Emma Cavanaugh-Kerr
ENG 100
Reflective Dialogue Q&A
Due: 5/9/14
Please copy and paste this Q&A format into a Word document. Once you have typed in your thoughtful and detailed answers, please transfer this dialogue onto your website under your Reflective Dialogue page. At any point during this dialogue, feel free to ask me questions as well. The Q&A is divided into five sections:
Let the dialogue begin:
This I Believe: Writing Process
Sabatino: Can you describe the scene(s) where you wrote the This I Believe (TIB) essay? Be descriptive. Is this sustainable?
Emma: I’m not entirely sure whether you want me to describe the scene depicted in my This I Believe essay or describe my surroundings while I was writing it. I’m inclined to assume the latter, however, as describing the scene within my This I Believe essay would be incredibly redundant. For both my first and second attempts at the essay, I was holed up in the DCCC library before my 9:35 psychology class – the white noise was pleasant, the other patrons were transient, and the amount of open space in the room was freeing. Maybe it’s odd, but the sheer size of the library makes me feel like I have infinite space to expand into, so freewrites and compost are incredibly easy there. Each time, I had a small hot cocoa from the library’s Burlap and Bean, with whipped cream and two pumps of hazelnut syrup. I’m not usually one for hot bean drink + popular flavor combinations, but it’s just so good. When writing my first, throwaway essay, I was rather shaky; nervous about being late with something to show in class. For the second, though, I was much more relaxed, taking my time and just writing whatever came to mind, focusing on quality rather than timeliness. The library is a pleasant place to work, in my opinion, even when it gets busy – I’ve never known it to be closed, even when all of the classes are canceled, and it’s not so far away from home that it’s unreasonable to get there to work. I’d say that the scene that accompanied the writing both times was rather similar, it is similar each time I attend to coursework in the library, and it will definitely be sustainable for as long as I attend DCCC. (Hopefully, there will be enough money in my wallet to ensure that my hot cocoa habits remain sustainable, as well!)
Sabatino: You wrote a blog post about six strategies to become a better writer. Have you used those strategies when blogging and writing the TIB essay? Please discuss which of these strategies helped you the most when you wrote your TIB essay.
Emma: I have used a few of my writing strategies, yes. It was rather inevitable, though, considering that most of them were rather… self-explanatory. I hold them dear to my heart, though. I’ve sent a few pieces of unrelated work to friends in my age demographic to see how my writing holds up, what I can improve about it, and I’ve used the input to fix up a few loose ends and check for areas where I’ve overcomplicated explanations. I still have a lot of work to do on that front, but I’m confident that I’ll get there. I’ve also been keeping track of what I need to do, writing several lists and updating them as I complete tasks. I also like to use a website called HabitRPG to reward myself for getting work done. Writing three or four blog posts doesn’t seem like a big deal on a big list full of eight or nine others that have been crossed out. Honestly, though, I think the most helpful has been the most obvious tip – write. As I stated in the blog post, "[i]f you don't write, you don't improve." Once you get started, it’s easy to let it all loose, and it’s easier to let go of the excess than it is to expand on nothing.
Sabatino: Describe your process for writing and revising the TIB essay (freewrite, list, found poem, etc.). What helped you the most?
Emma: I treated the first draft of the This I Believe essay like a mix between straight out compost and a flowing freewrite – I wanted some decent sentences to work with in the refining stage, but I didn’t want to get so attached that I wouldn’t be able to delete anything. I knew from the start that a large chunk of my essay would end up containing telling text, but I didn’t realize just how much showing text I had given in comparison. It was actually rather nice to realize that I wasn’t quite as hopeless as I had imagined. I never really revisited the list – it just wasn’t really for me. Perhaps the same process will help me with a different assignment, but for this one? Not so much. Although originally I thought the idea of creating a found poem out of a field hockey story was incredibly silly (my girlfriend and I joked about it for about an hour), it was actually incredibly insightful and helped me figure out what was crucial to my story and what was garbage. What did I want to put into the poem? What was too boring to make it in? What words stuck out? When I revised the essay for the first time, although I didn’t explicitly refer to the poem frequently, writing and rereading it through even just a single time gave me a lot to think about.
Sabatino: How has the blog impacted your writing process?
Emma: I suppose it may be helping? I’m not sure. When I write my work in Word documents, they just get saved to a folder and never really seen until they’re submitted. With the blog format, I have incentive to write… and then write more… and then keep writing. When I post online, I know that you will see it, but there is the off chance that somebody else might see it, too, and that’s an exciting thought.
Sabatino: Please share your thoughts about the revision techniques we've used in this course (peer review, show and tell, five senses, found poem, etc.)
Emma: I’m not really that used to peer review, honestly. It was rarely utilized in my high school classes, and even when it was, there was always somebody in the group who didn’t take it seriously. That, or their comments were confusing – I frequently made grammatical corrections by the dozens and then received a nearly blank paper back from my partner. It was frustrating. A self-administered Show and Tell has been eye-opening, though it seems a bit cluttery, as if you're trying to create the illusion of more content by cutting and pasting full chunks of essay. The found poem was unexpectedly helpful, and I may just have to utilize it again in the future for descriptive pieces.
Sabatino: What specific revisions have you made to your TIB essay?
Emma: I cut back on some telling text – nearly a whole paragraph – and deleted the majority of the background on my parents’ histories with athletics. It wasn’t really that important. I also made an effort to cut sentences that seemed bulky or bland, reworded a few sentences to give a more empathetic feeling than a logical explanation. I also did what I could to scan for abstract feelings or physical experiences (such as anxiety) that I didn’t actually know of or understand at the time of the scene and replace them with physical and emotional descriptions that convey the same point.
Sabatino: What is your plan for future revisions to your TIB essay?
