Blog Post #7

Something that I was reminded of in our most recent social identity unit in terms of writing was that writing doesn’t have to be complex to be descriptive. Of course I already knew this, but the Rankine and Reid essays reminded me of this. In class we talked about how in Reid’s essay he was able to make his descriptions more effective by keeping his wording concise and blunt. I think personally I have a tendency to want to describe all the inner details of feelings, but as we discussed in class, sometimes this can take away from the message trying to be conveyed. I completely understand this, but at the same time, when I write I want to be absolutely sure that the reader is understanding what I’m saying so I may tend to overwrite. I think there’s probably a time and a place for each of those approaches, but it’s important to remember that there is more than one approach. Similarly, the Rankine reading reminded me that using second person is an option that can be quite effective. In class people also mentioned that most people are not as comfortable writing in second person, and I think this is probably in part because in high school and before using “you” in writing was generally discouraged. It’s probably for that reason too that a lot of us don’t realize how useful using second person could be.