Category: Uncategorized (Page 3 of 3)

Daniel Richardson

10/4/17

Journal 8

            Throughout the process of writing my Favorite Meal Essay, I would have to say that the things that I spent the most time revising were the body paragraphs of my paper. While I felt like I had a good frame work, it was strongly encouraged that I keep adding detail to my paper. This is what led me to have a one-page introduction, and a nine-page paper.

            If I was to go back and redo this paper, I would hope to find a way to make it shorter. It all stacked up so quick. Every day, I would go to edit, take some out, and add more. From my first draft of five pages, within four more days I had nine. I never intended to make my paper that long, but the biggest suggestion that my peers had for me was adding more details to tie into my story. This is what led my introduction alone to became one-page long. Overall, I would go on to rewrite my introduction three times. However, barely touching my conclusion.

In terms of the drafting/revising process, the biggest difference in this assignment, and anyone before it would be that I never have never had to do peer review the way that we have. While we did practice this specific form of peer editing, in the sense of marginal comments and summarizing letters, it was rare for us to conduct peer review outside of class. I do not believe that I have ever edited multiple people’s essays at the same time. I believe that editing multiple different papers was however motivating, because it allowed us editing to see the work of not just one, but multiple other of our peers to develop a broader perspective and ultimately provided better comparison for our own work.

Daniel Richardson
9 October 2017
Journal 6
The most important suggestions that I gathered from my peers had to do with developing my characters and explaining the significance of certain details that I included in my essay. For instance, I my essay I talk about the importance of tacos to my girlfriend, Justine and myself, and my peers suggested that I should include not just my thoughts, or my day, but about how her day had been. They also suggested at hinting my relationship with her family. Other than that, the biggest suggestions had to do with making the story flow more.
I believe the best suggestions that I offered my peers would have to do with either restructuring their thesis little. For some peers, I suggested adding more detail, more meat to their stories, for others I recommended narrowing down what they mention in their essay and only focus on certain details relating to those narrowed down topics. I must say overall, I truly felt invited into the households of each of their stories.
I believe that the most important feedback/discussion points that came up in our discussion, but not on our pages, were not the specifics of what was said itself, but the many different perspectives that we could see in living color. Instead of my group saying to me on the paper, “Hey add more about Justine here.”, I could hear each of their takes on why, and they we could collectively come up with the best possible solution to our dilemma. We may be able to spit out our personal suggestions on paper, but it is easier to put them together in person.
Looking back at the peer review comments, I think that my group did a more than thorough job of critiquing/suggesting, however I wish that they focused little more on my introduction, as I have reworded it three times since writing. However, I feel like their other suggestions were infinitely more helpful.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4r8vbvSCz6vTnBsUkZwLWZQMG8

Daniel Richardson

4 October 2017

Journal Seven

In pages 19-29 of They Say, I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, the authors highlight the importance of bringing up the view of others in your thesis and where to place it. This is a matter that had haunted me throughout my high school years, as in A.P U.S History, my teacher Mr. Stanley pounded “THESIS. THESIS. THESIS” into our heads. Unless we were to develop our thesis in another way that Graff and Birkenstein mention, if we did not include an “Although” or “However” at the start of our thesis, we would be marked down. And man, oh man if we didn’t bring up the view of others in said thesis. God forbid if our thesis sentence was not the last sentence of our introduction. I guess one could say that I am quite practiced at the thesis, as well as the introduction in writing. The body paragraphs are generally where I struggle.

However, Graff and Birkenstein touch upon some important writing tips that I did not practice enough in high school. One such instance of this would be “returning” to what “they say” throughout your argument, as on page 27. Graff and Birkenstein state that if one does not keep returning to what others say, or opposing views, that the reader will lose sight of those arguments and forget about it all together. I feel like their book-wide comparison of writing a paper to a conversation is the most helpful and significant part of this chapter. On page 20, Graff and Birkenstein remind us that when you enter a conversation you need to always begin by recapping by “what others are saying”, then introduce your own views later, and use the opposing as a gateway or a comparison for what you are saying.

I also found the pages on “Introducing and Ongoing Debate” (pages 26-27) interesting because in doing so, you do not always need to take a firm position from the get go. In fact, as they state on page 26,

…opening with a summary of debate can help you explore the issue you are writing about before declaring your own view. In this way, you can use the writing process itself to help you discover where to stand instead of having to commit a position before you are ready to do so.

You can use the writing process to produce research, and finding out where you truly stand, instead of just researching, then writing. I do not think that I have ever done that before.

