I agree to the Class Commitments
Month: September 2023 Page 7 of 14
I agree to the class commitments.
I agree to the Class Commitments
Class Commitments – Storytelling and Identity – Fall 2023 (richmond.edu)
(Kelvin) One quote that stood out to me was when you said, “I put the quick money in front of the sure money and benefits every time.” Do you think that this culture of chasing quick money and instant gratification is one of the root issues of the environment you grew up in?
(Either) A common theme I saw throughout the book was the importance of never showing emotion and always having to be hard. If you did show emotion, others would label you as being soft. What would happen to you once you had that label of being soft?
- What lasting impacts did jail have on you? I’ve heard it can be jarring to be back in the world after being released. Is that true in your experience? Is there a habit that you formed in jail that you continue to this day?
- What was the hardest part of being in jail? What kept you going throughout the experience (light at the end of the tunnel, etc.)?
- What’s something that you wish people would ask you when you come to places like this to talk about the book?
- What was your routine like inside jail? When did you have time to write/where did you usually write?
- How did you decide which stories to include in the book? Is there a story that’s not in the book that, looking back, you wish you could’ve fit in there?
- For Kelvin specifically: You said that, being the kind of person that you are, you shaped your world into what you thought you wanted it to be when you were younger. What world have you shaped for yourself now?
- For Terence specifically: You mention that being raised by your mother and your sisters, without a male authority figure, you felt like you were missing things that you would have benefited from learning from a father figure. But are there things you learned from your mother/sisters that you think you might not have learned otherwise? How close are you with your siblings today?
On a side note, I found a Terence quote that really resonated with me today: “There is something wonderful, blessed, blissful, almost surreal about the gift of youth. You notice, then you don’t notice. A problem can be there, confronting you, but there are big people dealing with it.” Well, like it or not, you guys, we’re right on the edge of that point in life. We’re living by ourselves, without our parents here to guide us or plan out our schedules. We’re being treated like adults, but, of course, we’re helped along by the fact that we have a dining hall, easily accessible laundry, don’t have to clean our own bathrooms, don’t have to pay rent, etc. And Terence, and Kelvin, and all of the others didn’t have those things to ease them into independent life. And they got thrown in at a much, much younger age. Honestly, I have so much respect for them because of their ability to survive in those conditions, to painstakingly carve out some sort of life for themselves, even if it led them to become involved in illegal activities. I feel a little bit overwhelmed here, in this little bubble of semi-adulthood; I know I wouldn’t have been able to survive in their circumstances. These guys have endured more than I could even imagine. And society looks down on them?? That just doesn’t make sense to me. Anyways. I guess it just got me thinking.
1. (For either Terence or Kelvin) Both of you grew up in less-than-ideal situations, and as children you were subject to things that children usually are not and should not see. Do you think that if there had been intervention by social services your life may have gone a different way? And if so do you think that social services failed you as children, or do you think that intervention would have been irrelevant?
2. (For Kelvin) Years after you finished your memoir, you were rearrested for marijuana possession. When buying, did you ever see yourself in or relate to the person you were buying from? Did you ever consider that you were contributing to a system that had previously hurt your life?
- What was your thought process behind the idea of this book and the strategy of collecting stories and weaving them together?
- Is there anything you want to tell us now that we’ve not only had an opportunity to read your story but now we can hear firsthand from you?
- Why did you go along with this idea, what made you stick it out?
Reading the poem about compost was very visual, some parts more than others. It gave me memories in different senses, one of them being my sense of smell and one of them being my sense of touch. When the poem was taking about fire and the compost pile itself, I could imagine the smell of fire as well as the compost pile because I have worked with compost before. I could also imagine the feeling of the corn husks, when it described what went into the compost pile, as my family husks and eats a lot of corn in the summertime.
The relation between burning and compost was interesting as we noted that they both bring about something new. I noted that decomposition reflects that the only absolute in life is death. Everything that was put in the compost came from different places, but they all meld together to form something new. Angelos’ point was very interesting, he said, we are similar to compost, being made of several things for example: our experiences, relationships, families, etc., the combination of this all helps to shape us as people. Essays are also similar in a way because of their parts: the introduction, thesis, body paragraphs, and conclusion. The thesis is what eventually brings an essay all together, kind of like heat in a compost pile as it all relates to the thesis.
Next in class, we shared our compost heaps, about the person’s story we were most intrigued by, with a classmate. For me and my partner we both decided to write about Kelvin and so we noticed similar quotes. We also noticed similar themes shared by our person as well as other people’s stories. To finish class, we did briefly cover our future meeting with Dr. Coogan and Kelvin and we were tasked with creating questions to have ready to ask, as it is more awkward to sit in silence than ask an “uncomfortable” question.
- (David Coogan) There were several times when people in your class said that no one had ever asked them these kinds of questions before. How did you come up with these questions? Did you prepare them in advance or improvise?
- (Other writers) Do you still find yourself writing these days? If so, what forms of writing are they (journaling, more published works) and how has this writing helped you?