Scarline Martinez 

Alyssa Yankwitt

03/17/21

Personal Artifact Reflection

        My artifact’s characteristics are a relatively large painting of a girl with tear-filled eyes being carried by their father as their body submerged in water. Further, I was prompt to write about this subject because of my relationship with art. I was often dissatisfied with my work. I felt no connection to the art I produce due to being too self-critical of my craft; however, I felt emotionally tied to this particular piece because it represented my identity as a first-generation immigrant. For this reason, I felt enticed to write about my painting as the subject for this assignment. I view this subject as an opportunity to learn more about myself and translate these particular experiences into words for the first time. 

       Throughout the writing process, I hoped to produce a paper that flawlessly communicated the cultural values my artifact represented and showcase my understanding of the task. I wanted to create an essay that enabled me to showcase my writing skills and capture my thoughts perfectly. To achieve this, I engaged in developing and engaging in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes. I reached out to Lacey for revision and incorporated her suggestions into my writing, along with taking suggestions from the peer review to perfect my final draft. Moreover, the paper’s potential audiences are other first-generation immigrants and those who harbor a passion for the arts. The relationship between me as a writer, my potential audience, and the medium I am using to communicate has to do with efficiently communicating my artifact through my writing to the readers in a way that allows them to realize its significance and the purpose it holds. As a writer, I need to connect with the reader by finding common ground. I attempted this by acknowledging my and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources and drawing on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility. My essay needed to communicate my thoughts clearly; I resorted to grammar sites to ensure that sentences were coherent and made sense. My audience and I’s goals were to enhance our understanding of the artifact and negotiate my own writing goals and their expectations regarding conventions of the genre, medium, and rhetorical situation.  It was essential for them as the audience and I to reach a mutual understanding of what was required from the assignment and make sure I met those goals.