Reflection
When I was writing my Interview essay about classmate subculture, I first listed the characteristics of my paper as a writer. I perceive myself as a poor writer, before this class. I had never been taught the proper way to write a paper. I struggled at the beginning of my essay because I did not have an interview with my classmate, we only interviewed once through zoom. I never thought about the process that I took to write any paper before this class. I know that I have learned a great deal last semester, which I will be able to put towards my upcoming writing intensive courses.
Reading my peer’s papers was helpful not only to my peer’s but also to me. I was very interested in many different topics that were being discussed. I discovered that I am a better peer responder than I thought I would be. I was able to find mistakes in other people’s work, unlike my own work. I also found that the advice I was giving my peer would have also been beneficial to my own paper.
The peer responses that I received were very helpful to me in correcting my paper. I tried to take all the advice and apply it to my paper. I feel that my peers are also my audience, and another would be my professor who will read and grade the paper. Any information that they say would be helpful in understanding my paper or that would make my paper better is worth using.
I also felt that this paper was difficult–approaching writing from an entirely new perspective than the one that I use when I write based on a classmate interview. This was a much more individual experience, because I needed to come up with all the steps on my own. I made the questions, gathered interview data, and tried to piece it together, as you said, without the guidance of a full class discussion about what I would be writing about. An essay based on an interview is different from the regular essay we always do in class, but it was a good experience to learn from.
Mawda Elnagar Subculture interview
Before starting my writing, I would like to describe my informant whose name is Mawda Elnagar. She is a young student from the city college, born in Egypt and a hard-working person, Mawda Elnagar is a beautiful girl with light skin, light brown eyes and she covers her head with a scarf called hijab. She is simply a girl with a nice character, and she is also dedicated to helping others while talking. Mawda Elnagar was born in a muslim family. Egyptians subculture is a group of ethnic of people originated from the country of Egypt and are part of another etnic group which is muslim, Mawda belong to this group because she was born and raise there as muslim. She speak clearly to be understanding.
First of all, research involves making sense of cultural events. One of the main goals of our research will be to share what I learn by interviewing Mawda Elnagar about her subculture. Mawda and I met on zoom at school hour to interview her about her subculture as
Meeting on zoom helped me to understand her much better, because she was wearing a hijab which made my position clear. However, my position is that being a part of Egyptian subculture is very crucial and significant for Mawda Elnagar.
Secondly, Mawda Elnagar is a muslim girl, where all her household is influenced by the culture and religion. She likes it in a very strict manner, unlike many others because it is close to her heart. The Mawda Elnagar family has held the same religion and culture for the various generations and they withhold many traditions and rituals. In addition, Mawda Elnagar subculture includes so many different things such as praying five times a day is an obligation for every adult muslim who is phisycally and mentally capable of doing so. Praying five times a day to maintain their connection to God. Mawda subculture also a holy month which is ramadan, a month that every muslim fast from sun rise to sun set for thirty days. They fast to practice self discipline, to purify their heart, not committing any sin and also to empathize with the less fortunate to see how they live and be always thankful to god. Furthermore, the fact that her devotion was more stronger than anything else and the subculture is also close to her heart let her win over anything that tried to interfere into Mawda subculture.
Finally, they also have a messenger called “Muhammad” the belief in Muhammad’s prophet is the main important aspect of the Islamic faith. Every Muslim proclaims in Shahadah: “I testify that there is no god but God, and I testify that Muhammad is a Messenger of God.” The Shahadah is the basic creed or tenet of Islam. Islamic belief is that ideally the Shahadah is the first words a newborn will hear; for the child to be introduced to the subculture which is the egyptian subculture. In conclusion, I learned that the Egyptian subculture is very important and crucial for mawda. She is very proud to be born in Egypt and be part of the subculture. For muslims, Ramadan is a crucial month of the year because it celebrates what we believe to be the most momentous month in the history of the world. Ramadan marks the month when wrath and mercy met at the cross. That’s why Ramadan and the five prayers of the day are so purifying and so Good.
