Reflection Essay #1: The East African Agaseke Basket
My overall experience when writing about my cultural artifact has made me consider doing personal research on my culture and the many other traditions that I still contribute in my life, and find the true root and meaning behind the values that they hold.
The essay has helped me achieve the Course Learning Outcomes because I was able to use the free review comments and class teaching to formulate a better introduction, well-organized essay, and ideas. Being able to do that I can acknowledge that the genre of my essay is, a personal essay that stems more into my creative writing and my personal experience. The characteristic features that are shown in my essay are, tackling the importance, values, and traditions that the agaseke basket hold to myself, my family, and my community. What prompted me to write about the agaseke basket is, recognizing the frequent times that I have seen the basket in my own home and others related to me as a child. With that, I only knew so little about the importance that the agaseke basket holds to my family and the history behind it.
I hoped to accomplish a better look at the many cultural aspects that I have adapted like moving into a new country and adapting to the culture. Not to completely avoid or forget the ones my parents continue to practice but establish them in a way that I can relate to. While doing that I’m able to understand and become familiar with the culture. The audience that I want to potentially target is students, specifically those who are open to learning about different cultures. The relationship between me as a writer, my potential audience, and the medium I’m using to communicate is that we all play a part in society either negatively by our action of belief or positively. The knowledge, assumptions, or goals I and my audience share are, to have better community support and representation.
My overall reaction to the assignment was, not feeling too stuck on the ideas or concept that was assigned because I’ve done a similar assignment that tackles culture recognition. What I had to do to complete this essay is use the resources I had, to figure out what my topic and writing will be about. The aspect of the revision process that I found most difficult is, implementing an experience that has great significance to my cultural artifact that will give a better analysis or understanding of the importance that the artifact holds to my culture, my family, and myself. The in-class activities and discussions impacted my final product, because of the ideas that the class was able to gather, the explanation that the teacher accumulated to give us (the class) a better understanding of what is required for the essay, and breaking down how to start the essay, and resources that can benefit our research.
