Chandananda 1

Kirinde Chandananda
Professor Adler
English 1A # 32474
6 May 2015
Reflection Essay
I started the class STACC English 1A with an insightful and creative reflection on
the process of writing itself. On the psychological foundation laid by those two great
writers Marry Pipher and Carol S Dweck, I was able to go forward in the spheres of
reading, writing and learning with a great sense of courage, confidence, and vision. As
Dweck has clearly pointed out in his essay on two major mindsets, writing skill is
something malleable. It is not a predetermined unique skill rather it can be developed
with a constant effort and dedication. I was so impressed by this distinction of two
mindsets and began to deeply reflect on my academic life, and was able to rectify some
misconceptions regarding the writing ability. In essence, those great ideas presented in his
article by Dweck such as fundamental aspects of intelligence can be enhanced through
learning, dedication and persistence in the face of obstacles are key ingredients in
outstanding achievement, and Intellectual development is not the natural unfolding of
intelligence, but rather the formation of new connections brought about through effort
and learning served me as powerful mottos in improving my perspective about
intelligence. Here, Peter Elbows Desperation Writing also served me as a catalyst so
that I could improve my practice of writing overcoming certain obstacles that impeded
writing competency. William Staffords A Way of Writing helped me reveal new
creative perspective of writing. He believes that writing has to be done with a lot of

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patience and one should acknowledge whatever the idea he may come up with. He shares
his own experience, So receptive, careless of failure, I spin out things on the page. And a
wonderful freedom comes. If something occurs to me, it is all right to accept it. It has one
justification: It occurs to me. No one else can guide me. I must follow my own weak,
wandering, diffident impulses(348). I strongly empathize with Stafford because I have
experienced this for myself that to produce good piece of writing is like producing pearls.
Its painstaking and tests our patience. Stafford likened it to that of fishing. According to
him this is where receptivity comes in(348). Its true that this receptivity is followed by
creativity.
Piphers writing Writing to change the world always served as a torchbearer of
my writing. It was very clear from her work that writing is a pure sociopolitical
phenomenon that involves change from micro-system to macro-system in the society. The
change that Pipher meant is possible through a transformation of writers personality;
transformation from I-it relationship to I-thou relationship (Pipher 5). I believe that
Pipher was very influential in transforming my perspective of writing in such a way that I
was compelled to take the sense of responsibility over what I write. For instance,
according to Pipher writers job is a very responsible one. As she says,
Writers job is to tell stories that connect readers to all the people on earth, to
show these people as the complicated human beings they really are, families,
emotions, and legitimate needs. in creating a world of I-thou relationships,
writers can do heavy lifting(6).
I could see the above remarks resonating in my later wrings too. For instance, even in my
free writing journals I tried to write something that would contribute to the I-thou

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relationships. Happiness, Forgiving, Unity in diversity, Determination, Mindful
parenting, and Morality without religion were some of the themes for my free writings.
When it came to the discussion of Rhetorical Analysis based on the writings of
renowned writers such as Martin Luther King, and Henry David Thoreau, I could see that
those writers had already utilized and integrated the principles of Change Writing into
their writings. Analyses into the writings of the above writers provided us with a
powerful example of the power of writing and their Empathy training in Piphers term;
according to Pipher, writing to connect is empathy training(8).
It was on the basis of above observation that I themed my essay on the connection of
King and Baca as Sense of Empathy and Sociopolitical Tyranny in which I discussed in
detail how these two writers made use of languages to transform themselves and bring
about sociopolitical change. A careful analysis into their rhetorical usage, particularly that
of Martin Luther King, showed me how lucidly they have been able to distinguish
linguistic and conceptual ambiguities of language, and how they made use of language
with a clear awareness into various forms of rhetorical subtleties. In essence, there were
two aspects of writing that were being highlighted throughout the course: Physical aspect
and the cognitive aspect of reading and writing. The strongest foundation in terms of
academic discipline for these two aspects was laid by those two great works on academic
reading and writing: The Writers Reference and The Field Guide to Writing. Chapters on
rhetorical situations and strategies really helped a lot in keeping the reading and the
writing in a higher academic standard. Therefore, I am highly indebted to these two
books for providing my reading and writing with a strong academic foundation.

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Discourse community ethnography was one of the topics that I enjoyed the most.
The reason for this is because as a Buddhist monk it was a long felt need when giving
sermons for the laity. For instance, from the perspective of John Swales this sphere of
Buddhism that I belong to can be viewed as a distinctive discourse community. As it
reveals from John Swaless descriptive definition of a discourse community in The
Concept of a Discourse Community, followings are some of the characteristics of a
discourse community.
A discourse community has a broadly set of common public goalsmechanism
of intercommunication among its membersuses its participatory mechanisms
primarily to provide information and feedbackutilizes and hence possesses one
or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aimsand has acquired
some specific lexis. (471-473)
It was in the light of above observation I began to reason out in identifying goals,
mechanism of intercommunication, genres and specific lexis used in the system of
Buddhist thought. As a Buddhist monk, to be aware of the distinction of Discourse
community was very beneficial for both myself and for others. I hope this concept of
Discourse community was very influential in my works as a monk. For instance, since I
was exposed to this concept I began to empathize with those who are new to my
discourse community and therefore ignorant into the terminology, concepts, and genres
admitted in it. This awareness compelled me to try catechetical method in preparing
handouts for the lectures in which I would illustrate the concepts so others could
understand them without much struggling with language and concepts.

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Reading and discussions into Critical Thinking and Banking Concept of
Education helped me deeply reflect on the education system from a different perspective.
For instance, I began to realize that it is possible for us to integrate the principles of both
Banking concept of education and critical thinking, and form a new perspective of
pedagogy. When I was reading the Paulo Freires The Banking Concept of Education it
occurred to me that if his arguments against banking concepts were to be justified then
the validity of entire system of oriental education would be questionable because they
have been transmitting knowledge mostly through an authoritative oral tradition.
However, as someone who was grown up in this kind of tradition, I could not totally
agree with Freire since I see many positive aspects of those banking traditions
particularly in the east.

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Works Cited
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. A Place to Stand. S.l.: Grove, 2001. Print.
Bullock, Richard H. The Norton Field Guide to Writing. New York: W.W. Norton, 2009.
Print.
Hacker, Diana, Nancy. A Writer's Reference: With Writing about Literature. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. Print.
Pipher, Mary Bray. Writing to Change the World. New York: Riverhead, 2006. Print.