Here are the guidelines:
- Reading responses must be AT LEAST 250 words.
- Include your full name at the end of your comments. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
- From the "Comment As" drop-down menu, choose Anonymous, then click "Publish."
- Reading responses are due by 10pm on the day PRIOR to our discussion of the required reading.
This is my response.
ReplyDeleteI always had a love for writing since I was young girl. One thing I hated was how our writing had to be in a specific format. As the reading states, teachers have drilled us to write in this specific format for years. I feel like this has affected us as writers. Sometimes we are afraid to write what we really want and feel as writers. I have learned that by getting out of your comfort zone it helps you become better at writing. Teachers always gave us topics we had to write about, although they weren't interesting half the time. Now that we are college students we get to express ourselves more. One thing that stood out to me from the reading is where they explained how writing about personal deaths, and experiences aren't interesting to readers. From the reading I already gained knowledge I was not aware of. There are times I try too hard to have a good piece of writing, that I forget that simple gestures in your writing can do the job. I find myself stuck trying to make my audience feel the pain I felt during my tragedy. In the reading it mentions that your audience won't connect with you at that level since they don't know the person you wrote about personally. I get that now, there are other ways to connect. In the reading it also mentioned about keeping your distance, that's another thing I have to learn to do. Both private essays or public essays have strategies that can help with our writings. I just want to learn how to have good work using both private or public writing.
Lizette Garcia
Writing from my years in grade school showed how restrained and controlled the process was for creating an essay. The typical “five-paragraph” essay is by far the easiest to understand and the catalyst towards crafting the usual informative, persuasive, or personal essay. I find it somehow least difficult to answer certain topics with ease, but I guess it is because they’re a lot easier when I’m a few days before a deadline, which is unhealthy of me. As a fiction writer, having to build my settings or world, putting some details and little touches here and there, and dropping in several characters into the mix is exhilarating, especially when the ideas start pouring out of my mind. And now, I’m here attending a creative non-fiction class, I have to kick speculative fiction out the window and focus towards myself, which I feel little uncomfortable and find that I lack anything interesting. Yet, as from my previous creative writing class, with a “kick to the jugular,” any piece of writing, fiction or non-fiction, can catch the attention of the reader. It’s a rare genre I don’t like to touch. I always end up writing a troubling time in my life, either about family or friends, and put it on paper. I’ve written two unfinished pieces, one that holds my anger and true feelings about myself and others I’ve met, and the other of a recently bad moment in time. What I have to learn is that non-creative writing doesn’t have to be about the down and gloomy moments in one’s life, it’s the little joy and happiness that is experienced for the mere seconds in our lifetime, but caught in sentences and paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteHector Dimas
Over the years, I was taught that we had to follow rules when it came to essays or it was considered incorrect. Whether it was the five paragraph rule or having a sentence at the first paragraph explaining exactly what the essay was about. I like to think that when I write it’s to tell a story about something that happened. Not something with an exact format that sounds as if a robot wrote it. Creative writing is about giving life and emotions to a story like the reading explained. I do agree that we also have to stay on track if not the reader will lose interest and then, there’s no point to keep reading. Another important thing is to keep in mind that what we write is public, if you wanted no one to know about anything that you wrote about then it should be written on a diary. “Privacy is for your diary. Essays are for the readers”. I like this quote a lot because it’s true. I’ve known people that when it’s come to writing a personal essay they make it very personal yet when it comes to revising, they get offended. If something is written to be read, then we must expect to get a respond from the readers. Getting critiqued can be good. We must learn to take in what is said and see it from the reader’s point of view. At the same time we must open up when it comes to writing an essay but also know the limit to the story.
ReplyDeletePiedad Cisneros
Painting colorful images, with black and white words. Tends to be difficult, but that is what writing is. Recreating a world exactly as it was days, months, or years is close to impossible. In my opinion the smaller details you remember about a specific moment is what really makes the reader believe that something is true, it adds authenticity. Although, I also believe that this can be overdone and you can also lose the reader when you over describe something. For example, something that always blows my mind is that, when I am reading a piece by a writer, and there is two characters in an essay engaged in dialogue, there is absolutely no way you remember everything the other person said, word for word, especially if the dialogue is drawn out and long. So I have to ask myself, what part of this is true, and what part is not? Or is it all faux dialogue? I begin to question the integrity of the writer. My take is, make your writing sound authentic, but do not overdo it. Another thing Moore touched on in her essay was about writing on topics that half a HUGE meaning to yourself, about someone YOU love, or that had an impact on YOU. The purpose of writing in my opinion is to make a connection with a potential reader, this is hard to do when the reader never knew and or met the person you are writing about, it makes them careless. Furthermore, if there’s something I’ve learned from taking writing courses in college is that there is no actual format, at least not for storytelling. Sure, you’re writing should be showcased in a manner that is legible and cohesive, but it does not have to follow a 5 paragraph structure.
