Cultural Artifact Reflection

My journey in writing the personal artifact essay required me to delve deep into my experiences with family and culture. The prompt allowed me to develop my creativity in writing, while simultaneously connecting it to my personal life and finding meaning within that. The purpose was to tell a story and explain what Arab jewelry, particularly my mother’s, meant to me. The potential audience is my peers and people who show interest in learning more about my experience with this cultural artifact. I wrote under the assumption that the audience would not have prior knowledge of my topic or artifact, making sure I explained every aspect of the culture that I felt they may not be familiar with. I welcome any different interpretations or stories my audience would like to share, which I believe is what establishes a strong reader-writer relationship. A goal I share with my audience is more understanding of the topic itself. I’m very knowledgeable, as it pertains to my own family however, I still think I have a long way to go, and assuming an even longer one for the audience.

The peer review I participated in to share my thoughts on this paper aided heavily in my writing process. My peer gave me advice on what I did great on and things I could improve on. They had said that I needed to specify moments with my mother that showed the importance of the artifact, which I made sure to incorporate later on in my drafting process. They also said my writing was very descriptive and painted a clear picture, but to hold back on it a little so the clarity of my writing wouldn’t be compromised. My overall reaction to the assignment was frustration. I had known all these things about my mother and our culture, but I had no idea how to put them in words. Other than that, it was fun to write about something that interests me. It also pushed me to ask my mom more questions, which she was more than pleased to answer and generally strengthened my relationship with her.  

The most challenging part of the revision process was clarity. As I said, I had struggled a lot with getting the right words out, so it took a lot of editing to get from point A to point B. Although it was the most challenging, it was also the most effective. At the end of the editing, it looked completely different. Before editing, the writing was less coherent and read worse than how it is now. Most of our assignments helped me understand how to define and describe my cultural artifact, and after some practice with those, I knew what characteristics I was looking for and what I wanted the audience to know in my paper. The readings of different cultures talking about their artifacts are also what inspired me to choose jewelry in the first place. When I think about my younger self writing this, I realized it would have been a lot more diluted since I wasn’t as embracive of my culture as I am now, and being exposed to this kind of writing has definitely made an impact on how I feel about it.

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