Blake, 1

Tom Blake
Period 3A
November 3, 2015
Self-Reflection Paper
Process Questions:
Three writing assignments that I found to be beneficial were the changing perspective,
narrative, and picture free-write assignments. The changing perspective assignment was two free-writes
about the same picture, using both a negative and a positive perspective. This helped me to learn how
to better use perspective to change the mood in an essay. The narrative assignment helped me to
develop a voice, create a catchy opening, stay consistent with verb tense, and to use imagery. The
picture free-write, although I found it to be less beneficial, also helped me to use a certain voice and a
consistent verb tense.
Some of the writing strategies I used to complete the Response Essay were using a catchy
opening, staying consistently in a certain tone and voice, using consistent verb tense, transitions
between paragraphs, and following an outline that reflects the thesis of the essay. I found that I used
transitions between paragraphs more than anything and directly following the thesis for the body of the
essay more than others, but things such as voicing and tense seemed to be obvious and simple.
The biggest problem I found with this essay was developing a firm stance opposing something
written in the essay On Being Black and Middle Class by Shelby Steele. Although I agreed with nearly
everything he said, he had very confusing wording and some parts I was not sure about his final stance,
which resulted in difficulties in my essay. I feel I was mildly successful at solving this problem, but I
definitely could have done better.

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The significant strengths in the Response Essay would most likely be the supporting paragraphs,
structure, and grammar. The weaknesses in the essay are definitely the opposing paragraphs and the
clarity of my final opinion.
What I learned about myself as a writer by writing this essay is that I have very strong opinions,
and I find it hard to stay in a neutral tone when discussing some things, and find myself being very
negative. This was only a problem for a couple parts in this essay, but I realized when rereading my
essay that I seemed very one-sided and closed-minded.
Subject-Related Questions:
I found very few tensions between my experiences and the authors, as I mostly agreed with
him, but in some certain parts I found his ideas to very vague, and other parts I completely disagreed
with him. Although there is an obvious double bind for the middle class black, the author felt like this
must be broken, where I believed that it is not necessary to release this double bind, and that anyone
caught in it should just do what they believe is right, as an individual, not part of a group.
When reading this essay, I found that I rarely if ever changed my opinion on the subject. This is
not due to my stubbornness nor the authors lack of persuasion, but the fact that I was uneducated on
the topic and had basically no opinion to begin with. I saw race differently after writing this essay
though, as I never considered the middle class black population. I had always generalized African
Americans with the black culture, and when I encountered a middle class black, I generalized them
with middle class culture. I never saw the double bind on these middle class blacks, and learning about
this changed my opinion of the African American population as a whole.
Writing about this subject mainly taught me about this so called double bind, but to a lesser
degree, writing this paper taught me that I cannot generalize a race, class, or any group into one certain

Blake, 3
person. This taught me that everyone is an individual and stereotypes and race and class based
generalizations are often wrong.
Rhetoric-Related Questions:
I imagined writing to my English class, who was uneducated on the subject, and had no
background knowledge of the double bind. This influenced my writing because at times when I would
have said things such as Steele believes, I said Steele saysdirect quote. This also affected my
writing because I found that I had to generalize topics for the reader that I could have gone into more
depth if the reader had previously read the essay.
I wanted the readers to take away a basic knowledge of what Shelby Steele wrote in On Being
Black and Middle Class, along with what I agreed and disagreed with in his writing.
My voice in this essay was very formal and mostly neutral. I rarely disagreed or agreed very
firmly without stating both sides of Steeles opinion. My voice in this paper was formal enough to be
turned in as a high school or college essay, but informal enough to be easily read by the general public.
The rhetorical strategy I felt that I used most was logos. Although Steele often used pathos in his
essay when creating drama for the black middle class and the challenges they faced, I often used logos
basically justifying this struggle and stating that everyone has struggles and although the black middle
class faces a challenge, they are the only ones who are able to fix it and it is only logical for them to do it
by themselves.
I found that in my essay I took very few risks. The only risk I found that I took was disagreeing
with Steele, a highly educated author who is well read on the subject, about some of his main points,
regarding the double bind. I believed that although this double bind is present, it should not be seen as a
very big problem, whereas Steele said that it was a very big problem for the population.