My first anthropological/youth work essay - a short reflection

I just finished writing and editing my first anthropological/youth work essay. Process-wise, not much changed from my English Lit essays:

✔ picked a (slightly too) original theme

✔ did a lot of research, which I enjoyed

✔ got annoyed at scholars in general for not giving me the info I wanted, which is normal in my experience

✔ found enough quotes to build my essay on

+ I got to use some of my experience as a young person and youth worker. This was new and I’m very curious to get feedback on it.

Because this is a formative assessment (i.e. I’m not getting an official grade), I wanted to test the boundaries of how much we can draw on our practice when writing an essay like this. I think I managed to balance research & practice, but I also did something that may or may not have been a good idea. Instead of doing the fancy-word academic-style essay, I put together a story, a collage of the experiences that people shared with me earlier this week, and I inserted it in key moments of the essay. To compare it with my Literary essays - instead of using quotes from literature and discussing them, I created my own story to analyse. Anyway, I’ve got absolutely nothing to lose from this experiment. I’ll get feedback, I’ll have a one-to-one with the prof, and then I’ll know how to do it next time.

Also, don’t forget, once I get the feedback I’ll post the essay on the blog. So if you’re curious, make sure you follow me!