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Week 13 (writing as a social activity)

Writing is definitely a social activity, but to me, how I mainly see that is not through the actual activity of writing but the impact that it has. A written work never exists in a void, it is influenced by existing works and other aspects of that persons culture and societal based experiences. That work can also serve as inspiration for future creatives. To create anything is to build upon the beautiful collective shared creative space of all of creative and literary canon. Whether writing an important novel or a message to a friend, you are engaging with your world and adding your voice to its wider story.

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Week 9: (Language and standardization)

We cannot standardize one version of one language, or suggest the importance of one language or dialect over another. In order to have creative equality, we need diversity in that equality. Instead of picking one language over another, especially a language use primarily by those that have colonized other nations and thus destroyed their own cultural reflections such as language, we need to embrace an understanding and importance of different languages, and provide an equitable space for less represented languages from other cultures besides western European ones to thrive in media and social/political discussions. Just as one perspective in literature can limit a stories power, one perspective in language can do equal damage to a creative space. Every language has different ways of expressing certain emotions and concepts, with some concepts being present in some languages and absent in others. The only way to really have a full expression of human experience, is through actively expressing all aspects of all experiences, and language is a beautiful way to do just that.

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Week 8: (ethical communication)

There were two particular parts of Adichie’s speech which stood out to me. First, when she, referring to her childhood writing, Adichie suggested she only wrote books about white children with blue eyes talking about snow, apples, and drinking ginger beer when she, as a child from Nigeria, had never seen those things herself apart from fiction. This reflection of her own writing experience, represents a half of the impact of limited perspective of fiction writing; lack of representation. When a child, or anyone, cannot see themselves represented in the media they consume, it’s confusing, and can conflate their self-image, making them feel as if their image is for some reason not worthy of being represented. The other quote which stood out, was how she mentioned in college, a peer of hers asked her to “share her music” expecting something “ethnic” and instead Adichie played Mariah Carrey. There are two sides to the coin of lack of representation, the exclusion of a group, and the ignorance of another. When only your face is represented in media, as Adichie’s peer found, being white, she struggled to find empathy for Adichie who’s face and culture was not represented in that same media. To have a fully engaging literary cannon, we need a diverse array of different voices, to ensure we are seeing our own voices represented and also hearing the voices of others we may have not heard before, this would prevent bias, and create a safer, more inclusive creative and real world environment.

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Week 12 (Prepare 3 meeting questions)

-How can I combine the structure of narrative nonfiction and GWRJ to properly integrate the necessary requirements without it messing with the flow of the piece?

-How creative and I allowed to be with this piece? Can I play with the structure a bit or are there specific requirements?

-Should I use MLA formatting to directly use in-text citations, or try to integrate references to the text naturally without directly citing?

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Week 11 (2-3 topics for essay)

Topic one: An analysis of how stepping outside of the box of typical literary analysis can help us better connect with our own writing. Talking about the unconventional way GWRJ approaches genre and storytelling and how that impacted my writing journey.

Topic two: A narrative essay focusing on my relationship with remediation and the power of remediation stories in connecting with text and values. Sharing my story of writing a remediation and how it impacted my literary and real world mental health experiences. Integrating information about remediations from the GWRJ into my own writing.

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Week 2 Blog Post (genres around campus)

Genre 1: RSO advertising

Convention; chalk illustrations, general information about student organization, dates/times of events, posters and flyers on the quad

Genre 2: Milner Library History quiz

Conventions: located on floor 3, space to provide questions, answered questions, history based prompts

Genre 3: Netnurtution menu

Conventions; list of different nutrition venues, date/time of venues, offered meals, nutritional information

Genre 4: Quad Protests

Conventions: visual signs, verbal communication, established message

Genre 5: redbird express Bus schedule

Conventions: times of bus arrival and departure, bus numbers/names, particular locations of stops

Genre 6: Reggienet classroom

Conventions: name of class, resources, assignments, teacher announcements, syllabus and timelines

