I really wanted to continue on with my story from SA1. I thought about ways in which I could make it better and change the dynamics of the first assignment. I also really liked certain elements from my hybrid essay. So, with my final project it was all about ways in which in could take a typical essay and merge it with some of the ideas of a hybrid essay. One of the first ways I thought of was to add photographs. I thought a lot about adding some sort of white-ness, perhaps just the sun shining to illustrate the beginning of the story. But trying to take that kind of picture myself proved to be difficult. So, instead I went with a picture of my grandmother. Along next to it, I added the opening from my hybrid essay. I really thought the picture and poetry changed the story. However, I am a little unsure of whether just having one picture makes it a little incomplete.
As far as my style and the tools that I used while composing, I continued to think about vividness. I could really see and imagine some of the images from my story. With this one in particular,”her smile peaked through those soft brown lips the same way I peeked through her door every morning to see if she was awake”. This is my favorite sentence because you can take all other the other details within the story to clearly picture this happening. Its a simple metaphor that is pretty straight-forward and I love that about it.
Overall, I am happy with my draft. Is there any section of the paper that you think is weak? Whether in detail or allusiveness?
Your piece was very, very moving. It’s very hard to write about someone close to you that you barely know about.
I love the picture of your grandmother; that really helped me imagine the nursery home memory vividly. I love the little details that you have in the first paragraph such as, “Ten little brown toes pressed into my pink jelly sandals.” That line describes the image of you as an innocent, little five-year-old so well.
I also really liked the line, “The walls didn’t talk, the doors didn’t creak, and you didn’t hear your feet sliding across the floor.” I like how you structured the sentence with the commas and the repetition.
Another line I really like was, “I cling to her image for dear life as if finding her will lead me closer to heaven.” It’s a beautiful metaphor that says so much about the emotion behind this entire piece, and perhaps part of the reason to you writing it. And most of all, I love how you connected this piece to your last hybrid essay, “Nefertiti.” I remember commenting how I thought you were talking about your mother in that essay, yet in this piece, Nefertiti was your grandmother.
Once I finished reading this piece, however I felt like I wanted more. There’s that constant paradox of you holding on to your grandmother’s memory and wanting God to erase it. I feel like there’s more to it, but I’m not sure what since you don’t remember a lot from your grandmother. So now, the entire piece is leaning towards you, you as a five-year-old girl, as a granddaughter, or as the girl that lied about her grandmother.
Then there’s the image of Nefertiti; I think you can expand on that image and connection with your grandmother. How do you see her as Nefertiti if you don’t have many memories of her?
Overall, I think it’s a beautiful piece that resonates your poetic voice through the memory of your grandmother.
Thanks, Roxanne! Even through I didn’t know much about my grandmother her spirit seems to be a grounding force in my life. My family tells me that I am like her in so many ways that ever since she died I’ve always felt this really strong connection to her. I am a very spiritual person and I don’t really believe that part of us ever dies. But I’m glad that you spoke on the Nefertiti part. I really wanted to keep writing but I didn’t want the paper to go off into a tangent. But now that I think about it, it might add to it making it more of a lyric essay.
Dear Michelle,
I absolutely loved this piece. Even though it was about a memory you had with your grandmother, I loved that it had also been about you. How you grew as a person. You don’t feel the need to spin up stories to compete with other children who’ve had exciting experiences with their grandparents anymore because you have come to terms with the vague memory you have with your grandmother, and that in itself is more special than anything you can ever make up. It was really touching and I think it would be even better if you could perhaps put in more pictures of her. Are there any of her holding you as a baby? My favorite line was “Sometimes I wish God could erase my last memory of her.” When I read this, I felt the sadness behind the truth of this statement. When we lose someone we loved, we sometimes wish that we can just forget about them…so we don’t have to keep missing them. I liked that you closed this off by saying that you will remember her legacy, the person that she truly was. Keep up the good work!
Sincerely,
Catherine C.
Michelle,
This is a great piece. I like the idea that a “true memory” can’t be ignored or rewritten. I think the later half of your paper really nails this point home. It’d be nice to see more photo’s, though maybe the single picture highlights the single memory you have. I felt that the writing was vivid enough, but I wanted to read more.
My favorite line is “I was a liar.” I like how this is it’s own paragraph. It makes it stand out even more and really makes the reader think about your conscience effort of rewriting your memory.
Great job!
