Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

Key quotes from the assignment criteria for Self in Contradiction:

• "complicating our first impressions of each other and illustrating that we each, despite (or as a result of) our appearances, have made conscious and unconscious choices about how and why we represent ourselves in a particular way."
• a "sense of "fragmentation" can be a starting point"
• "there are also labels and signifiers applied to us by others that may or may not fit with our sense of ourselves."
• "use this assignment as a means of negotiating contexts."
• "use writing as a means of discovery, as a way of thinking through writing, and act as a "lens" for us to reflect on the ways various assumptions and/or truths have shaped our sense of self"
• "pay attention to those things that seem incongruous, or that you have taken for granted or assume to be 'true.'"

Now, the feedback from my Peer Reviewer:

• "Connection with the idea of bodily superficiality: using the impaired body in useful ways that counter expectation."
• "This is a recurring question that can be connected with the ‘gray area’ created by questioining traditional ideas of ability vs disability"
• "Breaking down typical understanding of stillness & movement, ability & disability."
• "Summary: You are breaking down traditional binaries here – manifested outwardly through the human body – and questioning the values assigned to these binaries. It is interesting that you connect the body with the mind by focusing on ability/disabilitye in context of both and how each can be viewed in a relative manner. I would maybe flesh out the theme of “Who draws the line?” and question if a line can even be drawn at all. I was a little confused at first by the jumping around from personal knowledge to ideas to Foucault – but I think this structure grabs the reader’s attention and forces he/she to think. I would maybe talk about independence in the context of moving beyond the binaries."

The part I haven't drawn out well, yet, based on the selected statements from the assignment and my own intuition (where I was trying to go!) has to do with language. I want to make the connection between movement and language, not just in the binary of stillness/movement, mind/body that Phil noticed. It's the association of mind with language that is where I want to go (argument). This fits in with the part of the assignment about writing as a means of thinking through and discovering lenses, assumptions, "truths", etc. The equation of writing=language=mind is so self-evident to me that I didn't perceive how I was not making it clear until engaging in this process of reflection: revisiting the assigned criteria, selecting the specific elements that are most compelling to me, and considering the feedback of my Peer Reviewer. Thanks again Phil!