Emma: I’d like to cut down the length to a more easily consumable amount, but preserve most of the story itself. I feel that the scene itself is too long, though the entire experience exhibits my shift from an attitude of “I don’t even want to be here, I’m just here to make my parents sit in the rain” to the attitude of “I’m awesome at this sport!” Though Jordan was a real person (and someone I admired, really), I’ve already avoided naming the schools involved, so I could possibly strip her name and background from the story. It is, however, important for expressing exactly why I spend the entire game feeling so nervous. I will need to think on this more, I’m afraid.
Sabatino: We have used a farming metaphor to conceptualize a sustainable writing process. What metaphor would you use to illustrate your writing process thus far?
Emma: So far, I think I would have to compare my writing process to hibernation. I binge on writing anything and everything for a day or two, filling up the blog with content, writing stories for friends, and then I go dark online for over a week at a time. It’s not incredibly sustainable, but my motivation is frequently rekindled by panic and upcoming due dates, so it’s not incredibly surprising, either!
This I Believe: Writing Product
Sabatino: What is your belief statement (word-for-word)?
Emma: "I believe that even actions made out of spite can have positive outcomes."
Sabatino: Do you think your belief statement grabs the audience’s attention? Why?
Emma: I’m not sure it does, but I certainly hope so. It has this kind of cynical feel to it that implies that the "positive outcome" of the spiteful action in question is the inconvenience or irritation felt by the person being spited. When they read on, however, they discover that my essay is geared toward accepting and embracing harmless teenage rebellion as a way for a fledgling adult to start developing their own interests without their parents attempting to fashion them in any particular way. If your kid wants to dye their hair black or wear a lot of makeup or put on a silver upside down cross necklace – who cares? Let them do it. Adults always go on about how their teenage years were the best of their lives, so they should really do a better job of letting their own kids enjoy them. Maybe don't let them go as far as tattoos, but don't stifle them.
Sabatino: What is your scene?
Emma: My scene is a rainy, miserable afternoon up on the old Agnes Irwin upper field. A field hockey game is about to begin, and the Shipley team that we are about to play against has a girl on their team who used to attend our school and was one of the best athletes there. As a keeper, I’m nervous about this girl – she’s aggressive and talented, and I’m just a goalie-in-training. As the game goes on, the successes and failures of both myself and the team cause me to become increasingly skittish, building up an imaginary, perfect opponent out of this girl. When -- by some miracle -- I manage to block her shot, it dawns on me -- she isn't flawless, and I'm not useless. I'm able to secure the goal when the clock hits zero and we win the game by a hair, and unlike the usual hollow pride I feel when we win a game, this time it actually felt earned.
Sabatino: How does your scene illustrate your belief?
Emma: Well, while my belief is rather morose when read verbatim, the real belief that I focused on with this essay is a belief in positive growth through ill-intentioned rebellion. Though I originally acted out and tried out for a sport that I didn’t know how to play to make my parents have to go to games that they wouldn’t be able to understand, to buy expensive new equipment, and to be embarrassed that I would be at all of the games in a smelly yellow foam shinpads; I almost (metaphorically) brought the weather upon myself, leading to all of my misery. Gross, dirty, cold, sad – my glee in making them miserable was overshadowed by my own physical discomfort and building anxiety. With very little time left in the game, I managed to come to the realization that the girl I feared so much was not a god, that I could be just as influential in a game as she could – by blocking her shot. When I finally began applying that idea of “I can do this” to my playing, I realized that I could. I knew how to play, and I wasn’t terrible. Taking so long trying to spite my parents caused me to lose out on a lot of valuable time I could have spent playing the game for myself, but you know what would have caused me to lose out on even more time than that? Never trying to spite them at all. If they hadn’t been so presumptuous and pushy with sports, I never would have tried out for field hockey or even thought of playing it. In essence, have an ice cold Spite: Results may vary.
Sabatino: What questions do you have for me about your TIB essay?
Emma: Is it too long? Should I add more detail and include school names? If not, should I cut out Jordan’s name and make her a bit more vague? At the time, I didn’t really know my teammates or coaches very well, I treated them as a means to an end, so they are purposefully left rather vague. For this reason, does it make more sense to leave Jordan with her background and name intact, since she is the only one at this time that I consider worthy of my attention?
This I Wonder: Writing Process
Sabatino: Describe your process for writing and revising the This I Wonder (TIW) essay (freewrite, list, presentation, etc.). What helped you the most? What did you struggle with the most? What specific revisions have you made? Please include a discussion about assignment-related blog posts.
Emma: I think the main issue I had with this essay was the fact that I don't really wonder much. When I do wonder about something, I generally tend to look it up and try to educate myself on it so I don't have a reason to wonder about it anymore, so I was stumped on this essay from the very beginning. I can tell you exactly why it is that female teams get no recognition, and why male teams hardly need to do anything but exist to be showered in praise, but in all honesty it's tiring to write about. It's tiring to think about. Presenting to the class helped me get my rage out, but I think it was always rather obvious that I didn't wonder about the impact of sexism on the attendance at baseball and softball games. I talk about these issues a lot more than I probably should, so it should come second nature to rant about them, but when I look at the essay, when I look at the page, I'm just filled with a disappointment. Disappointment in the fans who let genitalia determine whose games they go watch, disappointment in myself for being unable to explain just why the subject makes me fall so deep into apathy. Ultimately, I decided to polish it a bit, spurred on by some new sports knowledge that I had not yet realized. I feel better having gotten it off of my chest. Though I originally meant to write the piece as an apology to my sister, but... finishing the essay set me free. My chest is trembling and I feel sick, but I have let it out and now I can heal.
Sabatino: How has your process been similar to your This I Believe process? How has the process been different?