ReplyDeleteJesus Garcia
The typical grade school writing processes has always been a step by step check list that was more of a baseless thing rather than something beneficial to the writing. It was for a grade which made me focus more on doing the diagrams, charts, and drafts rather than paying attention to the content that I was putting in them. The overly redundant step by step process was always, in my opinion, a block for the creative flow. I like the idea of the “fresh approach”, and they are right rules are meant to be broken. Also the standard for the introduction of an essay was usually already structured for me, and that was hurting me rather than it being productive because then arises the problem of making the introduction “the right way” rather than paying attention to the actual context. Something I learned in my previous creative writing class is just to write and that has helped but I would get a little disorganized along the way. Some structure is good but how much is the right amount. One thing that Moore brought up was about the “deeper truth”. I like the idea of really digging deep and sharing the more personal emotions from what is going on rather than sharing the emotions that are already known from a certain experience, like the example of dementia. Instead of the “it’s not fair”, something we already know, to talk about feelings below the surface and really connect with the reader on a more personal level. That has always been a struggle for me. I want to be able express more emotion and get my readers to feel the emotions that I had from any experience happy or sad. Letting the reader in and being able to “reach” the audience is something I aim to do, hopefully this course helps.
ReplyDeleteJessica Guzman
If writing was to be introduced as storytelling in writing at a young age then we would have all become excellent writers. As a child we all wanted to be heard and understood, even now I think. Personally writing has always been for regurgitation of information, whether that'd be in a essay for school, or even for my own purposes. I have recently been in admiration of an authors ability to consume the reader with great writing. Never had I realized the power that they have to tell you a story, I must assume they were all great story tellers as children. As writing is introduced to us we learn it to be structured, limited and timed. It never really seemed to encompass life, therefor it was some what emotionless. Maybe it is even the fact that our prefrontal cortex was not developed enough to understand what writing truly is, with all the emotions it entails. I know write because in the moments that life happens I always find myself on the go, to slow down time, I write it so. I write not to impress others but to attempt to distress and share my exciting journey with the rest. I have a hard time showing emotions in the moment because I find that most are incapable of handling reactions. I would rather note it down then shout it out. I think that sharing experiences that not everyone sees in you is what I'd like to be able to accomplish. I would like to be truthful in being and in writing.
ReplyDelete-Elizabeth Diaz
I’ve always had a love for writing, but the school systems enforced writing process really drained the fun out of it. I didn’t particularly like being graded on work that wasn’t necessarily mine, but a watered-down school approved version. However, because of the years spent writing in that specific format, it’s really hard breaking away from that system that has continuously got me good grades. So, reading this was a good way to sort of ease me into the idea of writing in this new style. I really agreed and liked all of the concepts Moore brought up, and I really enjoyed the way he advised us (the readers.) The way he explained the difference between a private and personal essay really stuck with me, because I personally feel that it’s really easy to cross the line between those two concepts. Despite the fact that he was showing us how to make our work more personal by putting more of ourselves into it, he was always quick to remind us that the whole point of our writing was for our readers to be able to grasp an understanding of it. Sometimes it’s easy to just write on and on about things that make sense and connect with us, but it doesn’t translate well with the readers. It’s extremely important for your readers to relate to your writing because if it doesn’t “resonate” with them (in the words of Moore) then you’re writing something you’d only be able to read and understand.
ReplyDeleteAyesha Crutchfield
I have always considered writing to be an appropriate way of expressing my thoughts and emotions. Of course, this is usually the case for most writers. Yet many students who have been exposed to writing in grade school don’t develop the desire to write. Why? Students typically face the expectation of following a certain formula, or format, for the result of a “good paper”. Although this five-paragraphed format is meant to be helpful, I truly believe it to be more hindering. The standard of scholarly writing plants a fear of being wrong in the student, therefore they will follow this format to be on the safe side. Writing should not be done in a “cookie-cutter” manner, there would not be much purpose in writing if everyone wrote the same way. It is so important to approach writing the right way as an instructor. Whenever a person can feel a type of freedom from writing, they truly understand the desire to write. That is why I enjoy creative writing. Dinty Moore had the right idea when he discussed the art of writing, pinning it as “gentle”. Although it is literally black text on a blank page, the magical thing writers can do is create lively imagery in the minds of their reader by dressing their work with vivid vocabulary. I was fascinated by Toni Morrison’s likening of the Mississippi River to the memory of a person. The fantastic metaphor made me realize the positive effect one can have when they return to their “original place”.
