Author: Kristine Nguyen Page 2 of 4

I decided to listen to a story about a girl named Paola who was scared of her family’s reaction of her being lesbian. In this recording, I can hear Paola telling her story, and I can also hear the reactions of the audience in the background. I really appreciated hearing the audience because they sort of encouraged me to laugh along with them at some parts. If I didn’t hear them laughing, I would have been more reluctant to do so myself if that makes sense. Hearing their laughter made me more comfortable laughing myself, which reflects the idea that laughter is contagious. I also noticed that the narrator wasn’t speaking entirely smoothly and that there were some stutters here and there, which I think actually enhances the story. It makes it seem more real and makes it seem like there’s an actual person behind the story.

In terms of the narrative structure of the story, some of it is a straight retelling of “oh this happened,” and some of it includes dialogue and the internal thoughts of the narrator at the time. I liked that the dialogue was included because it’s easier for me to imagine the story having real people with real conversations. The internal thoughts made the story more alive and interesting rather than only having a straightforward recounting of what happened. This reminds me of the distinction we made in class between a memory and a story. A memory is everything you can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste, but a story includes the inner thoughts and feelings of the narrator, which allows the audience to be more immersed in the story.

As I continued reading chapters 4-10 of Persepolis, I noticed that as the conflict got more intense, the narrator also got older, which influenced how mature the tone was throughout this section. For example, themes such as torture were described pretty graphically to a girl who most certainly shouldn’t be exposed to such a thing. I also noticed that the narrator started to become more comfortable in forming her own beliefs about the situation. Her parents even allowed her to join a demonstration even though she hadn’t aged that much since they last refused her, which also could be due to the conflict escalating. What struck me the most though was the relationship between the narrator and her uncle. The concept of family was really emphasized in this section, and I liked how much she looked up to her uncle for being a hero, but I was really saddened when I found out about his fate. Even though the conflict is becoming more heavy, the graphic novel format doesn’t make it seem as dark as the situation really is.

Regarding our visit to the Book Arts Studio, I enjoyed getting to make my own story book myself. I prefer to have a hands-on approach to learning, so I appreciated that we got to actually make our own book out of paper. I am not the best artist in the world, so if we are making one for our storytelling project, then I would probably like to use images or magazine cut outs. I do enjoy writing in cursive or different fonts though and I have been told that my handwriting is pretty neat, so I would definitely still use my handwriting. I do have some ideas of what story of mine I’ll tell. I want to tell a very personal story that has had a big impact on my life because it means so much to me.

One thing I noticed about telling a story as a graphic novel is that both the words and pictures matter. The pictures and words complement each other. In addition, there are two different ways the words are used: the text at the top of each box, and the dialogue of the characters. Thus, the dialogue also complements the pictures and text. For example, in the frame in which the narrator is in the bathtub and God is sitting there and asking what she’s doing, the dialogue adds to what the text didn’t. The text details how the narrator wanted to know what it was like to be in a cell full of water, so she stayed there for a while. The dialogue serves as a sort of internal monologue along with the text above. Another thing I noticed was that some frames only have dialogue or some only have narrative text. But I didn’t feel like any of the frames were lacking if they didn’t have dialogue or text. It just worked. Of course, the pictures might have contributed in making it feel more complete.

Reading the graphic novel Persepolis was very quick and easy to understand. I noticed that the easy language reflects the thinking of the narrator’s age at the time. This gives off a sort of innocence to their thoughts back then which I thought was extremely realistic. After all, who would expect a 10-year-old to have a complex internal monologue? I also appreciated how friendly the language was because it explained complicated historical concepts in a way that I could mostly understand. I usually have trouble comprehending the dynamics of history, so this language was nice to read. The pictures were helpful as well and also portrayed that childlike innocence because the scenes shown about the protests were not graphic. Reading this honestly made me want to read more graphic novels when I don’t feel like reading books.

I have a couple questions about the midterm portfolio. Do we have to write the two essays on two separate documents, or can we squish it all into one document? Also, how would we separate the two essays if it is all in one document? My last question is if we have to do in-text citations if we’re just quoting ourselves.

After reading a bit more of my chosen source from Richmond’s Unhealed History, I jotted down some notes that summarized the book and some information that would answer my research question. After doing that, it was much easier to actually write the two paragraphs for this annotated bibliography entry. I found it hard to narrow down this whole book into a brief summary though. Also, since I skimmed it rather than reading the whole thing, I was unsure if my summary was sufficient enough to encapsulate the entire work. It was easier to write the second paragraph though because I was able to find answers to my research question on the pages surrounding Campbell’s citation. In terms of formatting, I am unsure about the indentations for each paragraph and the citation itself. I tried to mimic the example on the website, but I would like some further guidance on that. Also, I don’t know if we have to include our name somewhere on the paper. I know for MLA format there’s a way to do that on an annotated bibliography, but I don’t know what the Chicago format is. Finally, I’m unsure what the title should be, like if it should say Annotated Bibliography or just Bibliography. Overall, I think that an annotated bibliography would be a great project if you were to write a paper or do some other project right after making one.

Reading about Chicago Style was a bit intimidating to me at first because this is the first time I’m being exposed to it as a citation style. I mostly used MLA in high school, but there was one time I used APA. But after reading about it, Chicago Style doesn’t seem all that different and the examples really helped me visualize what I’m supposed to do later. In terms of the annotated bibliography, I have done one once before, but it was in MLA format. But the layout seems fairly similar, with the citation, summary, and evaluation. When I did it in high school, I made an annotated bibliography that I then used to write a paper, but I know we won’t be doing that for this assignment.

For finding a source to use from Campbell’s book Richmond’s Unhealed History, I was able to narrow down my choices of interest by jotting down a few sources I was interested in, and then eliminating based on availability. I found myself interested in topics like bus boycotts and forced sterilization, but I ultimately settled on forced sterilization. Through UR’s library website, I was able to find a book online that Campbell referenced. I will most likely read around the page that he cited, and maybe skim around to see what else I can find about the eugenics movement.

Although slavery has been abolished at this point in history, the remnants of discrimination persisted. One thing I noticed was the fact that white people censored movies with racial themes, and they even rewrote history in a way that made their abhorrent actions regarding slavery “the rational choice.” This reminds me all too much of what is happening in today’s world, in which books with racial themes are being banned, and courses such as AP African American History are being banned in Florida. I think this reflects the idea that history is written by the winners. Perhaps it is an attempt to protect white people from feeling uncomfortable about their ugly history, but if you are not uncomfortable, then you are not doing the necessary work in order to move society forward.

Another thing that piqued my interest was the concept of redlining and how it resulted in mortgage loaning to be disproportionately low in Black neighborhoods. Even just driving through the Richmond area now, you can visibly see the lines dividing predominantly Black and white neighborhoods. On the subject of housing, I could not wrap my head around the fact that white people took down so many Black neighborhoods to build roads. This is too much like Indigenous colonialism, in which they staked a claim on their land and tried to justify it with superficial reasons. In this case, they claimed that they were “cleaning” up the poor neighborhoods and that public transport would be made easier with these roads, despite having to literally demolish Black people’s homes to build them.

The concepts of gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement also stuck out to me due to its presence today as well. I thought they really came up with the most ridiculous laws to prevent Black people from voting, such as making Black people memorize answers to questions and say it to them. The worst thing is, they didn’t even try to hide the fact that they were disenfranchising Black voters. Carter Glass literally said that they were working towards “the elimination of every negro voter who can be gotten rid of” (139).