Shivani's SAS Blog

The top 3 insights I got from the last day of workshops were about the title, reflection and organization. Both the narratives we analyzed didn't have great titles, one didn't even have a title at all. Through the discussion, we realized how important having a good title was, because it would set up a little bit of context for the reader, it also shouldn't give the entire thing away. Next, while analyzing the narratives, we found that often the reflection was too blunt. Andrew, who did the animal encounter narrative, had to have a lot of reflection at the end based on the mentor text. However, quite a bit of it was too blunt, and this is a lot like my reflection too. I need to make my reflection fit with my narrative in a more subtle way, and have the reader infer some of it rather than downright telling them what I learned. Lastly, organization. In some narrative we read, the beginning wasn't really connected to the middle (crux) of the story, or the focus wasn't ...

The top 3 insights I got from workshop today was on characterization, redundancy, and the conclusion. While analyzing Maddie's narrative, she chose to characterize her friend more than her, so in the end, we knew more about her friend than her. It was important to follow the mentor to an extent, but she also needed to add details about herself to help the reader understand who the narrator is. Redundancy is something that could add emphasis to a narrative, but too much slows the reader down and doesn't create an efficiently paced narrative. In Da In's narrative, she told us she had chicken pox quite a few times on the first page, however we already knew this from the title, so it was unnecessary to add these many details. Lastly, it's important to end your narrative well enough so the reader doesn't have many lingering questions. Back to Maddie's narrative, I had many questions when I read her narrative, mainly because it ended so abruptly and didn't provide...

The top three insights about writing I got from the workshop today were on imagery, character development and theme. Firstly, for imagery, we talked about how important it was to describe the setting using imagery, because it sets a visual picture in your reader's mind. In addition, imagery can also set the tone of your writing, because how you describe your setting could be indicative of your narrative's tone. Secondly, character development was talked about for both the narratives we workshoped in class. Especially if you are the main character and the narrator, it's important to choose your diction well. This is because how you talk about things can be attributed to your character's identity. For example, in Zeina's narrative, her as the child is the narrator. We talked about how you should try to imagine what a child would notice, especially when she (as a child) described her mother. We told Zeina to focus on colours and patterns instead of brand names because ...

The insights I got from the 2nd day of workshops were mainly a better understanding of poetry and literary devices compared to last class. My top three insights were how detrimental abstract words can be, how important the structure of your poem is, and themes. While analyzing poems, a lot of us used abstract words, and sometimes they’re useful, but most of the time they’re confusing for the reader. This is because we were trying to describe an abstract topic with abstract words, making the poem very uncertain for the reader, because there were so many ways to analyze it. Secondly, I realized how important structure is for a poem. For one of the poems we read, there were no stanza breaks, and the line breaks were all random. This made it very confusing for the reader, because although there were tone and even subject shifts during the poem, since it was all bunched together that made it hard to separate. If there was a stanza break at the tone shift, the poem would have flowed much...

The top three insights about writing I got from the workshop today were the importance of the speaker, nuanced language, and imagery. During our workshop conversation, many of the speakers in the poems we analyzed were quite confusing, because the author didn’t provide enough detail on who was speaking. This often made the entire poem confusing because we didn’t know the point of view. Next, I realized how important nuanced language is in poetry and writing, because one word can have many different connotations. Sometimes, these connotations are implied, but sometimes it can be a mistake, so you have to make sure to use purposeful words while writing because it can be analyzed the wrong way. Finally, I noticed how vivid imagery in poetry added a deeper level for the reader to observe, because along with the tone shifts and emotions from the poem, the reader can now visualize the setting and the subject. Vivid imagery makes the poem more interesting and engaging for the audience. One...

     During the summative task, my biggest challenge was figuring out exactly how the poem conveyed their specific tone. Since I had my tone sheet, figuring out what tone was conveyed wasn't extremely challenging, but when I had to explain how the poem displayed that tone, I faced some problems.      I mainly focused on what rhetorical devices the author used, for example: metaphors, imagery and diction. After analyzing the use of these rhetorical devices, I tried to relate them to the tone I saw was conveyed in those few lines. The challenge here was figuring out how a metaphor conveyed a nostalgic tone, or how diction conveyed a dark tone. In addition, I found it hard to differentiate between the subject's emotions and the tone of the poem, because analyzing the rhetorical devices wasn't enough to separate these two. What I did instead was focus on how I felt after reading a specific line or stanza, and use that to identify the correct tone. Overall, al...

