Compose a video reflection about yourself as a writer at the midpoint of the semester. Please do not write about the merits of the course or your course grade. Rather, focus on your writerly identity, your growth, your blogging, etc. To begin your reflection, please respond to these prompts:
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The purpose of this week’s blog post was to reflect on my Life-Choice Memoir by answering several questions (found below), and to explain the meaning of and comment on the video: Reflective Writing. I found the video to be very interesting, and after watching it I thought of several things I’d like to change in the next draft of my memoir. I also thought “Maybe I should’ve watched this before writing my memoir”. The most interesting part to me was when the narrator said that reflective writing isn’t just about looking back, but also about looking forward and asking yourself “How will this lesson I’ve learned apply to my future?”
· Who did you work with to compose your life-choice memoir? Was this a good approach? I worked alone to compose my memoir, I think this was a good approach because it allowed me to look back on my experiences and really think about what I’d learned from them. If I had worked with anyone who was present during the experience, their ideas about what happened could have conflicted with my own. I do however feel that I should’ve worked with someone who wasn’t there during my experience, which may have kept me from procrastinating and helped me to better develop my thoughts and put them on paper. · What rhetorical mode and genre are you using? I used the rhetorical mode of narration. The genre of my writing was creative nonfiction with a sub-genre of memoir. · When did you write this project? Good approach? I initially figured out what to write about and wrote a bunch of random memories from my experience during the time given to us in class. Two days later, after knowing what I was going to reflect on, and having some ideas on paper, I completed my first draft. Another two days later I removed about 400 words from the draft to get rid of needless details. I think this was a good approach, I procrastinated a bit, but I met the deadline and am content with what I wrote. · Where did you write this project? Good approach? I wrote this project primarily on campus, in a designated quiet study area, but I’ve noticed they are not always quiet, and this annoys me because I don’t like distractions when writing. Maybe next time I’ll write at home. · Why did you choose to write about your chosen topic? Good choice? I chose to write about my chosen topic because I remembered a lot of what happened that day, and wanted to share my thoughts and experiences with the readers in hope that they might also learn from my experiences. I think this was a good approach because if I’d chosen another topic I may not have had a lot to write about. · How did it feel to write this narrative ("during, after, and since")? Do you have any "if only" moments that can help you revise the draft? It felt good to write this narrative, I liked how the writing process made me think of things I’d done/learned that I otherwise may have forgotten. After watching the reflective writing video, I thought “If only I’d watched that before I started writing my memoir”. · How will you revise your narrative? I’ll revise my narrative by applying what I’ve learned from the reflective writing video to my writing/revising process, and trying to show more instead of telling. I’ll also try to include how the lesson/lessons I’ve learned can apply to my future. Print out, read, and annotate The Lottery (Shirley Jackson)
For this week’s blog post my assignment was to read The Lottery (Shirley Jackson), and answer a couple of questions. The story takes place in a small village of about 300 people. There is an annual lottery and the “winner” gets stoned to death by the other villagers. I was assigned to answer these questions: Are there any American traditions that share similarities with the lottery tradition in the village? The following link leads to an article that illustrates the tradition of Americans which I believe shares similarities with the lottery tradition in the village, it’s from TIME.com and is titled Why Won’t America Go Metric? http://time.com/3633514/why-wont-america-go-metric/. And the second question was: When have you made an important choice to break away or not break away from a strong cultural tradition you shared with a family, friend, or culture? I’ll answer these questions below. Are there any American traditions that share similarities with the lottery tradition in the village? I think the American tradition of using our own measurement system instead of switching to the metric system shares some similarities with the lottery tradition in the village. Both traditions cause a lot of unnecessary problems. And if we (America) and the people in the story decided to give up our old traditions these problems would not exist. The lottery results in a dead family member, which can be very problematic for the remaining family members. As an example, the children and family of whomever got stoned have witnessed the traumatic death of a family member and are most likely scarred for