Reflection on Recast

The story Currents that I chose to recast was about the drowning death of a boy in the ocean.  The story was written in reverse chronological order and was written to display the emotions of the people involved with the drowned boy and his death day.  Most people who chose this story to rewrite do so in the manner of a news report.  While this type of writing would allow for the facts of the story to be told, it allows less of the emotion of the story to show through.  I decided to instead write in a way that would allow me to incorporate the feelings of the people involved.  Originally I was going to write and obituary for the drowned boy, but seeing as we were told nothing of his life in the course of the original writing, for instance his name or his age, I decided to take a different approach that would allow me more freedom.

I chose to write a Eulogy from the perspective of the brother because other than the character of gary he is the character we know the most about.  By writing the words he would read at his brother funeral I could include his distress from the day, how he met Gary and his family and the atmosphere surrounding his brothers death, all without needing any more information.

Recast

The story which I chose to write in a different format was Currents by Hannah Voskui.  This piece was about a boy who drowned in the ocean.

Here is a link to the original version of the story.

I chose to rewrite it as a Eulogy from the drowned boys brother, one that would be read at the funeral mass.  

Here is the link to the Eulogy

Reflection on Parody

The story which chose to parody was A Lovers Ear.  In this story the narrator describes a situation in which the two main characters view ear cleaning as a metaphor for sex.  The author portrays the different way opposite genders view the act of sex.  This is describe more in detail in the previous entry, attached to the link titled analysis.  

The reason I chose to rewrite this story was because I thought it was an effectively used a metaphor that was very clear to every sort of audience, but it did not create a blunt obvious connection that would ruin the poetry of the story.  The reason I chose to relate the ear cleaning to the cleaning of a toilet was because of my person opinion of the lack of importance that has been given to the act of sex in todays society.  "Sex sells" is the slogan of the 21st century and it has created a generation of adolescents who view it as an animalistic pleasure rather than giving it the importance it deserves.  This is a topic I have thought much about and I do not need to preach my opinion to effectively get across the reasoning behind my parody.  A lovers toilet was written to show the lax view society currently places upon sex and the faults with this way of thinking.

Parody

The short short story I chose to parody was A Lovers Ear by Yuan Chiung-Chiung.  The analysis of this story is seen here, along with the way I chose to put my own spin on it

Analysis

A Lovers Toilet is the name I chose to give my parody.  It can be seen at the following link.

 A Lovers Toilet

Reflection on Research paper

I have never written an abstract or an annotated bibliography before taking English 289.  The idea of writing an abstract is still a little foreign to me, I am not sure if it is similar to an outline, in the it is written before the paper, helping the writer organize their thoughts and create a well written paper. Or if it is to be written after the papers completion, as a summary of the topics that were actually discussed in the paper, rather than what will ideally be written.  

For this particular pretend research paper is was nice to be able to chose your own topic, finding a genre that interests you allows for more in depth research.  People are obviously more likely to deeply learn about a topic of their choice rather than one being assigned.  

The part of this assignment I struggled with was the idea of writing an abstract for a paper that was never to be written.  While I am not complaining in any way about not being forced to sit down and write a 12 page paper, I find it kind of bittersweet to do all the research and be fully committed to a topic and then leave it as a 200 word abstract.  Who knows maybe with all the free tim DAAP leaves me I will find myself writing about childhood obesity, maybe.

Research Paper Abstract and Annotated Bib-Childhood Obesity

The obesity epidemic of America has reached an all time unwanted high, spreading its grasp to our youngest generations.  Here is a link to the abstract on the role parents play in prevent childhood obesity.

Here is a link to the annotated bibliography for the research paper on childhood obesity.

Annotated Bibliography.

Reflection on How-To Guide

A how-to guide is not something I feel would normally be seen in an English Writing class.  When we were told about this assignment my mind automatically went to the project we all did in elementary school where you have to learn to write descriptively enough that a class make being very literal can follow along to the directions you have written.  We all have a teacher who had us write how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and when a student would forget to say to untie the loaf of bread the teacher would smear the jelly all over the outside of the bag.  

Needless to say, we have all since graduated from that type of writing and this how-to assignment reflects they ways in which we have grown since grade school.  I thought this assignment was a unique but effective way to go about learning the difference between coherent and cohesive papers.  The average educated writer will write with one though flowing into the next, a natural way in which peoples minds function, also know has cohesion.  It is different however to attempt to make 4 different voices, and styles of writing fit together in one coherent piece of work. I started my how to guide by making all four different parts fit into the same format of bolded lists by category.  I originally assumed this was all that needed to be done to make this guide read as a singular piece of work, after rereading it however I realized that it was very apparent there were still four different voices still present.  I then had to go back and read each sentence aloud, making it sound as if it had been written by myself.  I chose to have all the pieces formatted into the way in which I write simply because it is easiest for me to be consistent that way.

My individual Contribution to the How-To Guide: Mount Adams

Experiencing the real Cincinnati: Final Version with all pieces