Monday, June 7, 2010
Final Explanatory Piece
KAMSC Students Have the Resources to Garner The “Congratulations!”
By Jessica Maas
Anthony Spalvieri-Kruse opened his MacBook on the evening of March 26 to find his admission decision to NYU’s new Abu Dhabi program waiting. The tall, thin, Portage Northern senior, who is always brushing at the brown hair falling in his eyes, didn’t even have time to be anxious while he clicked on it.
The subject of the e-mail gave it away: “NYU Abu Dhabi—Congratulations.”
Thousands of other high school seniors around the country received their decisions to the country’s top schools within days of Spalvieri-Kruse. Most, though, were not as fortunate.
According to “The New York Times,” the number of applications submitted to many of the most selective colleges in the U.S. increased this year—by as much as 20 percent, in a few cases—and, as a result, the percentage of students accepted decreased.
But at the Kalamazoo Area Mathematics and Science Center (KAMSC), an accelerated school for some of the brightest students from 12 area high schools, including Spalvieri-Kruse, students continued to find acceptance letters in their mailboxes and e-mail inboxes.
Spalvieri-Kruse had actually already deposited to Cornell when he received his notice from NYU. He made the decision to revoke his acceptance there, though, for a full ride and the chance to be one of only 180 students to participate in the pilot program at NYU’s recently developed Honors College.
Another KAMSC student was accepted to Brown, whose admittance rate this year was only 9.3 percent after a 20.60 percent increase in applications. Spalvieri-Kruse and one other student were accepted at Cornell, one was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania, and one is turning down Stanford to attend Harvard; all of those schools experienced increases in the number of applications this year, and the latter two each accepted fewer than eight percent of those.
In total, the KAMSC graduating class of 68 received 213 offers of admission from 72 colleges or programs. And the Ivy Leagues were not the only elite schools offering—KAMSC students also had offers at other prestigious schools such as Emory University, George Washington University, Northwestern University, Oberlin College, University of Chicago, and Vanderbilt University.
According to Spalvieri-Kruse, it isn’t their intelligence that necessarily gets them in; it’s about the resources that KAMSC and its college counselor Jon Streeter afford to the students.
“It’s really interesting—through the application process you kind of see how much it has to do with packaging more so than actual aptitude,” he said. “Like, I can almost definitively say that smartest kids at KAMSC weren’t the ones who got into the Ivy League schools. Just, for example, there’s this kid at my school…he’s like a genius, he’s brilliant, but he only got into U of M, and, you know, that’s excellent for him, but his issue is just with packaging himself. He’s obviously way smarter than all of us, but he didn’t constantly see Mr. Streeter, he didn’t do all the paperwork, he didn’t foster all of these relationships with the teachers that you need on your side. You need a lot of people on your side to get into big name schools.”
And the seniors have someone on their side in Jon Streeter. The students describe him as an invaluable asset to their application process, walking them through the process step by step.
“Mr. Streeter is dealing with you one on one, and he only has about 60, 70 students at a time, so he has the ability to sit down with you one on one in his office and say, ‘This is where you are, this is where you need to be, this is what you need to do to get to where you’re going, and if you need help, call me,’” said Portage Northern senior Chelsea Angel, who plans to attend Cornell in the fall. “He’s so accessible—he has his phone on him, he gets his e-mails all the time; if you e-mail him at 2 a.m., he’ll get it. And he gives you his home phone, his cell phone. ‘If you have an emergency, call me on my cell.’ If he’s in service, he’ll pick it up. It doesn’t matter where or when or what he’s doing. He’s there to help you, and he lets you know that that is his sole purpose—to help you succeed and get you where you want to go.”
According to both Angel and Spalvieri-Kruse, the differences between their home school guidance counselors and Jon Streeter are vast.
“Instead of being an advocate for you on the front lines of your college experience, she’s more of a behind-the-scenes assistant, I guess,” said Angel of her guidance counselor at Portage Northern. “She’ll do the filing for you, and she’ll get the forms turned in that she needs to turn in and whatnot, but you really have to be on her about it because she has so many people to worry about that if she forgets about you and you don’t remind her, then it’s not going to happen.”