life. Americans not switching to the metric system also results in some problems, even though they seem minor compared to the aftermath of a stoning. One of these problems is that communication between different countries becomes more difficult when they are using different measurement systems. For example, if someone from America includes measurements in communication with another country, they will likely be in inches, feet, or yards. But, if whoever receives that email is in one of the many countries using the metric system, they’ll then have to convert those measurements, which causes many unnecessary problems. In conclusion, the tradition of the lottery in the village and the tradition of Americans keeping our outdated measuring system may be very different, but they share similarities in that they both cause needless problems. Switch to metric, no confusion. Don’t stone a random person, no distraught family members. When have you made an important choice to break away or not break away from a strong cultural tradition you shared with a family, friend, or culture? “That looks good” I thought as I looked at the ice cream behind the glass freezer door at Wegman’s. “That beef jerky sounds good too”, “Maybe I’ll get two of them”. I should never go grocery shopping without a list, it always ends badly. I get home and I’m like “Oops, I didn’t buy any real food, just snacks”. I remember when I used to go grocery shopping with my parents, but I guess that’s a family tradition we’ve broke away from. Ever since getting a real job and graduating high school it’s been increasingly difficult to convince my parents to buy food for me. When I was younger (In elementary-middle school), I’d just throw things in the cart and hope my mom/dad would buy whatever it was. Now I find myself having to go grocery shopping on my own quite often, and as I mentioned previously, a grocery list is a must so I don’t spend all my funds on junk food. It was much easier having my parents buy food, they’d buy actual food, and I’d choose snacks and such, now I must buy the actual food. I kind of wish it’s a tradition we could have continued, but I guess doing your own grocery shopping is part of becoming a grown up. I really dislike the idea of becoming an “adult”, there is so many new responsibilities, and it seems the older you get, the more you are forced to make difficult choices of whether to maintain a tradition or break away from it. Print out, read, and annotate Hills Like White Elephants (Ernest Hemingway)
For this weeks blog post my assignment was to read the short story: Hills Like White Elephants (Ernest Hemingway). This story was originally published in 1927. The setting is at a train station in Spain between Barcelona and Madrid. An American man and a women are sitting down at a cafe in the train station while waiting for the train to Madrid. The woman compares the hills around them to white elephants and then the two begin to discuss an operation that the woman may get which is assumed to be an abortion. After reading the story I was to answer these two questions: (Does the girl in the story stay in her relationship with the man?/ Does the girl in the story keep the baby? and When have you made a important choice to stay in a relationship or leave a relationship -- OR -- stay or leave a difficult situation?). I'll answer these questions below. Does the girl in the story stay in her relationship with the man?/ Does she keep the baby? After analyzing the actions and dialogue of the characters in Hemingway’s story, I don’t think the girl kept the baby, but I am pretty sure she stayed in the relationship with the man regardless of if she kept the baby or not. To me it seems like the man is pressuring her to get an abortion when she does not really want to, for example, When the man first brings up the topic of “the operation” he says “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig. It’s really not anything” and “It’s really not an operation at all”. Those two statements definitely make it sound like he does not want the girl to have the baby, and is trying to convince the girl to get the operation. With all of this persuasion from the man I think even if she was against the abortion she may have gone through with it anyway. It also seemed like the man kind of made the decision for her when he carried their luggage to the other side of the train station, (I’m assuming this was the side of the station that the train going to Madrid would arrive on), and I think once she was on a train to Madrid she may have felt obligated to get the operation. What made me feel she’d stay in the relationship no matter what happened was when the man said “That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy”. If the only thing that makes them unhappy is the girls pregnancy, then why would they have a reason to end the relationship? Unless she did have the baby and the man was still bothered enough by it that he chose to end the relationship. When have you made a important choice to stay in a relationship or leave a relationship -- OR -- stay or leave a difficult situation? I’d say the most important choice I ever made to stay or leave a difficult situation was when I decided to leave my job working with concrete in order to