Writing Once Again

Over the course of the semester in English 131 I have worked to develop better critical thinking and writing skills through letter writing, journal writing, and writing essays with a focus on longhand and writing for an online audience through the use of a blog.  Though all of the writing I have done over the course of the semester has helped me to become a better and more thoughtful writer, I believe that letter writing and journal writing have had the most impact on my writing not only in the classroom but outside of the classroom in my personal writing as well.  I have loved to write from a young age, because when I write I feel as though I can express what I am trying to say more clearly to others and also to myself when I am writing in my journal simply for my own personal use.

For me, writing has always been cathartic and has helped me to express exactly what I want to say while also helping me to think it through.  In the past I would journal almost every night, however I had gotten out of the habit of doing so. The letter writing and journal writing that we did in class inspired me to buy myself a personal journal and begin letting my feelings flow from my heart and mind onto the page.  The prompts that Professor Lucas gave to the class to write about in our journals such as “What memoir do you have to tell?” and “What song in your playlist stays on your brain? What truth or lie does it tell?” helped me to think critically not only about my writing but also my life.  I have always been someone who enjoys asking questions and these prompts led me to ask myself Why is your favorite song White Houses by Vanessa Carlton? and Why is this memoir what you have to tell? while writing at home in my journal.

The journal writing and letter writing that I completed during English 131 is significant to me as a writer because it helped me to develop critical thinking skills that I will apply in my future writing both personal and public, such as on my blog.  Also, as someone who reads quite a bit outside of the classroom, I feel that reading Our Town, The Underground Railroad, Creature, and The Devil and The White City and having to think and write critically about them all has helped me to experience books in a deeper way and develop critical thinking skills as not only a writer but as a reader as well. As I was reading Our Town by Thornton Wilder I began to think deeply about what Simon Stimson meant at the end of the play when he says that to be alive is to “spend and waste time as though you had a million years.  To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another” (109). After reading this I began to reflect on my own life and how I spend my time and I was able to express this in my journal and critical essay for class. As I was reflecting on Simon’s words from Our Town and how I spend my time I began to think about the article “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” by Jean M. Twenge and the effects that too much screen time can have on young people and how “The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health” (par. 9).  I came to the conclusion that I am not immune to the effects of too much screen time and I should spend less time on my phone and more time enjoying the little things in life so that I don’t waste the days away.

Thinking critically about my life and my writing has caused my writing skills to undergo many changes over the course of the semester and I now I have a deeper appreciation for the power of words, both through reading and writing.  In my journal I expressed my love for reading when I wrote “reading is as necessary for me as the air I breathe. It helps me to reflect on life in a way that nothing else can”.  All of the assignments that I completed in English 131 complemented one another and each made my writing a little better, one step at a time.  Through letter and journal writing I have been able to express myself and enjoy writing in a way that I didn’t even realize was possible.

 

My Journal

 

Works Cited

Twenge, Jean M. “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The Atlantic, Atlantic

Media Company, 4 Aug. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/.

Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. 1938. Harper Perennial, 2003.

Annotated Bibliography

Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City. Vintage, 2004.

The Devil in The White City by Erik Larson takes place during the 1893 World’s Fair.  Throughout the book Larson weaves the story of America’s first serial killer, Dr. H. H. Holmes, and the story of Daniel Burnham, the chief architect behind the the composition of the Chicago World’s Fair.  Throughout The Devil in The White City Larson creates a book that is not only historically accurate, but that makes the reader feel as if they’ve been transported to 1893 Chicago during the turn of the century with the height of the World’s Fair and Holmes reign as a serial killer.

Lucas, Jane. “Through a Glass Darkly: Girl at the Mirror and Grover’s Corners”.

https://janelucas.com. Published 20 November 2017. Accessed 29 November 2017.

“Through a Glass Darkly: Girl at the Mirror and Grover’s Corners” compares the lives and feelings of Emily Gibbs from Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and the young girl in Norman Rockwell’s painting Girl at the Mirror.  Both of the girls long to be pretty and wanted by society and men.  In the critical analysis Professor Lucas explores the complexity of both the innocence and sexualization of Emily and the Girl at the Mirror.

Richtel, Matt. “Blogs vs. Term Papers.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/muscling-in-on-the-term-paper-tradition.html.