Jon Streeter, though, does act as the advocate for KAMSC students. The 66-year-old man with thin white hair and a matching mustache begins the college search process with the students during their first year as freshmen. Students are asked to research careers and colleges twice in their first two years, and beginning in the junior year they are required not only to narrow down their choices, but also embark on a certain number of college visits and participate in personal essay and resume writing. Then, during their senior years, he walks each one individually through their application processes and keeps them on track.
“My goal is, anyplace you say you want to be? I want you to have that as a choice,” said Streeter. “You don’t want to go to Duke? Turn ‘em down.”
His method is one that works, and the students know it.
“It’s a great system,” said Angel. “KAMSC has been really helpful. I don’t think that I would’ve gotten into the college that I wanted to go to if I was just at my home school.”
Spalvieri-Kruse noted that though it’s a common misperception, it’s not the name of KAMSC that gets their applications in admission counselors’ “Accepted” piles.
“Obviously, going to a separate math and science center is a little bit beneficial itself and engineering colleges like that, but really it’s the resources that KAMSC lends you,” he said.
By Jessica Maas
Anthony Spalvieri-Kruse opened his MacBook on the evening of March 26 to find his admission decision to NYU’s new Abu Dhabi program waiting. The tall, thin, Portage Northern senior, who is always brushing at the brown hair falling in his eyes, didn’t even have time to be anxious while he clicked on it.
The subject of the e-mail gave it away: “NYU Abu Dhabi—Congratulations.”
Thousands of other high school seniors around the country received their decisions to the country’s top schools within days of Spalvieri-Kruse. Most, though, were not as fortunate.
According to “The New York Times,” the number of applications submitted to many of the most selective colleges in the U.S. increased this year—by as much as 20 percent, in a few cases—and, as a result, the percentage of students accepted decreased.
But at the Kalamazoo Area Mathematics and Science Center (KAMSC), an accelerated school for some of the brightest students from 12 area high schools, including Spalvieri-Kruse, students continued to find acceptance letters in their mailboxes and e-mail inboxes.
Spalvieri-Kruse had actually already deposited to Cornell when he received his notice from NYU. He made the decision to revoke his acceptance there, though, for a full ride and the chance to be one of only 180 students to participate in the pilot program at NYU’s recently developed Honors College.
Another KAMSC student was accepted to Brown, whose admittance rate this year was only 9.3 percent after a 20.60 percent increase in applications. Spalvieri-Kruse and one other student were accepted at Cornell, one was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania, and one is turning down Stanford to attend Harvard; all of those schools experienced increases in the number of applications this year, and the latter two each accepted fewer than eight percent of those.
In total, the KAMSC graduating class of 68 received 213 offers of admission from 72 colleges or programs. And the Ivy Leagues were not the only elite schools offering—KAMSC students also had offers at other prestigious schools such as Emory University, George Washington University, Northwestern University, Oberlin College, University of Chicago, and Vanderbilt University.
According to Spalvieri-Kruse, it isn’t their intelligence that necessarily gets them in; it’s about the resources that KAMSC and its college counselor Jon Streeter afford to the students.
“It’s really interesting—through the application process you kind of see how much it has to do with packaging more so than actual aptitude,” he said. “Like, I can almost definitively say that smartest kids at KAMSC weren’t the ones who got into the Ivy League schools. Just, for example, there’s this kid at my school…he’s like a genius, he’s brilliant, but he only got into U of M, and, you know, that’s excellent for him, but his issue is just with packaging himself. He’s obviously way smarter than all of us, but he didn’t constantly see Mr. Streeter, he didn’t do all the paperwork, he didn’t foster all of these relationships with the teachers that you need on your side. You need a lot of people on your side to get into big name schools.”
And the seniors have someone on their side in Jon Streeter. The students describe him as an invaluable asset to their application process, walking them through the process step by step.
