Storytelling and Identity - Fall 2023

• Today we start with looking and reading someone else’s essay. 
• Pickup from where we left off yesterday.
  • Contrast from thinking of a piece of art / content analysis.
  • Grading from rubric.
    • Can feel a little weird, as a student, not certain how the teacher might evaluate it. 
    • Come alongside one another – Not judgment – Look at elements in rubric and raise questions of the essay via rubric. 
    • “Not grading other people’s paper” – opportunity to use rubric as a lens when viewing an essay. DISCUSSION. 
• Later today we start reviewing the Story Project. 
  • Various partners reviewed their essays in accordance with the rubric and received advice that promoted discussion. 
  • This lasted until around 12:25 in terms of class-time. 
• We then circled back up once more for discussion after a brief stint of moving chairs around. 
• Discussion Summary vs Analysis
  • Times to do Summary – but need to understand you might be doing “too-much” over analysis. 
• Rubrics are interesting.
  • As much as we try to make it objective, it is inherently subjective in nature.
  • True in many things, and many courses.
• Professor Dolson cares about fairness – that’s why we do so much in-class work to understand subtly what the terms mean in-context. 
  • Each of them are pieces to understand what Professor Dolson is looking for.
  • Rough Draft + Progressions – All to help to communicate and develop writing.
• Each paper gives rise to new conversations – by nature communication is hard to describe and evaluate so important to remember. 
  • Not All or Nothing – Find paths to make it feel fairer. 

Did anybody see something in the paper’s read today that might trigger “bonus point” award?

• Tricky to find if not looking for it. 
  • Professor will be looking to award it – To find it. 
  • Remember Professor Dolson does partial points so if something is a bit off or extra, there is the potential of loss or gain of ½ points. 

Notice: 

• One of the rows has to do with correctness and how it contributes to the respect of writer over how they control the medium
  • For this reason, she asked us to compare and contrast Grammarly and Hemmingway.
  • Kristine Nguyen mentions comparing the two systems in her Prep Note. 
• Professors are becoming more and more uncomfortable with the development of A.I. and other similar technologies
  • Professor Dolson believes them to be tools to be used, depending on their use. 

Kristine Nguyen’s take on Grammarly vs Hemmingway

• Starting with Grammarly and free
  • More limited with free features as compared to premium
  • Broader categories of edits
    • Ex: Clarity
• Hemmingway is much more specific
  • “Use too many adverbs” – Something that might’ve been unnoticed if not pointed out
  • Will Sheets has a similar experience where Hemmingway is telling him to eliminate the usage of adverbs
  • Nick Gunn is also being told to use too many Adverbs. Noticed that Grammarly in contrast never mentioned too many adverbs. 
    • New levels of awareness.

Bryce

• First time using Hemmingway – Noticed / highlighted the last column that was hard to read and long
  • Bryce realized that much of his sentences needed to be worked on for the sake of clarity 
• Different kinds of A.I highlight different “stylistic choices” – but the writer is the one that decides what they want to use. 
• Nothing in the A.I. asks about your audience or their level, but it can possibly tell you what it evaluates the level of complexity
  • Ex: Highschool Level, Collegiate Level, etc.
• Do you think every sentence is as simple as possible to forge better writing? Or is it subjective to choice? 

Hemingway as an Author

• Holden and Bryce:
  • Read Old Man and the Sea
• Hemmingway was coming into a new distinctive writing style that focuses on nouns and verbs and shorter sentences rather than adverbs 
  • Has a certain kind of power
  • Has a certain kind of clarity
  • Influenced writing and American tastes today – in Journalism as well
    • See a difference from turn of last century, to the modern day. 
    • Journalistic style is now much more clear rather than ornate with the new Noun-Verb emphasis
  • Some can find it to be almost boring with lacking adjectives or adverbs
• Question of who is the audience? What is the purpose? 

