Sorry, Emily Dickinson, It Was Inevitable

Working in a group has helped me gain some insight. I learned that writing is not only about myself. It is about the people who will read it. Some writing is personal - my journal, for instance, allows me to reflect on my day and sets aside some time for introspection. Most writing, however, is for an audience. Whether an essay, a novel, or a poem, someone is bound to read it at some point. Even Emily Dickinson, as introverted as she was, couldn't escape that fate.

When people other than the author read the author's work and analyze its meaning, it's a testament to the writer's skills if the readers are able to correctly interpret the purpose of the piece. Writing doesn't come as easily to me anymore. I take this as a good sign; instead of just putting any words down on the page, I am focused on choosing the right ones. I'm taking the time to find ways to express my purpose clearly.

My most recent workshop piece - a narrative titled Only the Ground is Constant - is a forage into my head. It is the only piece I can remember that with every sentence, thought of my objective. I'm not too satisfied with the title, but I suppose once the narrative has been workshopped, it shouldn't be too difficult to find a new one. 

my narrative plan; purpose is blocked out just in case you're reading this before you read my story!

As for working individually, that has helped a lot too. First drafts are eked out when I'm writing individually. They're godawful first drafts, that's for certain, but without them I would never write anything at all. Sitting alone in my room, listening to Spotify's Deep Focus playlist, I find that I'm most productive. It also gives me a chance to look back on past journal entries, think back on my week, write unintelligible things on scraps of paper. Those unintelligible things are almost always story ideas that I fear I will lose if I don't write them down.

The reason I can never do these things in a group is because when I'm alone, I am able to focus a lot more. I can experiment without being self-conscious or distracted. Experimenting with new metaphors (especially since I need to improve my figurative language use), with story ideas I'm not too comfortable sharing with an audience yet.

Writing individually has helped me become a better writer because when I'm alone, I'm more likely to try new things and see for myself whether I like it or not. Writing a story in a new style is great, and stepping out of my comfort zone is great, but if I know for certain what I have attempted sucks, I don't feel comfortable sharing it with other people yet.

I've already noticed an improvement in my own writing; I find myself employing what we learned in class for my college essays. Personally, I believe my workshop submission reflects my improvement as a writer. I hope that my readers feel the same way.

When to Fall Asleep on the Bus, and Other Observations

Looking back through a month's worth of entries, I'm pleasantly surprised to find information that could end up in a story. The girl with blue hair I see while getting on the bus every morning has recently dyed the blue part purple. On Welcome Back Day, my lunch table quite literally broke in half. The sound of a mongoose, I've discovered, is the cross between a mechanical bird chirp and a sprinkler. 

My journal is a place for little revelations, where I try to make sense of everything that's going on in this chaotic senior life. My favorite discovery: ఒళ్ళు మండిపోయింది (ollu mandipoindi -- Telugu for "extremely angry") literally means "limbs burning," which is an accurate expression for how one feels when they're angry. I've found that the best sleep on the bus comes in the two minutes between the Elementary School and the Middle School. Although I haven't quite discovered yet whether my dog merely likes the fish in my room or is waiting for a chance to eat it.

However, if there's one thing I'd change about the way I currently journal, it's the Drawing. I'm not sure how significant it is, and I'm confused about what I should draw - should it be a depiction of one my observations? Apart from that, I wish that instead of 7 things we did today, 5 things we saw, and 1 thing we heard, we only have to write down the important, interesting things. Currently, when I'm writing in my journal, I worry I have nothing interesting to say. Every entry begins with a variation of "finished homework for ________," or "studied for test in ______ next class."

That being said, journaling has become a habit, and I've become more attuned to the world around me. Whenever I hear something interesting, I think, that should go in my journal, and I write it down immediately. (I like the Heard section the best, since they are snippets of conversation I can use in my own writing to make it more realistic).

As an introvert, I'm already rather quiet. As a writer, doubly so. But because of the journal, I'm observing more, too. 

Hope and a Sense of Direction

The nights before Workshop are my favorite. I take time away from the complexity of calculus and the practicality of physics to just read. Even writing pockmarked by punctuation errors and riddled with plot holes helps me breathe slower, more deeply. I'm no longer rushing; the heaviness of my head is relieved.

The day my poem was to be workshopped, I was terrified. I knew it was cliche and inconsistent. The only thing I had going for me was the title, and I couldn't even pronounce that correctly. (I mean, seriously, tell me how long it takes you to say the word mauerbauertraurigkeit).

I've always enjoyed writing, but insecurities began in English 10, where I learned to analyze literature. I was feeling both disgusted by and sorry for Jay Gatsby when I realized that my writing was not as focused - in my own writing, I wasn't thinking about purpose. I admired, but simply could not understand how every word in a John Steinbeck or Harper Lee novel played a role. I began to worry that I would never be that good (I sure wanted to be).

As Prof Hemley writes in his book, writing isn't something that just happens. It, like any other skill, takes practice. AT Writing is step one for me. Workshop both exposes gaps in the purpose of my writing and helps me feel better about my own writing. 