In Matt Richtel’s article for the New York Times “Blogs vs. Term Papers” he explores the benefits of teachers having their students keep a blog rather than write long term papers.  Richtel displays extreme points of view on both sides, the people that want to completely eradicate the term paper, and those who are against the blog altogether because they feel it does not teach critical thinking and argumentation skills.  Richtel is able to convey the positives and negatives of both blogs and term papers to readers of his article.

Twenge, Jean M. “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 4 Aug. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/.

The article “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” by Jean Twenge is a look at the effects that social media, the internet, and too much screen time is having on young people.  In the article Twenge explores the idea that too much screen time is leading teens to feel isolated and experience more depressive tendencies.  The article aims to help readers understand the negative ways that smartphones contribute to teens mental health and the way that they act and present themselves in the world.

Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad. Doubleday, 2016.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead follows the journey of Cora, an African American slave from Georgia, as she decides to take the fictional Underground Railroad north to escape her controlling and abusive slave owner.  In the novel Whitehead takes a different stance on the Underground Railroad, a network of people and safe houses that helped African Americans get to freedom in the United States during the 1800s, and utilizes the opportunity to make the Underground Railroad a literal train that runs under the earth to carry slaves towards freedom.  Through this, Whitehead creates a work of fiction that is both innovative and powerful.  

Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. 1938. Harper Perennial, 2003.

The play Our Town by Thornton Wilder takes place at the beginning of the 1900s and follows the characters George Gibbs, Emily Webb, and others of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire through birth, marriage, and death.  The play is a testament to the stereotypes of small town America, however it goes deeper than that and explores the idea that not all small towns are the epitome of the great American life and that there is something eternal about humans, regardless of how mundane their lives may seem.

Advertisement

Birth, Marriage, Death, and Something Eternal

The play Our Town by Thornton Wilder follows the characters George (Jack Verner), Emily (Callie Cope), and others of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire through birth, marriage, and death.  The play is a testament to the stereotypes of small town America, however it goes deeper than that and explores the idea that not all small towns are the epitome of the great American life and that there is something eternal about humans, regardless of how mundane their lives may seem.  After reading and watching the LR Playmaker’s dress rehearsal of Our Town it is evident that Thornton Wilder decided upon an omniscient narrator and minimalist props and set for a reason.  Through his unique choices Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, as stated by Donald Margulies, “explode[s] the accepted notions of character and story” (xv).  The use of the minimal props and an omniscient narrator allows readers and those watching the production to focus on the story being told, the intricate emotions of the characters, and the themes of birth, marriage, and death.

Readers of Our Town and those watching the production are able to focus on the script and the emotion it conveys at the end of Act III when Simon Stimson (Derek Spencer) says that to be alive is to “spend and waste time as though you had a million years.  To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another” (109).  In this section of the play the use of minimalist props and set allows readers and audience members alike to focus solely on what Simon is saying and how he is saying it without any distractions.  Simon’s words and the meaning they carry instinctively causes the readers and audience members to reflect on their own lives and ask themselves if they are truly living or just wasting the days away.

Our Town does not only involve audience members in the production by causing them to reflect on their own lives.  Audience members are also spoken to directly by the Stage Manager (Rev. Andrew Weisner) and are therefore engaged in the production in an unconventional yet interesting way.  In many parts of the play the Stage Manager breaks the fourth wall by telling the audience the story of Grover’s Corners.  This use of the Stage Manager as an omniscient narrator gives audience members a new notion of character and story by causing them to feel as if they are part of the story, which in turn causes the audience to be invested in the characters and story in a whole new way.

Thornton Wilder achieves the act of expelling accepted ideas of character and story in Our Town by allowing readers and audience members to construct the majority of the setting using their own imagination and also allowing them to to be engaged in the story by the breaking of the fourth wall.  He reveals that to get the audience invested and for a play to be worthwhile it does not have to have elaborate props and a traditional narrator.  Because readers and those watching the production of Our Town are invested in the story from beginning to end they are left feeling as if they have experienced it all–birth, marriage, and death with the residents of Grover’s Corners.  Even in the last words of the play the audience is involved when the Stage Manager says “You get a good rest, too. Good night” (112).  The audience is left feeling that there truly is something eternal in the world and that life goes on not just for Grover’s Corners, but for the world and for themselves as well.

 

Works Cited

Margulies, Donald. Foreword. Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Harper Perennial, 2003, pp. xi-xx.

Our Town. By Thornton Wilder. Dir. Lindsay Weitkamp. Perf. [Rev. Andrew Weisner, Derek Spencer, Callie Cope, Jack Verner] LR Playmakers, Lenoir-Rhyne U., Hickory, NC. [8] Nov. 2017.
Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. 1938. Harper Perennial, 2003.

