How It Came About
The Beginning
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At the beginning of the semester, I was tasked with choosing a previous piece of writing that I would like to revisit this semester. Originally, I had thought this meant that the piece would be subject to peer review, editing, and revising for 13 weeks, and would come out as a polished piece of writing I would feel proud to put in my e-portfolio. I immediately thought back to papers I had written previously, especially before college, and thought, “I have a bunch to choose from, this should be easy!” However, that was not the case; we were then told that we would be running experiments on these pieces of writing, and transforming them into something completely new. So I then thought to myself, “What is a piece that I would like to learn more about? What is something that is really interesting to me that I would like to work with all semester?” I immediately came back to a poem about sexual assault I had written as a freshman in my very first writing course.
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It was one of the first poems I had ever written and I wasn’t extremely proud of it. The poem was titled “The First Time” and was short: only 3 stanzas with 5 or 6 lines in each. There were no deep or hidden meanings, no real use of interesting sound and words, nothing particularly ground breaking about what the narrator was saying. Clearly, I didn’t know how to write poetry. But I knew that throughout the semester, I could turn the poem into something more. Something more than just a sad excuse at a poem, or a cliché about victims of sexual assault. I knew that I could take the important topic of sexual assault and turn it into something substantial and something worth reading. Of course, I had no idea how I would get to that point, but I was going to do it anyway.
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The Work
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Since that point, my project has really come a long way, thanks to an entire semester’s worth of writing, researching, and brainstorming. As I previously mentioned, we ran “experiments” on the original piece, altering it at every stage. Through each of those steps, I learned a lot about the topic, myself as a writer, and the final project overall.
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My very first experiment was, in my eyes, the most experimental. I chose the genre of a personal diary, and created a fictional character (similar to the narrator in the original poem) as the author. The diary was to span over the course of a year, with entries every few days. After a month or two, the author was the victim of sexual assault, and used her diary as the main mode of emotional communication. The main purpose of the diary was to show the author’s changing perspective on life and relationships after the attack. In order to create the diary entries, I had to create the character, including her personality and experiences. Ultimately, it meant getting into the mind of a young woman experiencing something traumatic, and attempting to understand how she would be coping and dealing with the pain. In order to make the writing as organic as possible (and avoid using stereotypes or clichés), I did a lot of initial research on the emotional and psychological effects on victims. I also read a lot of journal entries posted by sexual assault victims of all ages and degrees. As one might imagine, reading all about abusive relationships and traumatic experience was no easy feat. But having to take it a step further and imagine that I was a victim, well that was even more difficult. However, in order to have the diary entries be as realistic as possible, I knew that I had to gain a little empathy and understanding of what the author was going through.
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Though my first experiment was difficult at times, it gave me a better understanding for the topic, the final project, and myself as a writer. Even though right away, we know sexual assault is a heavy topic, I didn’t realize how heavy it would actually be. Conducting the first experiment and generating that content had a very real emotional effect on me. Ultimately, I was feeling what victims felt, on a much, much smaller scale. So even though the experiment was effective in capturing the audience emotionally, I was worried that making people feel bad was not an effective way in bringing about change. I was worried that if people were just upset and sad at the end, there would be no way to bring them back and say, hey, let’s keep talking about this! Therefore, I knew that in the final project, the weight of the topic and emotional appeals had to be controlled in order to ensure readers would get through the entire piece without getting too upset or emotional. In hindsight, I did not end up using any of the specific content I generated through this experiment, but the emotional and psychological effects on victims became the guiding light through the final experiments. Through those journal entries, I was able to set the tone for the rest of the experiments as well as the final project.
