I loved watching and listening to Professor Dolson’s story. I liked how the visuals went along with the words and provided different context to what she was talking about. I found that the moral of her story is “don’t judge a book by its cover.” I think that if we look around and judge other people, or their homes, we lose sight of ourselves and how we may be doing the same things. The story also began with context about the house and her family, and I liked how the end of the story tied back into the beginning. Overall, I see the importance of having a story that you can pinpoint a specific theme from and use that to relate to a bigger picture in life.
Month: November 2023 Page 4 of 6
Professor Dolson’s video story about the House was very entertaining, and I enjoyed getting to know something new about professor. I liked the pace the story was told at, as it was slow enough for us to be able to process all the pictures and look at the visuals on the screen. I liked the introduction of the having a real estate dad, but most of all I liked the closing statement of how a group of people who you assumed were dangerous, or that you assumed lived in an unsafe area were just like you in reality. Being able to put yourself in someone else’s perspective, especially someone who you had previously held biases against.
- The point of FYS is to get everybody on the same playing field
- When writing, take time to understand the assignment, goals, and what the reader is expecting
- Expectations typically done through rubrics
- FYS is about the development of analytical skills
- Coogan’s goal with WoWo was similar, have inmates analyze moments in their lives that were pivotal, both by choices they made and things they couldn’t control
- If we reflect on our own stories we can make different choices
- In this class, essays are about meaning and not exact correctness
- Groups of 3 discussions about each other’s essays
- Each takes the role of either artist, reader, and facilitator
- Professor Dolson came around and asked the question “From a reader’s perspective, what would make us want to continue reading” and not focusing on the writing as an essay and for a grade
- Extra points are awarded for an outstanding piece of our essay
- Could be an interesting metaphor or a great title
- MLA in-text citations
- Bibliography at the end for in-text citations
- First in-text do Coogan et al and page number
- For the rest of the citations just do page number
- Prep note for Thursday
- Use Grammarly and then the Hemingway app and see if there’s a difference
Thank you for putting such good energy into the workshop today. I was reflecting on my experience. I only heard bits and pieces of each group, but what struck me was that there was a paradigm at work that I didn’t realize would be so powerful: the “assignment” paradigm. It makes sense, in retrospect. Assignments by definition are not really your own idea. They may not feel much like creating art. But actually, you are making choices and putting things together in order to communicate with a reader, and that is what creative writers do.
I revised the instruction sheet so that they more explicitly situate the essay as art. I would love it if you would read these over, and give me suggestions for how to make them better! Thanks
The Art of the Essay Workshop
Goals:
- to experience an essay as a work of art
- receive feedback that gets at the content and the heart of your essay
Instructions:
Give your critique partner a copy of your draft essay.
Read your partner’s draft.
Imagine you have just found this essay sitting on a table in your dorm and you picked it up to read it. Notice how you react to it as a reader. Would you keep reading all the way to the end?
Write notes to respond to Step 1 and Step 3 below. Each partner should take turns in role of writer and responder, and the pair should follow these steps for discussion:
Step 1. Statements of Meaning
Responder states what was meaningful, evocative, interesting, exciting, and/or striking in the work they have just witnessed/read.
Step 2. Writer as Questioner
The writer asks questions about the work. In answering, responders stay on topic with the question and may express opinions in direct response to the artist’s questions.
Ex: Did you understand what I meant by the title?
Step 3. Neutral Questions
Responders ask neutral questions about the work, and the artist responds. Questions are neutral when they do not have an opinion couched in them.
This step is one of the most fundamental, challenging, and misunderstood steps of Critical Response Process.
Examples: Can you say more about your interpretation of _____ ?
What does your title mean to you?
Step 4. Opinion Time
Responders state opinions, given permission from the artist; the artist has the option to say no.
Please leave feedback and suggestions in the comments.
I listened to the Walking Together story, which was about making a new friend. I could hear how the storyteller was nervous about sharing this story, I think partially because she was nervous to public speak, but more because as she recalled, she was nervous to make her new friend. She clearly wanted to share this story and she told it in chronological order. She started with her reason for needing a new friend, then told how she made a new friend, and then how she and that new friend spent their time.
