Simona -
Excellent reporting and excellent narrative. Your piece really sheds light on something many people would never think about or even know existed. The structure of the article is sound and I think the quotes are well selected. I think the piece could use a little bit more of scene though. Besides that, I think the technical aspect of the piece, the writing itself, like I said, is already really good. I’m really interested in a description of one of these camps if you can find one!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Response for Andrea
Andrea –
I love the piece! So many profound issues at hand, its like a whirlwind of all this deep stuff; MS, welfare, single-parenting, the worth of a college education, etc, etc. The quotes from Lisa really nail it home. I love the quote about “we make plans and God laughs”. However, I think this piece would benefit a great deal from a refinement of its scope. I think sticking to one of those issues and really running with it will have a tremendous impact on the message of the article and it seems like Lisa is a well of quotes for any and all of these isssues – I couldn’t imagine it would be hard to focus on one thing. Structurally, I would maybe not go back and forth between speakers because it can get confusing. I think you should chose the best quotes from Mira and have it one place and then sign her off, so to speak. I really look forward to the final article.
I love the piece! So many profound issues at hand, its like a whirlwind of all this deep stuff; MS, welfare, single-parenting, the worth of a college education, etc, etc. The quotes from Lisa really nail it home. I love the quote about “we make plans and God laughs”. However, I think this piece would benefit a great deal from a refinement of its scope. I think sticking to one of those issues and really running with it will have a tremendous impact on the message of the article and it seems like Lisa is a well of quotes for any and all of these isssues – I couldn’t imagine it would be hard to focus on one thing. Structurally, I would maybe not go back and forth between speakers because it can get confusing. I think you should chose the best quotes from Mira and have it one place and then sign her off, so to speak. I really look forward to the final article.
Response for Marina
Marina –
This piece has excellent structure to it. The story flows smoothly from beginning to end supported with adequate and appropriate quotes. However, I feel like the conflict in this story can be fleshed out more. There are repeated claims of the uphill feminist battle on campus but there is no real discussion on what that battle entails. Why do these women feel they are in a battle? What are some of the things they have dealt with on campus that they struggle with? I’m not rejecting their claims, I’m just interested in what exactly are the concrete issues they are striving against. I think the microcosm of the theatre department really serves nicely as a point of departure for the larger issues at hand.
This piece has excellent structure to it. The story flows smoothly from beginning to end supported with adequate and appropriate quotes. However, I feel like the conflict in this story can be fleshed out more. There are repeated claims of the uphill feminist battle on campus but there is no real discussion on what that battle entails. Why do these women feel they are in a battle? What are some of the things they have dealt with on campus that they struggle with? I’m not rejecting their claims, I’m just interested in what exactly are the concrete issues they are striving against. I think the microcosm of the theatre department really serves nicely as a point of departure for the larger issues at hand.
Response for Steven
Steven –
I really liked the descriptions throughout this piece, though, as you say, they were overbearing at times. I think limiting the decsriptions to a few choice scenes and adding more dialogue would really establish a good balance in this article. The vocabulary is excellent – it is refreshing when adjectives aren’t repeated, and you manage this quite well. Structurally, I think the piece would benefit from breaking up the paragraphs. Sometimes I found myself getting lost in them but this may just be the result of the online layout (which, in all probablity, is the case). I’m looking forward to the element that Greekfest will add to this piece. One thing to consider: what is the overall story of this besides just observing a religious ceremony?
I really liked the descriptions throughout this piece, though, as you say, they were overbearing at times. I think limiting the decsriptions to a few choice scenes and adding more dialogue would really establish a good balance in this article. The vocabulary is excellent – it is refreshing when adjectives aren’t repeated, and you manage this quite well. Structurally, I think the piece would benefit from breaking up the paragraphs. Sometimes I found myself getting lost in them but this may just be the result of the online layout (which, in all probablity, is the case). I’m looking forward to the element that Greekfest will add to this piece. One thing to consider: what is the overall story of this besides just observing a religious ceremony?
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Final Draft of Final Article: The Lost Children of Vine Street
The Lost Children of Vine Street
On a quiet and warm spring weeknight in the student ghetto of Kalamazoo, a quick stroll down any of the more well known streets of the neighborhood will reveal a common scene: small groups of college friends, often accompanied by a tolerable volume of music, hanging out on the front porches of hundred year-old houses casually drinking the night away.