finish high school and enroll in college. I wouldn’t even be writing this blog post right now if I’d decided against going back to school. There I was, at a ridiculously early hour of the morning standing in an unfinished warehouse with dirt floors (soon to be concrete), and no roof, waiting for concrete trucks to arrive. For perspective, working with concrete can take a very, very, very long time. It wasn’t uncommon to work over twelve hours a day, and then have to be back again early the next morning, so sleep was a commodity that I usually didn’t get enough of. This morning was no exception, there I was, half asleep, when the sound of a concrete truck brought me back to reality and I had to quickly put on my muck boots and start working (muck boots are large rubber boots you have to wear in concrete to prevent getting a chemical burn). I recall many times, standing in over a foot of concrete while trying to rake it into place, and thinking to myself, “This sucks, I should go back to school”. It was a very difficult decision as I was making decent money and my older brother also worked there, so I decided to stay for a bit longer. The thought of leaving and going back to school was always on my mind and sometimes even distracted me from my work, so I decided it was time to leave. I don’t regret leaving, I like to work with my hands but looking at grey concrete floors all day got very monotonous, and now that I’m going to college and majoring in machine tool technology I’ll have the opportunity to get a job doing what I want to do, which is why when facing the decision of “should I stay or should I go”, I chose to go. Interpret and annotate What You Don't Know (Lulu Wang). Here is the story transcript. Here is Lulu Wang's website.
For this weeks blog post, I was assigned to listen to a story (in the form of a podcast) by Lulu Wang. Here is the podcast What You Don't Know (Lulu Wang), and the transcript story transcript. The story is told by Lulu Wang, an author/ director who was born in China and grew up in the United States of America. In the podcast Lulu explains how her 80 year old grandmother (NaiNai) was diagnosed with lung cancer, and her family chose to not tell her. After listening to the podcast/ reading the transcript, the assignment was to answer the following questions. Did you agree with the family's choice to deceive Wang's grandmother? And, when have you made an important choice to tell someone a difficult truth or you made an important choice to tell a lie that had a major impact on you and/or someone else? I will answer thes questions below. Did you agree with the family's choice to deceive Wang's grandmother? I found the question “Did you agree with the family's choice to deceive Wang's grandmother?” to be a particularly hard one to answer. At first, I thought “that’s ridiculous”, and “if that were my grandmother I would definitely let her know she only has three months to live”. However, as the podcast went on my opinion started to change. I started to think how differently things might have gone if Lulu’s family had told NaiNai of her illness. Would NaiNai have remained so optimistic if she thought she was going to die in three months? Would she have felt more ill and died in a hospital within the three months the doctor predicted? I’m still not 100% sure if I agree with the family’s decision to deceive Lulu’s grandmother, but the more of the podcast I listened to and better understand the situation, the more my opinion transitioned towards agreeing with them. My father has told me stories about how my own grandmother hid the fact that she had breast cancer from her family, I guess she chose to keep it a secret so she would not be a burden to them. Apparently, she even lied about where she was going when she went to get chemo therapy. I know one thing, if I am dying of cancer and have a limited amount of time to live, I’m not going to be stuck in a hospital, I’ll be trying to cross everything possible off my bucket list. When have you made an important choice to tell someone a difficult truth or you made an important choice to tell a lie that had a major impact on you and/or someone else? My family and I have all made the important decision to lie to William, my four-year-old nephew. One of my brothers is incarcerated, and if we to talk about him around my nephew we try not to use the words jail/ prison/ etc., instead we lie and say he is in school or college. As far as my nephew is concerned my brother is just going to school. He’s probably too young to even know what prison is, but I think it’s best to keep some things simple, that way he won’t go to school and tell his friends/ teachers that his uncle is in prison. I think choosing to lie or not lie in this situation could have had major impact on my nephew. If he were to know my brother is in jail he would probably ask a lot of questions that are very hard to answer and explain to a four-year-old, so not telling him prevents these hard to answer/explain questions. I try not to lie much, because one lie almost always leads to another, but I think in a situation like this it’s ok to lie because it’s not actually hurting anyone, it’s just twisting the truth a bit. Print out, read, and annotate My Name is Margaret (Maya Angelou).