Have a conversation with Artificial Intelligence

• It is your choice as the author to decide what you want to write about and the style that you want to take it upon. 
• Who is your audience?
  • Writing to Collegian?
  • Writing a letter home?
• It’s hard to tell from “self” what the written voice sounds like
  • By having another person read your writing out loud
    • May feel vulnerable or embarrassed about it. 
    • Maybe do it with somebody you trust
  • Don’t need feedback, just possibly listen aloud to your writing.
    • Easiest way for some to hear where the writing stumbles or the sentence does not make sense. 
    • Great way to hear what a written voice sounds like. 
    • Some adverbs might be necessary to help get a complete message across, but when using too many – its almost like reaching for or imitating other voices. 
• Students use Adverbs a lot when they are trying to write a paper about ahrd ideas and struggling to draw them together. 
  • That is when you try compensating with other elements 
  • Fast vs Good vs Cheap 
    • Can only have two of the three, etc. 
  • Similar elements in writing to the process. Different techniques. Slow the process down and see how effective it is – give time for ideas to draw together. 
• Use Adverbs as a marker to see – “can I say this more clearly?” “Can I state this better with different words?” 
  • Readers like action. 
  • Academic Pros try to make everything nicer / quieter / more boring
  • Chance to change that. 
  • Interesting elements over Sentence Length
    • AIs note if it is too long of a sentence. 
  • Professor Dolson thinks in writing, students more often err on leaving sentences longer when they would prefer it a little bit shorter.
    • They are trying to read in a hurry and they want to be able to understand clearly. 
    • Not extreme noun-verb noun-verb pattern
    • Good to VARY sentence length to emphasize some places not others.
    • Always look for clarity, as reading is hard. Easy to be misunderstood in writing. 
• Is it ethical to write rough drafts with Artificial Intelligence?
  • AI can’t talk about personal experiences – and the books are not deeply involved with technology like Chat GPT so it cannot analyze the draft for you.
  • Sometimes AI might single out quotes with having errors, but make choice to ignore it.
• Some disciplines prefer and some abhor passive voice.
  • Scientists use it a lot in their writing
  • English professors consider it as incorrect
• Lanham’s Paramedic Method
  • I should be using it a lot
  • Circle elements of “be” or “is” or “are” and substitute them with better phrases and words. 
  • Writing Center and Writing Consultants are a helpful resource when dealing with them. 

Storytelling – New Assignment 

• The Moth:
  • What is it?
  • Almost like an online archive of stories, starting with dinner parties and eventually growing and expanding into the archive that it became today.
  • Storytelling of Personal Narratives – new definition of Moths. 
• When telling stories with the Moth Method
  • Tell a true story, 7 minutes, with no notes.
  • Idea that it was prepared beforehand. 
  • Interesting: 
    • Good Actor vs Bad Actor
    • Bad Actor has memorized lines but just sounds like they’re reading it. 
  • Don’t memorize it word for word and then release it – Tell it by heart. 
    • Divide a story like a graphic novel or storyboards, and as you progress – recall phrases or images of the components to help flow through the story.
  • If you’re interested in doing it, you can send in a pitch and they will help you shape your story for presentation. 
• We could watch a “moth” video or jump into a “discussion” about the Moth videos / stories. 
• My Boss’s Murder Fantasies:
  • Man is 20 years old on College Campus sitting in Housing trying to get and maintain his job. 
  • Boss is Emily, who is older but she’s friendly. 
  • They let Mike keep his job.
    • He comes back from Study Abroad to find Emily is gone and new boss from Kentucky is back
  • Rick comes back to meet Mike and Mike has to adjust to the new boss. 
    • Rick wanted to bond with Mike and asked if he could take walks around campus to get to know Mike.
    • Rick really wants to be Mike’s friend because everyone likes Mike.
    • He goes on a lot of Mike’s tours just to watch him give tours and talk about campus life adn laughs at all the jokes. 
  • Rick keeps asking Mike to go on walks but notices that he isn’t interested and gets all sullen.
  • Mike goes to bathroom and Ricks man the computer and when he comes back – Rick has closed all the tabs that Mike ahd open. 
    • He opens browser history to find his tabs and discovers Rick has a blog.
    • Rick has a blog about his sexual encounters and drug usage and drug recovery and then entries about Mike.
    • Rick wants Mike to eat some shrimp someday and chokes on it and dies…
    • Mike looks into further entries of himself and finds that there are several posts about how Rick murders him or just lets him die. 
  • Mike starts wondering about where this comes from blaming himself – realizes that its not his fault but that Rick is the problem.
    • Afraid to look into Rick’s eyes.
  • Becomes hyper suspicious about Rick being in the back of his car and he starts telling Steph his roommate about everything. 
  • He prints the entire website out as proof in case it gets deleted.
    • He calls Emily and sends her the link. 
    • She says “You need to call Kim” – Emily and Rick’s boss. 
    • He talks to Kim and Kim says she won’t be on campus for two days and asks Mike to hold out. 
  • Kim looks through the stack of papers like “Why did you wait two days?”
    • Tells him not to come to work and tells him to wait until they have something to do. 
    • Keeps the stack of papers, the website disappears.
    • They said they would not let Rick go, unless Mike really wants him to be fired. 
    • He accepts Rick can keep his job – she has Rick come into the room to apologize and starts crying about the murder fantasies website. 
• Hearing the audience during the stories like laughter plays a role. 
  • Mike featured elements of Self Deprecating Humor.
  • Aware of Self, and makes the audience aware that he is aware of himself. 
  • The way he sets up stories makes the audience crave knowing some sort of ending. 
  • Establishment of setting up the story and the plot and how it is put together plays a role.
• Why did Mike want to tell that story?
  • Entertainment and Shock? 
  • Something so shocking – feels like you have to tell people. 
  • Very well-thought out story.
• You do write a script and record yourself reading a script with our kind of Story-Telling. 
  • Will use the I-Movie Software and add some Photographs. 
  • Audio Track and Visual Track
  • Blend Audio Track and Musical Track
• Do we need to have deep meaning to our stories?
  • Discuss it next time.