Happy Halloween!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj1I1GH8ADw

Tardiness..

I got to class late today. :(
People were in my room until 3:00am (couldn't get them out!), so not a whole lot of sleeping took place last night. I totally woke up at 9:00am on the dot...but I made it to class within 15 minutes. Still late, but not too shabby! (Though, of course, shame on me for oversleeping.)

My New Favorite Thing

Pandora Radio!
http://www.pandora.com/

Thoughts on My Essay Draft

I am a little unsure about how I performed on the essay draft that we all had to turn in on Wednesday. I know that I still have a lot of work to do on it....but I don't know whether that "a lot" entails an entirely new essay, or just typical editing. I never gave myself time to just sit and read my essay and really digest what it was that I was doing with my text; I wasn't able to get as deep with it as I wished. I definitely intend to make time for that much-needed contemplation before the official essay is due...and Professor Grete's feedback will absolutely help me improve and refine my writing as well! I'm looking forward to getting her email! ....I think, haha.

Feedback on Feedback

Last Friday, we received the essays of another one of our classmates to look over during the weekend. We were instructed to write a two-page letter to them with encouragement and critique in order to help each other improve our essays. Tyler evaluated my essay on Islam for our Peer Review exercise, and he was very helpful! My essay is definitely still quite a bit of a "shitty first draft," and Tyler gave me insights that will help me bring my paper to be something more like a final draft. Tyler pointed out weaknesses in my paper that definitely need to be addressed in order for me to have a balanced, unbiased essay. He noted that I need to include more persuasive information and clarify to my readers what my argument regarding Islam actually is about. Tyler also reminded me that I completely forgot to cite my sources. Where would I be without him? ;)

Assessment Criteria for the Persuasively Informative Essay

In a good essay, an author should:

• Write about a relevant topic
• Keep the reader's attention
  
• State facts and citations to support his ideas/argument
• Express trustworthiness, sincerity, and reliability to the reader
  
• Write an essay that possesses clarity in persuasiveness and informativeness
  
• Write a story that the audience would be able to relate to
  
• Include his readers on his process of discovery that led him to write on the topic
• Always be thorough
• Initiate action and be a catalyst for change in the lives of his readers
• Efficiently do something with the text

Properties of The Essay

What makes an essay an essay? What separates it from poetry, articles, and short stories? What qualities stand up from the page on which they were sitting and inform us that we are, indeed, reading an essay?
It seems that essays are whatever all other structured types of writing aren't. It is writing without regulation. Essays are whatever the writer decides they are. There is no power dictating standards and stipulations. Anarchy on paper..?
I've never viewed essays in this light. I very much related to the author who referenced essays as something adults dread, remembering them as the endless writing and reading assignments we were given when we were younger. We were instructed to write on specific topics within certain guidelines and deadlines...but essays should be much more natural than what they were to us then.
I think, most of all, the essay needs to be heartfelt, genuine, and relaxed like a casual coffee conversation. Essays should flow out of our mouths and into our ears with ease. I need to be sure to pay attention to this foundation of the essay. Sometimes I can be too forceful in my writing; I tell myself that if I exert enough effort, I can force something into being a good essay. The evolution of essays takes grace, patience, and time. I don't want to hurriedly express myself, I want to leisurely savor every sentence as I direct my reader's attention to where my pen is about to press. I aim to capture my reader's attention, I want to present them with something that they can relate to and understand better due to my input and perspective.
Furthermore, my audience should sense that I care about my topic and that parts of who I am have been intertwined into the heart of that matter. I want my passion to be contagious so that I might possibly inspire someone to tilt their heads and think about what I mean.
I'm not sure what role imagination has with the type of essay I am working on, but I will wait and see how the incorporation of a little creativity evolves... this part of my essay goals may likely be abandoned.
Another part of my essay that I need to improve on is exploring opposing viewpoints so that my writing can be well-rounded. Maybe this calls for a few last-minute interviews of random people on my hall? We'll see.

There is much work to be done!

