Dr. J Baptiste
Eng 102 Fall 2023
Short Paper 1
Analytical Reflection
Short Essay One: an analytic self-reflective essay that examines critically and truthfully your positionality and world view.
We will view Chimanda Ngozi Adiche’s TedTalk The Danger of a Single Story and discuss the concept of ngali.
Adiche elucidates, “There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is “nkali.” It’s a noun that loosely translates to “to be greater than another.” Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of nkali: How they are told, who tells them.”
In the context of how Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche uses the concept of a “single story,” reflect upon a “single story” you hold/held of another person or group. In your 800-1000 word reflection, make sure to identify just one story, for example Chimamanda Adiche’s view of Mexicans as criminals; her mother’s view of Fide’s family as only poor; or, her roommate’s view of Africans as backward. Please bear in mind that we are using the concept of “single story” in Adiche’s context.
Additionally, try to recall from where you learned that one-sided perspective. For instance, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, in her Tedtalk, The Danger of a Single Story, confesses that she learned her single story of Fide and his family from her mother who only referred to Fide as poor not poor and…. Adiche also confesses to having a negative stereotypical view of Mexico from American media. For example, people seem to adopt their single-storiness from family, friends/peers, media, literature (fiction and nonfiction); and institutions (religious, cultural, political, legal, social).
Then analyze the impact of this single story on your own self-awareness, consciousness and behavior towards this group of other people.
Assess whether you have changed from holding this one-sided dangerous and dehumanizing perspective, and interrogate the causes for your transformed and more enlightened points of view. If you still hold your initial perspective, then assess and analyze the reasons for you commitment to that one perspective.
Write a well-developed multi-paragraph (more than the standard, elementary 5-paragraph model) 800-1000 essay in MLA format using MS Word. You must make references to three of the following: Adiche, Dewey, Mirikitani and Hughes. The integration of these sources, marginally, is to scaffold the research essay in which you will be required to find and use at least three external sources. For example, when Adiche goes to Mexico, she realizes that she has adopted, from American media, a single story of Mexicans. The speakers in both Hughes’ and Mirikitaini’s poems experience feeling isolated, typecast,….And Dewey reinforces the need to be socially conscious and social agents.