Before Workshop, I wasn't very sure about how well the rest of the class and I would get along. Writing so often seems a solitary exercise, yet we all need people to tell us where to improve. I found workshopping a piece with (mostly) total strangers to be invaluable. I was worried about my classmates forming an instant opinion of me based on my work, but it turned out that their ability to spin my poem's faults into hilarity took away that nervousness entirely. Strangers are more of the demographic I am trying to reach as a writer - if my classmates don't understand what I'm doing, it's very likely my readers won't, either. That being said, it helps to have a good relationship with the people who critique my work. That way, I don't feel harsh or accusatory as a reader, and I know that the other readers aren't trying to be.

There were important lessons hidden among the innuendo and laughter: a metaphor that is no longer a metaphor has become a cliche. make your reader care about your characters. workshop the piece, not the craft. Workshop helped me gain more confidence, Now, I will make sure to know the purpose of my writing. For the first time since that devastating epiphany in English 10, I have hope, and a sense of direction.

Persuasive Speech Analysis: Process

I really liked the way I delivered my speech. It helped that I was speaking about something I was passionate about, because it allowed me to vary my inflection. But I wouldn't have been able to do that without a long time researching and adding logos, ethos, pathos, and other rhetorical devices in order to make my speech more convincing. 

My speech was mostly logos, and I struggled to make some parts ethos and pathos, because I didn't know how to connect with my audience on an ethical and emotional level. Instead, I just stuck to logos: logic, statistics, and facts. I think, in this sense, I need to improve on research; I didn't want to bore my audience by just spitting out fact after fact after fact. In the end, though, it's what I ended up doing.

Even though I had mostly logical arguments, my favorite was the first sentence - a rhetorical question: "Did you know that every single piece of plastic still exists?" I hoped that it caught my audience's attention. However, I'm really proud that I was able to choose a topic that I was thoroughly interested in and really believed in. And at first, I wanted to do something related to Feminism - however, there weren't any ballots that I found that related to women's rights...at least, nothing that appealed to me.

So, I went to #2 on my list of passions: the environment. Knowing that only recently California opted to ban the plastic bag and that there was a lot of backlash against it, I decided to convince my classmates a) why the plastic bag is detrimental to the environment, and b) how reusable bags are better.

If I could do the research process over again, I'd opt to use pathos or ethos better; like I said earlier, I hoped that I didn't bore my audience.

MLK Speech Analysis Reflection: Product

I'm proud of the way I was able to identify pathos, ethos, and logos in the speech analysis for our summative. I liked the way I was able to annotate the speech, because with all the practice that we did before, it really prepared me for how to actually annotate the speech. The annotations helped me discover which rhetorical device to use when writing down the quote. However, I think I need to work on identifying rhetorical devices. It was easy for me to realize that a certain section was either pathos, ethos, or logos, but within that section it was a little difficult for me to figure out which rhetorical device it was using. If I was able to do it again, I would perhaps listen to the speech again more carefully, and while doing that note the tone with which Dr. King said parts of the speech. Perhaps this way it would be much easier for me to figure out which rhetorical device.

Blog: Argument Reflection

What I did well: I am most proud of my claim, since it took me over a week to fully understand what exactly a claim was and several drafts to finally end up with the one I used. Otherwise, I am happy with the way I lead the essay forward by having evidence from Act 1 in the first paragraph, Act 2 in the second paragraph, etc. And although there is always room for improvement, I believe I also blended quotes well.

What was a struggle? Although in the end I managed to write a claim that I was very proud of, I still think that I need more practice writing them. Apart from the claim, as the comments said, I need to expand more on Acts 2 and 3, by giving more evidence. I have a lot of "How? Explain further"s on my essay, which goes to say that I need to definitely expand more on my body paragraphs.

What will I work on for next time? For next time, I definitely will work more on explaining further and going deeper into the text. I also need more help analyzing the text so that I can find a claim and evidence that supports that claim.

Shared Inquiry Reflection

September 22, 2014

1. What am I most proud of?

I'm most proud of my ability to ask a question (specifically, "Does America dive into solving problems without thinking about the benefits and drawbacks of doing so?") which helped the discussion move forward. I also don't think I dominated the discussion, because I felt that all my group members participated equally and I could jump in easily to give my point without interrupting or awkward silences.

2. What do I need to work on?

Although I liked the question I posed, I believe that I need to become better at thinking deeper while reading and annotating the piece - most of the questions I have are those that have to do with understanding it better, not what the author meant by them; most of the connections I write down are of those relating to me that I don't ever think will help the discussion; and most of the time, I don't have a lot of insight.

3. What did I learn? (Process, Prep, Content)

I learned how to prepare well by using the content to its fullest - if I made a clear attempt to take the piece apart, to understand what the author was saying, I noticed it was easier to come up with things to say that would help the discussion move forward. The way I used quotes to back up my 'argument' validated my points, which gave room for counter-arguments and more discussion.