Reflection: One thing I discovered was that where you break a line can contribute so much to the tone. Especially the enjambment strategy, where it “tugs” the reader to the next line, creating a sense of urgency. I never realized how important enjambment is for the tone, if you’re trying to create tension in your poem. This is shown in the ode I read for homework, Mourning Picture by Adrienne Rich. Her first sentence even uses enjambment to pull the reader into the poem. Now understanding the author used enjambment for a reason, I can analyze why enjambment was used. This is my field guide: Exercise: Poem 39 (Working with Line Breaks) Grey hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, Grandma leaves the kitchen holding two Knives ready defend herself if needed. I turn away surprised, and turn back to Realize I was mistaken, She carried out two spoons to Share ice cream with me.

The main difference between writing an ode and an ekphrasis in class was our generating steps. For the ode, we brainstormed concrete words that branched off “I Love.” We then brainstormed again using one word from our original brainstorm map. This resulted in one word: fire, that I was able to write an ode to, using the structure of the mentor text. However, for the ekphrasis, instead of brainstorming words, we found a poem that intrigued us. Then, we free wrote for 10 mins to let our imagination run free. This activity let us see what exactly we were thinking about, when looking at the painting, because we wrote down all our thoughts. Along with researching the painter and the painting, we then wrote an ekphrasis to the painting using our mentor text. I thought this difference in the brainstorming stage was really helpful, because it got us to think about each type of poem in a different way, therefore our final poems turned out very unique. My handwritten notes: 1: ode brai...

My two drafts are extremely different, because I changed many aspects of draft 3 to reach draft 4. I decided to insert both poems side-by-side to make it easier to compare, and the poems are also hyperlinked in their respective column title.  “Eyes” (Draft 3) “Eyes” (Draft 4) I posses the eyes That cruise through the murky waters And glide through the stormy air And reach what no one else can: Truth It’s true we face our own battles It’s true our world is changing But it’s also true we, as individuals, don’t truly matter When our species are drowning, Fast I see we scramble for order I see we fight to maintain pattern Except it’s impossible to stay complacent And cling to this naive mentality when change really is Required One needs to posses the eyes That cruise through the murky waters And glide through the stor...

In my previous blog post, I didn’t really know what to talk about for the tone, and our class activities helped break up the tone shifts in The Red Sweater . In addition, I wasn’t sure what the focus of our comparison was, but now I know it’s essentially to compare tone and the poetic devices the author uses to communicate that meaning. In both The Red Sweater by Joseph O. Legaspi and The Lanyard by Billy Collins, the poems have multiple tone shifts throughout the poem, creating similarities and differences between these poems. Firstly, to start off, these poems both have an object in the title. In addition, the speakers are both children talking about their mothers. From several subtle details, the speaker of The Red Sweater appears to be at a mature age, and the speaker of The Lanyard is a man looking back to when he was a small boy. To compare the structure of both poems, both authors use enjambment to break their first lines. However, a major difference are the stanzas, bec...

Both these poems The Red Sweater by Joseph O. Legaspi and The Lanyard by Billy Collins have several similarities and differences. Firstly, most obviously, these poems both have an object in the title. In addition, the speakers are both children talking about their mothers. From several subtle details, the speaker of The Red Sweater appears to be at a mature age, and the speaker of The Lanyard is a man looking back to when he was a small boy. To compare the structure of both poems, both authors use enjambment to break their first lines. However, a major difference are the stanzas, because The Lanyard has a constant pattern of 6 lines in every stanza, while The Red Sweater only has one stanza break towards the end of the poem. The tone of both poems are slightly different. In The Red Sweater , the author uses specific diction and descriptions of the mother such as “In a twenty hour period my mother waits on hundreds of customers,” to convey an understanding and maybe even a sli...