27 September 2017
“The Art of Quoting” Response

Picking out and integrating quotes effectively is a concept rather new to me. I do not recall integrating quotes until sometime in 11th grade, but I did not get to a novice level with it until writing my senior research paper senior year. After reading pages 42-51, in They Say, I Say, by Graff and Birkenstein, I feel like I have more of an idea of how to effectively integrate quotes.
One of the greatest lessons that I have taken form this piece is found on pg. 44, when Graff and Birkenstein bring up the “back-and-forth” relation between quotes you select and your argument. They assert that one changes their argument as the process for writing a paper develops, and in such a process many quotes that seemed amazing at the start crumble to be irrelevant. I find this to be one of the most frustrating things when I am writing. Spending all this time to find a “perfect” quote, just to have it be a non-factor by the time the paper is due. Sometimes I could get away with throwing extraneous quotes in my paper in high school, but I have quickly learned that that will not be the case in college.
One of the biggest trends that I am noticing with this book, is that of comparison of lessons to scenarios in real life. On page 44, Graff and Birkenstein, note that their colleague Steve Benton refers to unintroduced or unexplained quotes as “hit and run” quotes. They compare just grabbing a quote, to a driver who speeds away from a car accident and “avoids taking responsibility”. This helps paint a picture in my mind of why using quotes the wrong way is bad. If you use quotes badly, you just take from the author, sometimes do not credit them properly, and do not leave your input to help the argument come along.
However, I the best way to integrate quotes is the metaphor that Graff and Birkenstein describe on page 46, “the sandwich method”. The authors present proper use of quotations, as a sandwich. Introducing them serves as the top slice of bread, the quote the filling, and the explanation of the quote, the bottom piece of bread. In establishing this metaphor, Graff and Birkenstein compare an often-daunting writing skill with a friendly and well know object like a sandwich and the process that goes into making it. Most people can identify if you miss one part of a sandwich, so it is a metaphor that is quite relatable to the public.

Journal 1:

4 September 2017

Journal Entry One

            In his “Consider the Lobster”, David Foster Wallace briefly examines the history of eating lobster along the New England coast. Drawing from his experiences at the 2003 Maine Lobster Festival, he then poses questions surrounding the ethics relating to how lobster is “prepared”, and ultimately personal morals in how humans justify “preparing” lobster. In turn, if Wallace was to partake in our classroom discussion, I would have several questions to ask him myself. Starting first and foremost with “Do you eat lobster?”. I would then gauge his response and continue my interview. I would be very curious if he has ever “prepared” lobster himself and if so what his experience was like? Does he suppose that it appears more humane to the average person that having lobster served to them at a mass festival then when they prepare it at home? Wallace notes that there was a time in which eating lobster was thought of as “cruel and unusual” (Wallace 499), however today it is a “delicacy” (Wallace 500). I would like to know how he believes that this drastic change came about. Did pop culture or regional play a role? Or was it entirely made possible by a well marketed tourist attraction scheme? How may the psychology of one change to facilitate such a transition? Furthermore, why do we block out the knowledge that it is painful to animals when we kill them, be it by boiling or by mass raising chickens. Yet while I agree that it is wrong to harm animals the way we do. I love my steak. Many others, even Wallace himself feel conflicted.

While Wallace supposes many different scenarios on lobsters and whether they feel pain or not, his final assertions seems to reflect that lobsters do feel pain. But, as he backs up there are many different viewpoints on the subject matter. The problem with a solely written discussion is that one may never get to hear another express their true opinion. They will never truly understand each other’s backgrounds without interacting face to face. Nobody will listen to you until you will be heard, literally. If one simply traces history back and examines how Adolf Hitler came to power, it was through his ability to speak. While he did write Mein Kompf, it was his ability to capture the attention of a crowd and entice them that led to their trust in him, ultimately facilitating his rise. Writing is a great way to sit down and record ideas, but until we sit down and discuss a problem with others we will never truly understand it. While he recorded a great deal of his work, the Chinese Philosopher Confucius typically had other intellectuals to bounce his ideas off, and followers to carry on his legacy. Even a simple 18^th century artisan shop in Boston requires a physical apprentice to keep the secrets of the master, the tools of the trade alive. Yet at some point the apprentices will ask themselves whether there is a better method that that of their master’s. This occurs in writing too. When I write I anticipate my audience to ask questions, I encourage it. I expect that they will question me based off their own stance, but I hope that they will question my writing to get a better understanding, or a broader view of the subject at hand.