Genre 7: event flyer

Conventions: name of event, location, image related to event, time and date of event, requirements for admission

Genre 8: bone student center venue Receipt

Conventions: items ordered, cost of items, time served, name of customer, name of venue, order number

Genre 9: directional signs

Conventions: general location of building, name of building, location of building in relation to other buildings/landmarks, arrows pointing in needed directions

Genre 10: physical final exam

Conventions; scantron sheet, question sheet, class material based questions, place for name and ID

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Blog #6

The main discourse community I am a part of is indie authors. The group consists of authors who have either self published or published through a smaller company, and we debate and discuss publishing and writing methods through social media. the main platforms use are facebook, Instagram, and youtube, though most authors have their own blog. I'm lesser involved with the community as I've just started my publishing career, but I like to see feedback from other authors and listen to advice by those with more experience.

Another group I'm a part of, somewhat related to the previous one, is the booktok community. Despite the name, this community isn't exclusive to tiktok, and communication extends across platforms and into real life. through this community active readers discuss popular books and book characters, from classics to YA romance. My personal favorite discussions to be a part of, are the ones centering on classic literature.

Though becoming less professional, the third community I am a part of is the last of us fandom. There's two sides of this fandom, with one focusing on the new show that came out and one on the original game, I'm in the second part of that fandom. This one is way more centered on having fun, and consists of debates and jokes made about characters and gameplay mainly on tiktok, as well as fanart drawn of characters. People in this community make and post content and or respond to other people;s existing content.

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Blog #5

When discussing remediations, the conversation tends to center around retelling of fairy tales through animation and film, not to necessarily rework the story but to present them to new generations. What has always interested me is when authors and filmmakers will take classic literature novels/stories and rework their themes and conventions to tell a story about modern popular culture. This has actually been a theme throughout media creation, the Victorians copied the greeks and Roman’s, in the 20th century they copied the victorians, and now we copy everyone. There are several examples of popular films and shows that we don’t even consider to be remediations of classic stories but actually are!

Clueless: The 1995 film about a teenage girl making over her friend to get her together with a guy is a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma. The film takes the Emma Woodhouse’s charm, wit, and style and transforms her into a classic 90 romcom protagonist. This remediation actually stays fairly true to the plot of the original work, following the same basic plot points throughout, but transforming the gossip and drama of regency upper class society to modern high school drama. This brings the story into a whole new generation while remaining true to the original meaning of the text.

Bojack Horseman: If you aren’t familiar with the adult animation comedy the connection to classic literature might seem a bit weird. But the story of the horse from Bojack Horseman is a modern reworking of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. While this remediation takes more creative liberties with the story and plot, it takes the character concepts and themes of the original play and applies it to modern Hollywood culture. The most noticeable comparison is of the story of Sarah Lynn, which takes the Ophelia tragic death concept and applies it to the life of a Hollywood child actress who dies of an overdose. All the themes of Shakespeare’s most popular tragedy are transformed to show the downfall of a cynical depressed Hollywood actor.

Over the Garden Wall: This short animated tells the story of two brothers trapped in the Unknown, a surreal town in the woods filled with magic, monsters, and bizarre characters all themed with vintage fall like designs. It’s a cute beautifully animated show that captures the spirit of autumn, and is actually a retelling of Inferno, the first work in Dante Alighieri’s the Divine Comedy. The show takes the original journey of Dante and his companions through the 9 circles of hell and transforms it into a mysterious and beautiful but dangerous world. The characters of the show follow the same themes and basic plot points, with each episode of the series mirroring one of Dante’s adventures, reworking the themes for a modern audience.

Ponyo: The Studio Ghibli movie, Ponyo, tells the story of a fish that turns into little girl and falls in love with a little boy. It’s an adorable animated movie, and a reimagining of the Little Mermaid. While this is a fairy tale, what makes this movie stand out from other fairy tale retelling is how it reworks the story. It takes the elements and themes of the original story and reworks them to tell a different story for a modern audience about Japanese culture. This movie shows the ability of modern artists to rework classic stories in a way that is unique and breathes new life into their themes.