A house on Vine Street, however, plays host to a different scene. The house itself immediately stands out to anyone walking down the street. A clutter of chairs, bikes, and unidentifiable junk litter the porch at any given time. Like many other houses in the neighborhood, there is usually a group of college-aged people hanging out on the porch. But, unlike the other houses in the neighborhood, this group doesn’t go to college and this group all lives in one house.
In the backyard of this house, floating embers softly illuminate the faces of ten or more of the house’s residents around a dying bonfire. The gathering of individuals has found their seats among white plastic chairs, couch cushions, a log, a tire, several deteriorating wooden dining chairs and the damp, littered ground.
Just beyond the cusp of illumination, a man haphazardly picks at his acoustic guitar emitting a folksy tune that fuels three to dance barefoot wildly around the fire, fleeting in and out of the darkness. They hoot and holler unintelligible sounds, often colliding with each other and falling to the ground in fits of childish laughter; intoxicated by the lack of apparent inhibitions. The scene is tribal.
I stand in my own backyard, two houses down, watching this scene unfold for several minutes. Finally, I recognize Olivia, a twenty-something woman who lives in the house where the bonfire is being held and who, on occasion, I’ve interacted with when I’ve gone over to her house in hopes of borrowing a can-opener and knife.
The first time I approached the house was during daytime. I grew more hesitant as I got closer, seeing two long and untamed haired guys on the front porch, shirtless, shoeless, and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Climbing two steps and avoiding the mini-cultivation of plants growing in egg cartons, I asked them if they had a can-opener I could borrow. Without breaking his distant glaze and taking a long, hard drag from his cigarette, the man closest to the door responded, “Ask Olivia, she’s inside.”
Entering the house, I was hit with a pungent smell – a combination of acidic body odor, dirty feet, cigarette smoke and mold - that I could only imagine being the inevitable result of twelve, free-spirited people living in a four-bedroom house. Having had no directions as to where I would find Olivia, I wandered cautiously through the first floor of the house.
The living room overflowed with unbounded and coverless books whose pages all seemingly exhibited the hue of coffee-stained parchment: a collection of rare and self-published literature. Moving on, the dining room, walls painted black, did not house a dining table; instead, in one corner stood a cello and a violin and in the other corner an easel was flanked by a wobbly-looking coffee table.
At the doorway to the kitchen, I saw a woman with her back to me preparing a huge salad bowl. Nervously, I uttered, “Olivia?” She turned around, smiling, her dark brown hair held back by a blue bandana; she wore a pair of knee-length, cut-off jeans and a sweaty, white tank top with no bra underneath. Her outfit left her leg and armpit hair unabashedly noticeable. Nicely enough, she let me borrow the can-opener.
Tonight, after recognizing Olivia at the bonfire, I decide to make my way over. Arriving next to her, only to find standing room only (I dare not sit on the ground, scattered with trash and God- knows what else), she turns to me and says, “Hey, John, right?” Nodding my head and trying to start a conversation I reply, “So, what’s the deal with all these bonfires lately?” Olivia laughs and shares, “Oh, well, our power got cut off over two weeks ago so this is kinda our only light during the night. Good thing the weather has been nice.”
I momentarily get lost in the thought of sharing a house with eleven other people and without electricity. The thought sends chills through my body, which the dwindling fire fails to warm. I muster the only response I can think of, “No electricity? That must really suck” to which Olivia, aloofly replies, “No, not really. It is kinda nice.”
Watching the others continue to dance, the lack of anything in common with them strikes me and I grow uncomfortable. I try to make more small talk with Olivia, “How long have you lived here? Does it get crazy with all these people?” She doesn’t take a moment to gather her thoughts “I think I’ve been living here four, five months. I don’t really know. It’s not that crazy, we have chores assigned to people each week and we just live day by day. We try not to stress about things.” I get the sense that everyone hear shares the characteristic of speaking few words but having many thoughts.
Another man, sitting across the fire from us, has apparently been listening to our conversation. He jumps up from his sitting post on a tire and comes over to join us. He is wearing tight, rolled-up corduroy pants, a ripped, yellow tank top, and, peculiarly, a bicycle helmet. Now only a couple of feet away, I can see his face, hidden behind dirty and sweaty strands of hair and a full, bushy beard. He can’t be older than twenty-two.
His most striking feature is his wild brown eyes, a sharp contrast to the appearance of wear and tear the rest of his face shows. Leaning in towards me, I notice his jitteriness. Dousing me with breath that has never known, or at least forgotten, a toothbrush, he says, “Olivia is the mother hen. Yup. Cooks and cleans. Always painting and cooking and baking. You should try her food. Try her salad. I love it.”
