Post #25: What Is Academic Writing?

In high school, I always wrote academic papers.  We had journal time for the first year or two, where we could just write about anything, but we were only even graded and critiqued on our academic papers; the traditional and clichéd five-paragraph essay.

It was good that we learned how to write in this way.  The five-paragraph essay gave us structure, and taught us how to organize writing so that it was argumentative and proved a point to the reader.  However, once the skill of writing organized papers is accomplished, it is okay to evolve to the more personalized, comedic, and in-depth writing that focusing on one specific blog topic can give.  It is very true; term papers are really only written to be rewarded with As, whereas with blogs, people write because, as Matt Richtel says, "they love writing for an audience, engaging with it" and "feel as if they’re actually producing something personally rewarding and valuable."  It is more fun to write something that is interesting and that people feel a connection with, and it is easier to do a good job when the task is more enjoyable.

In essence, structure and organization are basics that everyone needs to learn how to do and how to do well, but after, there is no reason why they can't break from the pattern and explore.

I can see the transition from structured and organized academic writing to more free-spirited and personal thoughts and analysis even in my blog posts over these last few months.  My first post, a reflection on the short story "First Day," and in it, I don't talk about my own thoughts or feelings at all--just what I observed in the text.  I was still in that mindset of "just analyze what is there; subjective writing is not professional."  Moving to my post about Jaja from Purple Hibiscus, I include more about what is happening in between the lines of the story, my predictions on what is going to happen, and even an image, but I don't use the word "I," because that is not professional.  But after that, I am not afraid to share my opinions in my writing, like with "Great Movies" when I discuss what it is that (I think) makes a movie great.  

I am someone who has a lot of opinions, but the more structured academic writing a always wrote in school, I never got to share that.  It is nice to be able to do, not just because I am very opinionated, but because being able to see my own thoughts helps me see connections in the text, thus analyzing them more thoroughly.  The audience started out as someone how I basically described the narrative of the text I was reading and the description of its characters to, but that someone became an audience who's purpose was to hear my opinions and ideas of the story and these characters and the connections made between them--intra-post, inter-post, or worldly.

However, I sometimes worry that all this personal yet informal writing has infiltrated the more formal writing that I still do have to do.  I often don't realize when I'm writing informally now, and so when the words "I" or "like" show up in my paper, I don't notice until it is too late.  While it's true that those words can help personalize a paper, they are definitely not professional.  

I seem to have reached both ends of the writing spectrum: the extremely structured, organized, and predictable academic writing of the five-paragraph essay, and the personalized and comedic writing of the blog.  Now, I need to find a happy medium between the two.

Post #24: Sleep is a Very Complex Thing

I don't understand sleep.  I feel like college students are on a COMPLETELY different sleep schedule from normal people, both in when they sleep and when they feel like sleeping.

I don't understand how I was able to get up at 6am in high school.  Getting up at 10am for class is bad enough.  How has my body adjusted to this so badly?  I just don't understand.

I get so tired in the middle of the day, too.  I just want to go to bed, but when I try to take a nap, I end up playing stupid games on my phone or computer, which is an even LESS productive use of my than sleeping would be.  And at night?  I can't help but going out or hanging with friends when something fun is going on.  It's basically impossible for me to do work on Friday or Saturday nights, but sleeping? I can do that.  I should do that.  But I DON'T do that.

I am so tired.  Like, right now.  Writing this post is a struggle, because sleep is fatiguing me.  Sleep is actually making me tired.

These are the kind of things I say when I am too tired to write.

Post #23: A Good Blog Post

What makes a good blog, or rather, a good blog post?  Well, it's got to have some color to it.  Whether that's color in the background, crazy images in the individual posts, it doesn't matter--it just needs to be appealing to the eye, not bland and boring.  Then nobody will want to read it.

I also love blog posts that are about more than just facts--they tell a story or a personal memory, are relatable to their readers, and can sometimes have a humorous tone that makes people laugh.  Like my post about good movies, if a person can't identify with or make a connection to a blog post, it isn't worth reading.