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My second experiment was the smallest deviation from the original poem. I chose the genre of short film, with a series of speakers reciting the poem line by line. In the storyboard for the experiment, there would be 6 speakers (each with 3 or 4 lines spread out throughout the poem), sitting in front of a blank background, only shoulders and above exposed, reciting their lines with a fair amount of emotion. The camera angle would not change for speakers, but between stanzas would be a short clip of some sort of nature shot, whether it would be a field of flowers or a forest panoramic. There would be background music depending on the stanza, as well as coloring changes (color to black and white and back to color). The pace of the video would be relatively quick, gaining speed throughout the poem. All in all, I was unable to actually film any of the short video, but I was able to learn about the film equipment and resources we have available as University of Michigan students, and play around with a few editing stations. I had taken a media broadcasting class in high school where we shot and edited videos weekly, so it was fun to get back in that mindset for a while. With multimedia, the audience can experience works in so many different and new ways than with just text works. Using multimedia, whether it be video or audio or both, is a way to reach more viewers, and to engage with them in a different and more interesting way. This added interaction with the piece of work was the main reason I was so excited about this experiment.
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Even though this experiment did not generate additional content, through this experiment I was able to keep the integrity of the original poem without getting too personally involved in the content, as I did in the first experiment. However, I realized that doing a short film for a mediocre poem didn’t have the impact I was looking for in the final experiment. Even though I loved the aspect of creating a video, the content did not really move me in any way. Therefore, I contemplated using some sort of video aspect in my final project, even if it were a small part, to make the project more interesting. I realized though, with some guidance from Ray, that creating an original video in addition to all of the other content I wanted to generate, was biting off more than I could manage. Additionally, from this experiment, I realized that for my third and final experiment, I wanted to take a more objective approach and do more research on the topic in general.
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Through my last experiment, I realized how little I actually knew about a topic I had claimed to be so interested in. Let’s start at the beginning though. For my third experiment, I chose the genre of academic essay with the topic of the #metoo campaign that had gone viral in November. In the essay, I explored the origins of the phrase, as well as its scope and effects today. Although not specifically about sexual assault, the #metoo campaign was a way for survivors of sexual assault to stand together, and I thought that it was an important topic to fully understand the effects of sexual violence. In my reflection for this experiment, I had described it as “the most informative” and the experiment “with the most real-world application.” Additionally, I learned that analyzing sexual assault through a more objective, academic lens was not as strange as I had though originally. In order to be accurate in the essay, I had to do a lot of research into what various sexual assault terms actually meant and statistics of the scope of the problem. It was during this research period where I realized that my knowledge on sexual violence was limited to what was in mainstream media. And that is also when I realized that most others would have a knowledge base very similar, and how this lack of knowledge only increases victim blaming and rape culture. That was the moment when I realized, for my final project, that I really wanted it to be mainly informational, in order to increase awareness and discussion of sexual assault and sexual violence.
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Overall, I learned something about myself as a writer from each experiment, and each experiment shaped some aspect of my final project. As you are aware, my final project ended up taking the shape of an informative presentation about sexual assault and sexual violence. It was created though, with the feelings of the victims from the first experiment, with the idea of respecting the topic without making viewers feel too emotional from the second experiment, and the research and statistics generated from the last experiment. Of course, for the final project, I had to generate a lot more content and do a lot more research than what I had done in my experiments in order to cover the basic concepts. But ultimately, the idea for the final project was a combination of all of the experiments, as well as a growth in my understanding about the topic.
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The Goals
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My main goal with this project is so get the discussion going about sexual violence. I understand that it is a very heavy topic, and makes some people uncomfortable, but it is important to discuss its causes and consequences on society. In order to talk about sexual assault and violence, people need to know what the terms mean and how widespread the problem is. We must be informed in order to change anything.