“Mr. Streeter is dealing with you one on one, and he only has about 60, 70 students at a time, so he has the ability to sit down with you one on one in his office and say, ‘This is where you are, this is where you need to be, this is what you need to do to get to where you’re going, and if you need help, call me,’” said Portage Northern senior Chelsea Angel, who plans to attend Cornell in the fall. “He’s so accessible—he has his phone on him, he gets his e-mails all the time; if you e-mail him at 2 a.m., he’ll get it. And he gives you his home phone, his cell phone. ‘If you have an emergency, call me on my cell.’ If he’s in service, he’ll pick it up. It doesn’t matter where or when or what he’s doing. He’s there to help you, and he lets you know that that is his sole purpose—to help you succeed and get you where you want to go.”
According to both Angel and Spalvieri-Kruse, the differences between their home school guidance counselors and Jon Streeter are vast.
“Instead of being an advocate for you on the front lines of your college experience, she’s more of a behind-the-scenes assistant, I guess,” said Angel of her guidance counselor at Portage Northern. “She’ll do the filing for you, and she’ll get the forms turned in that she needs to turn in and whatnot, but you really have to be on her about it because she has so many people to worry about that if she forgets about you and you don’t remind her, then it’s not going to happen.”
Jon Streeter, though, does act as the advocate for KAMSC students. The 66-year-old man with thin white hair and a matching mustache begins the college search process with the students during their first year as freshmen. Students are asked to research careers and colleges twice in their first two years, and beginning in the junior year they are required not only to narrow down their choices, but also embark on a certain number of college visits and participate in personal essay and resume writing. Then, during their senior years, he walks each one individually through their application processes and keeps them on track.
“My goal is, anyplace you say you want to be? I want you to have that as a choice,” said Streeter. “You don’t want to go to Duke? Turn ‘em down.”
His method is one that works, and the students know it.
“It’s a great system,” said Angel. “KAMSC has been really helpful. I don’t think that I would’ve gotten into the college that I wanted to go to if I was just at my home school.”
Spalvieri-Kruse noted that though it’s a common misperception, it’s not the name of KAMSC that gets their applications in admission counselors’ “Accepted” piles.
“Obviously, going to a separate math and science center is a little bit beneficial itself and engineering colleges like that, but really it’s the resources that KAMSC lends you,” he said.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Workshop Four Responses
Andrea—
You have some really great stuff in here (the physical description of Lisa and the description of the neighborhood, for instance). I think that the thing is that you really need to decide what the heart of this piece is—is it the education issue that you allude to in the beginning and come back to in the end? Is it the disease itself and how it’s affected Lisa’s life? You need to decide what the most important tidbits to put into the article are based on what you decide the piece is about, and work with that.
I got really lost at times with some of your transitions. For example, when you start talking about education in the second paragraph and then move into you arriving at Lisa’s house. And when I do figure out where you’re going, sometimes it’s a little clunky. If you could find a way to smoothly move from one paragraph/topic to the next, I think the piece would really benefit. Overall, though, I think that this piece has really great potential and you’ve got a good start—the most important thing will just be deciding what you want to focus on.
Marina—
I think this was a really great idea, and you’ve done a lot of really great reporting. I really like the opening, it really drew me in. I would be interested, though, to hear more about how the interpretation of The Tempest from the “feminist perspective,” being as my reading of The Tempest was very gendered (I actually wrote a paper once on gender and power in The Tempest as it relates to Miranda). So I’d like to hear more about what exactly how it is a “reclaiming,” so to speak—more than just changing the characters to females.
You’re right that you do need more description—you may be able to weave narrative in with one or both of the other two women. I also think that it would be great if you could get something more concrete in there about sexism on our campus (an example, for instance, of a place/time it occurs, or something that someone has said before, etc)—right now it’s a little abstract, but getting some more detail in there could really strengthen the piece. Great first draft, though—I look forward to reading the finished piece in a week or so!