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Blog #4

The grading criteria throughout my education so far has shifted based on the individual teacher and class standards, but typically, we were graded through a basic rubric. From there, it depended again on the specific requirements that particular teacher wanted. Some teachers strived for work that was more creative and dynamic, others focused on accuracy and grammar, and some focused on connection to the text or reading material. Typically the reoccurring desire for teachers, at least in the classes I’ve had so far, is to demonstrate you understand the lecture or reading material and an advanced level and can draw connections between what you have previously learned and now know. Basic grammar and sentence structure also, more obviously, plays heavily into the grading criteria, but even that is flexible. If a professor is aiming more for creative expression or simply getting across basic points, some times they are less strict about particular grammar rules.

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One of my favorite fairy tales is the Brother Grimm’s original Snow White, however, the original story is far darker then the one we know today. The original followed the same story beats, but had several other forgotten elements which made it darker. It starts out differently, with a queen embroidering on a balcony, while doing so, she pricks her finger letting a few drops of blood drop onto the snow, once seeing this, she makes a wish upon the snow for a baby girl with red lips like blood, dark hair like a ravens wings, and skin as white as snow. Her wish is granted, but then she dies soon after the child is born, this leads the young girl into the care of the evil queen, and picks up the more familiar storyline, however in this darker version, the queen attempts to kill her four times, on the first occasion, she sends the huntsman to cut out the girls heart so that she could eat it and thus gain her beauty. She then attempts three more times with a poisoned comb, a deadly tight pair of stays, and the infamous apple. Each only successful until the girl is saved by the Dwarves and then later on the Prince and his men. The conventions of this story, allotted its success along with the other Brother’s Grimms tale. It was written in a printed book which could be read to children to teach lessons about life, and was passed from generation to generation, until finally it again reaches infamy in the 1930’s when it became Disney’s first feature length animated film. The story, for obvious reasons, was sanitized when made into a Disney movie in the 1930’s. Though still dark compared to other later Princess films, Disney’s version gets rid of the multiple murder attempts on Snow White as well as the original beginning, having the Queen only attempt to get rid of her with the implication the huntsman will kill her, and with the iconic poisoned apple. This allows the film more time for emphasis on the Dwarves and the music, which make a less dark, but much more palatable version of the tale.

The second story I’d like to delve in to, was also recreated by Disney, though it’s origins were entirely different: the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson. Again this story follows similar beats as it is known now, a young mermaid wishes to see land, so she makes a trade with a witch to exchange her voice for legs, in the process she falls in love with a prince and tries to stay with him. The original story, had a fair darker ending, instead of ending up with the Prince and dropping the witch, the original little mermaid ends with the young girl being unsuccessful, and being turned into sea foam. The origin story and conventions of this tale are what cause it to stand out, aside from this darkness. Unlike the tales of the Brother’s Grimm, this fairy tale though it was later transformed into a written story to read to children, began as a play to be preformed on stage by adults and for adults. The reason Hans Christian Anderson wrote it, was additionally believed to be to call attention to his secret male lover. A romantic and tragic story very different from our modern conception of it. A few hundred years later in the 1980’s Disney would also pick up this tale, and turned it into a happier story about a young mermaid who is tricked by a witch in a similar way but eventually stops her and ends up with her Prince. The modern version is lighter and filled with music, making it more iconic, but it’s hard to beat the dark and tragic origins of fairy tales like The Little Mermaid and Snow White for their beauty and literary impact.

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Hello, my name is Lou and I’m an English Publishing major. Writing is my favorite thing to do in and outside of school. I love to write fiction, especially novels. Currently I’m in the process of publishing a NA romance novel that I’ve been working on for the past year with my partner. I really love all forms of writing, as long as it’s not too structured. I prefer to have some creativity with sentence structure and figurative language. Aside from writing, I love to read, especially classics. I’m very excited to try new forms of writing this semester and see what my peers are interested in!