Story: “Okay To Tell” by Emely Recinos
My expectations about how this story would pan out weren’t correct at any point. I thought she would go on to explain more about her friend group in particular (which she didn’t, she only mentioned it once), I thought she would direct more attention towards her own struggle dealing with the fact that she was losing her vision (which she seemed to just play off, as if other people knowing about it affected her more), and I imagined she would have some big insight at the end of it that was more than just that she should tell more people about it.
In my opinion, her narrative was all over the place, bringing attention to certain things such as her friend group, having to use a ‘blind person stick’, her cousins or her brother’s beliefs, and jumping to something else in the next sentence. I also noticed how the expression in her voice probably got more across than a block of the same text would’ve.
I listened to the “Wild Women and Dancing Queens” story. The speaker was Lex Jade, and she was very passionate and lively while she was telling her story. When she was 14 years old, she went to an all-girls camp and learned a lot about her femininity and self-image. One night at her camp, her cabin decided to go streaking. She was nervous about it but she eventually decided to take part in the situation. While they were running around she was worried about getting hurt or sick, but she didn’t worry about her body or what she looked like. She and her cabinmates sang “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, and that night did a lot to help how she viewed herself and those around her. The narrative structure of her story is chronological, and she tells the story in the order in which the events happened. I really enjoyed hearing Lex Jade tell this story and I respect her openness and vulnerability while telling it.
The story I listened to was “Okay to Tell.” This story was about a girl and her desire to hide from others that she was rapidly loosing her sight. The entire story revolves around her trying to conceal the truth until her younger brother reveals to her cousins that she’s blind. The most notable aspect of this story was the emotion that could be heard from the authors voice. Since the story is very personal and emotional for the speaker, the speaker continuously nervously laughs, almost in a way that makes you think she’s about to get emotional and teary eyed. This adds a whole other characteristic to storytelling. Being told in front of others, you get a glimpse as to the emotions the speaker feels presently but possibly the emotions they felt in the past as a part of their story.
The story I listened to was about the speaker’s first kiss experience. Throughout the story, the speaker’s emotion conveyed her nervousness about having her first kiss. As she told the story, she was nervously laughing and stuttering, not to a point where it disrupted the story but to where it made it seem like she was just telling the story to you one-on-one. It made it feel more personal and less rehearsed, therefore more relatable to the audience. The fact that the story was also told to a live audience and you could hear their reactions to everything she said made it even more relatable. In terms of the narrative structure, the story was told chronologically from start to finish but with small anecdotes about what the author was thinking or feeling at certain points in the story. This, in combination with both her cadence and the live audience, made the story feel more personal.
I’ve noticed that I listened to a story that a couple others in the class also listened to. Drawn to the story by its more lighthearted and comedic description, I enjoyed the story because of how the narrator told the story and the actual meaning of the story. The description: “David Lepelstat is convinced of his superhero powers until they get him into a deadly situation.” immediately sets the story and narrative with a rather juvenile and joyful allusion to “Superheroes” and in the exposition where he explains his tendency to fixate on one nerdy subject to the next, he builds a personal connection with the listener.
The narrative itself resembles a self-reflective tense, as he’s recalling back to his past actively in front of us. He doesn’t only explain the facts, but he includes the cognitive process and the actual thinking of his younger self, such as how he did not understand the definition of “partner” when his family described Micheal or “Hot-Wheels when I’d moved on to Power Rangers.” Cluing us into his younger self’s thoughts makes the experience a lot more personable.
The way he implemented comedy into his story was an interesting element. Telling a story about drowning would usually be a more tense experience, however, from the exposition to the actual details of the event, you can tell that he has his audience hooked to his every word. Throughout the story, the presence and power of laughter helps the story ebb and flow in David’s form of story telling.
Interesting themes in the story revolve around family, relationships with others, and ties that transcend blood or associations. The connection the speaker has with Micheal is a very strong Uncle-Nephew bond, and one that isn’t easily forgotten despite Micheal and the narrator’s uncle breaking up.