Author: Ana Michaelis Page 1 of 3

What was the story you heard? What makes it a story?

Over this break, I did not have any family come in because they live out of the country, but I did have a moment to speak with my grandma and family over the phone. We talked about my great-grandma, my grandma’s mother, and how she had 8 other siblings. This conversation went unprompted, and she literally said to me that all of her siblings “had a story” then she told me about her aunt, a women who was married to a very well known lawyer in Colombia. Together, they had 11 children, which is crazy and so many in itself, but she also later discovered that he also had exactly 11 children with another woman. Yet after, he maintained a relationship with both women, and sent all 22 children through college.

I do not necessarily believe it has to have many characters, point of view, conflict, etc. It is hard to say what makes something a story, but to me this felt like a story because it was an authentic experience faced by someone. And especially someone who I am related to, and also its relation too many common themes, like love, infidelity, and family.

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.

I listened to Pool Party by David Lepelstat, trying to focus on sound more than story was very odd to me, but one thing I had noticed was about his voice, he had a lisp and I could tell that he was nervous while presenting this story but he still presented incredibly well.

Within the narrative structure of this story, there was a lot of making very specific claims and then explaining them, for example he opened with who he was in life was determined by what phase he was going through, then explained how that could either be a hot wheels, superhero or power ranger phase. One thing about the structure that I really enjoyed was the ending, I love how he pulled in the ending about his uncle michael, and how he had explained at the beginning he did not understand the concept of his uncle having a “partner” but how he grew to love and respect michael, and always be so grateful of how he saved his life.

I also enjoyed the structure of the beginning, how he began the story by pulling you in with this incredible description of this vacation and concept of a pool party, and also continuously alluded to his attempt to run across water like the flash.

Chapters 4-10 of Persepolis informed readers more about the beginning of the Islamic Revolution, the war, and the authors story as a teenager. I thought her representation of emotion was beautiful, and stories are more powerful if they can make you feel. Still, what I notice the most is how much trauma she went through at such an early age. Even if she was not directly affected by it, she watched her family members, friend’s fathers, and other role models get executed. I also thought her interpretation of people being a hero based on how long they were in jail as interesting. She also saw everyone fleeing the country, and directly saw the stabbing of a women protesting.

I also enjoyed the book arts studio, it was fun to go do something hands on. I am not really an arts and crafts person but it was relaxing to do something like that during a stressful week.

Reading chapters 1-3 of persepolis was very enjoyable but also made me more aware of how ignorant I am about the history of Iran and the rest of the middle east. I loved the format of this story, and reading a comic book was very enjoyable but also went by quickly. The concept of kids having to be exposed to a political and social climate like this at such an early age is alarming, and I thought it was crazy that at that young of an age she asked to go to social demonstrations/protests where so many people were being killed and injured. I thought it was also interesting that her grandpa was the prince, and how he transitioned through his education and those being surrounded by him into a communist, and being in jail a large portion of his life away from his daughter.

Overall I really enjoyed this read, and would love to engage more with comic book content in the future. I love how a life story or such a serious topic can be presented through a comic, it makes stories very engaging and informative.

For my annotated bibliography, my topic is about the American colonization in Liberia, specifically about Lott Cary a Baptist minister. Summarizing my source was a lot easier than evaluating it, but in the end this source has given me a guideline to the question I am trying to answer but has not fully answered it at all. This has just been a base but I have enjoyed exploring new information and I am excited to find the rest of my sources and summarize them.

I really enjoyed our meeting on Tuesday, it was nice learning from the library and the one search research tools he gave us have been very effective in my research already. I have not tried out zotero yet but I am planning to do that over fall break.

During Richmond’s unhealed history, one topic that really stuck with me was the discussion around how if maybe the “deportation of free blacks, would help strengthen society” surrounding the conversation of the colonization movement. On page 87, I found a source and then looked it up in the library. I went to the basement and spent about twenty minutes searching for a copy to find out it was not available, and after that I found it online. My source is from volume 7 of the Journal of Negro History, section 4 titled Lott Cary, the Colonizing Missionary.

This reading was about the formation of the African Missionary society.