For this weeks blog post I was given the assignment of reading My Name is Margaret (Maya Angelou), a story which takes place in the Jim Crowe era and is about a young African American girl named Margaret who faces racism whilst working as a maid for Mrs. Cuillnan (a rich white lady). After reading My Name is Margaret (Maya Angelou), the assignment was to answer a couple of questions: Did you agree with Margaret's choice to break the casserole dish and two green glass cups? And the second question: When have you made an important choice to either resist or not resist oppression, challenge the status quo, or refuse to obey an authority figure? I'll answer those questions to the best of my ability in the following blog post. Did you agree with Margaret's choice to break the casserole dish and two green glass cups? Do I agree with Margaret's choice to break the casserole dish and two green glass cups? No, I do not. If you ask me, the punishment (breaking the dishes) does not fit the crime of Mrs. Cuillnan calling Margaret by a shortened version of her name. Do I think she needed to address the problem of Mrs. Cuillnan calling her by the wrong name? Yes, I do. I understand that she felt very disrespected when she was called Mary instead of her actual name, and it was very racist of Mrs. Cuillnan to shorten her name and "steal her identity" like she did. But, what Margaret did was childish (again, this is understandable, she was in fact a child), and in my opinion could have been handled in a much better way. An example of a way to handle the situation better would have been for her to just quit and then try explaining her decision to quit to her mother, instead of doing something so destructive as destroying the dishes and taking a chance of getting Hallelujah (Mrs. Cuillnan's other maid) in trouble too. To me taking a chance of your parent being angry at you, is better than taking the chance of causing harm to someone else (Hallelujah). In reality, Margaret breaking the dishes could have caused Mrs. Cuillnan to become more racist towards her, which could potentially put Margaret in a dangerous position. Even though I do not agree with the choice Margaret made, I think if I was in her shoes on that very day, being so young and thin skinned, I too would have dropped the casserole dish and two green glasses. When have you made an important choice to either resist or not resist oppression, challenge the status quo, or refuse to obey an authority figure? This portion of the assignment really through me off course at first, I could not think of one specific time or event in which I willfully chose to resist oppression, challenge the status quo, or refuse to obey an authority figure. I had to think for a while before realizing I refuse to obey an authority figure/s very often. Which authority figure do I disobey and how do I disobey them? Well, after putting some serious thought into it I decided that I refuse to obey law enforcement quite a lot. I’m not a bank robber or serial killer or anything, but I came to the realization that every single time I go over the speed limit or don’t stop completely at a stop sign I am technically breaking the law, and therefore not obeying the officers who enforce those laws. After I realized that committing minor traffic violations was disobeying the police, I could think of one specific scenario in which I disobeyed the police. Here’s how it happened; I used to work for a company that did concrete work (mainly very large finished concrete floors like you’d see in a grocery or hardware store). A lot of times I would have to wake up very early, drive to the location where the company stored their work trucks, and then drive a work truck to whichever job we were working on at the time. On one morning, I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before (a common occurrence), and had to make the 15-minute drive to pick up a work truck and then drive another hour in the work truck to get to the jobsite. I was tired, the drive was monotonous, and I wanted it to be over. I had almost gotten to the jobsite and was going just a bit faster than recommended so I could get the long boring drive over with. I was only five or so minutes away and then I heard the dreaded sound that no one wants to hear while driving (especially when you’re driving the company’s truck and not your own vehicle), it was the whoop whoop of a police siren. I was being pulled over for speeding. If I would’ve obeyed the law enforcement that morning, it would have saved me from getting my first and only speeding ticket and having to pay the fine. Lesson learned: I didn’t obey an authority figure, and I had to pay for it, literally.
