopes to grow also.