This banner is a photo collage of "Hand with a Reflecting Sphere" by Escher, a diagram explaining how lenses work from www.bbc.co.uk, and the definition of the "hemi-demi-semi colon" by Mike Trapp of College Humor. I feel that these three images are very indicitive of what I learned in this course, and what I have yet to learn. The first few essays of this course, and now the last few as well, have been reflective and occasionally introspective. Nonetheless, even when writing about personal experiences we were asked to consider framing techniques like lens and terrain: that is why I think "Hand with a Reflecting Sphere" is fitting. The lens diagram is in some ways an offshoot of that sentiment, but has other reasons as well: lenses were one of the tools we talked most about, and one of the tools I am most likely to bring to other classes. Further, I remember Mark's "World's Smallest Lecture": how a person interacts with what is around them is more interesting than the person or the surroundings individually. Finally, I included the "hemi-demi-semi colon" definition, as a reminder of where I still need to improve: I sometimes need to be more serious and focused about my writing than I am, and I have the habit of overusing semicolons. This course has not only taught me, but given me new tasks to work on for my further growth and development. These are the reasons that I think my banner is appropriate to head my portfolio.

"Hand with a Reflecting Sphere" was from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_with_Reflecting_Sphere

When I first came to this class, I didn't know anything about critical writing, so in my first web event, I wrote an essay descripticly without an idea. It was caused by my former writing in Chinese that I don't like to indicate the idea of the essay and want to form it by simply giving out facts. Later in the writing appointment, I was told that a supporting idea is very essential in college writings. Then I realized I was too used to writing in a journal form by just describing. So I tried a lot to change. I started to write outlines and brainstorm before class, and that helped in the process of writing.

The other thing I learned is to write through a lense. It was a new idea for me writing about something through a specific view.And in the writing about NW, it was a great experience dragging something out of a landscape by using the lense.

The city trips are very interesting for me, since it's a great chance to get to know the city. And I have never thought play in the city could include so much information. The structure, human relationships, views all affect the whole scene of the city. Looking through different lenses and the city will be formed in multiple ways.

The believing and doubting game,class posts, mosaics all led us to think critically. And that helped me a lot in writing skill.

The one pity is that I haven't participated a lot in the class discussions because I wasn't good at expressing, I would like to take more tries in future classes at Bryn Mawr.

Over the course of Play in the City, the role I played in class was generally pretty active. In class, contributed my ideas about the reading when I had them. And when people said something I agreed with, I said so, and said why. I learned something almost every time anyone said something. Hearing what other people said allowed me to refine my own opinion through listening openly. I enjoyed answering the true/false questions posed, and found it particularly exciting when only one or two people were on one side. I tried to bring out my full perspective on what each question covered in order to illuminate as much as the terrain as possible, allowing the class as a whole to come up with a more specific  true/false statement. The points I most often found really exciting were usually brought up by ecohn and Samantha Plate. The writing group experience that I grew the most through was the one before we wrote our papers on NW. I was in a group with Frindle, and because of our exchange of ideas, we wrote a paper together in which I experienced a different way of writing. We were able to compare ideas and build off of each other’s concepts in order to delve deeper into the relationship between Nat, Leah, and existentialism. Online, I commented on the posts I was assigned to, but occasionally also on something interesting one of my classmates posted.

I accidentally posted it as a web event!

Here my Self Evaluation is again:

Well, I’m sure Anne has read a lot of this before. But, I’ll write it out anyway. I love creative writing. It is my passion. Yet, I have never been able to merge analytical writing and creative writing. This class showed me that that is possible. It didn’t teach me that I should quote Sontag and write fiction at the same time. Instead, “Play in the City” showed me that I can be as free in my Creative Writing as I am in my analytical writing.

Or, to use the language of the class, “Play in the City” showed me that there’s no harm playing in my writing, that the times in which I write the best and enjoy my writing the most are when I take risks. Moreover, these risks often pay off. Deep play and critical play aren’t hard to find while I’m writing. Critical play comes far more easily to me than deep play when I am writing because in the past I have felt constrained by structure. But, now as I’m writing this I realize that there is a physical structure to writing. This is unavoidable. The structure I feared was just a mental roadblock. Deep play allows me to go past this roadblock. By the time I’m deep playing, there is no concern over whether I write the word “Penis” or “Headband.” I am only hoping that I’m going somewhere with my writing.