ReplyDeleteDamaris Cantu
The first reading “The Gentle Art Of The Personal Essay” was quite interesting because the writer talks of how the school system forces us to write our essays a certain way that limits us and dulls us to the point that it is dry and tasteless. I like how the writer talks of how the essayist can take any topic that they like and examine it in every angle to find something “fresh and significant” and how their essay is a gentle art of endless possibilities of meaning and connection. With this it helps me understand some of the examples and metaphors that the writer gives in the second reading, “The Personal (Not Private) Essay”. I liked reading this one because it’s pretty much a tutorial on how you should write a personal essay which is great for me since I don’t know what a personal essay is. But thanks to this I have a clearer perspective on what it is, plus it gives me tips on how I can become a better writer if I ever want to create a book of my own. The examples are a great in understanding the authors “tutorial” because they show you how they put these tips into their writing and how it works to guide the reader down their journey through your personal essay. What helped me out the most was the example of Richard Rodriguez and his essay “Mr. Secrets”. His opening shows us how we can show the readers the way through our essay, how we give them what the essay is about that will allow them to get more from the reading rather than wonder where this is all heading or be confused the entire time. This can help me be more direct in my essays and not have readers stumble on my words and it also helps me get rid of that paranoia of me sounding stupid for not using big words since simpler one almost always works better.
ReplyDeleteAdrian Gonzalez
When it comes to essay’s I was taught to use a certain outline because according to the school system it was the correct and only way. A thesis statement along with five paragraphs along with a reasonable conclusion was the requirement. The teachers never allowed us to write from our personal point of view, it couldn’t be different more than half of the essays were the same using that certain outline. In the first journal, I like how he explains how we were “drilled” in with writing essays a certain way and how when it comes to writing a personal essay we write it in our “unique point-of-view”. It’s true most of time when I write a “proper essay” I try to make it seem like I know when I’m talking about when in reality I don’t. I also like how he says its “the endless possibilities of meaning and connection” because you can write the essay however you want but when other read it they can interpret it more than one way. In the second journal, I think it’s helpful that he’s explaining how you should write the personal essay and gives examples with it. One helpful example is an opening by Floyd Skloot he wrote about his mother’s death. He goes on by saying how writing about a loss won’t be as interesting as an embarrassing moment because its opening up the wound again that you once felt before. I agree with it because often when you’re reading something about a loved one being loss you don’t like feeling the sadness.
ReplyDeleteMonika Gonzalez
In the first essay, this is a topic that has been stressed in every english class i’ve taken. The whole “breaking from tradition” bit. I guess it’s good to be reminded that writing is supposed to be fulfilling and fun, not tedious and strenuous. I find the exercises the author provides as refreshing and very interactive instead of just reading tips. I really loved Terry Tempest William’s reason she writes. It really made me think about why I write, the way she described it as “whispering in the ear of a loved one” making it sound like something meaningful and romantic, lyrical and delicate. I could relate, My writing is like a whisper, it’s something delicate that I take pride in. In the second reading I enjoyed the analogies he added to get his points across, they were very helpful. The authors writing was very simplistic, making it extremely easy to understand and comprehend what they were trying to say. I found it very entertaining to read because I didn’t have to re-read anything in order to understand somewhat if what was going on. I found the idea of the streetcar very helpful towards my writing and how the author asks us as writers to treat our readers as tourists in a city. It is very easy to understand things from their point of view in that kind of analogy. I’ve always tried writing what i want and hoping the reader understand what i mean but now i understand that i'm not writing for me. I’m writing from me to them. Yes it is about me, but it’s not for me. This has been something i struggled with that now i understand and have a better idea of how to better my writing.
ReplyDelete-Bibi Ann Gonzalez
I was able to view different techniques for improvements to my writing styles by possibly using both readings as a checklist of my own nonfiction work. The comparison and examples of the differences of Personal and Personal (Not Private) identified a type of sub-genre that is easy to follow and useful for reference or incorporate. Although I have tried to target parts of my writing thought the ladder of abstraction, it was very helpful to have this kind of information on how to make those targets more impressionable. Breaking out of the structured foundation of writing is more difficult for me in some ways. I think there is a way to find balance in using the methods the readings identified. By deviating from that “structure”, which lead to the common introductions that Moore warns against, I can use those steps to begin to feel comfortable in exploring alternate ways to begin these types of essays. I found the method of Moore’s deliverance helpful in a way that I felt as if I had a more holistic way of examining writing habits that I currently use. Also, how I can improve on those styles of writing to be a stronger writer. Since nonfiction writing is a bit foreign to me, the small details and the exercises that the readings suggested seemed like great practice techniques and some that I will be trying. The “Healthy Distance” technique is something I need to work on. I tend to overthink about the information I present to the reader and often edit a few times to purposely disconnect it from my own identity, even though it drastically changes the depth of my content. I just don’t feel very comfortable on that personal level yet, but I’m looking forward to using the exercises to help me develop some type of comfort level related to nonfiction.
