Ever since coming to Gonzaga and starting to volunteer with students at local Spokane elementary schools, I have taken an interest in the inequality of education based on a child’s SES. As soon as the class started, I was pretty sure I would write my essay on this topic so I really didn’t reject any to pick it. At first I thought I would just write about different opportunities and advantages children with financial stability have over those who don’t but I decided that would be unengaging and dull. After a particularly eye opening school visit with my mentee, I decided I should include the personal antidote of working with her to accompany all the statistics. I was really passionate about this topic and I really enjoyed writing about it.
I cut some statistics and examples of inequality from my paper and replaced them with more in depth descriptions of interactions and moments with my mentee. I made this revision after reading the paper to my dad, who said he was more moved by the parts about my mentee then anything else. I think this effects the paper by making the problem more tangible. It puts a face and a story to the issue. Sometimes its easy to just get caught up in the numbers, but hearing a specific story incites true empathy and better understanding. Besides that, I had numerous people read through my essay and make grammatical changes.
Question 1: What can I do better next time?
Question 2: How could the structure be better?
Question 3: How do I become a more engaging writer?
This essay was completely different then anything I have ever written before, because of the choice in topic and format. I am pretty proud of this essay because I feel like I was able to show my "voice" in my writing rather then just an academic voice. Also, I felt like I could be much more creative and I really liked being able to add my experiences and my mentees story as evidence rather then solely relying on facts and statistics. Overall, I actually really enjoyed writing this because I was passionate about the subject material.
-Maddie McGregor