Michelle, i like your images constructed by words, something hard and concrete, and behind all these images, i see an invisible hand in laying these bricks with a purpose, so your grandma comes alive
I’m happy to revisit your first short assignment and see it develop in your final project. I’d like to see it evolve more form the first assignment than it currently is; it’s too close to where it was, but you make gestures here that create real potential for taking this piece in fascinating directions. You just need to flesh them out in revision, follow through on the potential to really make this piece new.
One series of sentences I liked from before that still work for me is this part:My little eyes glanced up and down as I searched for her. I must have missed her. I had to love her.
The shorter sentences contribute to a choppiness that evokes searching and the confusion of a little girl, and the young woman trying to imagine what she felt back at a time she doesn’t really remember. You strike just the right chord there.
When you say you wish God would erase the last memory of her, I would briefly recap the memory, paint it in broad strokes associated with nursing homes. The cold linoleum floor, the spinning wheelchair wheels, the searching in the institutional hallways, the broken quality of the memory. Just reiterate it to send the power (and coldness) of the memory, and your wish for an alternative narrative, home to your readers.
In opposition to the cold, institutional memory of your grandmother is the warmth, heat, personal, heart-felt images and phrases of religion and goddesses. I would associate worship, faith, belief with heat, passion. So you’re creating this interesting juxtaposition with Nefertiti here. and I agree entirely with Roxanne that there’s great unexplored potential there.
I know from reading your last piece about Nefertiti that you see her, in a way, in a similar light as your grandmother. Let me explain: both your grandmother and Nefertiti represent icons of womanhood that are or feel like they are, in certain times and ways, unattainable to you. They’re icons, or (as with your grandmother) you build them into icons with your false narratives meant to create her and your relationship with her in the image of something, rather than out of the truth. Also, at other times and in other ways, you are both your grandmother and Nefertiti. Everyone tells you you’re a lot like your grandmother; and Nefertiti, as your last essay explored, is a type for the woman you are, you are connected through history, symbol, and at least, through your boyfriend.
So, how can you flesh out and make more of these really interesting parallels? How does your complex relationship with your grandmother, your love and desire for her, mirror your complex relationship for Nefertiti? Maybe you should start the essay with the image of Nefertiti, perhaps with your boyfriend’s tattoo, and then build toward the memory of your grandmother, to build an essay about the women you haven’t ever personally known (that you can remember) who nonetheless have an enormous influence on how you imagine yourself and your own identity (and the stories you tell yourself and others about who you are).
For me, this is (in part) about these stories we tell to create a narrative of our identities. It’s an essay about the power of our legacies, and you could do more, I think, with Nefertiti to set up that legacy theme. Explore the complex relationships and visions of our pasts/histories that form our present sense of self.
I wonder if it might be useful to actually write a little of Nefertiti’s story, some of her history. What are the details of her story that you could bring out to show how it parallels or explains your own experience?
I’m really excited to see how these different stories you’ve been working on could come together here. They seem to fit, to be connected, to inform and complete one another.
Just to answer your question: I think it’s okay to have just one picture. Since there’s just one, it doesn’t become a part of the narrative, where the images start replacing some of the words almost, where they really start telling a story. our picture doesn’t do this. Instead, it’s a visual reference, something that gives your readers an image to make your grandmother more real. I mean, readers could imagine her for themselves, and your writing is certainly vivid enough to help them do this, but your picture does some of the imaging work for them. Most readers like images, so why not? I don’t think it detracts from the essay. We could see what the class says about it.
Hi Michelle,
Sorry for responding so late, but i really like the way the past as fragments of our memories. What you wrote about your grandmother was very moving, and I’m sure a lot of people can relate to it, since not everyone knows what it feels like to have a grandparent. For instance, even though I had spent some time with my grandparents (from my father’s side) I really can’t remember much about them because they both passed away when I was young. Yet, I still miss them a lot.
However, what I was a bit curious about is why you felt your grandmother had such a huge influence on you, since you never had a chance to really get to know her. You’ve mentioned a few times how you compared your grandmother to Nerfertiti, a God-like woman, which I can sense has a lot to do with the amount of respect for her. However, what I want to know is that is there (or can you remember any) specific detail about your grandmother that made you feel that she was so profound.
Your piece was very touching in many ways, and I really enjoyed reading it. I like the way your structured out your essay, and I like the poetic element to it. Great job!
