Morales Rojas 1

Patricia Morales Rojas

Dr. Warwick

Writing 1

December 13, 2023

My Camino Towards Escritura

What would you rather read, a story or a scholarly essay? Now this answer can vary

depending on the person however, we need to keep in mind that both are equally important

depending on the circumstance. Now what if I told you there was a way to combine both of these

styles of literature that can be used as a powerful tool for identity and culture. The answer to this

would be through the use of autoethnography. In a Ted Talk video, titled “Overcoming Shame

Using Black Studies and Autoethnography,” Dr. Katie Diter explains how “autoethnography

refers to both the methods and product of researching and writing about personal lived

experiences and their relationship to culture.” With the help of autoethnography, people outside

of their corresponding culture are able to understand other individuals who face different

personal experiences and how it contributes to their culture as a whole. Being a

Mexican-American first generation student, my life experiences have come to shape the person

who I am today. As I was being raised by a single mother and my uncle the only way towards

success, according to them, would be through my education. With this ideology engraved in my

head since pre-school, it led me to become an overachiever and workaholic throughout my

educational career. Downside of this, was that it resulted in me feeling burnout most if not all the

time. Writing has been quite a journey for me since the start of elementary school up until

present time as I’m finishing my Writing 1 course as a university student. Throughout this course

I was able to reflect through the use of autoethnography to determine what writing means to me.
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In order to understand my thought process going into Writing 1, we have to go back to

my early days of school where the safe walls of my elementary classrooms nurtured my

bilingualism. Everything I was exposed to was taught, read, written, spoken in both English and

Spanish. It wasn’t until middle school and high school that I was faced with the harsh and

scholarly tone of writing that my English teachers released upon me. Resulting in the death of

my love for reading and creativity. This is where my constant state of tiredness and burnout

started as I tried to excel at this new discovery that riddled me with anxiety every time I heard

the word “essay.” Don’t get me wrong, being bilingual is a blessing that I appreciate to this day,

but in that transition it made everything harder to understand. There were concepts that I

understood since it was taught to me in Spanish but having to translate that in my head to English

had me working twice as hard. My elementary classmates all expressed the same dilemmas as

they struggled to handle these new expectations as well. To say the least, I lost many

opportunities in high school as I denied my teacher’s recommendation letters to be placed in

Honors or AP English classes due to my low confidence in writing and intimidation from my

peers as they excelled at these insane writing expectations. Going into university I knew I had a

lot of expectations set on myself and from my family members. Everyone in my family, my

parents, my younger siblings, my cousins, aunts, and uncles, have me on this pedestal as I am the

first one to ever attend a university. The thought of disappointing them and myself makes me

uneasy. With that in mind, when I started my first year at UCSB, each quarter when I saw the

course syllabus and saw a final paper made up the majority of my final grade, it made me want to

drop the course immediately. My doubts clouded my mind even though at the end I did a

relatively good job on it. With this certain mindset, starting Writing 1 my second year at UCSB,

had me panicking the days leading to the first day of class. It wasn’t until I was welcomed by a
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friendly face on my first day of class by my professor that I thought to myself “okay this might

not be that bad.” As the quarter progressed I proved myself wrong each day and I have never

been happier to be wrong about writing.

“What is freewriting?” something that I asked myself that first week of the quarter when

our professor introduced it to us. According to the professor's directions everyday before we

started class we would do a five minute free writing exercise. At first it was a bit confusing but I

went along with it. It was until the second week of the quarter where we read “Freewriting” by

Elbow Peter where he explains that freewriting regularly will help you write without the

blocking and the flow of words will come more easily. What caught my attention the most is

when he mentions that when we write and edit at the same time it can be negative toward us due

to “schooling [making] us obsessed with the “mistakes” we make in writing.” I immediately

thought back to all the times where I had to revise papers for my English classes and somehow

there were always mistakes I was making even though I tried improving my skills. Yet

something so simple as freewriting wasn’t really convincing for the years of expectations I was

taught in middle school and high school. I was proved wrong as each week progressed and I

found myself writing my ideas down without stopping until my little adrenaline rush was over.

This new writer in me bled into my two other Spanish courses as well. Before this course, it was

common for me to not meet the word count of a given assignment and struggling to find ways to

expand my thoughts. Now I had the opposite issue where I had too much content and needed to

shorten it down. Honestly this was such a nice problem to have rather than the previous one.

