What is a writer? Merriam-Webster defines a writer as “one that writes.” I find this description inadequate. I feel this way because anyone can scribble on a piece of paper. The writing has to have meaning to someone else besides the writer. So my definition is: A writer is someone who conveys ideas in written language. Every writer is different. They differentiate themselves by their wording, subject matter, and their own experiences. To describe myself as a writer, I have to include my high school, where I had to write four themes per semester. Writing these long papers so often gave me my preferred method of writing in long bursts without any preparation. As a consequence, a lot of my writing is just the ideas passing through my head at the moment that I add to later on when I can rearrange my writing and make better points. Another effect is that I will often stop writing and go back to a previous section and edit it because I got a new idea. However, this method of going “two steps forward, one step back” in my writing is about as eccentric as I get when writing my papers. I do not have any personal rituals when writing such as James Joyce’s writing with crayons in a white coat or Truman Capote and his habit of writing lying down and drinking. Although, if writing was my main occupation, I too would probably develop eccentricities.

 

Sources

 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/writer

 

https://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/the-art-of-being-crazy-thoughts-on-eccentricities-being-a-writer

In What the Eyes Don’t See, by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, one of the author’s main concerns for her patients are “ACEs” and toxic stresses. ACEs are single events or experiences that a child has that affect their long-term physical and mental well-being. Dr. Hanna-Attisha describes toxic stresses as circumstantial stresses detrimental to children. These stresses are the likes of: poverty, violence in the community, unsafe places of play, and lack of nutrition. These adversities and others, like racism, perpetuate the cycle of poverty in our cities. These circumstances limit children’s worldview where they do not know any other way of life. Dr. Hanna-Attisha also presents evidence that these stresses stunt mental and emotional development because constant stress does not allow for neural pathways to properly form. The ACEs and stress have even farther-reaching consequences in children’s education. ACEs negatively affect literacy by making the children feel unsafe, thereby causing literacy to fall by the wayside in terms of priorities.

1. How did Dr.Mona’s actions make a difference in the community of Flint?
2. Can you think of a time in your own life when you have made other people aware of a problem that they were not aware of?                                                                                                                                                  3. What can you do as an individual to make the world a better and a safer place?

In What the Eyes Don’t See, the author uses an activist mentality in her profession in order to thoroughly educate the physicians in her medical center. She gets an initial impetus to investigate her city’s water quality and then uses her activist experience to bring the problem to national attention. She not only brought the crisis to the attention of thousands, but also did so in a scientific manner consistent with her occupation. She also empowered the Flint community by being a local voice of concern over the health of the children in her care. She challenged local officials and made her community’s voice heard.

Lately, as my parents have gotten older (70s), I have been having to remind them of various things they forget. For instance, they keep forgetting to turn off the grill outside and inside. One time, I went to our outside grill only to find it was left on for two days. They also forget where they leave phones, keys, bags, and all sorts of other things. Right before I left for college, I sat them down and brought this issue to their attention. I recommended they start new habits which would prevent them form forgetting things and take steps to maintain their mental agility in their old age.

What I plan on doing as an individual is to make the world a safer place by doing my part in ensuring that my fellow students are staying safe in college. This includes watching out for them in environments such as parties, football games, and the dorm. Too often have I heard of or read stories of tragedy in college as a result of poor decisions being made and I want to be someone who makes good decisions and watches out for everyone else.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YOsEcPFlb2Yz1rMBnn8nhbGz6H-GHVTdrJSE6_EL1vY/edit?usp=sharing

Reading Journal

 

Copy + Paste this template into a different document (do not try to type directly on it). Then fill it out and post to your blog. 

 

Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page	“The Maker’s Eye” by Donald Murray Murray, Donald M. “The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. Ed. by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000: 161-165
Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words	Murray expresses his idea of a writer as someone who does as much revising as writing. To him, his work is never finished, he is always on a quest to find a better way to say something. He tries to separate himself from his writing in order to have the least biased opinion of it during revision. He then separates his process into several aspects he suggests nearly every writer consciously or subconsciously accounts for when they revise. He states the elements as: content, organization, audience, form, structure, development, dimension, and tone. After evaluating all of these aspects, he moves on to line-by-line editing. I agree with what he says writers think about when they revise. Whereas he tends to move from one aspect to the next, I generally read my work and do all my revising at once rather than split it into parts.
Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author.	Murray says that a writer must be their own critic. He argues that the writer cannot rely on anyone else to do the revision for them. He goes on to say that writers should also be skeptical of praise. “Remember how each craftsperson you have seen-the carpenter eyeing the level of a shelf, the mechanic listening to the motor-takes the instinctive step back. This is what writers have to do when they read their own work.”
How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?	I do not consciously take every element of writing into account. Nor do I have a sequence I perform when I revise. Instead, I read through my work and revise as I go, using my experience to change what I do not like in my writing.
Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion.	How do you all go about revising your own work?

 

1. What is literacy to you?

Literacy to me is someone’s ability to function with a language. My interpretation of literacy comes from my experience with Mandarin Chinese. An individual can be fluent in Chinese but not literate.

2. Who’s one of your SoL?

One of my sponsors of literacy is my elementary school. Every year, the school puts on “Read-a-thon” a three-week-ish long event where students are encouraged to read as many books as possible.

3. Write a scene with this
SoL like Fishman did in her
piece. (200+ words)

It’s May of 2012 at Julia Redd Elementary School. It’s time for Read-a-thon, a three-week-ish long event where students are encouraged to read as many books as possible with the promise of relatively extravagant prizes. The prizes usually ranged from ribbons, to guitars, to a ride to McDonald’s in a limo. I was never really interested in the prizes because, after my very first year of participating, I realized that every year the winner would be the person who read the easiest reading books and picture books. Instead, the event taught me the simple enjoyment of reading. I went from not really reading in kindergarten to being a reading fool from first grade through today because the event gave me the choice of what I read, rather than having to read what my class was. I did not play the game that other students did in order to farm pages; my mode of reading was more serious. In this instance, I was just finishing Brisingr in the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. Books with a thousand pages chock-full of type were not going to cut it if I even tried. So, I never really tried; I simply continued reading whatever effort I was on whenever Read-a-thon started. This year, I welcomed the three weeks without any other homework from teachers and read even more than I usually would with homework. I finished the book in time for summer when I could just get to the last book of the series and read it without any other obligations. So, while I did not necessarily embrace the spirit of Read-a-thon, the event put on by Julia Redd certainly gave me my current love of all literature.