Final Reflection
December 11th, 2018
I chose to write about and explore the topic of hunger and how it affects student's behavior and ability to learn. I selected this topic because as a child low blood sugar between meals significantly impacted my behavior in and out of school. To this day I still pay special attention to my mood and how it changes between meals. When I first chose this topic, I thought I would be researching it from the point of view I was familiar with; being an appropriately fed child who became “hangry” between meals. At first, I thought I had chosen an un-researched topic because there wasn’t much material to be found on the subject. In reality there was a wealth of information, but I was excluding an important subject in the matter; food-insecurity. The bigger and more important problem was that these kids, who were irritable and acting out and struggling through school, were doing so because they weren’t eating regular meals. Too Hungry to Learn was created with the intention of bringing awareness to this issue and urging readers to take action to end the problem, because no child should be too hungry to learn.
My issue primarily concerns children, but children are not able to put food on the table themselves, so many of the topics I touch on are related to programs and situations that affect the family as a whole. In my GIF essay, Hope for Hunger, my goal was to touch on all of the topics related to my social issue to provide a brief, casual, and non-committal introduction to each subject. I chose to create colorful animated graphics purposefully, to support this goal. I feel that a lot of times with social issues the conversation can become too heavy in the beginning and I wanted to warm my reader up to the issue before applying pressure to take up the cause. Another reason for creating the graphics was to give the reader something to visualize and associate along with each bite size topic. The graphics also help with making the reading look more digestible, as opposed to a wall of text, and are overall more interesting. Each caption in the GIF essay was strategically written to be precise, provide an overview of the topic that creates the desire to learn more, and prompt the reader to reflect on what their previous assumptions may have been. Each one, in a way, could be the preview of an article on that topic.
The next article in my magazine is my memoir Hanger Management. I chose to put this article second because I wanted to position my reader to make an emotional connection with my cause before moving on to more information centric articles. In my memoir I walk though some experiences I had an elementary school student battling everyone, including behavior problems caused by hunger. I chose to adapt this piece by recording narration. I chose to record audio for two reasons; first, listening to audio as opposed to reading allows the reader to stop thinking about what they’re reading and instead visualize what they’re hearing, I also felt that by speaking it I could better tell my story in my own words, with my own pauses, and speech patterns. It really sunk in as I was reading it out loud how I was so influenced by hunger but wasn’t aware enough to realize it. As an adult I am aware of my hunger and how it impacts my mood and I can control it by having something to eat. The thing that gave me the most motivation in working on this project was thinking about all of the kids who feel this way every day and can’t just feed themselves because their families can’t afford food.
While my infographic, The Information Pantry, is by nature informational, I still strategically selected statistics that would resonate with my reader in an attempt to nurture the emotional connection I’ve been building throughout my magazine. I think an infographic is the best way to present this type of information because it’s packaged in a way that is easy to process. I used my infographic to present tangible problems to my reader and reserved the last section to offer solutions. Just like the aesthetic for the rest of my magazine, I wanted to make my infographic simple but eye-catching with small graphics that support each piece of content without distracting from it. I also chose the sections of my infographic to delve deeper into the programs that directly affect children. I introduced the concerns about children in my first two articles but the infographic is where I’m able to expand on those issues with undeniable facts.
The final article of my magazine is my profile about Utahns Against Hunger. This profile perfectly fits in as the article after the infographic because Utahns Against Hunger ties directly to the primary solutions provided at the end of the infographic. I chose to create a timeline style profile because I again wanted to present my writing as small pieces of information that is easy to read and retain. The way I wanted to organize my timeline profile was to present UAH, who they are, a little history, and what they do. Each piece of information about them was formulated to address concerns I had brought up in previous articles. I wanted UAH to be seen as the number one advocate for these issues in Utah and the authority on all local nutrition assistance subjects.
Sources for this project were invaluable. Each source I chose provided a different perspective on the issue and although I wasn’t able to use all of them or include them in my resources page, there was an unbelievable about of research, news, and informational articles for every related topic. Narrowing them down was a challenge and I’m sure there were excellent sources that I didn’t use. The tricky part for me in not using more sources or going further into other related topics was the desire to keep my articles easy to read and digest. If I were to use my other sources and go into more related topics I would choose to make separate articles to preserve the structural integrity of the magazine. On the topic of sources, my resources page was organize with this philosophy in mind, easy to read, navigate, and process. I chose to break my sources into categories my reader could easily reference and click to explore instead of providing an essentially useless (from a consumers perspective) list of APA references.
Because most of my early semester work was late, I wasn’t able to participate in most of the peer feedback. I relied mostly on writing center feedback to supplement this. The online discussion feedback I was able to participate in was excellent though. There were three reasons I appreciated this feedback; first, I was able to see other’s work in the discussion thread and explore all of them for ideas and ways to improve my project. Second, the rhetorical analysis I did for peers usually applied to my own work. Most of the things I suggested after reviewing their work I ended up implementing in my own magazine. Being able to take a step back and look at someone else’s work gives you a different perspective of your own. Third, the feedback I received from others was concise and relevant and they didn’t hesitate in being completely honest, which is important for truly constructive feedback!
When I first learned of this project at the beginning of the semester, I viewed it as a way of earning my grades and completing the class. The more I worked on the project and actually got into it, the more I appreciated the issue and wanted to do it justice. There was a point where I changed my focus from checking off requirements to focusing on my topic and the best way to represent each piece to my reader. I’m not exactly sure when that moment was but I know it happened once I started working on my late drafts. The drafts had hung me up before because I was focused on turning in complete works not drafts, but I also struggled with them because I didn’t have a complete picture of where I wanted to go and how each piece would work together. Once I started working on the format and thinking about the magazine as a body of work, everything else fell into place.