I really wanted to continue on with my story from SA1. I thought about ways in which I could make it better and change the dynamics of the first assignment. I also really liked certain elements from my hybrid essay. So, with my final project it was all about ways in which in could take a typical essay and merge it with some of the ideas of a hybrid essay. One of the first ways I thought of was to add photographs. I thought a lot about adding some sort of white-ness, perhaps just the sun shining to illustrate the beginning of the story. But trying to take that kind of picture myself proved to be difficult. So, instead I went with a picture of my grandmother. Along next to it, I added the opening from my hybrid essay. I really thought the picture and poetry changed the story. However, I am a little unsure of whether just having one picture makes it a little incomplete.
As far as my style and the tools that I used while composing, I continued to think about vividness. I could really see and imagine some of the images from my story. With this one in particular,”her smile peaked through those soft brown lips the same way I peeked through her door every morning to see if she was awake”. This is my favorite sentence because you can take all other the other details within the story to clearly picture this happening. Its a simple metaphor that is pretty straight-forward and I love that about it.
Overall, I am happy with my draft. Is there any section of the paper that you think is weak? Whether in detail or allusiveness?
Michelle,
Your piece was very, very moving. It’s very hard to write about someone close to you that you barely know about.
I love the picture of your grandmother; that really helped me imagine the nursery home memory vividly. I love the little details that you have in the first paragraph such as, “Ten little brown toes pressed into my pink jelly sandals.” That line describes the image of you as an innocent, little five-year-old so well.
I also really liked the line, “The walls didn’t talk, the doors didn’t creak, and you didn’t hear your feet sliding across the floor.” I like how you structured the sentence with the commas and the repetition.
Another line I really like was, “I cling to her image for dear life as if finding her will lead me closer to heaven.” It’s a beautiful metaphor that says so much about the emotion behind this entire piece, and perhaps part of the reason to you writing it. And most of all, I love how you connected this piece to your last hybrid essay, “Nefertiti.” I remember commenting how I thought you were talking about your mother in that essay, yet in this piece, Nefertiti was your grandmother.
Once I finished reading this piece, however I felt like I wanted more. There’s that constant paradox of you holding on to your grandmother’s memory and wanting God to erase it. I feel like there’s more to it, but I’m not sure what since you don’t remember a lot from your grandmother. So now, the entire piece is leaning towards you, you as a five-year-old girl, as a granddaughter, or as the girl that lied about her grandmother.
Then there’s the image of Nefertiti; I think you can expand on that image and connection with your grandmother. How do you see her as Nefertiti if you don’t have many memories of her?
Overall, I think it’s a beautiful piece that resonates your poetic voice through the memory of your grandmother.
Roxanne
Thanks, Roxanne! Even through I didn’t know much about my grandmother her spirit seems to be a grounding force in my life. My family tells me that I am like her in so many ways that ever since she died I’ve always felt this really strong connection to her. I am a very spiritual person and I don’t really believe that part of us ever dies. But I’m glad that you spoke on the Nefertiti part. I really wanted to keep writing but I didn’t want the paper to go off into a tangent. But now that I think about it, it might add to it making it more of a lyric essay.
Dear Michelle,
I absolutely loved this piece. Even though it was about a memory you had with your grandmother, I loved that it had also been about you. How you grew as a person. You don’t feel the need to spin up stories to compete with other children who’ve had exciting experiences with their grandparents anymore because you have come to terms with the vague memory you have with your grandmother, and that in itself is more special than anything you can ever make up. It was really touching and I think it would be even better if you could perhaps put in more pictures of her. Are there any of her holding you as a baby? My favorite line was “Sometimes I wish God could erase my last memory of her.” When I read this, I felt the sadness behind the truth of this statement. When we lose someone we loved, we sometimes wish that we can just forget about them…so we don’t have to keep missing them. I liked that you closed this off by saying that you will remember her legacy, the person that she truly was. Keep up the good work!
Sincerely,
Catherine C.
Michelle,
This is a great piece. I like the idea that a “true memory” can’t be ignored or rewritten. I think the later half of your paper really nails this point home. It’d be nice to see more photo’s, though maybe the single picture highlights the single memory you have. I felt that the writing was vivid enough, but I wanted to read more.
My favorite line is “I was a liar.” I like how this is it’s own paragraph. It makes it stand out even more and really makes the reader think about your conscience effort of rewriting your memory.
Great job!