ReplyDeleteAmanda A. Gonzales
My apologizes for the late entry, but with the help of a fellow classmate, I was able to get my hands on Dinty Moore's "The Gentle Art of the Personal Essay" and "The Personal (Not Private) Essay" since it had been only recently that I joined this course. It was while reading the pieces that I was given the opportunity to analyze two distinct styles and techniques that were essential for the author to bring forth a “unique” voice that distinguished them from fellow writers. Showing me how I could break from the repetitive formats and structure that so many other writers have used over and over, and has been hammered into us as a “proper” way of writing an essay during our years in high school, Dinty Moore gave me what it needed for me to break from tradition and write in style my own. There are endless opportunities for those of whom could break free from the preconceived notion of what writing should look like. By doing so, they can bring something new to the literary world and create a new wave telling a story, their own story. Something as simple vocabulary, or the use of imagery, can do so much for your work. It just takes sharing something new in a unique way, your way that could end up resonating with your readers in a way others may have not. No longer should I write to impress, but to express, and if something I write reaches my readers in some meaningful level, then I have done my job. If not, I am still doing something that I love.
ReplyDelete- Patrick Diehl -
Writing to me is so fascinating because it is a great art form of expression. What is even more fascinating is the way people envision and interpret writings differently. Reading the two chapters of the book, Crafting the personal Essay by Dinty W. Moore, makes me realize that writing an essay is not torture it is actually fun. Before I started reading the chapters I asked myself, what could the author tell me that I already know? Actually I was very anxious to read the book because of the question it drew in my mind. Very surprised of what I read. Of all the topics and elements mentioned in the chapters I found the, “Remember the streetcar” piece very interesting.The analogy of the streetcar where an essay needs a lighted sign to tell the reader where they are going. A nice way to put it because a good written piece should take you for a ride. A good essay should transport you and not make you think of anything else. If one can accomplish that then work as been done.I think that should be the ultimate goal as a writer. In creative writing self expression can be a tool that leads the writer into paths or places you want. A very well written piece let’s you do that. That sense of satisfaction when a reader tells you they loved writing must be a great feeling.
ReplyDelete-Luis Antonio Rodriguez
From “The Gentle Art”, I learned that an essay is not something that is going to be perfect the first-time round. An essay is something that has to be typed and edited a few times before getting a true masterpiece out of the scribbles. When I first started in college, I had no clue on how to write a good essay. All through my school years, elementary through high school, my English teachers would only make very few changes to my essays, so I thought I was writing pretty good essays. The only issue I did have with all my essays was the run-on sentences. That is one issue I have till this day, but I am trying my best to break out of that habit. When I reached college level English, I found out my essays were not as great as I thought they were. Luckily I had great professors throughout the years that have helped me with my writing. What I liked from this chapter was what Moore quoted from Annie Dillard when she stated that “…no subject matter is forbidden; no structure is proscribed. You get to make up your own structure every time…” pg6 the truthiness behind it all is just amazing! Because it is true, we can make our essays about anything we ,ant, are they real? Did it actually happen? No one really knows but the author and that is the beauty of writing. We the authors get to choose who we want to write about, and how we want to portray the story.
ReplyDeleteCelica Chavez
I’ve honestly never really liked writing that much, I always tried to keep journals because I thought it was the cool thing to do but no part of me enjoyed it. I also had a really mean English teacher growing up and she always told me I wasn’t good at writing, so I never had confidence about it. I also really hated how I felt like we were a bunch of robots writing the same thing, every essay was the same format and we had a topic but they were mostly all the same just with a little different tweak. The reading taught me a lot about how writing and I feel that it actually gave me reasons to love it or I guess it showed me the reasons why I love it. Writing in college is much different; English is my minor so therefore I have taken my fair share of courses that involve lots of writing. I definitely think of writing as more of an art now then a hassle. But I really enjoyed the part where they talk about taking the 26 letters of our alphabet and turning it into words and then into sentences that show expression and make you feel ways that you didn’t think is possible. I believe that a true writer and someone that believes in themselves and their work can honestly make anyone believe them. I think that when they talk about most essayists breaking away from the norm and being creative, is a key part of being a successful writer. You have to get away from this robotic writer that elementary and high school made you become and you have to let your inner creativity come out!
ReplyDeleteJessica Young