"Start By Getting Something--Anything"

"Shitty First Drafts" ....such a helpful essay! I feel really comforted by the fact that I am not the only one to endlessly stare at an empty, white page on my computer screen with twitching fingers and furrowed brow, and, hours later, still have no idea of where to begin becoming an author. Someone else, a professional writer no less, understands the feelings of frustration that writing can induce. Creating a piece of writing from nothing into something that inspires, instructs, declares, defines, describes, summarizes, equips, analyzes, compares, contrasts, narrates, or criticizes does not spontaneously happen for me. I thought that experts, who are much better at writing than myself, were capable of neatly writing out everything, revising a little, and then having a perfectly complete essay. But no, Anne Lamott reminded me that is not at all true. :)
I have never been one to write official drafts...my writing tends to just evolve from a rough sketch of my ideas to a (hopefully) complete work, typically all in one sitting. I have not never thought about writing out everything that I can think of, everything that I can turn from thoughts into text, and cut and paste that into an acknowledged "shitty first draft." If I did things that way, I could allow myself a transition from nothing to anything, and then from anything to something, and then from something to meaning. Accepting imperfection in my writing is a novel idea to me, and I think that is going to allow me to be much more at ease and flexible as I sit down to write my first "shitty first draft" for tomorrow's homework. I think my writing will improve by employing this transitional approach, and I think I will use this technique for future writing projects.

Purpose and Audience

The purpose of my essay will be to persuade my readers of the relevance and importance of becoming more familiar with the Islamic community. The tone of my essay will not be very entertaining, as we talked about in class, but most certainly informative. I consider this subject more serious than lighthearted, so I don't think my audience would appreciate a humorous satire about Islam. My audience most likely already knows how they feel about Muslims, so my goal is to change how many of them view this faith group. I intend to incorporate logos as well as pathos in my writing to help convince my audience of my perspective.
I'm honestly still mulling over my intended audience. Originally, my audience was 1. people who have never heard of or have little knowledge about the topic, and 2. people who know inaccurate facts about the topic. That's all well and good, but that is a really broad audience. Though that list still applies, I want to narrow it down. I talked to Professor Grete about it today in class and, as always, she was really helpful and gave me some great things to think about. I have a better idea of how I want to structure my essay now since I'm changing the way I'm viewing my possible readers. I think that as I contemplate my "Shitty First Draft" over the weekend my plans about what readers I am gearing my essay toward will continue to evolve, and I will have a good plan of action by the time I write my first draft.

Have a great weekend! I'm off to North Carolina for the next two days!

A Shout Out to Kayvan:

Kayvan tells the truth! I agree with him in that the library is a super valuable resource...
I had to watch a VHS for extra credit in one of my classes the other day, and I was bummed because I thought I wouldn't be able to watch it. Really, who has a VHS player these days, let alone in college? I asked around if anyone had any ideas, but I had no success. No VHS player, no extra credit. So what does my RA say? They have VHS players at the library. They have this convenient little VHS/DVD/TV setup right there on the second floor near the reception desk -where a lot of us took our Library Tour quiz. I don't know about anyone else, but I had no idea they offered that, and I was stoked. Yes VHS player, yes extra credit! After I watched the video (which was boring as all get out, by the way), I walked around the library and found a good nook for attacking my many reading assignments. No one bothered me. Amazing.
Stupid story, but the moral is: Kayvan is quite right by saying that the library's research databases are amazingly "Godlike", and I must add that this statement is true of pretty much the entire library!

Make-A-Wish Foundation

Who is it that is doing their research project on the Make-A-Wish foundation..? There is a group on Facebook advertising that Make-A-Wish is having a meeting for prospective volunteers who want to help out with MAW's many fund-raising activities on the Virginia Tech campus... Firstly, it's a good thing for all of us to know about, so I decided to post this for everyone to see. Secondly, I thought this might be a good experience for my fellow classmate to have as they do their research.
Here's the info and the link:
November 5, 2008
Squires Brush Mt B room
@ 8:30 pm
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=29068734773

Today's Class

I won't lie, I was really bummed to see on our course outline that our essays would be reviewed by the entire class today. Why? Because I knew that mine sucked! I spent most of our allotted time pursuing my topic from an angle that was uncharacteristic of my writing.... with no time to spare, I hesitated and started over! Bad move. So I rapidly wrote a really bad essay. I'm just glad that we won't have to do that for our upcoming graded essay; timed writing is not my cup of tea. But I guess it's good that I'm doing it, so that I can practice and get better!

After reviewing everyone's essays, our class discussed what constitutes a good essay. Here's the things we thought were important:

• Introduction
  
  • The introduction defines the reason the author is writing about the topic, the reason why the reader should continue to read, and it transitions the audience into hearing the meat of the topic.
• Captivating/Interesting
  
  • The reader is often impatient to understand what the writer is communicating, so the author of the essay must be efficient in capturing his audience's attention before they move on to something else.
• Good Structure
  
  • An essay needs understandable, logical organization and transition of ideas.
    