Matt G
Michelle, i like your images constructed by words, something hard and concrete, and behind all these images, i see an invisible hand in laying these bricks with a purpose, so your grandma comes alive
I’m happy to revisit your first short assignment and see it develop in your final project. I’d like to see it evolve more form the first assignment than it currently is; it’s too close to where it was, but you make gestures here that create real potential for taking this piece in fascinating directions. You just need to flesh them out in revision, follow through on the potential to really make this piece new.
One series of sentences I liked from before that still work for me is this part:My little eyes glanced up and down as I searched for her. I must have missed her. I had to love her.
The shorter sentences contribute to a choppiness that evokes searching and the confusion of a little girl, and the young woman trying to imagine what she felt back at a time she doesn’t really remember. You strike just the right chord there.
When you say you wish God would erase the last memory of her, I would briefly recap the memory, paint it in broad strokes associated with nursing homes. The cold linoleum floor, the spinning wheelchair wheels, the searching in the institutional hallways, the broken quality of the memory. Just reiterate it to send the power (and coldness) of the memory, and your wish for an alternative narrative, home to your readers.
In opposition to the cold, institutional memory of your grandmother is the warmth, heat, personal, heart-felt images and phrases of religion and goddesses. I would associate worship, faith, belief with heat, passion. So you’re creating this interesting juxtaposition with Nefertiti here. and I agree entirely with Roxanne that there’s great unexplored potential there.
I know from reading your last piece about Nefertiti that you see her, in a way, in a similar light as your grandmother. Let me explain: both your grandmother and Nefertiti represent icons of womanhood that are or feel like they are, in certain times and ways, unattainable to you. They’re icons, or (as with your grandmother) you build them into icons with your false narratives meant to create her and your relationship with her in the image of something, rather than out of the truth. Also, at other times and in other ways, you are both your grandmother and Nefertiti. Everyone tells you you’re a lot like your grandmother; and Nefertiti, as your last essay explored, is a type for the woman you are, you are connected through history, symbol, and at least, through your boyfriend.
So, how can you flesh out and make more of these really interesting parallels? How does your complex relationship with your grandmother, your love and desire for her, mirror your complex relationship for Nefertiti? Maybe you should start the essay with the image of Nefertiti, perhaps with your boyfriend’s tattoo, and then build toward the memory of your grandmother, to build an essay about the women you haven’t ever personally known (that you can remember) who nonetheless have an enormous influence on how you imagine yourself and your own identity (and the stories you tell yourself and others about who you are).
For me, this is (in part) about these stories we tell to create a narrative of our identities. It’s an essay about the power of our legacies, and you could do more, I think, with Nefertiti to set up that legacy theme. Explore the complex relationships and visions of our pasts/histories that form our present sense of self.
I wonder if it might be useful to actually write a little of Nefertiti’s story, some of her history. What are the details of her story that you could bring out to show how it parallels or explains your own experience?
I’m really excited to see how these different stories you’ve been working on could come together here. They seem to fit, to be connected, to inform and complete one another.
Just to answer your question: I think it’s okay to have just one picture. Since there’s just one, it doesn’t become a part of the narrative, where the images start replacing some of the words almost, where they really start telling a story. our picture doesn’t do this. Instead, it’s a visual reference, something that gives your readers an image to make your grandmother more real. I mean, readers could imagine her for themselves, and your writing is certainly vivid enough to help them do this, but your picture does some of the imaging work for them. Most readers like images, so why not? I don’t think it detracts from the essay. We could see what the class says about it.
Hi Michelle,
Sorry for responding so late, but i really like the way the past as fragments of our memories. What you wrote about your grandmother was very moving, and I’m sure a lot of people can relate to it, since not everyone knows what it feels like to have a grandparent. For instance, even though I had spent some time with my grandparents (from my father’s side) I really can’t remember much about them because they both passed away when I was young. Yet, I still miss them a lot.
However, what I was a bit curious about is why you felt your grandmother had such a huge influence on you, since you never had a chance to really get to know her. You’ve mentioned a few times how you compared your grandmother to Nerfertiti, a God-like woman, which I can sense has a lot to do with the amount of respect for her. However, what I want to know is that is there (or can you remember any) specific detail about your grandmother that made you feel that she was so profound.
Your piece was very touching in many ways, and I really enjoyed reading it. I like the way your structured out your essay, and I like the poetic element to it. Great job!