Emma: Well, when I wrote my This I Believe essay, I actually had an out-of-the-box assertion to defend: not many people would think that spite is a good character trait for someone to value growing up. I defended my position to the best of my ability and really believed it, tried to make it so readers could see things through my eyes. The story in my This I Believe essay concludes rather subtly in my This I Wonder essay.
Sabatino: In what ways have our course readings impacted the way have written your TIW essay?
Emma: They haven't, really. I wish I could say they have, but I've already spent a few years thinking deeply about social systems and discussing them with others, so nothing new has come of the course readings relating to that.
Sabatino: What is your plan for future revisions to your TIW essay?
Emma: I may reduce it, or change the ending entirely should I ever give out my website to my family. They don't need to know that I sabotaged myself because of low self-esteem. They would either be sad or angry, and neither of those things seem particularly good to me.
This I Wonder: Writing Product
Sabatino: What is your understanding of showing and telling writing? How does your essay incorporate both?
Emma: Showing writing puts the reader in your shoes, or lets them look through your eyes: a past event, or a point of view that they really have to feel like you to understand. Telling writing elaborates on the showing writing with context that can't be provided with a mere memory. A lot of the short breaks where I just say "misogyny is this, misogyny is that" are how my thoughts bound around when I have to face this topic -- my brain jolts from tangent to tangent to tangent and I feel like if I don't get it out, I won't be able to express myself fully. My head moves faster than my fingers, though, so that can be a bit of an issue. There are pieces of memories woven into the telling writing toward the beginning, and then a lot of analytical writing later on: context for the female plight. Men may feel self-loathing, at times, but that is generally as a result of doing something particularly shitty and dealing with the guilt. Men will never feel the socially encouraged urge to full-out loathe themselves, they will never be able to understand just how horrific it is to wake up in the morning as a woman in a world that despises you for existing in its proximity. The writing may be exaggerated, but the content is meant to be, as well.
Sabatino: Can you describe (or copy and paste) your TIW opening scene? Why did you choose to open your essay with this scene?
Emma: Alright. "When I still attended my old school, softball was the main spring sport. Just like soccer was the default option for fall and volleyball was the default option for winter, the softball team was a massive force that engulfed a large portion of my all-girl's school's sport-playing population. People who were good at softball were just a little more popular in the hallways after they proved it, the star soccer player never wanted for company, people talked over lunch about how so-and-so performed a serve during a game the other day that was practically legendary. I never knew any different." This scene is less of a single scene and more of a summary of scenes -- it wouldn't evoke memories for others who read it, but for me it brings to mind sticky, round synthetic wood tables at 9 AM, a bright-eyed brunette coach sitting me at a table with five other girls and convincing me that I had the power to take on anything. Though the internalized misogyny that floated around that school was incredibly strong, it was still empowering never to have men around. It was scary when girls would bring their boyfriends on campus: I would see a straight A student, a strong public speaker who I admired, and she would just lean against the wall while this ugly boy groped her and she wouldn't do anything about it. As a first glance into the real world, I was frightened of those moments when men would intrude in our all-girl's school, because they took these strong, frightening individuals who had an assortment of talents and a sense of humor and a drive to succeed and they would turn them into arm candy. That was terrifying to me. So I opened with that scene both because it gives me a good memory of feeling safe and secure (a good jumping-off point for the material) and because it gives my readers a frame of reference: all of the things I talk about in my essay are not things I have experienced my whole life, they were thrust upon me when I went to a co-ed school and it hit me like a sack full of bricks.
Sabatino: What is the major decision you had to make in your TIW essay?
Emma: Whether it was worth weathering the endless, empty disappointment that comes from a lack of recognition that would lie ahead of me if I decided to continue playing sports, or whether I wanted to get out of that trap while I had the chance.
Sabatino: Can you describe (or copy and paste) the scene where you put your decision into action?
Emma: I became to have doubts about ever succeeding as a field hockey goalie late in my career. If I'm honest, I had them much earlier on, shortly after I mentored a freshman in the art of being a goalie as a junior (after having played for three years already) and then being beaten out for the A-team goalie spot by my own student. For a few days, I told myself that it was because her mother was on the school board, but that wasn't it. She was smaller, faster, smarter, and a lot more dedicated than I was, even if she didn't have the experience. I put my decision into action when I accepted the hopelessness of trying to continue pursuing athletics.
Sabatino: Can you describe (or copy and paste) your "I wonder" moments in the essay? Which social systems influenced your decision?
Emma: Why is it, I wonder, that female-exclusive physical activities are treated with such disdain in comparison to their male counterparts or companion activities? [...]why are men's sports, men's fitness, and men's health all taken more seriously than their female counterparts? [...]who do you think decided that women should only play softball and leave men as the only contenders in "the great American pastime"? A boy once told me that field hockey wasn't a real sport. Another boy told me that softball was a waste of time because it was only for girls before going on to talk about how fast he could throw a pitch. How fast could I pitch a softball, he asked? Probably not as fast as someone using a ball that is one third of the size and weight, I responded, bitterly. But girls could not try out for the baseball team, so what was the point of comparing them? [...]the bleachers at the boys' basketball games are packed, and only a small handful of family members attend the girls' games -- droves of people show up to the former, forming a cheering section that is so loud that they have to be silenced by referees at almost every game, while the latter gets no recognition despite being state champions for several years running. But why? [...]now that Chelsea Clinton is pregnant, Hilary Clinton's status as a grandmother is a hot topic. Will she be able to concentrate with a grandchild on the loose? I thought she was pro-baby murder, what a hypocrite! Is it sexist to talk about her grandchild and how it will factor into the election? Yes, no, yes. What does that have to do with anything? What about every other candidate for president, past and current? Did their status as a grandparent matter?
My decision in topic, at least, was inspired by my sister returning home after school, crying her eyes out because the girls' basketball team (which she was on) had won the state championship yet again, but in the weekly assembly, the boys' team was congratulated on losing by only a few points to an opposing team in a regular season game. Her championship wasn't even mentioned. As a follow up, she didn't even bother trying out for a school sport this semester. She writes down scores for the boys' baseball team, now.