• Main Point
  
  • An essay should not be comprised of only facts and figures; it should have a purposeful main point for the ideas being passed on, along with some character mixed in.
• Informative
  
  • The author should give his readers good, factual information so that the audience can effectively learn from the essay.
• Conclusion
  
  • The conclusion summarizes the main idea, possibly expounds on what the author wants you to do with their argument/ideas/etc., and reiterates what the writer wants the reader to take away from their perspective.
• Legible
  
  • If handwritten, an essay is kinda sorta worthless if it is written in the foreign language of Chicken Scratch.

That's what we think is important!

Seriously...I love my English professor!

I knew that my research proposal would come back with a lot of critiques, but I had no idea of how much input Professor Grete would give me! I've never had a teacher put as much effort into helping me improve my work as Professor Grete has. Her feedback was really constructive, and I now have a much better idea of how I should make my proposal better. I understand the purpose of my proposal better, and I feel more capable of providing more clarity in it. I have a lot of work to do, but I'm actually looking forward to revising it!

Reviewing "The Stunt Pilot" and "Ali in Havana"

The Stunt Pilot
"Idly, paying scant attention, I saw a medium-sized, rugged man dressed in brown leather, all begoggled, climb in a black biplane's open cockpit. The plane was a Bucker Jungman, built in the thirties. I saw a tall, dark-haired woman seize a propeller tip at the plane's nose and yank it down till the engine caught..." I really enjoyed the way Annie Dillard expressed herself in this essay. This paragraph stood out to me as a good example of why I appreciated her style. "Idly, paying scant attention..." At first, I thought that these phrases were awfully similar and possibly on the repetitive side, but after I thought about it, they were coupled together in a way that gave a great look into what was going on in the scene the author so effortlessly described. I can just picture the narrator bouncing on her toes, arms crossed, relaxingly looking on as they air show began. The author overall does a great job of painting pictures with words without hefting around gaudy sentences with too many commas. (Have you noticed how that tends to happen? I overuse commas like it's my job!) I can learn a lot from the way this author describes things. The other thing that I like about Annie is that she uses really great action verbs, for example, "seize." Perfect, brief imagery.
I think one of the bigger lessons that I learned from Annie Dillard's writing was that she told the reader what to think without doing so obviously, it was subtle. At the very beginning, she inspired my imagination by seamlessly showing me the setting's surroundings, the situation's background, the weather, my attitude, even the texture of the ground I'm standing on as I'm leaning my neck back to watch the white streaks of an airplane cross the sky. Streaks which I've now been convinced are as artistic and unique as Picasso....and I definitely wouldn't have thought that before. As the essay continues, the author details her plane ride with Dave Rahm, detailing even the look of the snow she glimpsed at upside-down, mid-flight. Her description convincingly gives clarity and reality to her story.

Ali in Havana
The second essay that I read, "Ali in Havana," was interesting. It was humorous as well as strange, in a peculiar sort of way. I personally didn't like it as much as "The Stunt Pilot," but it was just a different type of essay, and a solid one, to be sure. I loved how the author, Gay Talese, described each character and setting in such a manner that the audience felt physically connected to what was happening on each page. The author allowed the readers to feel as though they had personally known each individual in the essay and he gave them the ability to see, feel, and even smell the environment of each scene. Talese described the bus ride by pointing out exactly where everyone sat, noting that the air in the bus was (fortunately for some, unfortunately for others) filled with "a costly cloud of fragrance" from the smoke of an expensive Cuban cigar, and also gave glimpses into some peoples' attitudes during the trip. I also liked that the author so uniquely compared the life of Muhammad Ali and Fidel Castro, something that is not at all readily apparent. He informs the reader and broadens their perspective.

I think what makes these writings "essays" is that they captivate, they inform, they entertain, they invoke curiosity and then satisfy that curiosity.... They tell a story with a purpose.

Help?

I am doing my assignment for Monday, and I can't seem to find "Silent Dancing." I searched for the book on Google Books, and I found it, but the book is not all inclusive. The book preview stops at page 67. Am I looking in the wrong place? ....and am I the only one having this problem?

:-/

Woo!

I'm sending off the draft of my research proposal right now!
...I hope it's okay!

Rewriting

What's your project?
My project is to investigate the rift between Islam and the secular world and research how that gap is being intentionally bridged. I am also seeking to build knowledge of Islam in those that do not understand it.

What works?
I think I have a passionate goal, and I have a lot of information to build on....almost too much information, to be honest.

What else might be said?/How might you acknowledge other views and possibilities?
One could say that I should leave well enough alone. They might believe that Islam is something that does not affect the "Average Joe," and that a lot of people have no desire to learn more about this community. Thus, I would be wasting my time by trying to raise awareness of this faith group.

What's next?
The implications of my perspective state that people need to be more tolerant of neighboring religious groups, i.e. Islam, and they must be more proactive in understanding the world around them.