In my final draft of my essay about personal narratives, I engage with a few different texts, and a podcast. I used a couple different quotes from each source, to expand upon my ideas, and engage others in a conversation about personal narratives. I would generally pick quotes that I knew I would be able to discuss, and explain in a way that was relevant to my thesis of sharing our personal narratives. Beginning out of order, I would then first pick a quote to work off of and try to explain it in the context of my thesis, and how it is relevant to the topic at hand. For example, in one paragraph I chose a quote from Strawson, that said “We constitute ourselves as persons.. by developing and operating with an autobiographical narrative which acts as a lens through which we experience the world.” Going off of that, I would first try to clarify it in how this quote is relevant to what I am discussing. Then, I explain how this supports my thesis of how sharing our personal narratives impacts us. One sentence from this paragraph that shows this is “When we begin to take control, or take ownership of our narratives that we create, that is when they begin to manufacture us as people.” As shown, I take a little bit of my evidence, and when analyzing I connect it to my thesis. Compared to my earlier essays, I think I have definitely improved when it comes to analyzing and connecting my evidence to the rest of my paper. This just one example of a treac paragraph that most of my essays are comprised of, but as well as that, I have Barclay paragraphs in this paper. We talked in class about these, and they have been really helpful when trying to engage two texts or two resources in one paragraph together. Overall, when it comes to beginning or entering a conversation with others in an essay, I have grown and learned a lot about what makes a quality paper.
