Intro
This page is mainly to introduce the process of the analysis essay I completed this semester. Through preparatory work, watching movies, and doing annotation (exploratory writing), I learned to "Apply these reading skills to various kinds of texts" in the course objectives. And in the peer review after each assignment, I learned "Understand the importance of peer review to your own reading and writing." Including the later group work podcast, let me have a deeper understanding of the theme of this semester, how Disney films represent gender roles and contribute to social constructions. And group work taught me "Practice collaboration." So this page will include four main sections related to this semester's work: Planning and Exploratory Writing, Peer Review, Self Review, and Revision.
Planning and Exploratory Writing
Annotations about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in Week 4 Exploratory Writing
This assignment was annotating a film about its characters' says, does, and looks in the series of Star Wars. The work I show here is an analysis of Leading Female Jyn's words, which illustrates her independence and differences with other Disney princess characters. From this assignment, I learn how to "Apply these reading skills to various kinds of texts" since I have never thought carefully about the deep meaning of the characters' lines until I begin to annotate while watching movies. Also, Jyn's words here seriously help me to prove images of independent women in new era Disney movies.
Week 2 Exploratory Writing: Killing Us Softly 4 & Looking into the Magic Mirror
This assignment was exploratory writing about two articles, "Killing Us Softly 4" and "Looking into the Magic Mirro," including ideas that helped me better understand how public pedagogy builds social constructions about gender roles. The part is a quotation from Haas & Trapedo's article "Looking into the Magic Mirro" since their words about Disney company's essence greatly give me an inspiring point about the connection between their representation of social constructions about gender role and public preferences. From this assignment, I learn "Openness in Habits of Mind" in the course objectives. I can't autonomy imagine this reason for Disney to follow public preferences without opening my mind by reading this article.
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Peer Review
My Peer Review for Thesis & Brief Outline for Essay
I choose this peer review as the best one I give because her outline helps me better understand social constructions. Actually, I have never had a clear answer to what social construction is, which has bothered me for a long time. Until I saw a sentence from Sharp and Wade in her outline, "The way, we create meaning through social interactions with others," which made me immediately understand what social construction is. This helps me write an analysis essay later, and I also quoted this sentence in my essay. Besides, from the process of finishing this peer review, I "Understand the importance of having a process when you are composing a sophisticated text" since without this outline, I would not have a new understanding of social construction.
Peer Review of My Introductory Paragraphs
I choose this peer review as the best one because she gave me beneficial advice, helping me modify my final essay a lot according to her peer review. I clearly know which part of my sentences would confuse readers and what sentences I didn't explain enough from her peer review. For example, I didn't realize that "different treatments related to characters' gender" would confuse readers with the different treatments until she pointed out this doubt. If the first sentence of an entire article puzzles the reader, the reader will definitely not want to continue reading. So this is a handy suggestion, and fortunately, I corrected it in the final draft. From this, I "Understand the importance of peer review to your own reading and writing" in the course objectives, since without her peer review, I couldn't find this problem even until I submit my final essay.
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Self-Review
The second annotation here really needs to be revised since it confused readers a lot about "different treatments." It's hard for me to realize this problem during writing since I know what I intend to write. However, readers don't know what I want to express, and readers need to understand the topic I want to express based on my text. However, for a reader who has not read my article or watch a movie, it is difficult to understand what a different treatment is based on my sentences. Thus, I must rewrite this sentence and explain my point of view in another way. From this self-review, I "understand the importance of self-review" in the course objectives since doing this process can help writers better communicate with readers without confusing readers. Therefore, it's important for us to do a self-review.
The pink annotation talks about this quotation needed to add some details. It is difficult for readers to understand why Gamora grabbing Peter's hand is a life-and-death decision, and they cannot understand Gamora's bravery without introducing the plot. From this part, we can know the importance of self-reviewing since we can find these problems only when we read and review our essay again. During writing, it's hard for the writer to realize some potential problems that might confuse readers.
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Revision
This paragraph is the second introduction of my essay, which talks about some background information and specific plots related to my statements about how Disney films represent gender roles. Since I plan to write Beauty and the Beast (2017), professor Haas gave me the advice to compare the 1990 and 2017 versions. Thus, I talked about the relationship between these two version and how the 1990s affect 2017s. Also, I talk about why 2017s still conclude the traditional idea of gender roles about females.
This paragraph is the last body paragraph of my essay, which talks about specific plots correlated to Disney's leading females in new era films related to my statements. I add a screenshot here because it's hard for readers to understand the plot only from Gamora's words: Peter! Take my hand!. After attaching this image, Gamora's bravery that makes readers feel more shocked.