The following is my "Writing Process Quote Collage", this is the second blog entry I am required to write for my English composition 1 class at Delaware County Community College. The assignment was to read the following: The Daily Writing Routines of Great Writers (Maria Popova), Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott), and Zen in the Art of Writing (Ray Bradbury) and choose several quotes from each reading which I found to be interesting. I will also include a few of my own quotes in this blog entry. The Daily Writing of Great Writers (Maria Popova)
A few of my own quotes which may be influenced by the three readings (Jesse Coffman)
I and my classmates co-authored this blog post; Sarah Taylor, Jeanetta Duncan, and Sthepany Lamegos.
Introduction In this post, I will provide answers to the The Proust Questionnaire. This is the first blog post I am writing for my English 100 course, and I think my answers will provide my readers with insight into my identity, my approach to life, and my views on the world. __1.__What is your idea of perfect happiness? [insert a sentence or two to answer the question]. I don't believe it is possible to achieve perfect happiness, but I think life is better when yourself and the people around you are striving to be more happy. __2.__What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear is death. __3.__What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I most deplore my tendencies to procrastinate. E.g, I should've started on this questionnaire much earlier than I did. __4.__What is the trait you most deplore in others? I most deplore others people's ignorance and hypocriticalness. ( I couldn't choose just one answer). __5.__Which living person do you most admire? I'm not sure but if i were to choose they would probably be a musician or inventor. __6.__What is your greatest extravagance? My greatest extravagance is definitely spending a lot of funds on my long list of hobbies. __7.__What is your current state of mind? I tend to have a rebellious state of mind. __8.__What do you consider the most overrated virtue? I consider tolerance to be the most overrated virtue, some things just should not be tolerated. __9.__On what occasion do you lie? I lie on the occasion that it insures my survival or greatly benefits me. I try not to lie to much though as one lie usually has a chain reaction and leads to many lies. __10.__What do you most dislike about your appearance? I most dislike acne. __11.__Which living person do you most despise? I'm to nice to answer this one. __12.__What is the quality you most like in a man? The quality I most like in a man is honesty. __13.__What is the quality you most like in a woman? The quality I most like in a women is honesty. __14.__Which words or phrases do you most overuse? I probably say adios too much, I can barely speak Spanish but I think it sounds much better than bye. __15.__What or who is the greatest love of your life? The greatest love of my life is creating things. __16.__When and where were you happiest? I cant choose a single moment, however I can be sure it wasn't early in the morning because I'm usaully not too happy in the morning hours. __17.__Which talent would you most like to have? I would like to have perfect pitch. __18.__If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I would not change anything about myself. __19.__What do you consider your greatest achievement? My greatest achievement was graduating high school. __20.__If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? If I were to die, I would want to come back as an eagle. __21.__Where would you most like to live? I would most like to live in a wooded area of Pennsylvania. __22.__What is your most treasured possession? I don't have a single possession which I treasure "the most". __23.__What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Losing someone you know. __24.__What is your favorite occupation? My favorite occupation is either exploration, or creating things. __25.__What is your most marked characteristic? My most marked characteristic is my bluntness. __26.__What do you most value in your friends? I most value honesty and a good sense of humor in my friends. __27.__Who are your favorite writers? My favorite writers are George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway, and Mark Twain, but there are many other authors I like that I haven't listed. __28.__Who is your hero of fiction? My favorite hero of fiction is Sherlock Holmes. __29.__Which historical figure do you most identify with? I most identify with Leonardo Da Vinci. __30.__Who are your heroes in real life? My heroes in real life are my siblings, inventors, and musicians. __31.__What are your favorite names? I really like the name Jesse. __32.__What is it that you most dislike? I most dislike destruction of nature. __33.__What is your greatest regret? My greatest regret is dropping out of high school. __34.__How would you like to die? I would like to die alone, because if you die with a group it usually means something pretty bad happened. __35.__What is your motto? "It Is What It Is" |
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