My Thoughts | urwt-fall2014

I chose this piece because I feel like it contained the most information about me and my personality while still offering some entertainment value for the reader. This piece was almost a short biography of me, but it only discussed the main points where I developed part of my identity. In addition, this document touched on one of the concepts that we explored during class. I wanted to use the information gained from that class time and relate it to a topic about me which would simultaneously demonstrate the knowledge I gained from the identity topic. Overall, I feel as though I had a decent grasp on the topic and that it translated well into my critical narrative.

This was in response to a blog prompt discussing the results of my initial inquiry proposal dealing with fan identity within the NFL. After discussing my topic with my professor, I discovered some key points of focus needed to fully develop my topic. At first, I thought the most important information for my topic would come from my primary questions dealing with how teams attract fans. As it turned out, the way people show support for their team seemed to be the focal point for my research paper. Though it was difficult to anticipate the outcome of this project, the questions I asked ensured I would be able to gain adequate information to complete the assignment regardless of which direction it steered me.

Click to open in new window

After reading an article about place and how it shapes a person's identity, I drafted a dialogic journal about my thoughts on the topic. In the article, Mayes mentioned something that really stood out to me the most. He stated that society would be more stable if we were to keep old places instead of destroying them. While I did see some of his reasoning, I had to disagree with the notion of keeping any or all old places because of the impact it would leave. Yes, society would probably be a little more stable, but the country would fall behind the rest of the world because there wouldn’t be any room for advancement.

When looking into where I’m from, I wanted to paint a picture of things I identify most with. In this poem, I was given a standard format and was prompted to insert different things from my life that would describe me. I could have just mushed together a few random words just to get the assignment over with, but instead I decided to piece several ideas that related to others to show how they hold more importance within my identity. For example, the lines with “liberty and justice for all,” “Fourth of July fireworks,” and “the flag that was once draped over his casket” were all used to emphasize how patriotism plays a large role in my identity.

This was the most revealing of all my work when it came to display of critical thinking. For this bibliography, I conducted research over many different areas dealing with how Americans identify with NFL teams. Once the information was collected, I was required to place it in order and then expand on why each citation was important to my genre piece.

Toward the bottom of page two, I showed how I was able to take the information given about catering to fans in order to drive profits and then display how there was an abundance of underlying information within. I was also able to do the same with many of the quotes I pulled from the different sports team’s forums which was displayed on page six.