This I Argue: Writing Process
Sabatino: Please discuss your writing process, including generative techniques, research, and revision.
Emma: Well, after my parents had me tutored in formal essay-writing for over a year, I didn't learn how to make my point in five short paragraphs or less, but I did completely forget how to write an outline and I gained a deep hatred for Great Expectations. Most of my material generation comes from just spitting my thoughts out in a blog post and then polishing them up a bit, polishing them up a bit more, researching my assertions and then backing them up. I tried not to limit the material I read from to .gov sites, which are pretty hard to decipher unless you're a macroeconomics major. Additionally, it's difficult to trust a large government on matters like poverty when the government contributes to the poverty. I did try to include a visual aid for my final draft of the essay, like we discussed, but... I don't know. I hope it gets the message across, even if it is crude.
This I Argue: Writing Product
Sabatino: Please discuss your writing product, including purpose, genre, and areas that need revision.
Emma: While my essay isn't as short and to the point as it would likely benefit from, I had a lot to say and I wanted to say all of it. I did my best to clean it up and sort it into slightly more manageable chunks -- the story I opened with didn't quite fit in, but I did try to pull a metaphor from the beginning of the information to the end of it. It's a lot going on, a lot of opinions, and a hell of a lot of numbers. With the visual aid, though, I think that most of the numbers could be skipped over -- the point is rather clear, at least in that area.
Personal Website
Sabatino: Discuss your experiences with creating and maintaining a website for this course.
Emma: At first, I sort of loathed logging on. My blog was sort of ugly and that cityscape graphic all over the place was incredibly annoying, but I didn’t have a lot of motivation to change it, since my SD card full of photographs was in my camera and retrieving it to move pictures to the website would take precious, precious effort. Once I actually started, though, I edited it a lot past its original theme and I’m quite content with it, now. It’s not nearly as much of an eyesore as it was. I was worried at first that the posts seemed a bit too much like clutter, especially with the cursive title font, but I’ve put most of them behind a read more (since I tend to ramble a bit). I’m not sure if this move was intelligent or not, but I left telling sentences or hooks for each post so the reader has an idea of what kind of post they’re getting into when they click Read More. I think that was a fair compromise. And again, having somewhere to upload my work directly is decent motivation to get things done.
Sabatino: Do you think your site is organized and easy to navigate?
Emma: I do, yes. Weebly is not a difficult site to operate for a halfway tech-savvy, teenage middle class able person. It’s all about drag and drop and it seems like it would be a bit difficult to mess it up, since the categories are all instinctual. There’s not a lot of visual clutter and the default options give you a nice, clean website, so your only options on any given page are to browse the page’s contents, travel to a new page, observe my header pictures, or close out of the tab. (Needless to say, if you have any trouble navigating my website, please let me know so that I can attempt to fix it.)
Sabatino: What type of identity have you constructed through your site? How have you revised your identity?
Emma: That of someone who doesn't fully complete all of their essays, evidently, but who is passionate about most of the things they discuss. I still have some of the blog entries from my TIW essay open from when I was copying the parts that were asked for and it kind of makes me shiver to think that that particular essay is still so unsatisfactory. I hate leaving a job undone. To be honest, I've worked on everything I could since I got home from college yesterday, but it's nearing the time for my weekly appointment with my psychologist and I won't get out until after noon, so I'm dreading having work unfinished while I talk about my feelings. C'est la vie.
Personal Blog
Sabatino: What are your thoughts about creating and maintaining a blog? Is your blog organized and easy to navigate?
Emma: Creating and maintaining a blog isn’t really new to me, though the Weebly platform is a good mix between the other blogging platforms I’ve tried before – a bit less simple than tumblr, but a fair bit less complicated than Blogger. I like to give off a good impression to people that I’m going to see and speak with in person, so – while I don’t intend to hide any of my strong beliefs – I’m not keen on spewing disorganized vitriol or blogging idly. I don’t really have to put in extra effort to type like this or anything, but I run a few other, informal blogs on tumblr (that I would rather be kept private) where it is more socially acceptable to completely drop the rigid structure of sentence formation in order to preserve one’s train of thought or convey a slightly abstract idea through a mixture of language itself and the manner through which it is presented. (Did you see that last sentence? I think it’s clear that I have difficulty preserving my train of thought when it is broken up by punctuation.)
Sabatino: What are your thoughts about blogging? Please consider the public, social network nature of a blog as well as your initial thoughts in the beginning of the semester as compared to now.
Emma: I think blogging is something to be celebrated – more helpful when it comes to understanding a person than a Facebook status or a twitter feed, though both have their merits. They're good for getting to know people, learning about more private things that can't be described in the character limits of other social networking sites, and exploring one's creative side. My younger sisters originally avoided the idea of running blogs like the plague (because it was something that I enjoyed and therefore wasn't cool), but now that they've actually started looking for things they like, they love it. A blog is like a multimedia scrapbook that a bunch of different people can look at whenever you update it -- people can get to know you through your blog, or old friends and relatives can check up on you, see how you're doing. Heck, I fell in love with someone I met while blogging. eHarmony has nothing on a shared love for horrible movies.
Questions for Midterm Conference
Sabatino: Parting comments? Questions for me?
Emma: I had a nice semester. Although I don't think my writing changed a lot, I do like the way I write a lot better now, so I think that's a plus. I enjoyed having a place to really vent out my anger about social injustice where I wouldn't get told off for it, and I'm pleased to see that one or two of my pieces provoked a thought in someone. That's all that really matters, in my opinion.