Journal 2:

11 September 2017

            Throughout high school, it was often that we would be assigned writing assignments. This motley of work included a vast array of poems, essays, and reading responses in English, as well as informative and argumentative pieces for history. Typically, before Junior year I would try to just put a draft out there, I would edit it nonetheless after having it handed back. On a usual basis, I would find myself writing only two drafts, a rough copy and a final.

            When Junior year came around, I opted into taking A.P U.S History. This class would be the death of my heart and soul, however I learned much of my writing skills from it. In class, we found ourselves bombarded with essays, one due every other night. I found myself at first striving to complete the projects thoughtfully and thorough, but as time went on I just wanted to get them over with. Most of the time I would revise my paper and resubmit it. There was no peer editing in that class. Other times, the workload would just pile up, on top of the business of life, and I would find myself being satisfied with only one draft, not my best work. I admit, some of it was laziness. By the end of the year, I could easily bang out an essay a night. I felt that I had greatly improved as a writer, but I had much more to learn.

            It is fall of senior year and Ponaganset High School has just acquired a young, yet well-practiced and well-traveled English teacher. Ms. Carvalho. With her Ms. Carvalho brought a new outside understanding of the writing and editing process. From analyzing text, all the way to handing papers in, she was extremely helpful. Possibly her most helpful skill lied in critiquing and her methods. This came in clutch when we had to write our school-required Senior Research papers. It was often that she would spend hours with us workshopping our papers as a class. If not in class, she was critiquing and giving us helpful feedback, paragraphs of it on not just papers for her class, but for scholarship essays, Common Application essays, speeches, you name it. We would practice methods of thoughtful editing and suggestion all throughout. As she had our own, every single one of us had suggestion for each other. Many times, our class would break itself off into groups revise, switch groups, revise, and repeat. I am happy to say that this method of critiquing allowed me to revise my Senior Research Paper three times and receive a score of a 93. By the end of this long and seemingly dreadful assignment, it all started it piece together. A first draft is only the framework of a true paper. To create a stronger and more desirable “house” you need various problem-solving methods to determine how to best build it. Often you are required to go back to the drawing board. The architect needs to ask his engineer for suggestions, and the engineer then in turn needs to consult the foreman. When the foreman encounters a problem, they bring it up with the engineer, and so on.  Their focus is to build something that applies to not just them, but the “buyer”. Such can be used as a metaphor for the writing process. With the writer, the “architect”, and the reader, the “buyer”. While ultimately, I did learn the importance of the editing process, I will say that I am still guilty of not proof-reading my own work. But I promise, I will work on it and hopefully keep learning. There’s always room for improvement, and that’s that.

Journal 3:

18 September 2017

At one point in time, I may have believed that writing should come solely from the writer themselves, from their own heart and mind, with no outside help. However, upon thinking deeper, we have all learned generalized writing formats and strategies from outside sources throughout our whole lives. In They Say, I Say, Gerald Graff echoes this sentiment, stating that “most creative forms of expression depend on “patterns or structures”. In his introduction, Graff provides a connection of this statement to reality. He observes that when you master a familiar activity, you “no longer have to give much thought” to “the series of complicated moves that go into it”.

I believe that Graff is entirely right, and that this personal connection, allows the reader to better understand this point. Furthermore, I believe that he is also correct when he says that this same concept can applied to academic writing. For our whole lives, we have held our own views, influenced by society and its patterns, but still our own. When we go to school, do we not learn about how to structure our writing, and patterns that we should follow? I have no doubt that the “templates” that Graff and Birkenstein do nothing, but enhance the writing skills of the reader. As Graff states, “it becomes much easier to write creatively” when we learn such patterns.

In addition, Graff underlines the crucial connection to man and his society. To get more specific, he talks about the importance of being about to relate and successfully communicate with your audience as a writer. Just like you need to know the basics guidelines and structure of Spanish sentences, before you speak it, you need to know the structure of Academic writing to be successful at it. To me, the most important elements of the book are the examples of academic writing which are included. I found Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to be most insightful to myself. I feel like having an idea of the conflict at hand helped my understanding. While such a conflict, a disagreement is present in doctor King’s letter, he takes the time to explain his opposing audience, and still relate to them, yet disagree on an amicable note.

But most of all, I find it interesting how Graff puts his own “they say/I say” technique to use through the chapter. Quite ironic. One such example would be in describing how others who dismiss it, and how he himself disagrees with their sentiment. I myself feel infinitely more enlightened by this text so far.

(See what I did there?)