Camryn Ward's Journal Response

A&B Chapter 18, pgs. 479-481 (Skill 18.2) and pgs. 484-485 (Skill 18.4), The Little Penguin Handbook, pgs. 217-254, Part 6, "Understanding Punctuation and Mechanics"

The main idea of this reading is to learn to tell your story with certain words or ideas that will provoke the reader’s imagination. You need to use concrete words that will put an image into the reader’s head while they are reading, basically causing them to relate and understand better. There are two kinds of words to use, revelatory, and memory-soaked words. Revelatory words are words that associate with telling you the lifestyle, beliefs, values, etc. Memory-soaked words are words that will cause you to think about a whole chain reaction of events. They cause you to think of other ideas, emotions, and memories in a particular area. Nobody wants to read a story that is bland and straight to the point. Those “boring” details will make up the body of your story. I plan to use the Ladder of Abstraction to help my paper. I will make a list of events that I want to implement into the story, and then list the details and feelings that would associate with those events and how I would include them. It will help to know what I am trying to convey and plan out how to put that into my paper before I start, that way I know before hand.

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"Last Shot," Tobias Wolff and A&B Ch. 6, pages 125-130, 133-135, and 137-141, A&B Chapter 18, pgs. 475-479 (Skill 18.1)

The main idea of this reading is to learn how to better write about a significant event as a “story” instead of the traditional essay we are all trained to write. You should be able to understand what should be apart of autobiographical writing in order for it to be well-written. Tension, plot, character, setting, and theme are key components of a personal narrative paper. A technique I read about is asking questions to help shape and draft your paper. When you are trying to start the writing, you can ask questions like, “What are the major contraries or tensions in this story?” or, “What insights or meaning does you think your story suggests?” Asking questions like these will help you to get your writing going and have an idea of what questions to ask and to answer in your paper. I will use this in my writing to help stay on the main idea of the topic, and include all the information I need to. There are also questions to ask to help with developing the characters and setting, plot, and how to conclude or end your paper. I will ask these as I continue to write my paper, and as I revise what I have now.

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A&B Chapter 16 pages 426-431 (skill 16.4)

The main point of this reading was talking about peer reviews. When you are reviewing someone’s paper, you need to go through their writing as a reader, rather than a writer. As well as finding problems in their paper, you need to help to brainstorm ideas of how to fix each of the problems. If you get lost in some parts, then help make it more clear. If you can’t see the main idea, come up with some ways for them to implement it better into the paper. I am going to try and do a peer review workshop, to help and get feedback from others. You get a group of about 6 people and switch your papers around to get tips and ways that you can make your paper better. It will be good to get lots of different perspectives and opinions on my paper and different ways to improve it. Lots of times when you’re writing or revising your own paper, you only think of it in one way. Having others revise it will help you to open up your mind to other possibilities. I don’t do very well with criticism, I get very embarrassed and overly sensitive, so this will be something new for me.

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A&B Chapter 1, pas. 14-19 (Concept 1.3) A&B Chapter 17, pas. 462-467 (Skill 17.8) "Thesis statement" paragraph, pg. 3

This reading talks about closed-form writing, and open-form writing. Closed-form writing is very structured, planned out, and has lots of details. It basically presents the whole paper and what it will be talking about, and then it talks about each separate piece throughout the paper. It is a pretty predictable structure and is mainly good for business settings. While open-ended writing is structured like a story and is without set transitions. It lets you to interpret the writing in your own way, instead of the writer telling you what you are supposed to be reading and thinking throughout the paper. A skill I plan on using is to decide what kind of writing will fit best for the type of paper I am writing before I start. It will help set the entire tone of the writing and can basically make or break the paper. I will figure this out by researching the topic, and by knowing what type it is, I can figure out what will fit best for the paper. Depending on what type of audience I have, what subject, and what message I am trying to send out or just the purpose of my paper, is how I will decide which tone or writing style to be using.

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A&B Chapter 2, pgs. 22-32 (Concept 2.1)

To stimulate good writing, you need to ask open-ended questions instead of questions where you are expecting one answer. It will help to get multiple viewpoints for your writing and help you with your research and critical thinking. You also need to apply your complex thinking to other areas in your life. The mistake most people make is that they ask a question expecting one specific answer that they can write about. You should have a thesis that can be answered in more than one way. I am going to practice rising "Idea Mapping" more. It is a good way to connect your thoughts together, and to also find alternative ways to talk about your topic. It will help me to see how my new thoughts are related to the ones I first put down, and have a large variety of roads to take when I'm writing my papers. I'll start doing this every time that I have a paper to write. If i've chosen my topic already I will use this, or if I haven't. I'd be able to do it as many times as I need until I figure out which topic has the most ways to write about, or answer the question.

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