I will think about this project often. I don’t feel it’s complete because additional articles are needed to cover the breadth of this topic. I’ll also think about it because I am much more aware of this subject now. It’s perfect in a way because my goal was to create awareness and urge action; as a reader feel compelled to do that, hopefully other readers will as well.
My issue primarily concerns children, but children are not able to put food on the table themselves, so many of the topics I touch on are related to programs and situations that affect the family as a whole. In my GIF essay, Hope for Hunger, my goal was to touch on all of the topics related to my social issue to provide a brief, casual, and non-committal introduction to each subject. I chose to create colorful animated graphics purposefully, to support this goal. I feel that a lot of times with social issues the conversation can become too heavy in the beginning and I wanted to warm my reader up to the issue before applying pressure to take up the cause. Another reason for creating the graphics was to give the reader something to visualize and associate along with each bite size topic. The graphics also help with making the reading look more digestible, as opposed to a wall of text, and are overall more interesting. Each caption in the GIF essay was strategically written to be precise, provide an overview of the topic that creates the desire to learn more, and prompt the reader to reflect on what their previous assumptions may have been. Each one, in a way, could be the preview of an article on that topic.
The next article in my magazine is my memoir Hanger Management. I chose to put this article second because I wanted to position my reader to make an emotional connection with my cause before moving on to more information centric articles. In my memoir I walk though some experiences I had an elementary school student battling everyone, including behavior problems caused by hunger. I chose to adapt this piece by recording narration. I chose to record audio for two reasons; first, listening to audio as opposed to reading allows the reader to stop thinking about what they’re reading and instead visualize what they’re hearing, I also felt that by speaking it I could better tell my story in my own words, with my own pauses, and speech patterns. It really sunk in as I was reading it out loud how I was so influenced by hunger but wasn’t aware enough to realize it. As an adult I am aware of my hunger and how it impacts my mood and I can control it by having something to eat. The thing that gave me the most motivation in working on this project was thinking about all of the kids who feel this way every day and can’t just feed themselves because their families can’t afford food.
While my infographic, The Information Pantry, is by nature informational, I still strategically selected statistics that would resonate with my reader in an attempt to nurture the emotional connection I’ve been building throughout my magazine. I think an infographic is the best way to present this type of information because it’s packaged in a way that is easy to process. I used my infographic to present tangible problems to my reader and reserved the last section to offer solutions. Just like the aesthetic for the rest of my magazine, I wanted to make my infographic simple but eye-catching with small graphics that support each piece of content without distracting from it. I also chose the sections of my infographic to delve deeper into the programs that directly affect children. I introduced the concerns about children in my first two articles but the infographic is where I’m able to expand on those issues with undeniable facts.
The final article of my magazine is my profile about Utahns Against Hunger. This profile perfectly fits in as the article after the infographic because Utahns Against Hunger ties directly to the primary solutions provided at the end of the infographic. I chose to create a timeline style profile because I again wanted to present my writing as small pieces of information that is easy to read and retain. The way I wanted to organize my timeline profile was to present UAH, who they are, a little history, and what they do. Each piece of information about them was formulated to address concerns I had brought up in previous articles. I wanted UAH to be seen as the number one advocate for these issues in Utah and the authority on all local nutrition assistance subjects.
Sources for this project were invaluable. Each source I chose provided a different perspective on the issue and although I wasn’t able to use all of them or include them in my resources page, there was an unbelievable about of research, news, and informational articles for every related topic. Narrowing them down was a challenge and I’m sure there were excellent sources that I didn’t use. The tricky part for me in not using more sources or going further into other related topics was the desire to keep my articles easy to read and digest. If I were to use my other sources and go into more related topics I would choose to make separate articles to preserve the structural integrity of the magazine. On the topic of sources, my resources page was organize with this philosophy in mind, easy to read, navigate, and process. I chose to break my sources into categories my reader could easily reference and click to explore instead of providing an essentially useless (from a consumers perspective) list of APA references.
Because most of my early semester work was late, I wasn’t able to participate in most of the peer feedback. I relied mostly on writing center feedback to supplement this. The online discussion feedback I was able to participate in was excellent though. There were three reasons I appreciated this feedback; first, I was able to see other’s work in the discussion thread and explore all of them for ideas and ways to improve my project. Second, the rhetorical analysis I did for peers usually applied to my own work. Most of the things I suggested after reviewing their work I ended up implementing in my own magazine. Being able to take a step back and look at someone else’s work gives you a different perspective of your own. Third, the feedback I received from others was concise and relevant and they didn’t hesitate in being completely honest, which is important for truly constructive feedback!
When I first learned of this project at the beginning of the semester, I viewed it as a way of earning my grades and completing the class. The more I worked on the project and actually got into it, the more I appreciated the issue and wanted to do it justice. There was a point where I changed my focus from checking off requirements to focusing on my topic and the best way to represent each piece to my reader. I’m not exactly sure when that moment was but I know it happened once I started working on my late drafts. The drafts had hung me up before because I was focused on turning in complete works not drafts, but I also struggled with them because I didn’t have a complete picture of where I wanted to go and how each piece would work together. Once I started working on the format and thinking about the magazine as a body of work, everything else fell into place.
I will think about this project often. I don’t feel it’s complete because additional articles are needed to cover the breadth of this topic. I’ll also think about it because I am much more aware of this subject now. It’s perfect in a way because my goal was to create awareness and urge action; as a reader feel compelled to do that, hopefully other readers will as well.