Not knowing how to appropriately respond, I say, “I’ll be sure to try it. What’s your name?”. He recoils and says, “I don’t have one”. He goes back to his tire. Olivia tells me not to mind him because “he is probably just coming down from his high… he does heroin.” I ask her if she does drugs too. “No, I don’t do those drugs. Sometimes I’ll smoke pot or something. But no. I don’t do those drugs,” says Olivia.
Without being prompted she continues, “I mean, everyone does what floats their boats here. I’m not going to judge. Yes, some of us do all kinds of drugs here. Others don’t at all. Don’t even smoke cigarettes. We are just very accepting of each other and I don’t really see anything wrong with that.”
I sit and continue to watch the madness of unchecked liberation drive deeper into the night. I can’t help but think that these people are the grown-up lost children of William Golding’s novel. I ask Olivia if I can come talk to her more formally next week and she agrees.
When I returned the next week, I again encountered the two guardians of the free-spirited temple. The house always has people in it, since only two of the twelve people living there hold legitimate jobs. I ask them if Olivia is home and they respond, “Who the fuck are you?” Today is not a good day to be an outsider. Shocked, I reply, “Uh…I’m your neighbor. We’ve met before. Uh, so is she home?”. Coldly, the more vocal of the two says, “No, she doesn’t live here anymore. Don’t know where she is either and its no one’s real fucking business too.”
Defeated and confused, I walked back the eighty yards to my house, passing by the front porch of another neighbor’s house where his friends were beginning to arrive with six-packs and brats to throw on the grill. One of the guys offered me a beer as I passed but I kindly refused. I smiled, feeling comforted to be back in the student ghetto.
On a quiet and warm spring weeknight in the student ghetto of Kalamazoo, a quick stroll down any of the more well known streets of the neighborhood will reveal a common scene: small groups of college friends, often accompanied by a tolerable volume of music, hanging out on the front porches of hundred year-old houses casually drinking the night away.
A house on Vine Street, however, plays host to a different scene. The house itself immediately stands out to anyone walking down the street. A clutter of chairs, bikes, and unidentifiable junk litter the porch at any given time. Like many other houses in the neighborhood, there is usually a group of college-aged people hanging out on the porch. But, unlike the other houses in the neighborhood, this group doesn’t go to college and this group all lives in one house.
In the backyard of this house, floating embers softly illuminate the faces of ten or more of the house’s residents around a dying bonfire. The gathering of individuals has found their seats among white plastic chairs, couch cushions, a log, a tire, several deteriorating wooden dining chairs and the damp, littered ground.
Just beyond the cusp of illumination, a man haphazardly picks at his acoustic guitar emitting a folksy tune that fuels three to dance barefoot wildly around the fire, fleeting in and out of the darkness. They hoot and holler unintelligible sounds, often colliding with each other and falling to the ground in fits of childish laughter; intoxicated by the lack of apparent inhibitions. The scene is tribal.
I stand in my own backyard, two houses down, watching this scene unfold for several minutes. Finally, I recognize Olivia, a twenty-something woman who lives in the house where the bonfire is being held and who, on occasion, I’ve interacted with when I’ve gone over to her house in hopes of borrowing a can-opener and knife.
The first time I approached the house was during daytime. I grew more hesitant as I got closer, seeing two long and untamed haired guys on the front porch, shirtless, shoeless, and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Climbing two steps and avoiding the mini-cultivation of plants growing in egg cartons, I asked them if they had a can-opener I could borrow. Without breaking his distant glaze and taking a long, hard drag from his cigarette, the man closest to the door responded, “Ask Olivia, she’s inside.”
Entering the house, I was hit with a pungent smell – a combination of acidic body odor, dirty feet, cigarette smoke and mold - that I could only imagine being the inevitable result of twelve, free-spirited people living in a four-bedroom house. Having had no directions as to where I would find Olivia, I wandered cautiously through the first floor of the house.
The living room overflowed with unbounded and coverless books whose pages all seemingly exhibited the hue of coffee-stained parchment: a collection of rare and self-published literature. Moving on, the dining room, walls painted black, did not house a dining table; instead, in one corner stood a cello and a violin and in the other corner an easel was flanked by a wobbly-looking coffee table.