Kelly L.'s posts are great--the blog has a background of crazy colors, and she never fails to include images that catch my eye in her posts.  Her latest post is about John, someone she saw doing his math homework.  Even though she know absolutely nothing about him, she is able to describe him in immense detail, from the town in which he grew up to his goodbyes at the airport before coming to the University of Michigan.  I love all the metaphors Kelly uses--they made her writing sound very sophisticated, and yet the things she describes, like a boy in a messed-up situation with his parents, are not at all complex to us, and we can really identify with them, or at least understand them.

I also really like Matthew's posts; he doesn't have all the spurts of color that Kelly has, but the title of his blog, "Kippin' It Real," is a funny play on words.  That alone makes me want to read more of his blog.  His most recent post is about The Michigan Daily, which already makes it sound very professional.  I like how Matthew was able to take something professional and make it relatable to the readers, talking about how a newspaper is hard work, especially because of all the strict deadlines.  In school, we all have due dates for homework, but if we miss those due dates, it really only affects us.  If Matthew misses those deadlines, it not only affects him, but also all the people who read The Michigan Daily.

You can't have a post that includes all of things--personal stories, professionalism, and humor--because then it would just come off a chaotic.  You need to find a good balance between the three, like these previous posts have done, to attract a reader's attention.

Post #22: Martha

This girl has long, brown, curly hair and a round face.  Her eyes are big and brown, and she keeps rubbing them, as well as rubbing her nose, her forehead--her whole face, really.  Her eyelashes are very black, most likely with mascara.  She often twirls strands of her hair around her finger, making it even curlier.  She has a smaller nose, which is pierced on the left side, and her lips are very pink and pointed.  She has light skin and is wearing a black-and-white-striped short-sleeved shirt, where the stripes are diagonal on the sleeves and horizontal on the bodice.  She is also wearing red pants, which could possibly be jeans but I think are corduroy pants, and rugged black boots finish off her look.  She is reading a textbook, some type of math I think, but as she keeps playing with her hair and face, I don't think it is holding her attention very well.  She was also texting on a cell phone earlier, maybe talking to a friend or a parent, but she is here alone.

This is Martha, who is supposed to meet her friends for a calculus study group at the Shapiro library, but they all never showed up.  This makes Martha nervous, as she had trouble making friends in high school and thought that this was finally her chance, but it is not at all working out as she had planned.  She gets out her cell phone to call or text them, to ask where they are and if they are coming, but she chickened out at the last minute.  She doesn't want to seem too desperate, because then people won't like her.  Martha gets out her textbook, thinking maybe if she stops paying attention to who is coming in and out of the library and actually gets some work done, her friends will show up.  But this is to no avail, as Martha can't help but glance around as she tries to do her calculus homework, and she keeps twirling her hair around her fingers, a sign of anxiety.  She is constantly rubbing her face, trying to keep herself awake and focusing on calculus rather than what she could be doing if her friends were there, and finally, she gives up and accepts reality that not only are her friends not showing up, but she is getting nothing done.  Martha puts her calculus textbook back in her backpack, puts on her headphones, gets up, and leaves the library.  Maybe she will head to dinner, where her friends are eating dinner...or maybe she will eat alone tonight.

Post #21: Learning is Hard, But I Think Teaching is Even Harder

The most exciting thing that has happened to me lately is my Education 118 Teaching and Learning: Historical Investigation final paper.  I got the assignment last Wednesday for it to be due this morning, and of course, I didn't even start on it until yesterday.  And it was a 1,800 word paper.  AAAHHHHH!!!!!!

It's not usually like me to procrastinate like that, but we write so many papers for that class that I was just tired of it.  So, as a result, I started writing yesterday afternoon, had to make the appendix (which annoyingly took a few hours), was still writing last night, and didn't finish until about 3am.  And then I went down to the Community Learning Center of Alice Lloyd to print the entire assignment, AND THE PRINTER WAS BROKEN.  Yeah.  The printer was broken.  So I had to angrily go back upstairs and get up earlier than I would have liked so I could go to Mojo and hope someone would be nice enough to let me into their Community Learning Center so I could use their printer.

