rejectedfrommediocrityschool

[rejectedfrommediocrityschool]

Abstract into concrete: pt 1

Fear tastes like an expired dairy product

Joy smells like a sun-ripened wild raspberry

My future sounds like an orchestra warming up

Freedom is an open horizon

Hatred feels like a pacing jaguar

Jealousy looks like a shattered pane of glass

A student's brain feels like a captured great white shark

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A writer is a reader foremost: essay 2

Paragraph One: Before you read the essay, spend time reflecting on your writing process. Just as you did in board two, imagine that you’ve been given a writing assignment. Describe yourself in third person doing the writing and try to write it as a scene.

S sits frowning in a chair somewhere - a library table, recliner in the den, kitchen counter, or desk in their room, it's irrelevant - feeling sorry for themself, and wishing that 'illiterate peasant' was still a career option. They pout while the computer starts up, grumble as they open a document, and glare at the empty screen. After re-reading the prompt a few dozen times, they open Google to do research, and leech off of other people's opinions. They look up variations of the same question for what feels like years and become well acquainted with the Wikipedia page on the subject. Only after finding things that seem important do they make a bullet list of things they want to address. Then, they move them around until they're almost an argument. They make a lot of subpoints, and sketch out most of the body paragraphs with shorthand and expletives. After that, they cry, because they don't like making theses. They follow the dumb the author uses x, y, and z for abc purpose format, and make an intro paragraph around it through some miracle of extremely long sentences and over-explaining things. They then go through the bullet points and make them into full sentences, stopping for snacks or a YouTube video in the middle. At this point they've lost any semblance of care for the quality of the assignment, so they bs a conclusion paragraph, and they do not proofread anything. On a long essay, this process would take place over days, interspersed with lots of complaining to family and friends.

Jot down a few sentences about how you think you might improve your writing process.

If I could somehow get to the not giving a crap phase sooner, maybe I wouldn't use so much energy and it wouldn't take so long to convince myself to start. Also, it would be nice if I had a process that I followed intentionally, because I do not, so I end up doing bits as I feel like it, and not managing time well.

Paragraph Two: Read the Attached Essay, “Writing an Essay: Here are Ten Effective Tips” by Joe Bunting found on the Welcome Page and the in the Content for week one. Pick two ideas in the short essay that you think are the most important. How will these concepts help you going forward as a college student facing writing assignments?

I think that the most important idea that I'm taking away from this is that I need to focus on making it fun, or finding parts that interest me. I definitely go into a writing assignment assuming that I'll hate it, so it's really helpful to treat my brain like a toddler and make it as fun as possible. I hope that the trick of forcing the topic to be interesting by focusing on cool parts works, because it's funny to make my brain do work well basically by waving something shiny in it's face. I think that another one of the most useful ideas is being able to expand my writing by including a lot of source material, because it feels like being given permission to do a lot of research and argue my points with evidence, which will help to make writing faster and more familiar. Hopefully both of these together will let me get out of my head and write things that have more dimension and are worth reading. Lastly, I'll give an honorable mention to tip #6 because I already start with the body paragraphs, and I like being told that I'm right.

[rejectedfrommediocrityschool]

A writer is a reader foremost: essay 1 response

"The Slowest Reader" by Benjamin Percy

The central truth of being a college student is that you’re going to read A LOT of essays. Benjamin Percy panics when he encounters his first reading list. In the beginning, he tries to read too much and reads too quickly. What does he come to realize about the importance of “reading as a writer?”

After he read through the entire reading list because of panic about being behind someone else, he realized that he hardly absorbed any of the books, or else that he mashed them together in his mind. After that, he recognized the same problem in his writing. He would take inspiration from hundreds of things at once, and he was too distracted to use tools in his writing that would have made it better. When he started reading as a writer, a professor had made him slow down, so he could analyze and dissect the work of really good writers. And once he treats stories like instruction manuals and not races, he can really understand what they're made of.

What do you think it means to be “the slowest reader?” While we are not writing fiction in this course, how do you think being a slow reader and “reading as a writer” might apply to the essays we encounter in this class?

He uses "the slowest reader" as the opposite of well-read, because he doesn't believe that being well-read would've been good for him. He reads slower than others in that it will take him weeks or months to read something over and over again, but also that he stops while he reads and takes notes or mulls the story over, to really understand it. For us, we can take these ideas of analyzing what an author does in order to become better writers, but also so that we don't rush through readings, and really take time to reflect on them. If we try to understand why an author made the choices she did, we'll be able to respond with more well-thought-out and deeper ideas.

[rejectedfrommediocrityschool]

A writer is a reader foremost prewrite

Paragraph One:  Imagine that you’ve been given a reading assignment in a class. You must read the first three chapters in a textbook. There are hints about the material being on the exam. Describe yourself, in third person, doing the reading. Write it as a scene. For example: he is sitting at a cluttered desk with his earphones on in an otherwise darkened room staring at the open book before him. His eyes wander…

Below your paragraph, jot down a few sentences about how you might improve how you approach reading assignments.

The student sits cross-legged on a green sofa, facing down the long way. Along the sofa lie their laptop, papers, a notebook, an open textbook, and a napping dog. Behind them is an end table with at least 3 beverages on it. To their right is a bay window and two armchairs with a table between them. A starburst of fairy lights hangs in one of the windows, and two small lamps at the ends of the sofa illuminate the dark room (They've had the whole day free to do the homework, but they procrastinated it, so now it's around 10 at night). They skim the headings of the 3 chapters, sigh sadly, and then read through thoroughly. Some time passes, and then they triumphantly close the textbook with a snap. They assure themself that they understand and remember everything, which will likely turn out to be true. The assignment had overwhelmed them all day, but it only took 20 minutes.

I could help my time management by setting a certain time to do something, so I can't procrastinate as easily. I could also use post-its to annotate a text, so that I can then go back and find important things more easily. Actually studying things that will be on an exam in the first place would also help.

[rejectedfrommediocrityschool]

This is so so so neat

ok so instead of going on my usual the earth is doomed spiral I started looking into solar punk solutions and stumbled across the practice of permaculture & found a free 50 video series from the university of oregon on it if anyone else would like to learn abt ways we can actually start restoring earths whole deal

[rejectedfrommediocrityschool]

Intro to me & my blog

I'm S, I live in MN, I'm a senior at South High, my favorite food is pasta, my favorite book is probably This Is How You Lose the Time War, my favorite show is The Good Place, I'm a Capricorn, I don't like poetry or bananas, and I have two dogs.

This blog is for College Writing, 1101, at Normandale, and I have to post my responses to class readings on a blog. So, I'm here. This will probably be gone after December of 2023.

Helpful links:

I can't words sometimes

I like using the pomodoro method so this cute timer is nice and easy

Really satisfying but also not super distracting game where you just break walls

[rejectedfrommediocrityschool]

That's it. That's the whole book

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I love them both so much

Barbie (2023) // The Good Place (2016-2020)