At the doorway to the kitchen, I saw a woman with her back to me preparing a huge salad bowl. Nervously, I uttered, “Olivia?” She turned around, smiling, her dark brown hair held back by a blue bandana; she wore a pair of knee-length, cut-off jeans and a sweaty, white tank top with no bra underneath. Her outfit left her leg and armpit hair unabashedly noticeable. Nicely enough, she let me borrow the can-opener.
Tonight, after recognizing Olivia at the bonfire, I decide to make my way over. Arriving next to her, only to find standing room only (I dare not sit on the ground, scattered with trash and God- knows what else), she turns to me and says, “Hey, John, right?” Nodding my head and trying to start a conversation I reply, “So, what’s the deal with all these bonfires lately?” Olivia laughs and shares, “Oh, well, our power got cut off over two weeks ago so this is kinda our only light during the night. Good thing the weather has been nice.”
I momentarily get lost in the thought of sharing a house with eleven other people and without electricity. The thought sends chills through my body, which the dwindling fire fails to warm. I muster the only response I can think of, “No electricity? That must really suck” to which Olivia, aloofly replies, “No, not really. It is kinda nice.”
Watching the others continue to dance, the lack of anything in common with them strikes me and I grow uncomfortable. I try to make more small talk with Olivia, “How long have you lived here? Does it get crazy with all these people?” She doesn’t take a moment to gather her thoughts “I think I’ve been living here four, five months. I don’t really know. It’s not that crazy, we have chores assigned to people each week and we just live day by day. We try not to stress about things.” I get the sense that everyone hear shares the characteristic of speaking few words but having many thoughts.
Another man, sitting across the fire from us, has apparently been listening to our conversation. He jumps up from his sitting post on a tire and comes over to join us. He is wearing tight, rolled-up corduroy pants, a ripped, yellow tank top, and, peculiarly, a bicycle helmet. Now only a couple of feet away, I can see his face, hidden behind dirty and sweaty strands of hair and a full, bushy beard. He can’t be older than twenty-two.
His most striking feature is his wild brown eyes, a sharp contrast to the appearance of wear and tear the rest of his face shows. Leaning in towards me, I notice his jitteriness. Dousing me with breath that has never known, or at least forgotten, a toothbrush, he says, “Olivia is the mother hen. Yup. Cooks and cleans. Always painting and cooking and baking. You should try her food. Try her salad. I love it.”
Not knowing how to appropriately respond, I say, “I’ll be sure to try it. What’s your name?”. He recoils and says, “I don’t have one”. He goes back to his tire. Olivia tells me not to mind him because “he is probably just coming down from his high… he does heroin.” I ask her if she does drugs too. “No, I don’t do those drugs. Sometimes I’ll smoke pot or something. But no. I don’t do those drugs,” says Olivia.
Without being prompted she continues, “I mean, everyone does what floats their boats here. I’m not going to judge. Yes, some of us do all kinds of drugs here. Others don’t at all. Don’t even smoke cigarettes. We are just very accepting of each other and I don’t really see anything wrong with that.”
I sit and continue to watch the madness of unchecked liberation drive deeper into the night. I can’t help but think that these people are the grown-up lost children of William Golding’s novel. I ask Olivia if I can come talk to her more formally next week and she agrees.
When I returned the next week, I again encountered the two guardians of the free-spirited temple. The house always has people in it, since only two of the twelve people living there hold legitimate jobs. I ask them if Olivia is home and they respond, “Who the fuck are you?” Today is not a good day to be an outsider. Shocked, I reply, “Uh…I’m your neighbor. We’ve met before. Uh, so is she home?”. Coldly, the more vocal of the two says, “No, she doesn’t live here anymore. Don’t know where she is either and its no one’s real fucking business too.”
Defeated and confused, I walked back the eighty yards to my house, passing by the front porch of another neighbor’s house where his friends were beginning to arrive with six-packs and brats to throw on the grill. One of the guys offered me a beer as I passed but I kindly refused. I smiled, feeling comforted to be back in the student ghetto.
Process Writing for the Quarter
In general, I found writing the articles for this class quite challenging. First, most of the articles required extensive reporting and this is an area I always fear doing. Approaching complete strangers has never been my strong point and even less so when we are expected to get a “story” out of them. Secondly, since this is a narrative journalism class, we are forced to write considerably more creatively than, at least, what I am used to. This was probably my first significant exposure to the elements of creative writing since, I don’t know - middle school? These two aspects of the class, taken together, constantly challenged me on each article I wrote.