ENG 100
Reflective Dialogue Q&A
Due: 5/9/14
Please copy and paste this Q&A format into a Word document. Once you have typed in your thoughtful and detailed answers, please transfer this dialogue onto your website under your Reflective Dialogue page. At any point during this dialogue, feel free to ask me questions as well. The Q&A is divided into five sections:
- This I Believe: Writing Process
- This I Believe: Writing Product
- This I Wonder: Writing Process
- This I Wonder: Writing Product
- This I Argue: Writing Process
- This I Argue: Writing Product
- Website
- Blog
- Questions for Final Conference
Let the dialogue begin:
This I Believe: Writing Process
Sabatino: Can you describe the scene(s) where you wrote the This I Believe (TIB) essay? Be descriptive. Is this sustainable?
Emma: I’m not entirely sure whether you want me to describe the scene depicted in my This I Believe essay or describe my surroundings while I was writing it. I’m inclined to assume the latter, however, as describing the scene within my This I Believe essay would be incredibly redundant. For both my first and second attempts at the essay, I was holed up in the DCCC library before my 9:35 psychology class – the white noise was pleasant, the other patrons were transient, and the amount of open space in the room was freeing. Maybe it’s odd, but the sheer size of the library makes me feel like I have infinite space to expand into, so freewrites and compost are incredibly easy there. Each time, I had a small hot cocoa from the library’s Burlap and Bean, with whipped cream and two pumps of hazelnut syrup. I’m not usually one for hot bean drink + popular flavor combinations, but it’s just so good. When writing my first, throwaway essay, I was rather shaky; nervous about being late with something to show in class. For the second, though, I was much more relaxed, taking my time and just writing whatever came to mind, focusing on quality rather than timeliness. The library is a pleasant place to work, in my opinion, even when it gets busy – I’ve never known it to be closed, even when all of the classes are canceled, and it’s not so far away from home that it’s unreasonable to get there to work. I’d say that the scene that accompanied the writing both times was rather similar, it is similar each time I attend to coursework in the library, and it will definitely be sustainable for as long as I attend DCCC. (Hopefully, there will be enough money in my wallet to ensure that my hot cocoa habits remain sustainable, as well!)
Sabatino: You wrote a blog post about six strategies to become a better writer. Have you used those strategies when blogging and writing the TIB essay? Please discuss which of these strategies helped you the most when you wrote your TIB essay.
Emma: I have used a few of my writing strategies, yes. It was rather inevitable, though, considering that most of them were rather… self-explanatory. I hold them dear to my heart, though. I’ve sent a few pieces of unrelated work to friends in my age demographic to see how my writing holds up, what I can improve about it, and I’ve used the input to fix up a few loose ends and check for areas where I’ve overcomplicated explanations. I still have a lot of work to do on that front, but I’m confident that I’ll get there. I’ve also been keeping track of what I need to do, writing several lists and updating them as I complete tasks. I also like to use a website called HabitRPG to reward myself for getting work done. Writing three or four blog posts doesn’t seem like a big deal on a big list full of eight or nine others that have been crossed out. Honestly, though, I think the most helpful has been the most obvious tip – write. As I stated in the blog post, "[i]f you don't write, you don't improve." Once you get started, it’s easy to let it all loose, and it’s easier to let go of the excess than it is to expand on nothing.
Sabatino: Describe your process for writing and revising the TIB essay (freewrite, list, found poem, etc.). What helped you the most?
Emma: I treated the first draft of the This I Believe essay like a mix between straight out compost and a flowing freewrite – I wanted some decent sentences to work with in the refining stage, but I didn’t want to get so attached that I wouldn’t be able to delete anything. I knew from the start that a large chunk of my essay would end up containing telling text, but I didn’t realize just how much showing text I had given in comparison. It was actually rather nice to realize that I wasn’t quite as hopeless as I had imagined. I never really revisited the list – it just wasn’t really for me. Perhaps the same process will help me with a different assignment, but for this one? Not so much. Although originally I thought the idea of creating a found poem out of a field hockey story was incredibly silly (my girlfriend and I joked about it for about an hour), it was actually incredibly insightful and helped me figure out what was crucial to my story and what was garbage. What did I want to put into the poem? What was too boring to make it in? What words stuck out? When I revised the essay for the first time, although I didn’t explicitly refer to the poem frequently, writing and rereading it through even just a single time gave me a lot to think about.
Sabatino: How has the blog impacted your writing process?
Emma: I suppose it may be helping? I’m not sure. When I write my work in Word documents, they just get saved to a folder and never really seen until they’re submitted. With the blog format, I have incentive to write… and then write more… and then keep writing. When I post online, I know that you will see it, but there is the off chance that somebody else might see it, too, and that’s an exciting thought.
Sabatino: Please share your thoughts about the revision techniques we've used in this course (peer review, show and tell, five senses, found poem, etc.)
Emma: I’m not really that used to peer review, honestly. It was rarely utilized in my high school classes, and even when it was, there was always somebody in the group who didn’t take it seriously. That, or their comments were confusing – I frequently made grammatical corrections by the dozens and then received a nearly blank paper back from my partner. It was frustrating. A self-administered Show and Tell has been eye-opening, though it seems a bit cluttery, as if you're trying to create the illusion of more content by cutting and pasting full chunks of essay. The found poem was unexpectedly helpful, and I may just have to utilize it again in the future for descriptive pieces.
Sabatino: What specific revisions have you made to your TIB essay?
Emma: I cut back on some telling text – nearly a whole paragraph – and deleted the majority of the background on my parents’ histories with athletics. It wasn’t really that important. I also made an effort to cut sentences that seemed bulky or bland, reworded a few sentences to give a more empathetic feeling than a logical explanation. I also did what I could to scan for abstract feelings or physical experiences (such as anxiety) that I didn’t actually know of or understand at the time of the scene and replace them with physical and emotional descriptions that convey the same point.
