This is a semi-formal text, and you should write about your own reflections and conclusions. However, you must remember to clearly separate your own and others ideas. Reference all sources correctly (see Writers Guide).
Remember that the text should show how well you have reached the learning objectives and understood the course literature, so make sure that you:
explain and discuss cultural concepts and postcolonial theory analyze the relationship between the concepts of culture, ethnicity, race, gender and identity communicate in idiomatic and academic English in written and spoken form
Student Examples:
My first insight was gained after watching Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies Ted talk about single stories, and concerns my own limited views as well as how to actively broaden them. Adichie explains that when we are exposed to one sided, simplistic stories about other people it can result in creating stereotypes which might give us untrue or limited ideas about these people. Despite imagining that I work actively to avoid being prejudiced, I realised that there are many groups of people in my own community and from around the world that I possess considerably limited views about, and have mindlessly absorbed definitive stories of. As a consequence I have failed to consider the varying circumstances that help shape them into complex individuals. Adichie claims that the creation of single stories is closely connected to power, and powerful people and nations are indeed able to create narratives about those less powerful. However, in realising my own limitations I also recognized the power I have to seek out differing stories, with the goal to gain a greater understanding where mine is lacking. After this realisation I am now of the opinion that prejudices are not something that one passively dispossesses but something one must actively work to prevent.
Synthesizing and connecting your example to the course literature and using relevant terminology
Example 1
As Adichie makes clear, the single story is a very damaging way of defining people from one prejudiced perspective. I experienced the consequences of this as a child when I crudely denied drinking water when visiting my classmates home. I had gotten the impression that this single story was true to the point that I thought my classmates family didnt know how to wash dishes or have clean water. Reading McLeod, I also recognized this event in the concept of Orientalism I am equally appalled had sneaked its way into my childhood. I for some reason experienced the immigrant student and his family as primitive, just as the stereotype McLeod describes (52). I had been influenced by the western stereotype of the Orient being behind the times, to the extent I didnt feel safe to drink their water.
Example 2
McLeod describes how oriental people often is stereotyped in western
representations as for instance the violent Arab, the sexually obsessed
African, the inscrutable Chinese or the lazy Indian (McLeod 54).
In the same way the stereotype of the Mexican macho and the easy Swedish
woman often appear in movies and literature from Europe and the USA.
Therefore, it is not surprising that those were the single stories we had on our
minds when we met.
Conclusions
What should a good conclusion contain?
A summary of the texts main ideas = the CONCLUSIONS
No new IDEAS, but new CONCLUSIONS can be drawn
Example 1
It is an unpleasant and embarrassing realisation when I slowly begin to understand that the horrible legacies of colonialism and imperialism and their perspectives of the world and non-Europeans still lingers, both in the shadows of my mind as well as in plain sight
Example 2
Today I know more then I knew before. I am wiser and know that things in life always is not always black or white. That as if you would say the immigrants in Sweden who are a part of Swedish society are not as different from myself. Also, that people may chose to live on the countryside and keep it nice and are not needed to life in ramshackle due to lack of economy. This has shaped my life not to be quick to judge people simply from where they are from.
Example 3
I have realized the danger of a single story because when people assume to know a person without really knowing them, one look becomes the deciding factor for their assessments of the individual.
SOURCES:
Adichie: The danger of a single story.
Beginning postcolonialism- Second edition
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|