Rukhshona Uktamova – Reflection paper

Rukhshona Uktamova 

Professor Ashton 

WGST 1001  

20 December 2021 

Personal Reflection paper 

                Women and Gender studies 1001 was a very interesting course. When I was registering for the course, I thought we will focus only on Women studies and then during class I realized how we can basically connect anything to gender, even how pink razors cost more than the blue ones, how gender reveal parties aren’t ideal, songs and so many other things. To be honest some of the readings were difficult to understand, maybe because my reading level is low. However, I really enjoyed the hypothesis annotation even though we did a few of them, I wish we did more of them because having everyone’s thoughts, ideas, opinion, analysis of the text on one page helped me better understand the text. The fact we were able to talk about anything, like anything going on our lives, complaints, problems, news we want to share was a great way to start the class because when we did, I felt more connected to the class, people supporting each other, helping others in making decisions, finding names for the cat. I also found the books by Susan Stryker and Angela Davis useful and interesting; I wish we read more of them in class so we could discuss them, but I guess I will read them over the break especially Women Race and Class book.  Show and tell gender texts was a great activity, I don’t think I was able to share both of my gender texts, in class but they are on the website but it was amazing to see what others brought to class.  

               It was my first-time writing blog posts, and I didn’t have much experience with public writing except those few of my poems that got published in my high school poetry catalog and in Stuckinthelibrary catalog in Brooklyn college. To be honest I found the blog post a bit difficult to complete, maybe because I was in group one, and I wasn’t sure what an ideal blog post looks like. Also, sometimes I get too focused on one side and forget to write and talk about the other side so that the readers are able to look at the full picture rather than just a part of it. I do realize the mistake I made on my blog post after posting the second draft because that’s when I got good useful critical feedback where students agreed and some disagreed with me which I liked and it was good to read the disagreements because those feedback showed what I was missing on my blog post but by the time they post their feedback it was late, I couldn’t do anything. I wrote a lot about how marriage is not a form of slavery and how it’s good, but I forgot to mention the disadvantages of marriage. Overall, it was a good experience learning but I had a bit too much confidence in myself that I was going to do great on the assignment based on the first few feedbacks I got but it turns out that sometimes having too much confidence in yourself is not good.  

                    I am glad that you assigned us the Research group project and gave us the option to do it in any format because it gives us choice and flexibility, which is awesome. Also, as you know since Covid – 19 and many classes are online I actually missed seeing people in class and talking to them. This assignment gave us the opportunity to chat with our classmates during class in breakout rooms and as well as outside class. I was part of the high heels group, overall, it was good working with my team members, but we did have a few small issues. I kind of felt like leading the group at some points because I was asking them what you guys have in thought? What do you guys want to write about? And I shared my ideas created a google doc and asked them to jot down their ideas. In some of the meetings it was only me and Amarah from our group who were in class, and even when we were missing many members, we got work done. I created the slides and shared it with all the members. Amarah and I labeled and organized the slides. I sent out reminders about citation, using the same font and size, asking them to make their slides less wordy more interesting. Eliza helped with decorating; the blue theme and Lady Gaga was her idea. A few minutes before presenting I remembered that we could have transformations on our slides and added those in. So, everybody presented on the slide they worked in, I did start the presentation, then did my own slides and then I wanted to ask questions, so we could have some discussion, and I ended the presentation and dressing up for the presentation and having the camera on helped me focus.  Communication is a key, that’s what I learned from doing the presentation because when I send out texts some members like Amarah and Oluwatobi replied back while some didn’t, which was a bit frustrating.  

              I want to end with a thank you note for all the things you have done for us. It was a great semester and I really appreciate that you had time after class to just chat with me and other students. Best of luck in your future endeavors Ms. Ashton!