Sabatino: What is your plan for future revisions to your TIB essay?
Emma: I’d like to cut down the length to a more easily consumable amount, but preserve most of the story itself. I feel that the scene itself is too long, though the entire experience exhibits my shift from an attitude of “I don’t even want to be here, I’m just here to make my parents sit in the rain” to the attitude of “I’m awesome at this sport!” Though Jordan was a real person (and someone I admired, really), I’ve already avoided naming the schools involved, so I could possibly strip her name and background from the story. It is, however, important for expressing exactly why I spend the entire game feeling so nervous. I will need to think on this more, I’m afraid.
Sabatino: We have used a farming metaphor to conceptualize a sustainable writing process. What metaphor would you use to illustrate your writing process thus far?
Emma: So far, I think I would have to compare my writing process to hibernation. I binge on writing anything and everything for a day or two, filling up the blog with content, writing stories for friends, and then I go dark online for over a week at a time. It’s not incredibly sustainable, but my motivation is frequently rekindled by panic and upcoming due dates, so it’s not incredibly surprising, either!
This I Believe: Writing Product
Sabatino: What is your belief statement (word-for-word)?
Emma: "I believe that even actions made out of spite can have positive outcomes."
Sabatino: Do you think your belief statement grabs the audience’s attention? Why?
Emma: I’m not sure it does, but I certainly hope so. It has this kind of cynical feel to it that implies that the "positive outcome" of the spiteful action in question is the inconvenience or irritation felt by the person being spited. When they read on, however, they discover that my essay is geared toward accepting and embracing harmless teenage rebellion as a way for a fledgling adult to start developing their own interests without their parents attempting to fashion them in any particular way. If your kid wants to dye their hair black or wear a lot of makeup or put on a silver upside down cross necklace – who cares? Let them do it. Adults always go on about how their teenage years were the best of their lives, so they should really do a better job of letting their own kids enjoy them. Maybe don't let them go as far as tattoos, but don't stifle them.
Sabatino: What is your scene?
Emma: My scene is a rainy, miserable afternoon up on the old Agnes Irwin upper field. A field hockey game is about to begin, and the Shipley team that we are about to play against has a girl on their team who used to attend our school and was one of the best athletes there. As a keeper, I’m nervous about this girl – she’s aggressive and talented, and I’m just a goalie-in-training. As the game goes on, the successes and failures of both myself and the team cause me to become increasingly skittish, building up an imaginary, perfect opponent out of this girl. When -- by some miracle -- I manage to block her shot, it dawns on me -- she isn't flawless, and I'm not useless. I'm able to secure the goal when the clock hits zero and we win the game by a hair, and unlike the usual hollow pride I feel when we win a game, this time it actually felt earned.
Sabatino: How does your scene illustrate your belief?
Emma: Well, while my belief is rather morose when read verbatim, the real belief that I focused on with this essay is a belief in positive growth through ill-intentioned rebellion. Though I originally acted out and tried out for a sport that I didn’t know how to play to make my parents have to go to games that they wouldn’t be able to understand, to buy expensive new equipment, and to be embarrassed that I would be at all of the games in a smelly yellow foam shinpads; I almost (metaphorically) brought the weather upon myself, leading to all of my misery. Gross, dirty, cold, sad – my glee in making them miserable was overshadowed by my own physical discomfort and building anxiety. With very little time left in the game, I managed to come to the realization that the girl I feared so much was not a god, that I could be just as influential in a game as she could – by blocking her shot. When I finally began applying that idea of “I can do this” to my playing, I realized that I could. I knew how to play, and I wasn’t terrible. Taking so long trying to spite my parents caused me to lose out on a lot of valuable time I could have spent playing the game for myself, but you know what would have caused me to lose out on even more time than that? Never trying to spite them at all. If they hadn’t been so presumptuous and pushy with sports, I never would have tried out for field hockey or even thought of playing it. In essence, have an ice cold Spite: Results may vary.
Sabatino: What questions do you have for me about your TIB essay?
Emma: Is it too long? Should I add more detail and include school names? If not, should I cut out Jordan’s name and make her a bit more vague? At the time, I didn’t really know my teammates or coaches very well, I treated them as a means to an end, so they are purposefully left rather vague. For this reason, does it make more sense to leave Jordan with her background and name intact, since she is the only one at this time that I consider worthy of my attention?
This I Wonder: Writing Process
Sabatino: Describe your process for writing and revising the This I Wonder (TIW) essay (freewrite, list, presentation, etc.). What helped you the most? What did you struggle with the most? What specific revisions have you made? Please include a discussion about assignment-related blog posts.
Emma: I think the main issue I had with this essay was the fact that I don't really wonder much. When I do wonder about something, I generally tend to look it up and try to educate myself on it so I don't have a reason to wonder about it anymore, so I was stumped on this essay from the very beginning. I can tell you exactly why it is that female teams get no recognition, and why male teams hardly need to do anything but exist to be showered in praise, but in all honesty it's tiring to write about. It's tiring to think about. Presenting to the class helped me get my rage out, but I think it was always rather obvious that I didn't wonder about the impact of sexism on the attendance at baseball and softball games. I talk about these issues a lot more than I probably should, so it should come second nature to rant about them, but when I look at the essay, when I look at the page, I'm just filled with a disappointment. Disappointment in the fans who let genitalia determine whose games they go watch, disappointment in myself for being unable to explain just why the subject makes me fall so deep into apathy. Ultimately, I decided to polish it a bit, spurred on by some new sports knowledge that I had not yet realized. I feel better having gotten it off of my chest. Though I originally meant to write the piece as an apology to my sister, but... finishing the essay set me free. My chest is trembling and I feel sick, but I have let it out and now I can heal.
Sabatino: How has your process been similar to your This I Believe process? How has the process been different?
