Jessica Mena

Professor Berghof

Writing 39C

23 November 2015

Reflective Intro D2

            I have always struggled with writing and have found the writing process to be very difficult. In particular for writing 39C I have struggled with the research part of the Historical Context Project and the Advocacy Project as well as integrating the information from the scholarly sources that I have acquired in both my essays and organizing my ideas. Since this class has been my first research class and the first time I have written a research paper I was extremely nervous in writing my HCP. My topic for the HCP was on the effect the Welfare Queen Stereotype has had on African American women.

           Before writing my first draft of my HCP I had an idea of what research question I wanted my essay to address but I just did not know how to put it in words. Therefore; for my first draft I did not focus on the most important part which was to show the damage that the negative stereotype of (SCREENSHOT 1) Welfare Queen has had on African American women. Instead I just focused more on the history of African American women on welfare and explained the term “welfare queen.” In the first comments from my first draft of my HCP, screen shot 1, that I received from Professor Berghof she advised me to “establish the significance of the problem;” however, I did not do so until my final draft.

As a result, for my second draft of the HCP I had a difficult time trying to organize my ideas. For example, I stated the significance of the problem which was that the negative stereotype of the welfare queen has caused psychological problems to African American women towards the end of my essay, 5^th paragraph (SCREANSHOT 2), rather than stating the significance of the problem at the beginning of my HCP. The specific comments that I received in my second draft of my HCP helped me emphasize more on the significance of the problem for my final HCP and also it helped me organize my essay better in the way that I really thought about how I wanted to present my ideas and how I wanted them to make them flow.  With the comments that I received I came to realize and focus my attention in the parts of my essay where I did not develop in my previous drafts and try to fix it for my final draft.

           For my final draft I moved the part of the psychological damages that African American women have suffered, my 5^th paragraph of my second draft, to the beginning of my final essay and focused more on the significance of the problem by answering the questions that I received from the feedback.

The screenshot of my introduction of my final HCP shows how (SCREENSHOT 4) establishing the significance of the problem helped me elaborate the causes of the welfare queen stereotype by going more in depth and researching more about the problem that the stereotype has caused which was the low self-esteem that African American women face that makes them feel trap in the welfare system because they cannot obtain jobs. Stating the significance of the problem in the beginning helped me indicate that the problem is still significant today rather than starting my HCP with giving history of the stereotype which I could have used in the body paragraphs on my research paper when I presented the multi-model from the past.

          In addition, for the second draft of my HCP I had difficulty focusing on my topic specifically and still continue to have the same issue. For the second draft of my HCP most of the ending of my essay focuses on causes of poverty among African American women on welfare. Instead of focusing on the causes of the reinforcing of the stereotype. Towards the end I shifted the focus of my topic to a different one and that made my essay lose focus. Introduced the problem of the welfare queen stereotype but did not focus on the causes like I should have but then the last couple of body programs I jumped to different causes from a different topic which was the causes of the need of welfare.  In the screenshot on the left. You can see that my paragraph starting with “According to Welfare Recipient…” the main focus (SCREENSHOT 5) was explaining why African American need welfare.

That’s is why in the comments that I received they were very specific in telling me that I overall in the paper I needed to focus on the cause of the stereotype. Reading this I realized that my HCP lacked focus on the topic. I was just writing about causes unrelated to my topic and when I would write about the problem of the welfare queen stereotype it was very brief and not well developed.

          The final draft of my HCP was not the best paper and still lacked the focus that it should have had on the problem but it does show the improvement I made from my first and second

(SCREENSHOT 6) draft to the final draft. The online chat that I had a couple days before turning in my final draft was really helpful since I was able to understand more clearly on what I needed to work on. The screenshot shows how Professor Berghof gave me feedback on how a counter argument was essential to include in my final HCP. Prior to that in my other drafts I did not have a counter argument. The additional help that I received from the online chat helped me take the feedback into consideration and actually address the causes of the stereotype in my paper. Having a more clear understanding on what I needed to work on and having an idea of how I was going to address it was very helpful. (SCEENSHOT 7) For example, I was able to focus on how the negative stereotype of the welfare queen has affect the views of others in which they think that welfare is damaging the economy. The screenshot of the new paragraph that I wrote for my final HCP it focus more on the negative cause that the stereotype has caused which is that people like the author of the article, Tanner, believe that there has been an over investment in welfare programs and that is should be stopped or the money should be reduced because it is not beneficial.         

          I believe that adding a counter argument in my final draft made my argument strong and showed how the negative stereotype of the welfare queen is a problem which has had impacts on people. It continued to help me develop my argument and gave me a sense of direction in where I needed to focus on.  I wanted to address how the stereotype has caused real economic negative effects by reinforcing the stereotype through politics. So I was able to narrow down what I needed to research and that included more evidence of the stereotype in political campaigns, commercials, speeches etc. Then I was able research the effect it has had on people with other political videos and scholarly articles. In addition, the counter argument helped me fulfill one of the requirements of the HCP. I was able to create a conversation between scholars. A conversation that focused on how the welfare queen stereotype has affected the economy negatively and how others view the reinforcement of the stereotype on media has not really affected the economy negatively but has had more profound effects on African American women who are stereotyped.  

          Even though I was able to improve in my final draft of my HCP with the help of the counter argument that I included I still believe that I could have been more focused and could have elaborate more on how the stereotype in reality has not damaged the economy, like many

(SCREENSHOT 8) scholars believe and argue, but because of the negative stigma that welfare and welfare queens have it has affected the funding of the program and has affected welfare recipients. Screen shot 8 shows part of my essay where I focused on how the welfare queen stereotype has actually caused funds to be reduced instead of “damaging the economy” but I did not provide enough support from other scholarly sources like I did when I was stating how some scholars view the welfare and welfare queens to be damaging to the economy. If I would have added more evidence and more data on how TANF is actually cutting welfare recipients funds instead of overly funding welfare recipients my argument could have been more credible. Also I could have focused more on how the negative stereotype has blinded people to think that majority of welfare recipients are welfare queens and how they think that money given to the program is being wrongly invested.

            Similarly, for my advocacy draft I struggled and will possible continue to struggle with future essays on addressing the topic of my paper without losing focus or going off topic. Even before starting my first advocacy draft I was worried that I was going try to write a continuation of my HCP instead of writing the Advocacy Project. Which I feel like I did because my first draft for the advocacy essay because I wanted to start by focusing on a past solution, PRWORA of 1996 proposed by President Bill Clinton, instead of looking for a more recent one. I knew that the main focus of the Advocacy Project was not to advocate a solution from the past but to find possible solutions or analyze the effectiveness of current solutions. The transitioning from writing the HCP and then writing the Advocacy Project was challenge.  The comments that I (SCREENSHOT 9) received on my Advocacy confirmed what I thought I was doing wrong.

The comments that I received lead my research towards a different direction. For example, when I was in the process of writing my first draft I was just focusing on finding articles that were about PRWORA of 1996 instead of researching more recent acts that provided a solution or an attempt to a solution to the negative stereotype of welfare queens. Even though the comments were very brief I was able to think about what I needed to work on my first draft to improve my essay. The feedback that I receive are always helpful because they get me thinking about other things that I have not thought about and also it gives me a sense of direction on where I am with my argument and what I need to consider in order not to get off topic.

(Advocacy draft 2 àno implicit psychological solution stated à social capital did not explain how it will help psychologically effects directly but only indirectly with the jobs(write about that) how the paragraphs weren’t transitioning very smoothly)