Simona—
This is such a great topic! I’m a little jealous, actually. You do a pretty good job with the narrative, but I wonder if you could open in a different place (like when you show up at that house, for example)—I think that that could draw the reader in more and puts us right into the story from the beginning (as opposed to working us in more). You could still go back and give the background info, but I don’t think that we need the scene of you sitting outside the library—those are words that you could use to flesh out more detail later in the piece.
You work the background info about Farmworker Legal Services and the Michigan Civil Rights Commission in well—it felt very seamless, and I didn’t feel bogged down in facts and background stuff. The piece really flowed well overall. I wonder if we could get more about the connection between the K students and the migrant workers—did you see a scene with them interacting? Did they talk at all about why they chose to pursue that option, or why it’s important to them? I think that making that connection could really strengthen the piece.
Steven—
This is really interesting. You capture some really great things, and your discomfort with the whole situation is really palatable. There is some really great description as well, though at points I feel like you go on describing for too long (third paragraph, maybe?). I wonder if there’s some way that this doesn’t have to be chronological, and you could weave in some quotes and dialogue in earlier.
My other issue is that it seems like you lose steam after you start talking to them, which was an aspect I was really interested in and wanted more of. For example, I was a little confused about the significance of the book and your conversations surrounding it that you detail at the end of the piece. I also wonder if there’s a different way you can open—you can still tell us where you are, etc., but start with something other than “I am at”—that gives away too much. Maybe start with description of the place, or your discomfort, and THEN make it clear where you are. The subject is really cool, though—I’d love to get more of them in the piece, and them talking about the community that they have.
You have some really great stuff in here (the physical description of Lisa and the description of the neighborhood, for instance). I think that the thing is that you really need to decide what the heart of this piece is—is it the education issue that you allude to in the beginning and come back to in the end? Is it the disease itself and how it’s affected Lisa’s life? You need to decide what the most important tidbits to put into the article are based on what you decide the piece is about, and work with that.
I got really lost at times with some of your transitions. For example, when you start talking about education in the second paragraph and then move into you arriving at Lisa’s house. And when I do figure out where you’re going, sometimes it’s a little clunky. If you could find a way to smoothly move from one paragraph/topic to the next, I think the piece would really benefit. Overall, though, I think that this piece has really great potential and you’ve got a good start—the most important thing will just be deciding what you want to focus on.
Marina—
I think this was a really great idea, and you’ve done a lot of really great reporting. I really like the opening, it really drew me in. I would be interested, though, to hear more about how the interpretation of The Tempest from the “feminist perspective,” being as my reading of The Tempest was very gendered (I actually wrote a paper once on gender and power in The Tempest as it relates to Miranda). So I’d like to hear more about what exactly how it is a “reclaiming,” so to speak—more than just changing the characters to females.
You’re right that you do need more description—you may be able to weave narrative in with one or both of the other two women. I also think that it would be great if you could get something more concrete in there about sexism on our campus (an example, for instance, of a place/time it occurs, or something that someone has said before, etc)—right now it’s a little abstract, but getting some more detail in there could really strengthen the piece. Great first draft, though—I look forward to reading the finished piece in a week or so!
Simona—
This is such a great topic! I’m a little jealous, actually. You do a pretty good job with the narrative, but I wonder if you could open in a different place (like when you show up at that house, for example)—I think that that could draw the reader in more and puts us right into the story from the beginning (as opposed to working us in more). You could still go back and give the background info, but I don’t think that we need the scene of you sitting outside the library—those are words that you could use to flesh out more detail later in the piece.
You work the background info about Farmworker Legal Services and the Michigan Civil Rights Commission in well—it felt very seamless, and I didn’t feel bogged down in facts and background stuff. The piece really flowed well overall. I wonder if we could get more about the connection between the K students and the migrant workers—did you see a scene with them interacting? Did they talk at all about why they chose to pursue that option, or why it’s important to them? I think that making that connection could really strengthen the piece.