So when I went upstairs, I was super tired, the lack of a working printer put me in a bad mood, so I decided to play Candy Crush Saga on my phone.  It is the stupidest game, like a little-kid Candyland version of Bejeweled, but I am addicted to it.  Plus, it was a bad idea to play because it was already 3am, I was really tired, and I would have to get up and go out of my way to Mojo (okay, so not really out of my way as it's right there, but still).  But I still did, even though I am dead today, which was a terrible idea, but whatever.  This is college.  College is full of terrible ideas.

But guess what?!?!?!  I printed my paper this morning!  And I turned it in!  All 1,798 words!  I am actually pretty proud of myself--not just that I was able to write a 1,798-word paper in one day, but I was pretty pleased with my writing, too.  It was on a few of the learning claims (thesis statements) I had made, a few of the teaching claims I had made, and the history lesson I had taught to my brother.  In mid-October, we were all taught a simple but in-depth lesson about Pearl Harbor and Japanese internment camps by our professor, observed the professor teach this same lesson to a local high school student, and then had to go out and find an individual we could teach it to ourselves.  I taught my brother, with was an interesting experience, but I really enjoyed it, and he did a really good job.  I got some really interesting information, mostly his thoughts, feelings, and opinions on the material, out of him, and I was able to use most of it in my paper.  I think I did a good job, hopefully A-worthy.

Post #20: Dani Shapiro's Blog

Blogs are not usually things that interest me; many are just about the creator’s reviews of book, songs, and movies, about the events he is trying to promote, or random tidbits he finds interesting but doesn’t describe enough to hold my attention, but Dani Shapiro’s blog is different.  She is a writer, an actual author of novels and short stories, who has been featured everywhere from shows such as Oprah! to another blog on this list, called “The Millions,” and I find her work very interesting.

Dani’s blog consists of many different pages: the home page, advertising her most popular books, interviews, and upcoming appearance; the traditional blog page where she keeps us up to date with her posts (mainly essays); a list of the books she has written; upcoming appearances; recordings (visual, audio, and written) of the interviews she has done; contact and bibliographical information; a schedule of writing workshops given by her; and my personal favorite, her written works.  She wrote one particular story, “The Me My Child Mustn’t Know,” that really moved me.  It starts out with her son wanting to listen to NPR in the car, but she, usually grateful of the fact that they share a liking for the same radio stations, doesn’t want to listen to it that particular day.  That day, a reading of one of her older books, which she wrote in response to being in a car accident, dropping out of college with an alcohol and drug addiction, and having an affair with a married man, will be on NPR, and she does not want him to hear it.  Dani doesn’t want her son to know about her life before him and all the mistakes she has made; she does not want to give him the opportunity to judge her, but more importantly, she does not want the opportunity to judge herself for being a reckless mother.

Having no children of my own, I couldn’t identify so much with this piece, but I could definitely understand where she is coming from.  You may have completely changed since having children, but the past will always be there, and no matter who a person is, it can make them be seen in a different light.  It reminds me of a story I heard about Madonna and how she wouldn’t let her kids watch television until a certain age for fear that they would see her as the vivacious singer she once was, the life she led away from and previous to her family.  She, too, was worried about what her children would think of her, and how she would think of herself knowing about their awareness.

In addition to the depth, it is also the first person of the story—of all the stories she writes, really—that attracts my attention.  I feel like I have a more personal connection to writers who write in the first person, like I am hearing their thoughts and recollections first-hand and not interpreted by someone else.  Sure, many of the other blogs were written in first person, but they were more factual, a lot more about how “this is happening on this date” and “come to this to see my version of this,” which can be good to know, but not as interesting to me.