Within those first two weeks we also watched a video called “Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle

Explained” that walked us through the six different categories–description, feelings, evaluation,

analysis, conclusion, and action plan–on how to reflect on an experience. It was through this
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method that our class recorded our progress each week for the course. Now at the end of the

quarter, I can tell there has been some differences regarding my feelings toward writing and

some behaviors that have not changed.

As the course progressed, we had different readings that were introduced to us that

drastically changed my way of seeing the power that writing has and that I don’t have to follow

these specific expectations I was taught. In the reading “Storytelling and Identity: Writing

Yourself Into Existence” by Sarah Aird explains the power of the different aspects of storytelling

as it can result in “a powerful space to reclaim ourselves and discover our hero’s journey.” As I

read this, I immediately thought of my Latinx community where a majority of people see us as

criminals. This ugly stereotype breaks my heart because they don’t realize the struggle one goes

through when they leave their native land for a better life for themselves and kids. I firmly

believe that without immigrants this country would not run properly and plummet to the ground

without the help we provide. Yet we are underestimated all the time. This ideology people have

doesn’t weigh me down but builds a fire in me to excel in everything I do. Proof of that is my

presence at UCSB. Which in turn also connects to why I feel tired most of the time as I have

observed in my autoethnography journals. Our community has to work twice as hard just to

prove that we are more than the stereotypes. In the same way, I had an epiphany after reading

“Working Languages: Who We Are Matters in Our Writing” where the authors talk about how

schools made us believe there was only one certain style of writing that is based on “an ideal that

centers a “norm” often conceived as white, upper-middle class, “accentless,” and male, built

from a myth that our society needs only one language for unity.” Reading these words made me

realize why my love for reading died, it was because I was no longer connecting with these

hundred year old pieces of literature. Whereas in elementary school, the literature we were given
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was based on experiences that my classmates and I had lived, making us more interested in the

representation behind the beautifully put together words. They point out that when we write

about our identity and what community we are part of “is a way to show that our families,

friends, and people in our communities and their lives—their language and cultural practices,

histories, and ways of living—and the knowledge from their lived experiences matter.” These

words here inspired me on topics for my Project 1 and 2 for this course resulting in an easier

writing process. Whereas, in middle school and high school I was never given the opportunity to

write anything based on my identity which resulted in the writing process being so much harder.

I reflected back on how much I enjoyed writing a scholarship essay for my school district during

my senior year of high school opposed to my English class where I had to write an essay for a

Shakespeare play. I got an A on my Shakespearean paper but the ultimate reward was reading

my winning essay in front of the board of my school district. My family is a huge part of my

identity and ideologies which is why as the course progressed I didn’t feel burnout when writing

these essays but I actually enjoyed them and felt proud to be able to give a platform for my

family.

All in all, as the quarter is wrapping up on its final days I am feeling bittersweet as this

course comes to an end which is not a usual reaction from me and past English/Writing classes. I

look forward to applying all the new information I have learned throughout this course into

future writing assignments I know I will have. Now I know how to use my bilingualism as a tool

for writing like author Cristina Rivera Garza mentioned when I saw her last month for a book

presentation in LA. In the same way, all the comments from my peer reviews and professor

feedback have validated me in ways that I cannot describe. The overachiever in me will probably

never die out as I feel like that is rooted in me, but my anxiety levels for writing assignments are
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slowly decreasing. Who knows, maybe I might even submit a piece of my writing to Starting

Lines as Dr. Warwick, my amazing professor, suggested that I do. If I told my past self from

middle school or high school that I am considering this notion, she would be distraught and

laugh in my face. I am confident enough to say that I once thought that writing controlled me but

now I’m the one controlling writing.

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Bibliography

Aird, Sara. Storytelling and Identity: Writing Yourself Into Existence. Salt Lake Community

College, 2016.

https://slcc.pressbooks.pub/openenglishatslcc/chapter/storytelling-and-identity-writing-yo

urself-into-existence/

Dieter, Katie. Overcoming Shame Using Black Studies and Autoethnography. Youtube,

uploaded by TEDx Talks. 9 November 2023.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifcH91tjIgQ

Elbow, Peter. Freewriting. Writing Without Teachers. 1973.

https://www.research.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/RD/docs/FREEWRITING-by-Peter-Elb

ow.pdf

Gibbs Reflective Cycle. Youtube, uploaded by Expert Program Management (EPM). 3 May

2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gbczr0lRf4

P. Alvarez, Sara, et al. Workin’ Languages: Who We Are Matters In Our Writing. Working

Spaces, Volume 4. 2022.

https://ucsb.instructure.com/courses/14664/assignments/178525?wrap=1