Steven—
This is really interesting. You capture some really great things, and your discomfort with the whole situation is really palatable. There is some really great description as well, though at points I feel like you go on describing for too long (third paragraph, maybe?). I wonder if there’s some way that this doesn’t have to be chronological, and you could weave in some quotes and dialogue in earlier.
My other issue is that it seems like you lose steam after you start talking to them, which was an aspect I was really interested in and wanted more of. For example, I was a little confused about the significance of the book and your conversations surrounding it that you detail at the end of the piece. I also wonder if there’s a different way you can open—you can still tell us where you are, etc., but start with something other than “I am at”—that gives away too much. Maybe start with description of the place, or your discomfort, and THEN make it clear where you are. The subject is really cool, though—I’d love to get more of them in the piece, and them talking about the community that they have.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Workshop Three Responses
Myles—
I wonder if there’s some way you can fuse the two parts of this together (the visit and the interview). You have so much description in the first half and it’s not until the second that that it really becomes interesting to me, that I really feel like I should care, and then it ends so quickly—I was just getting really into it and then it was over! So I’m wondering if you can find a way to get some of the context or quotes in earlier, break up the description a little bit (you may also be able to use less description, and then you could do more of the story). If you do that I think it could be a really great piece.
I’m also not sure that I like your voice in the piece. It might actually be a stronger piece if you take yourself out of it (and especially your friend). You can still say the same things, just don’t use the “I”—I think that it’s unnecessary, and might hurt the piece more than it helps. But we should still be able to get the same feeling about what the building is like.
Joel—
I feel like maybe I kind of know what your overall point is, but having a more clear structure might really help that. You have huge paragraphs and kind of jump from point to point without any logical progression, so I think your piece could really benefit from breaking it up and a greater structure.
I also feel like, though you have these large paragraphs, I know very little about the band or the people in it. There are a lot of points that I feel like you could make in fewer words, and that would help you add more to the piece. There are some key aspects that I really feel are missing: How many people are even in the band? What city are we in? How old are they?
I’m also a little confused by the opening—who is he taking the guitar from? You ? Someone else? I think that having that clarification could make it a stronger opening.
I think that they could be a really cool subject if you can break things up a bit and get more information in there. They seem interesting, but I think you just need to find a way to rework to piece a little bit.
Anna—
I almost feel like this last paragraph could be the intro—I feel like this is almost the heart of the piece, so to speak. There’s action here, and you encompass a lot, and this is where I really felt like there was something, like I knew what the piece was about. Before that, it was just these different areas of a building, and I didn’t feel very invested in what was going on there. You kind of bounced from place to place and there’s a lot of description and less about the overall, and it’s not until the end that I really felt like I understood—I want to understand earlier.
So, I think that if you can make the overall point clearer in the beginning (and this last paragraph might work, if you just tinker with a few things), then you could go into different areas of the building and how it’s all entwined, and also give information about the building itself. But I need to understand why I’m reading the piece earlier. This is a great subject, though, so I think that if you just rework some things your piece could be really cool. Great start!
Claire—
I like this piece. I think that it’s great that you went to all three places and talked to a bunch of people. I’m unsure how I feel about having your voice in the piece—I think it could work okay without it as well, I don’t know. You could be telling the same story without your voice, but I’m really just undecided about it—I can’t decide if it’s distracting or not.
But in general, there are two things I’m concerned about: transitions and take home message. Your transition from Waldo’s to The Strutt works well—I’m most concerned about the first one from Fourth Coast to Waldo’s because it’s so abrupt. You need to find a different/smoother way to get us from one place to the next.
In terms of take home message, I guess that I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to think about changes associated with the smoking ban after reading this piece. Is the message simply that they’ll get over it? You seem to be saying that at points, but it needs to be clearer. I think that you’ve got a really great start, though, and I’ll be interested to read this piece again after you revise it.