Emma: Well, when I wrote my This I Believe essay, I actually had an out-of-the-box assertion to defend: not many people would think that spite is a good character trait for someone to value growing up. I defended my position to the best of my ability and really believed it, tried to make it so readers could see things through my eyes. The story in my This I Believe essay concludes rather subtly in my This I Wonder essay.
Sabatino: In what ways have our course readings impacted the way have written your TIW essay?
Emma: They haven't, really. I wish I could say they have, but I've already spent a few years thinking deeply about social systems and discussing them with others, so nothing new has come of the course readings relating to that.
Sabatino: What is your plan for future revisions to your TIW essay?
Emma: I may reduce it, or change the ending entirely should I ever give out my website to my family. They don't need to know that I sabotaged myself because of low self-esteem. They would either be sad or angry, and neither of those things seem particularly good to me.
This I Wonder: Writing Product
Sabatino: What is your understanding of showing and telling writing? How does your essay incorporate both?
Emma: Showing writing puts the reader in your shoes, or lets them look through your eyes: a past event, or a point of view that they really have to feel like you to understand. Telling writing elaborates on the showing writing with context that can't be provided with a mere memory. A lot of the short breaks where I just say "misogyny is this, misogyny is that" are how my thoughts bound around when I have to face this topic -- my brain jolts from tangent to tangent to tangent and I feel like if I don't get it out, I won't be able to express myself fully. My head moves faster than my fingers, though, so that can be a bit of an issue. There are pieces of memories woven into the telling writing toward the beginning, and then a lot of analytical writing later on: context for the female plight. Men may feel self-loathing, at times, but that is generally as a result of doing something particularly shitty and dealing with the guilt. Men will never feel the socially encouraged urge to full-out loathe themselves, they will never be able to understand just how horrific it is to wake up in the morning as a woman in a world that despises you for existing in its proximity. The writing may be exaggerated, but the content is meant to be, as well.
Sabatino: Can you describe (or copy and paste) your TIW opening scene? Why did you choose to open your essay with this scene?
Emma: Alright. "When I still attended my old school, softball was the main spring sport. Just like soccer was the default option for fall and volleyball was the default option for winter, the softball team was a massive force that engulfed a large portion of my all-girl's school's sport-playing population. People who were good at softball were just a little more popular in the hallways after they proved it, the star soccer player never wanted for company, people talked over lunch about how so-and-so performed a serve during a game the other day that was practically legendary. I never knew any different." This scene is less of a single scene and more of a summary of scenes -- it wouldn't evoke memories for others who read it, but for me it brings to mind sticky, round synthetic wood tables at 9 AM, a bright-eyed brunette coach sitting me at a table with five other girls and convincing me that I had the power to take on anything. Though the internalized misogyny that floated around that school was incredibly strong, it was still empowering never to have men around. It was scary when girls would bring their boyfriends on campus: I would see a straight A student, a strong public speaker who I admired, and she would just lean against the wall while this ugly boy groped her and she wouldn't do anything about it. As a first glance into the real world, I was frightened of those moments when men would intrude in our all-girl's school, because they took these strong, frightening individuals who had an assortment of talents and a sense of humor and a drive to succeed and they would turn them into arm candy. That was terrifying to me. So I opened with that scene both because it gives me a good memory of feeling safe and secure (a good jumping-off point for the material) and because it gives my readers a frame of reference: all of the things I talk about in my essay are not things I have experienced my whole life, they were thrust upon me when I went to a co-ed school and it hit me like a sack full of bricks.
Sabatino: What is the major decision you had to make in your TIW essay?
Emma: Whether it was worth weathering the endless, empty disappointment that comes from a lack of recognition that would lie ahead of me if I decided to continue playing sports, or whether I wanted to get out of that trap while I had the chance.
Sabatino: Can you describe (or copy and paste) the scene where you put your decision into action?
Emma: I became to have doubts about ever succeeding as a field hockey goalie late in my career. If I'm honest, I had them much earlier on, shortly after I mentored a freshman in the art of being a goalie as a junior (after having played for three years already) and then being beaten out for the A-team goalie spot by my own student. For a few days, I told myself that it was because her mother was on the school board, but that wasn't it. She was smaller, faster, smarter, and a lot more dedicated than I was, even if she didn't have the experience. I put my decision into action when I accepted the hopelessness of trying to continue pursuing athletics.
Sabatino: Can you describe (or copy and paste) your "I wonder" moments in the essay? Which social systems influenced your decision?
Emma: Why is it, I wonder, that female-exclusive physical activities are treated with such disdain in comparison to their male counterparts or companion activities? [...]why are men's sports, men's fitness, and men's health all taken more seriously than their female counterparts? [...]who do you think decided that women should only play softball and leave men as the only contenders in "the great American pastime"? A boy once told me that field hockey wasn't a real sport. Another boy told me that softball was a waste of time because it was only for girls before going on to talk about how fast he could throw a pitch. How fast could I pitch a softball, he asked? Probably not as fast as someone using a ball that is one third of the size and weight, I responded, bitterly. But girls could not try out for the baseball team, so what was the point of comparing them? [...]the bleachers at the boys' basketball games are packed, and only a small handful of family members attend the girls' games -- droves of people show up to the former, forming a cheering section that is so loud that they have to be silenced by referees at almost every game, while the latter gets no recognition despite being state champions for several years running. But why? [...]now that Chelsea Clinton is pregnant, Hilary Clinton's status as a grandmother is a hot topic. Will she be able to concentrate with a grandchild on the loose? I thought she was pro-baby murder, what a hypocrite! Is it sexist to talk about her grandchild and how it will factor into the election? Yes, no, yes. What does that have to do with anything? What about every other candidate for president, past and current? Did their status as a grandparent matter?