I like the interviews and brief reviews of her books that are on the blog as well because it shows me how far she has come in her writing, and by me being able to explore her very personal blog, I feel like I know and am proud of her.  I know it’s a strange thing to feel, but the personality and personableness (Is that a word?  If not, I’m making it up.) make it so.  They themselves are also interesting to see/hear/read, to see if the writer Dani is as similar to the Dani written about as you would think.

I chose this blog to write about and recommend for others to read because this is what I strive to make my own blog like.  Obviously, I don’t have the appearance, interviews, book lists, and workshops that I am teaching (unless I am secretly a world-famous author leading a double life), but I try to make my posts meaningful, about my thoughts on a particular subject or goings-on in my life, and not just about objective thoughts on an objective event that is going on.  To me, that is what makes for an interesting read.

Post #19: Changes

When I was in high school, I was pretty quiet with a fairly small group of friends.  Since coming to the University of Michigan, I have really been trying to be more outgoing with friends, classmates, and fellow residents of Alice Lloyd, and though I feel like I am meeting more friends and getting to know people, I haven't totally changed.  I'm still a fairly quiet person--that is, when I don't know a person very well--but I've been taking more risks socially.  I guess that's something that's changed since I got to college.



I've also developed a much better work ethic.  In high school, I got good grades, but didn't really put as much effort and thoroughness into my homework and essays as I should have.  Since being here, I have realized that's it's not possible to turn in papers and projects and to do well on exams without putting a lot of effort into it, whether that means writing multiple drafts or studying the same terms for hours at a time.  And as a result, I feel like I am learning more from the mistakes I make on assignments and fixing them so to do better.  I really feel like I am succeeding academically more now than I was before college.

Before coming to the University of Michigan, I was so ready to get out of the house.  I was going out more and giving my parents a hard time the few times I actually was home, but now that I'm here, I realize how much I relied on them before, and that I really miss them.  True, my parents are just across town, so I can visit practically anytime I want to, but the fact that I'm not actually living there right now just kind of makes me sad sometimes.  I guess this will get better as time goes on, but this was one change that I didn't expect to happen at college.

Post #18: The Road (or rather, Train Tracks) Not Taken

I think that I am going to "go this way," or write about the train tracks pictured on the course blog because, as I wasn't quite sure what to talk about, that picture seemed welcoming and somewhat familiar to me.

Those train tracks look exactly like the ones by my house, or rather, my parents' house, near the Huron River on the north-west region of Ann Arbor.  It's where my mom used to take my dog, Misty, for walks, and boy, did she love playing in the river.  My mom would go with some of her friends and their dogs sometimes, and occasionally, I would go with them.  It was fun to watch Misty and the other dogs play in the water; well, Misty didn't really play, she more just dipped in and out, as she was afraid of the floating twigs and rare waves that would flow by.  But, she did love to get wet, and that made for a great mess.  But she enjoyed herself, and that was all that mattered.

I remember another time when we took Misty to the train tracks--my mom's friend from work came to take professional photos of me and my brother, and we walked the short distance to the Huron River because it made for a pretty background.  My mom and brother were with the photographer over on the bridge while I was holding Misty on a leash near the train tracks; we were just wandering around and exploring when suddenly, a train came by.  I admit, I was a little unsettled, being so close to the train and hearing its extremely loud chugging, but she was totally freaked.  Now Misty, when she got scared, she froze in place, and you could practically hear her heart thumping.  In fact, in that moment, I could practically hear her heart thumping.  She was okay, just shocked.

On her last day, that's where we took her; to the Huron River and those train tracks.  I think that that was her favorite place, one that she knew and yet could always be exploring.  I was--am--really glad that she got to go there again.  We still haven't done anything with Misty's ashes, but I want to put them there, by the tracks and plants, even in the water.  We thought about burying them in our yard, under a little memorial stone, but I don't want to do that.  She deserves to be where she loved, in the Huron River, in the grass that grows tall, and by those train tracks.

Post #17: Great Movies

I actually did a project my senior year of high school where I watched the Academy Award-winning film from years 2000-2012, and so I got to see a lot of what makes a movie award-worthy and what is lacking from every great movie, and what I saw kind of surprised me.