I wonder if there’s some way you can fuse the two parts of this together (the visit and the interview). You have so much description in the first half and it’s not until the second that that it really becomes interesting to me, that I really feel like I should care, and then it ends so quickly—I was just getting really into it and then it was over! So I’m wondering if you can find a way to get some of the context or quotes in earlier, break up the description a little bit (you may also be able to use less description, and then you could do more of the story). If you do that I think it could be a really great piece.
I’m also not sure that I like your voice in the piece. It might actually be a stronger piece if you take yourself out of it (and especially your friend). You can still say the same things, just don’t use the “I”—I think that it’s unnecessary, and might hurt the piece more than it helps. But we should still be able to get the same feeling about what the building is like.
Joel—
I feel like maybe I kind of know what your overall point is, but having a more clear structure might really help that. You have huge paragraphs and kind of jump from point to point without any logical progression, so I think your piece could really benefit from breaking it up and a greater structure.
I also feel like, though you have these large paragraphs, I know very little about the band or the people in it. There are a lot of points that I feel like you could make in fewer words, and that would help you add more to the piece. There are some key aspects that I really feel are missing: How many people are even in the band? What city are we in? How old are they?
I’m also a little confused by the opening—who is he taking the guitar from? You ? Someone else? I think that having that clarification could make it a stronger opening.
I think that they could be a really cool subject if you can break things up a bit and get more information in there. They seem interesting, but I think you just need to find a way to rework to piece a little bit.
Anna—
I almost feel like this last paragraph could be the intro—I feel like this is almost the heart of the piece, so to speak. There’s action here, and you encompass a lot, and this is where I really felt like there was something, like I knew what the piece was about. Before that, it was just these different areas of a building, and I didn’t feel very invested in what was going on there. You kind of bounced from place to place and there’s a lot of description and less about the overall, and it’s not until the end that I really felt like I understood—I want to understand earlier.
So, I think that if you can make the overall point clearer in the beginning (and this last paragraph might work, if you just tinker with a few things), then you could go into different areas of the building and how it’s all entwined, and also give information about the building itself. But I need to understand why I’m reading the piece earlier. This is a great subject, though, so I think that if you just rework some things your piece could be really cool. Great start!
Claire—
I like this piece. I think that it’s great that you went to all three places and talked to a bunch of people. I’m unsure how I feel about having your voice in the piece—I think it could work okay without it as well, I don’t know. You could be telling the same story without your voice, but I’m really just undecided about it—I can’t decide if it’s distracting or not.
But in general, there are two things I’m concerned about: transitions and take home message. Your transition from Waldo’s to The Strutt works well—I’m most concerned about the first one from Fourth Coast to Waldo’s because it’s so abrupt. You need to find a different/smoother way to get us from one place to the next.
In terms of take home message, I guess that I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to think about changes associated with the smoking ban after reading this piece. Is the message simply that they’ll get over it? You seem to be saying that at points, but it needs to be clearer. I think that you’ve got a really great start, though, and I’ll be interested to read this piece again after you revise it.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Writing Process - Explanatory Piece
So, I felt like I was writing a news article for this. Like, I figured out a structure and then just plugged everything in. And I think that's my biggest concern right now--that it reads too much like a regular feature, and that it's lacking in narrative. I'm not sure what would be an appropriate story to put in, though--sitting in Streeter's office, maybe, or getting an acceptance letter in the mail?
There's also so much that I could talk about in relation to Jon Streeter's process--what he requires them to do, how it's structured, everything that he's developed and set up for them. It's all really cool, and I can't decide how much of it is necessary for the piece within the word limit that's imposed.
I also want to talk to a couple more kids, so word limit might be a problem there as well. I'm trying to contact at least one kid who's going out of state (I'd really like to do the Harvard girl, or the Cornell kid), so that I have that kind of perspective to add. I might be able to cut down some of the quotes (though I really like the way Jon talks, I think that he's really amusing), and that oculd help make more space for such an addition.
I'm also unsure about the part I have in there about money--this might be an aspect that could be subtracted. I originally thought that it was important to note that though they don't have trouble getting in, they still do, like everyone else, have trouble deciding where to go due to financial concerns. But I'm not sure it really fits, and I was hesitant about that part.