My decision in topic, at least, was inspired by my sister returning home after school, crying her eyes out because the girls' basketball team (which she was on) had won the state championship yet again, but in the weekly assembly, the boys' team was congratulated on losing by only a few points to an opposing team in a regular season game. Her championship wasn't even mentioned. As a follow up, she didn't even bother trying out for a school sport this semester. She writes down scores for the boys' baseball team, now.
This I Argue: Writing Process
Sabatino: Please discuss your writing process, including generative techniques, research, and revision.
Emma: Well, after my parents had me tutored in formal essay-writing for over a year, I didn't learn how to make my point in five short paragraphs or less, but I did completely forget how to write an outline and I gained a deep hatred for Great Expectations. Most of my material generation comes from just spitting my thoughts out in a blog post and then polishing them up a bit, polishing them up a bit more, researching my assertions and then backing them up. I tried not to limit the material I read from to .gov sites, which are pretty hard to decipher unless you're a macroeconomics major. Additionally, it's difficult to trust a large government on matters like poverty when the government contributes to the poverty. I did try to include a visual aid for my final draft of the essay, like we discussed, but... I don't know. I hope it gets the message across, even if it is crude.
This I Argue: Writing Product
Sabatino: Please discuss your writing product, including purpose, genre, and areas that need revision.
Emma: While my essay isn't as short and to the point as it would likely benefit from, I had a lot to say and I wanted to say all of it. I did my best to clean it up and sort it into slightly more manageable chunks -- the story I opened with didn't quite fit in, but I did try to pull a metaphor from the beginning of the information to the end of it. It's a lot going on, a lot of opinions, and a hell of a lot of numbers. With the visual aid, though, I think that most of the numbers could be skipped over -- the point is rather clear, at least in that area.
Personal Website
Sabatino: Discuss your experiences with creating and maintaining a website for this course.
Emma: At first, I sort of loathed logging on. My blog was sort of ugly and that cityscape graphic all over the place was incredibly annoying, but I didn’t have a lot of motivation to change it, since my SD card full of photographs was in my camera and retrieving it to move pictures to the website would take precious, precious effort. Once I actually started, though, I edited it a lot past its original theme and I’m quite content with it, now. It’s not nearly as much of an eyesore as it was. I was worried at first that the posts seemed a bit too much like clutter, especially with the cursive title font, but I’ve put most of them behind a read more (since I tend to ramble a bit). I’m not sure if this move was intelligent or not, but I left telling sentences or hooks for each post so the reader has an idea of what kind of post they’re getting into when they click Read More. I think that was a fair compromise. And again, having somewhere to upload my work directly is decent motivation to get things done.
Sabatino: Do you think your site is organized and easy to navigate?
Emma: I do, yes. Weebly is not a difficult site to operate for a halfway tech-savvy, teenage middle class able person. It’s all about drag and drop and it seems like it would be a bit difficult to mess it up, since the categories are all instinctual. There’s not a lot of visual clutter and the default options give you a nice, clean website, so your only options on any given page are to browse the page’s contents, travel to a new page, observe my header pictures, or close out of the tab. (Needless to say, if you have any trouble navigating my website, please let me know so that I can attempt to fix it.)
Sabatino: What type of identity have you constructed through your site? How have you revised your identity?
Emma: That of someone who doesn't fully complete all of their essays, evidently, but who is passionate about most of the things they discuss. I still have some of the blog entries from my TIW essay open from when I was copying the parts that were asked for and it kind of makes me shiver to think that that particular essay is still so unsatisfactory. I hate leaving a job undone. To be honest, I've worked on everything I could since I got home from college yesterday, but it's nearing the time for my weekly appointment with my psychologist and I won't get out until after noon, so I'm dreading having work unfinished while I talk about my feelings. C'est la vie.
Personal Blog
Sabatino: What are your thoughts about creating and maintaining a blog? Is your blog organized and easy to navigate?
Emma: Creating and maintaining a blog isn’t really new to me, though the Weebly platform is a good mix between the other blogging platforms I’ve tried before – a bit less simple than tumblr, but a fair bit less complicated than Blogger. I like to give off a good impression to people that I’m going to see and speak with in person, so – while I don’t intend to hide any of my strong beliefs – I’m not keen on spewing disorganized vitriol or blogging idly. I don’t really have to put in extra effort to type like this or anything, but I run a few other, informal blogs on tumblr (that I would rather be kept private) where it is more socially acceptable to completely drop the rigid structure of sentence formation in order to preserve one’s train of thought or convey a slightly abstract idea through a mixture of language itself and the manner through which it is presented. (Did you see that last sentence? I think it’s clear that I have difficulty preserving my train of thought when it is broken up by punctuation.)
Sabatino: What are your thoughts about blogging? Please consider the public, social network nature of a blog as well as your initial thoughts in the beginning of the semester as compared to now.
Emma: I think blogging is something to be celebrated – more helpful when it comes to understanding a person than a Facebook status or a twitter feed, though both have their merits. They're good for getting to know people, learning about more private things that can't be described in the character limits of other social networking sites, and exploring one's creative side. My younger sisters originally avoided the idea of running blogs like the plague (because it was something that I enjoyed and therefore wasn't cool), but now that they've actually started looking for things they like, they love it. A blog is like a multimedia scrapbook that a bunch of different people can look at whenever you update it -- people can get to know you through your blog, or old friends and relatives can check up on you, see how you're doing. Heck, I fell in love with someone I met while blogging. eHarmony has nothing on a shared love for horrible movies.
Questions for Midterm Conference
Sabatino: Parting comments? Questions for me?
Emma: I had a nice semester. Although I don't think my writing changed a lot, I do like the way I write a lot better now, so I think that's a plus. I enjoyed having a place to really vent out my anger about social injustice where I wouldn't get told off for it, and I'm pleased to see that one or two of my pieces provoked a thought in someone. That's all that really matters, in my opinion.