Some of my favorite movies I saw were Million Dollar Baby, The Departed, Slumdog Millionaire, and Argo, and all of those movies were dramas, not comedies or horror movies.  In fact, none of the movies I saw were comedies or horror movies; they were all dramas (with the exception of Chicago, a musical, but that was still about a drama).  In order for a movie to be successful and for people to really enjoy it, it has to be relatable--not just the events, but the emotions, too.  No one wants to watch a movie about aliens taking over some far-off universe, because no one can actually relate to what is going on.  Sure, there have been successful movies about aliens taking over this universe, but because it has human characters who feel emotions like fear for their lives, love for others in danger, and even anger to overthrow those opposing them, people can connect to the film.  

Argo is about an outrageous yet completely triumphant mission in history, but because it had war, kidnapping, and a whole lot of suspense, people could relate aspects of their own lives, or at least the lives around them to it.  Slumdog Millionaire is about the poverty, religious prejudice, prostitution, and mistreatment that goes on halfway around the world, and yet people in America could still feel sympathy and empathy for the characters because their emotions were real, and they know that to at least some extent, those events do happen in actuality.  The Departed isn't quite so relatable, as it was about the Irish mafia, but it depicted the lives of two men, similar in natural being and yet raised to (unknowingly) be opposing forces and double agents for the opposite teams--a game of life and death that creates a suspense all of its own.  And, Million Dollar Baby is about an extremely relatable, not-so-bright southern girl who just wants to do what she loves, a lonely, grumpy old man, owner of a gym and who longs for his daughter to speak to him again, and how the two, in their own way, create a father-daughter bond and become a family.

So basically, as we have seen here, a movie doesn't have to be completely original to be great; it just has to be able to connect to people's emotions, either with edge-of-your-seat tension or with relatable characters and circumstances.

Post #16: It's Grown On Me

-Ella Enchanted
-The Hangover
-The Office (Mom)

At first when I began writing this post, I could not think of anything to write about.  If I don't like a movie or TV show, I typically don't watch it again.  If I don't like a book, I typically don't read again.  But I have made some exceptions.

When I was in elementary school, I started reading Ella Enchanted, but I did not like it and gave up on it after just a few pages because it was too sad.  I was upset by the fact that her mother died, her father didn't care about her, and her stepmother and stepsisters treated her terribly, taking advantage of her forced obedience.  At that young age, I didn't like to hear about sad things because it made me really upset, but when I got a little older, sometime in middle school, I picked up the book again.  This time, I wasn't upset by and actually really enjoyed the plot line because I was more mature and was able to see past the obstacles that Ella faced and got to the ending, which of course ended happily ever after.  They did make a Disney movie out of it, after all.

In middle school, I first watched The Hangover with my family.  It is a comedy, and as I thoroughly enjoy comedies, I was excited to see it; however, I didn't find the humor in the movie to be particularly funny.  Everyone else--the rest of my family, my friends and neighbors, even people I rarely associate with in school--loved it, though that it was extremely funny and one of the more well-done comedies made recently, but I disagreed.  A lot of the movie is stupid, even crude humor, but I think most of the reason I didn't like it was because everyone else did, an I wanted to be different.  Kind of silly, I know.  But after watching it again just recently, I found myself laughing at the parts I didn't enjoy before, and at the stupidity of the characters and their actions.  It took a few years, but the movie really did grow on me.

In early high school, my cousins introduced me to "The Office," and my brother and I loved it.  However, my mom didn't--she thought that the jokes were stupid and the characters were rude, especially the protagonist, Michael.  She did end up buying the first season of the show for my brother and I as a holiday gift, because we really enjoyed watching it, but she, unlike my dad, refused to watch it with us.  One day, though, she sat down on the couch while the rest of the family was watching "The Office," and--whether it was a change of heart or the particular episode's plotline, we'll never know--she actually laughed aloud at some of Michael, Jim, and Dwight's jokes.  It seemed like the second time was really the charm for her.