In my essay I used ideas from Kwame Anthony Appiah and Kenji Yoshino. I used in total eight quotes and also gave my opinion on what I thought identity was and how it has affected me and others around me. Me personally I find it easy to quote people and give my own thoughts on the what the writer is saying. I contributed to the conversation and also gave background to who the writers were giving support to their claims. I introduced new ideas when I said something like it is in human nature to have identities and to categorize things and people and we can’t live without those identities. I shifted the direction of the conversation when I moved from Yoshino to Appiah. When was trying to make the shift from Yoshino to Appiah I found it difficult to make that transition short and I also wanted to incorporate my opinion of identity and my experiences. I talked about me being from Vermont and how there is a lot of diversity in political view but not racially. Overall, I wish I could have been shorter talking about my own experiences, but I think it was a good way to shift into Appiah’s piece.
Another thing that I was unsure about was using a block quote. two of my quotes were pretty long, I think they were four or five sentences or really long sentences that were five to six lines long. I probably could have used block quotes, but I don’t think I compromised that integrity of the paper. When explaining who the writers where I summarized the key concepts that they were focusing on. I also made a work cited giving credit to the authors that I got those ideas from. I would also explain the quote before and then summarize it after and give my opinion on it. I think I have made a tremendous leap from where I was at the beginning of the year to now in how I write and how I integrate my ideas with those of experts. I would give myself between a G and an EX because I think there are some things I can approve upon but for the most part I think I did a very good job at integrating ideas with others in my essay.
