Kerri Kenney

Author's Note

My reflection on Writing 220 and how I have grown as a writer throughout the semester

At the beginning of the semester, during the very first class of Writing 220, I found out that we would spend our semester reworking one of our already-written pieces. I was terrified. I did not think that I was capable of producing any kind of writing form besides, as I told Jimmy probably ten times, a five-paragraph, read top-to-bottom essay. Though I’ve had the chance to experiment in many genres, from cultural criticism to memoir, I’d always been constrained to typing words in 12-pt Times New Roman on a white google doc. It had become the norm for me; so much so that because of my heavy workload this semester, I planned to transfer my origin piece (an open letter, another plain essay) to another kind of boring format that would not require me to go outside my comfort zone whatsoever.
But then we had to start experimenting with other genres, and this meant really experimenting with them, since there were two or three assignments we had to complete each week to help us learn about the genres that we chose to discover. I was pretty lucky that we learned about new genres in almost every class, because I honestly didn’t know of any mediums besides a google doc printed out and I didn’t know of any modes besides linguistic. The fact that we were encouraged to turn in something like a podcast shocked and scared me, so I knew I needed to branch out in the genres I covered during my genre experiments so I could find the perfect balance between safe and completely out of my comfort zone. 
First, I tried looking into eulogies. This was another one of those genres that would be playing it safe in terms of format because it’s usually in the form of a few paragraphs written like a speech. I did enjoy exploring this, though, because I realized that the eulogies for famous people that appear in newspapers like the New York Times were great tributes and well-written. I said in my reflection on eulogies that “one may think a eulogy cannot be as complex as something like a personal essay, but through my research I have noticed that eulogies can include many complex aspects of multiple genres at once.” This gave me some motivation for other genres that I had yet to explore, since something that seemed like it would be very upfront and contained way more multitudes than I expected.
After my week looking at eulogies, I decided to move on to a genre and style that was (in my eyes, but not in reality) a little more wild: the photo essay. Photo essays are powerful, and I spent more time reading/viewing some than I did actually writing about my experience researching them because they were easy to get immersed in. I was surprised at how effectively the photos could tell a story with or without the help of writing to supplement them, and I started to seriously consider By the time I had started writing about the photo essay, I was on my way home from Ann Arbor to start quarantining, and the one idea for a photo essay would’ve needed pictures from campus, so it had to be scrapped.
The next week, after feeling completely dissatisfied with the two genres I’d wanted to use (not in general, but in the context of my own piece), I knew I had to go big. So, I tried looking into the public service announcement genre...but satirical. This is the genre and style that I eventually settled on converting my origin open letter to. Throughout the research period, I could barely find anything that was similar to the type of piece I pictured in my mind, which motivated  me to create it myself. I also did look into general satirical writing as well as public service announcements so I could at least have a basic understanding and toolbox to use when approaching my own piece, and doing so helped me solidify that this genre and style would be the perfect way to convert my origin piece into something even better and extremely different. This was true, and it was also difficult (to say the least). But, I think it was the perfect genre to choose as it let me realize what the gateway course is all about.
It took about four years since I started seriously writing to step out of my comfortable, 12-pt font, one-medium bubble. I entered the Minor in Writing as a writer with a very specific set of skills who did not expect to step too far outside of those skills, but instead strengthen them. Though I am not even one fourth of the way through the minor, I’m shocked to see that I am already becoming a different writer who is open to much more diverse forms of writing. I now understand that writing is a super intentional process, and it isn’t always possible to just whip something up and submit it on Canvas like I’d been doing in the past for writing classes. I definitely have quite a while to go and quite a distance to grow as I admittedly still prefer typing up a non-interactive cultural critique on paper. But, I am beginning to learn that all genres have unique aspects that can appeal to the reader in different ways while also showing intense similarities to other, more traditional genres -- the perfect incentive for me to keep investigating the huge web of content that falls under the general domain of  “writing” -- and I truly can’t wait to keep learning.