Animating The White City

The Devil in The White City by Erik Larson takes place during the 1893 World’s Fair.  Throughout the book Larson weaves the story of America’s first serial killer, Dr. H. H. Holmes, and the story of Daniel Burnham, the chief architect behind the the composition of the Chicago World’s Fair.  Throughout The Devil in The White City Larson creates a book that is not only historically accurate and intriguing, but that makes the reader feel as if they’ve been transported to 1893 Chicago during the turn of the century with the height of the World’s Fair and Holmes reign as a serial killer.  It is evident that one of Larson’s goals when telling a historical narrative is to make readers feel as if they are experiencing the events along with the characters, and he discussed this during his presentation for the Visiting Writers’ series at Lenoir-Rhyne University on October 26, 2017.

During his presentation at Lenoir-Rhyne University Larson described himself as an “animator of history”, because he isn’t a historian and he also doesn’t make things up.  As someone who animates history one of Larson’s goals is to help readers “suspend their knowledge in order to enjoy and rediscover the story”, especially since many of his books focus on well known historical events.  Larson also discussed the importance of detail to him when when writing a work of narrative nonfiction.  He is able to achieve his animation of history through his extensive use of detail in the book.

Larson uses detail in the passage from the beginning of the book when he states “It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root.  This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history.” (12)  In this passage Larson makes the reader feel as if they are witnessing Chicago as it is before the world’s fair, dark and grim, with not much hope to be found.  However, the reader is aware that Chicago will not stay in the dark for much longer, because something momentous is about to occur.

After the momentous event that is the World’s Fair has come and gone, after Chicago has been changed forever and the lives of many have been taken by H. H. Holmes, Larson is still able to help readers imagine the aftermath of the fair.  In the time after the great architects behind the fair and Holmes have all passed away, Larson, in the last sentence of the book, leaves us with the words “On a crystalline fall day you can almost hear the tinkle of fine crystal, the rustle of silk and wool, almost smell the expensive cigars”. (390)

Through the last words of The Devil in The White City Larson leaves the reader feeling as if they have come full circle and experienced Chicago in all its glory before, during, and after the World’s Fair and Holmes’ killing spree.  Through Larson’s animation of history the readers have been witness to Chicago’s transformation from grim and dark to the White City.  Through  his use of detail and articulation of words, the last words of The Devil in The White City leave the reader feeling melancholy for a place and time they’ve never physically visited, yet Larson allowed them to experience through his animation of history.

Works Cited

Larson, Erik.  The Devil in the White City. Vintage, 2004.

“An Evening with Erik Larson.”  LR Visiting Writers Series. 26 October. 2017, P. E.   Monroe Auditorium , Lenoir Rhyne U., Hickory, NC.

An Interview With Amor Towles

On Friday, September 29 I had the opportunity to attend a presentation by author Amor Towles at Lenoir-Rhyne University where he answered questions about his novels A Gentleman In Moscow and Rules of Civility and also discussed his creative process. One thing that Towles discussed about his process when writing a novel was the importance of outlining. He stated that in order for a novel to come together as a whole and cohesive work of art you couldn’t simply “make it up as you go along”. I found this information useful and realize that although I am not in the process of writing a novel, outlining is something that I can apply to my own academic and personal writing. The most interesting thing to me that Towles discussed was the importance of curiosity as not only a writer but also as a human being. His discussion of curiosity led me to the question “How can I best foster curiosity and continue to foster curiosity in myself throughout my life?”. During Towles’ discussion he talked about the value of imagining yourself in different perspectives and reading from different perspectives because of the empathy that it leads to. As someone who is an avid reader I try to read as diversely as possible and from as many different perspectives as possible and I appreciate that Towles discussed this during his presentation. I am glad that I was able to attend Amor Towles’ interview because I feel that I now have a better understanding of the creative process that writers go through as well as the time and detail that goes into their work.

