I feel that I did a good job at explaining my point with decent wording but with a clear tone. I feel that I need to work on finding more evidence and finding more ways to expand upon my point being that my Awkward draft was too short to my liking. I plan on doing this by doing much more voyage out methods and freewriting to hopefully produce more ideas to use for the essay.
Metaphor:
My essay is like a twix bar
I'm missing something
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Awkward Responses to Isabel and Ruslan's Draft
Isabel
Your center of gravity (or at least what I think it is) is the style of narration Yunior has. You describe him as one who doesn't get too deep or philosophical and tells the story how it is with no sparks or flares. From your center of gravity you go on to describe a specific scene from Drown where Yunior shares how he feels contradicting your previous statement that he doesn't share his feelings. You continue on to many other situations with Yunior and what we can learn from him from what he shares.
What I'm having trouble identifying is the "so what?". How does Yunior simple, straightforward storytelling affect it? I have a similar situation in my draft of where I make a statement but not a stance. What I want to know is why is Yunior's language this important.
Ruslan
Your center of Gravity is the multiple ways Diaz makes his story confusing/make more sense. You explain that methods that he uses such as flashbacks, withholding basic info, as well as the emotions of the personalities he creates are what makes his story confusing and secretive. You then continue on to explain how each of these methods make his stories confusing in their own way.
What I want to know more of is why might he do this? What might he get from making his stories confusing, and missing vital details?
Your center of gravity (or at least what I think it is) is the style of narration Yunior has. You describe him as one who doesn't get too deep or philosophical and tells the story how it is with no sparks or flares. From your center of gravity you go on to describe a specific scene from Drown where Yunior shares how he feels contradicting your previous statement that he doesn't share his feelings. You continue on to many other situations with Yunior and what we can learn from him from what he shares.
What I'm having trouble identifying is the "so what?". How does Yunior simple, straightforward storytelling affect it? I have a similar situation in my draft of where I make a statement but not a stance. What I want to know is why is Yunior's language this important.
Ruslan
Your center of Gravity is the multiple ways Diaz makes his story confusing/make more sense. You explain that methods that he uses such as flashbacks, withholding basic info, as well as the emotions of the personalities he creates are what makes his story confusing and secretive. You then continue on to explain how each of these methods make his stories confusing in their own way.
What I want to know more of is why might he do this? What might he get from making his stories confusing, and missing vital details?
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Monday, May 11, 2015
5/11/15 H.W. : "Break the Bridges to Build the City"
Questions I Have for Myself of my Author's Work
-If he were to read my imitation of his work how accurate would he consider it?
-What would Diaz think of the assignment as a whole? Respected that we're trying to model his style or offended for attempting to?
-The echoing themes that we find in his work in class, are they intentional or something we had just happened to notice?
-How does he create these stories? Does he go over the order of events from each metaphor and flashback or free-write it out?
-When writing this series of stories did he expect it to do as well as it did?
Passages I Found to be Hot Fyre
"He spent both nights with the Tunti people, resetting the trap and burning the blood and when he came back he was grinning and tired, his white hair everywhere, and my mother had said, You look like you've been out getting ass." (Aguantando 72)
Everything about this statement is great. From its descriptive length, to the language he uses to describe his Grandfather, to finally his mother's statement of his Grandfather getting ass. While being humorous and descriptive, it gives off what I would feel as a positive vibe coming from the family despite being in such troubling times which is something that I thoroughly enjoy. I also like the way he describes his grandfather because it gives me the satisfying image of a grinning, inventing, mad man. In terms of my story I understand that if I want to create and idea of somebody, I need to use details as almost pieces of a puzzle to fully exploit the intended image that I am attempting to create.
"He has his power of INVISIBILITY and no one can touch him." (No Face 155)
This is another one of my favorites from the story mainly because that it is from the point of view of Ysrael. It's also possibly the only story written in a third person view so in reality we don't really know who the narrator is. I'm not sure why I'm drawn to this statement but it is one that stuck with me even after reading the book. Perhaps it's because I enjoy the thought of Ysrael of having the powers of invisibility. It's sad because I can't find much more than I really like this statement and I don't know why.
-If he were to read my imitation of his work how accurate would he consider it?
-What would Diaz think of the assignment as a whole? Respected that we're trying to model his style or offended for attempting to?