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That information gap was the main inspiration for this project. I wanted it to cover the basic concepts in a broad way, in order to see the big picture for everything. Therefore, the project starts off with simple definitions for various terms related to sexual assault and violence. Then, in order to show the scope of the problem, I include some general statistics. Also, I did not want to tell the audience what to think, but rather let the numbers and facts speak for themselves in order to increase conversations. That is why you may see a lot of numbers and definitions and a lack of opinions and subjective material. After a while, I go into heavier topics, such as the idea of “rape culture,” the various negative effects on victims, and what people who are affected by sexual assault can do. I ultimately end by a call for conversation and include a few discussion questions of my own. In order to keep the presentation very big picture, I could not go into much detail about some of the topics. Therefore, throughout the project, there are links for viewers to click in order to learn more about specific topics. Additionally, at the end of every topic, I included 1 or 2 true or false questions, as a way of “testing” the knowledge of the viewer, but mainly as a way to be interactive and to break up the constant information flow of the presentation. Overall, the content of the presentation is pretty straightforward, but organized in such a way so to increase the emotional impact toward the end, as well as topics available for discussion at the end. Once there is basic understanding of the main concepts, we can go into deeper conversation about the causes and consequences.
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In terms of the aesthetic of the presentation, I wanted it to be fairly simple. Therefore, I chose a scenic background image with minimal pictures throughout. This is because I wanted the words to speak for themselves and the information to be the main point of the slides. I do think that some of the slides are text dense, though, so having a few more pictures could have helped in breaking that up. However, I did not want to add pictures that further the idea of rape culture, or take away from the tone of the presentation by adding an optimistic or happy picture. Additionally, graphs and charts are useful, but an overabundance of them and they all tend to run together. Basically, adding pictures and visual aids had to be minimalist and match the overall presentation. I had originally intended for the project to be more interesting and engaging, so to speak, but once I got all of the research and information together, I thought presenting it in a simple and logical manner would align best with my overall goal of informing those who do not know much about sexual assault and sexual violence and encouraging further discussion.
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Moving away from the project and onto the website, I wanted to continue on with the minimalist feel with natural, scenic pictures. The home page features a field of flowers and a phrase which is used at the backbone for the presentation. The field of yellow flowers is also a nod to the original poem, where the narrator remembers running through fields as a child. A simple welcome ends the page. Then, the next step for viewers is the about me page, featuring my picture and a brief paragraph about who I am. The background of the page is the same image from the home page, but with an orange tint to make it seem softer and not as busy. In terms of content, the page contains my motivation for creating the project, as well as a mention of the poem it all started with. At the bottom of the page, there is an arrow to the next page containing the presentation. I decided to add these arrows in order to increase the natural flow from page to page, and to be sure that the initial viewing is in the order which I intended. The next page features the presentation in the middle with the same background as the presentation. Beside the box are two buttons: one is an arrow which will bring viewers to the reflection page, and one is a plus sign which will bring viewers to a page with links to access additional information. I believe it is important for viewers to choose which option they want, because each viewer is experiencing the presentation in their own way. Ultimately, the website is a way for viewers to get information they need in order to start discussions about sexual assault.
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The Future
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I’m sure that was a little more than you wanted to know about my process in creating this project! However, in order to understand the outcome, the process is important. Additionally, the process is important because that is when I grew as a writer. Throughout this process, I have learned a lot about sexual assault and sexual violence, but I have also learned about myself. First off, I learned that I write with a lot of empathy; in order for the writing to feel genuine, I have to feel connected to the character I am writing about. This empathy could get in the way for heavier, more emotional topics, but I believe it is crucial in making sure the writing is genuine. Additionally, I learned that I really appreciate pieces of work that are interactive and engaging. Multimedia, particularly the use of video and film, is a great way to enable viewers to experience a piece of work through multiple senses, and enhance the experience that much more. Thirdly, I learned that I enjoy facts and statistics, and that my mind works in a logical way. In order for this presentation to be legitimate, I realized that I had to include some sort of educational aspect. Lastly, I learned that in order to grow as both a writer and person, I have to get out of my comfort zone and be a little uncomfortable sometimes. In order to write about more meaningful things, I have to learn from the perspectives and experiences of others, even if I don’t want to hear them. If I only write about things I know about, I would run out of things to write about pretty quickly. Exploring new topics and genres is vital to growing, in any manner. In order to get out of this weird “in-between” stage I am currently in, I need to continue to be curious and explore new topics. I need to push out of my comfort zone and find the things that I am truly passionate about.