Breathing Life Into The Written Word

 

On Thursday, September 21 at 7:30 pm I had the opportunity to see the play Creature performed by the LR Playmakers in Belk Centrum at Lenoir-Rhyne University. The play follows the journey of Margery Kempe (Liz Bokhoven), a real woman who lived in the 1400s and had visions of Jesus and the devil that changed her perspective on the world and how she wanted to live her life. After Margery’s visions we continue to follow Margery as she attempts to become a saint and how this affects her relationships with people in her life such as her child and her husband John (Chase Fowler). As someone who read the play before watching the production it was evident to me that watching a play performed connects the reader in a whole new way to the play and transforms their perspective of the characters.
The LR Playmaker’s production of Creature gave me a new and more thoughtful perspective than what I had previously perceived as I was reading the script. The production of Creature differed in many ways from what I saw in my mind as I read the script. For example, I imagined Father Thomas (Benjamin Thomas-Reid) to be an older priest even though in the play Margery tells Father Thomas that he looks “like a giant baby” (11). From reading the script the assumption could be made that Margery was being sarcastic instead of serious. However, by having a younger actor play the character of Father Thomas in the production it led me to realize that perhaps the priest whom Margery visits several times throughout the play for advice and guidance is in fact younger than Margery herself. This realization gives a new dynamic to the relationship between Margery and Father Thomas. Also, while reading the play it would be easy for the reader to picture Juliana (Milissia Koncelik) to be more serious than she was portrayed to be in the production. In the production the actor portrayed the character of Juliana to be more funny than I expected which gave her a more interesting and complex personality. In the play Juliana tells Margery that sometimes she thinks, “Confession was invented just to give the poor priests a little taste of life” (72). When I read the script I imagined Juliana to be more sarcastic than humorous as she said this line, however on stage the actor was able to portray humor and sarcasm as she spoke the line by laughing as she talked. I enjoyed watching both Father Thomas and Juliana being brought to life differently than I imagined them because it helped me to reflect on how I interpreted the play as I read the script versus how I interpreted the production.
Although my expectations of Juliana and Father Thomas were challenged as I watched the LR Playmaker’s production of Creature, my expectations of Margery were reinforced. In the production Margery was everything I imagined her to be and more, by watching the production I was able to foster a deeper understanding for the character of Margery and her thoughts and feelings throughout the play. One of the things that amazed me most about the production was how well the actor that played Margery (Liz Bokhoven) performed while simultaneously holding her script. Throughout the production I very rarely even noticed the actor looking at her script. The production of Creature revealed that Margery was more than simply a character in a play but rather a real woman who was overflowing with thoughts and emotions. As I was watching the production it occurred to me that the actor portrayed in Margery a level of believability that was not present to me while reading the script. Margery’s strengths and faults were brought to life during the production and she became a tangible and dynamic character which in turn made her believable. During the play Margery wants to get something from the pantry so she asks John “will you please give me my keys?” (20). During the production I could vividly see the frustration and anger on Margery’s face as she shouts this at John. At that point in the production Margery’s actions seemed logical to me. I believed that Margery was a frustrated woman who deserved to have her keys given back to her. As an audience member during the production I felt much more sympathy for Margery than I did as a reader while reading the script.
Watching the production of Creature helped me to see the play from a new perspective and changed my thoughts on many of the characters as well as how I viewed the play as a whole. The production revealed not only the intensity of the play but also the humor and sarcasm that was present as well. The production was able to convey the emotions that Margery felt in the time after her visions and also brought to life the personalities of the characters. Watching the production of Creature gives you an understanding of the play that you cannot get from reading the script alone. By watching the production you are able to watch the events of Margery’s life unfold as if you were in 1401 witnessing it for yourself. The LR Playmakers achieved the daunting task of bringing the written word of Creature to life.

Works Cited

Creature. By Heidi Shrek. Dir. Liz Bokhoven. Perf. Liz Bokhoven, Chase Fowler,     Benjamin Thomas-Reid, Callie Cope, Milissia Koncelik, Corey Smith. LR Playmakers, Lenoir- Rhyne U., Hickory, NC. [21] Sept. 2017.

         Shrek, Heidi. Creature. Samuel French, 2011.

Traveling & Reading – First Blog Post

My name is Victoria Blake, I am a Freshman at Lenoir-Rhyne University and I am majoring in Middle Grades Education. If I had to choose two things about myself that describe me well it would be that I love to read and I have a desire to travel.  I have loved to read for as long as I can remember. One of the things that I love most about reading is that it allows you to see things from someone else’s perspective which leads to a deeper understanding and more empathy for the people and world around you. Three of my favorite books are A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseni, Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I have had the opportunity to travel some in my lifetime and I hope that traveling is something that I continue to do for as long as I am able. My favorite places that I have traveled to are Montrèal in Canada and St. Thomas USVI.  A country that I hope to travel to someday is France because I would like to become fluent in French.