My first article, my personal essay, was very difficult to write for several reasons. On the one hand, I’m not used to writing about myself and on the other hand, the topic I chose to write about, my parent’s divorce, is still something that is hard for me to talk, think and, in this case, write about. In my first draft, I had considerable issues with the “time” of events and, after the workshop, I think I was able to adjust it and make it clearer to the reader when and where all these events were happening in my life. I think writing about this particular aspect of my life served to help me deal or at least reflect more upon these issues and what effect they have had on me.
My second article, the profile on the barbershop and Eddie Anderson, presented me with those issues of approaching strangers. This issue was further complicate by the fact that this barbershop, in several ways, is an ethnic enclave and at multiple times I felt like an unwanted intruder. I felt like sometimes I was an anthropologist going into study this place from my privileged position in the ivory tower. I was also concerned about accurately portraying the subject without patronizing them or casting them in some negative racial stereotype. Another issue I encountered was the flakiness of my subjects. My scheduled interview was canceled several times and this really stressed/frustrated me. However, once I conducted the interview and started writing I found that the story came out pretty easily and naturally. There is just something that I like about barbershops and getting a haircut that I think enabled me to write creatively and effectively for this piece.
The last piece, the profile of my neighbors, has been a little tricky. Most of them are consistently in some sort of a drug-induced stupor, so approaching them doesn’t always work out. My main contact, Olivia, was nice but it was very hard to get a hold of her (no email, cell, etc) and finally she moved without letting me know (we had another interview “scheduled”). Though I didn’t have the complete access I had hoped for, I kind of thought that this would be an interesting thing to portray in a story and I also think it is an element of the story itself – how this group of people is really isolated and wary of outsiders. I’m not sure I could get the access I want without making this an immersion piece and that’s something I just didn’t have time for. But, like I said, I think the story works in its own way.
I think writing for this course really helped me to refine my creative writing abilities and most importantly I think this course taught me a lot about myself by constantly challenging me and making me feel uncomfortable. I think being forced to reflect (the personal essay) and being forced to work outside my comfort zone (interviewing strangers) allowed me to grow as a person by identifying some of my weaknesses and allowing me to work on them. After writing these articles I’m exponentially more confident in my creative writing abilities.
My first article, my personal essay, was very difficult to write for several reasons. On the one hand, I’m not used to writing about myself and on the other hand, the topic I chose to write about, my parent’s divorce, is still something that is hard for me to talk, think and, in this case, write about. In my first draft, I had considerable issues with the “time” of events and, after the workshop, I think I was able to adjust it and make it clearer to the reader when and where all these events were happening in my life. I think writing about this particular aspect of my life served to help me deal or at least reflect more upon these issues and what effect they have had on me.
My second article, the profile on the barbershop and Eddie Anderson, presented me with those issues of approaching strangers. This issue was further complicate by the fact that this barbershop, in several ways, is an ethnic enclave and at multiple times I felt like an unwanted intruder. I felt like sometimes I was an anthropologist going into study this place from my privileged position in the ivory tower. I was also concerned about accurately portraying the subject without patronizing them or casting them in some negative racial stereotype. Another issue I encountered was the flakiness of my subjects. My scheduled interview was canceled several times and this really stressed/frustrated me. However, once I conducted the interview and started writing I found that the story came out pretty easily and naturally. There is just something that I like about barbershops and getting a haircut that I think enabled me to write creatively and effectively for this piece.
The last piece, the profile of my neighbors, has been a little tricky. Most of them are consistently in some sort of a drug-induced stupor, so approaching them doesn’t always work out. My main contact, Olivia, was nice but it was very hard to get a hold of her (no email, cell, etc) and finally she moved without letting me know (we had another interview “scheduled”). Though I didn’t have the complete access I had hoped for, I kind of thought that this would be an interesting thing to portray in a story and I also think it is an element of the story itself – how this group of people is really isolated and wary of outsiders. I’m not sure I could get the access I want without making this an immersion piece and that’s something I just didn’t have time for. But, like I said, I think the story works in its own way.
I think writing for this course really helped me to refine my creative writing abilities and most importantly I think this course taught me a lot about myself by constantly challenging me and making me feel uncomfortable. I think being forced to reflect (the personal essay) and being forced to work outside my comfort zone (interviewing strangers) allowed me to grow as a person by identifying some of my weaknesses and allowing me to work on them. After writing these articles I’m exponentially more confident in my creative writing abilities.
Monday, June 7, 2010
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