Final Draft Showcase Writing Project
First Draft Showcase Writing Project
They Say/I Say Chapter
The chapter I decided to read was Chapter 4: “Yes/ No/ Okay, But” Three Ways to Respond. This chapter discussed how to go about agreeing, disagreeing, or doing a little of both surrounding what “They Say” in an academic essay. The chapter identifies that it can be just as hard to agree with what someone else says and still introduce new and original ideas, as it is to disagree. Disagreeing with a stance can feel like a you-against-the-world situation and can make the writer feel vulnerable. While both agreeing and disagreeing is hard, combining both is hard as well. The ideas can become confusing and not follow a clear path when there is no definite opinion regarding an idea.
I decided to work with this chapter because I want to clearly state that I agree with Becks argument but I was unsure of the most effective way to do this. In my own revision process, I made sure that my introduction clearly identified the fact that I do believe life is a story. In addition to making that statement clear, I used some of the templates used in the “They Say/I Say” book to support the ideas I already had. I feel as though adding these sentences helped make my points clear and easily identifiable.
Revision Strategy #2
My revision goal for this paper is to incorporate more of my own personal life into the essay as well as adding in the multimodal aspect in a more unique way.
I plan to completely rework my essay. I plan to start off by taking bits and pieces out of my essay that I think are strong and centering paragraphs around those strong statements. In those new paragraphs, I also want to take real examples from my life and better explain why I PERSONALLY believe our lives are a narrative. Adding in pictures from my life might be a way I can include more multimodal aspects while tying in my life.
In this essay, I see the short word count as my biggest challenge. Finding the right words to get my point across without going off on a tangent is necessary. In the end, it will be beneficially because every word will count, but in the process, I will definitley need to plan what exactly I want to say.
If this challenge is too large for me to handle on my own, I will have a peer read my essay and point out places where I begin to ramble, or sentences that simply don’t enhance what I am really trying to say in my essay.
Peer Review and 150 Word Note
This essay is an amazing first draft piece. I think that all of the point discussed in the existing paragraphs do a really great job sticking to our prompt while adding personal reflection and interesting perspectives throughout the essay. By adding the multimodal component to this essay, it will just aid in creating a very interesting and intriguing paper. Your plans to expand on thought as well as plans to add in the multimodal aspect will take your paper to the next level. I am very interested to see what you end up doing. Pictures would be a very simple addition as well as some new ways of incorporating text. Keep up the great work and focus time on the multimodal rather than the writing, because they writing is already exceptional.
Multimodal Paper Statement
The goal of my multimodal paper is to draw in the reader’s attention through various mode. One mode that I really want to focus my time on is the spatial aspect of my paper. Rather than the typical organization of an essay, I want this essay to break stereotypical format and pop off the page. By arranging the paragraphs in unique ways rather than being left justified, uniform text, I hope it will stand out to a reader immediately. Adding in pictures and placing text beneath, next to, or around the picture could create a new focal point and draw the reader’s attention to certain areas. For the visual mode of my paper, I want to really use pictures in the best possible way to enhance what I talk about in my paper. Adding meaningful pictures will further develop my claims and provide additional evidence. I would love to be able to find an animation or interactive visual component to add to my essay to add in even more interesting aspect to my paper. In addition to just using pictures as a visual, the text size, color, and font will all be used to emphasize words by bolding certain words or setting a mood or tone regarding a certain statement. In my essay, I think embedding links to the essays and sources I use would be a nice feature to add in. Providing a link to the articles would allow for an easy way for readers to access the information I’m referencing and quoting. Along with the quotes from articles, also adding in a link to the narrative interview I use will allow readers to watch the video for themselves rather than just hearing me reference it. The different modes used in this paper will really help to show rather than just tell the readers what I am arguing and how using pictures, videos, a non-traditional format, and adding color and other fonts can create a whole new feel to an essay.
Links To Use:
https://aeon.co/essays/let-s-ditch-the-dangerous-idea-that-life-is-a-story
I Am Not A Story
This essay caused me to become very aggravated as I continued reading. To begin, the overall set up of the essay seemed very poor to me. The essay consisted of way too many unexplained, or unnecessary quotes that just seemed to fill the space. Often times the quotes I was reading were in a “Naysayer” style that didn’t make sense. I would agree with the quote and completely disagree with what Strawson was attempting to explain. As I got further and further into the essay I became more and more frustrated with what I was reading. I couldn’t pinpoint any specific evidence to support the overall claim. Honestly, it was hard to even find what claim Strawson was attempting to make. Since his claim that life is not a story is so foreign and opposite of what I believe most individuals would believe, I was looking forward to hearing a new point of view that could potentially change my outlook. That did not happen. I was left disagreeing with Strawson’s claim more than when I started the reading. I believe that our life is a story. We have personal experiences and memories that help shape us into who we are today and are key to who we will become in the future. The patterns we can see in the stories we tell about our life will be included in the life we are going to live in the future. Humans are constantly telling stories to introduce themselves, connect on a deeper level, or make sense of any situation.
Overall after reading our first essay, “Life’s Stories” and now reading this new essay, “I Am Not A Story” I can not understand how people don’t see life as a narrative. The evidence in our first reading was so simple to understand and just made complete sense. The evidence in our second reading seemed almost non-existent. How can we live our life without referring to any past memories or experiences or emotions felt? I believe that it is not possible.
Life’s Stories
The first moment that caught my eye was when Beck references how the things an 8-year-old notices are much different from the things a 40-year-old notices. It made me think back on my own life working with children. Even though people experience the same situations, they process them in completely different ways.
The next moment that caught my attention is when Beck says we are all actors. I never really thought of this point and am still unsure if I fully believe it. While in one sense we all follow our own narrative as does an actor, I’d like to believe that I am being truthful and expressing myself naturally rather than putting on an act to get a story across. Her point confused me and made me stop and think.
A final point that Beck made that I love is the idea that our life isn’t just a book, but instead a library. The fact that each section in our life can be its own story makes much more sense to me than the entire thing being one complete book. Each of those books intertwines to make one coherent genre.
Overall I think that Becks points are clear and easy for a reader to relate to and reflect on their own personal life story. 
They Say/I Say Chapter 8
Key:
In my writing, I tend to use “and” much more than any other transition word. Another pattern I notice in my writing is that I repeat many of the key terms over and over again throughout my paper. I rely on repetition more than other devices discussed in this section of reading. When talking about a topic I tend to explain my ideas in new ways rather than expanding the ideas further. Adding more unique transition words and limiting pointing terms would overall make my writing stronger and more clear.
Yellow- Transitions
Blue- Pointing Terms
Purple- Key Terms/ Repetition
An interview of my mother Karen Genest on how September 11th, 2001 changed her life and her personal identity
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