-The echoing themes that we find in his work in class, are they intentional or something we had just happened to notice?
-How does he create these stories? Does he go over the order of events from each metaphor and flashback or free-write it out?
-When writing this series of stories did he expect it to do as well as it did?
Passages I Found to be Hot Fyre
"He spent both nights with the Tunti people, resetting the trap and burning the blood and when he came back he was grinning and tired, his white hair everywhere, and my mother had said, You look like you've been out getting ass." (Aguantando 72)
Everything about this statement is great. From its descriptive length, to the language he uses to describe his Grandfather, to finally his mother's statement of his Grandfather getting ass. While being humorous and descriptive, it gives off what I would feel as a positive vibe coming from the family despite being in such troubling times which is something that I thoroughly enjoy. I also like the way he describes his grandfather because it gives me the satisfying image of a grinning, inventing, mad man. In terms of my story I understand that if I want to create and idea of somebody, I need to use details as almost pieces of a puzzle to fully exploit the intended image that I am attempting to create.
"He has his power of INVISIBILITY and no one can touch him." (No Face 155)
This is another one of my favorites from the story mainly because that it is from the point of view of Ysrael. It's also possibly the only story written in a third person view so in reality we don't really know who the narrator is. I'm not sure why I'm drawn to this statement but it is one that stuck with me even after reading the book. Perhaps it's because I enjoy the thought of Ysrael of having the powers of invisibility. It's sad because I can't find much more than I really like this statement and I don't know why.
Saturday, May 2, 2015
An Awkward Letter to Junot Diaz
Dear Junot Diaz,
I thoroughly enjoyed your book despite having no condescending plot, and being a series of short stories, two characteristics of books that I dislike. I don't know why I like it as much as I did but I found it a pleasure to read. I'm drawn to your writing style (or at least more than I am to Maxine Hong Kingston) because I find that yours is more straight forward. I find Maxine's writing style to be too poetic to my liking to the point that I get her dreams confused with the reality she presents. And while you have metaphors in your book they are more subtle and therefore I find it to be more interpret-able as well as poetic. You also seem to be able to capture human nature of the characters in the book as if they were each you when you were younger.
I thoroughly enjoyed your book despite having no condescending plot, and being a series of short stories, two characteristics of books that I dislike. I don't know why I like it as much as I did but I found it a pleasure to read. I'm drawn to your writing style (or at least more than I am to Maxine Hong Kingston) because I find that yours is more straight forward. I find Maxine's writing style to be too poetic to my liking to the point that I get her dreams confused with the reality she presents. And while you have metaphors in your book they are more subtle and therefore I find it to be more interpret-able as well as poetic. You also seem to be able to capture human nature of the characters in the book as if they were each you when you were younger.
30 minute Free-Write
The task here I guess is to find flashes of memory or whatever or something like that at least. Im not sure what to really write about or what really comes to mind first. My childhood wasn't really that eventful. Pretty average really. The same thing happened over and over again and no wild or exiting things really come to mind or that I find drawn to. I went to three schools before coming to bard. PS15, Grand Concourse Academy, and Ps3. One thing that really shaped me was that transition. I used to find myself to be sensitive. Too sensitive. As in everything bothered me or every insult whether serious or not I took seriously. Always looking for someone else's approval and always so goddamn arrogant. I hate my younger self with a passion. I like to think that he and I are two different people. Sometimes I wish I could do things over where I don't hate my younger self. Thinking about it there is one thing that comes to mind when thinking of my transition from the charter school to the public one. I was not ready for it at all. The maturity levels of kids in Public school are way higher than those in a public charter school. During my first weeks I was bullied pretty hard. Back then I took it pretty seriously but thinking about it now I probably deserved it. Hell, I would bully me too. There are things I wish I learned before going to a public school. Like how much the brand of your clothes mattered, or your hair cut. The closest definition I had of a shape-up were those sketchers shoe commercials I had seen the week before. One thing that sticks out to me most was when the question we had to answer was: If you were stranded on an Island list what five things you would bring? While some answered with common answers like food and water, others answered with oreos and kool-aid or something stupid like that. I, feeling like I HAD to prove how clever I was went with the smart ass answer of Solar panels, radio, communicator, and two other things I can't remember. From that day onward I was known as the asshole who brings solar panels to an island.
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