So basically, it wasn't that hard to necessarily put the piece together--it felt pretty normal to me--but there's a lot I'm unsure about. So we'll see.
There's also so much that I could talk about in relation to Jon Streeter's process--what he requires them to do, how it's structured, everything that he's developed and set up for them. It's all really cool, and I can't decide how much of it is necessary for the piece within the word limit that's imposed.
I also want to talk to a couple more kids, so word limit might be a problem there as well. I'm trying to contact at least one kid who's going out of state (I'd really like to do the Harvard girl, or the Cornell kid), so that I have that kind of perspective to add. I might be able to cut down some of the quotes (though I really like the way Jon talks, I think that he's really amusing), and that oculd help make more space for such an addition.
I'm also unsure about the part I have in there about money--this might be an aspect that could be subtracted. I originally thought that it was important to note that though they don't have trouble getting in, they still do, like everyone else, have trouble deciding where to go due to financial concerns. But I'm not sure it really fits, and I was hesitant about that part.
So basically, it wasn't that hard to necessarily put the piece together--it felt pretty normal to me--but there's a lot I'm unsure about. So we'll see.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Explanatory Narrative First Draft
Amidst Smaller Acceptance Rates, KAMSC Students are Still Getting In
By Jessica Maas
College acceptance rates may be down throughout the country this year, but the high school seniors at the Kalamazoo Area Mathematics and Science Center (KAMSC) had a secret weapon—Mr. Jon Streeter.
Streeter, who has been at the center since a year after it opened in 1986, has acted as the college consultant to KAMSC students for the last 14 years. He meets students in their very first semester and continues to interact with them until they make their college decision choices as seniors.
“If you come in as a freshman I give you a little monologue, I give you a little assignment which essentially is, ‘Where do you think you want to be 12 years from today? Go find a guy doing that—talk to him, pick his brain. ‘What’s your life like, what’s your job like, any chance I can shadow you?’” said Streeter, who continued that the students are then required to find undergraduate programs for that specific career. “So if you want to go to Yale, what do the other Yale applicants look like? Here’s the top quartile—gods, goddesses, people from other planets—here’s us, 25th to 50th, mainstream who they accept—that’s what you need to look like by the beginning of your senior year. If I can do anything—summer experiences, enrichment plans, travel, research teams, whatever we can do to make the field level aside from a decent GPA and some test scores, that’s what we’ll do, and you tell me that in your freshman year.”
Streeter knows the kids. And, maybe more importantly, he knows other people.
“I’ve visited over 100 colleges, I’ve done over 175 visits over a 12 year period. And I know admissions people, I know who handles our applications, I know who runs the store, and I know what kids I have where, so if you’re a junior or senior Math/Science Center and Dartmouth is on your mind, I can hook you up with both of the women we have there, you can do a visit, you can follow them to classes, you can meet Dan Perish, the dean, you can meet Caroline Kur, the reader for Michigan—I can help,” he explained.
And his process works. So while “The New York Times” is reporting that the number of applications at some of the most selective colleges in the U.S. is going up and the acceptance rates at those same schools are therefore decreasing, the 68 high school students in this year’s KAMSC graduating class are still getting in.
One student was accepted to Brown, whose admittance rate this year was only 9.3 percent after a 20.60 percent increase in applications. Two students were accepted at Cornell, one was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania, and one is turning down Stanford to attend Harvard; all of those schools experienced increases in the number of applications this year, and the latter two each accepted less than eight percent of those.
In total, the graduating class received 213 offers of admission from 72 colleges or programs. And the Ivy Leagues were not the only elite schools offering—KAMSC students also had offers at academically well-known schools such as Emory College, George Washington University, Northwestern University, Oberlin College, University of Chicago, and Vanderbilt University.
But while the offers don’t seem to be an issue, deciding where to go can pose one. Streeter admitted that in-state schools currently look more attractive to families, given the current state of the economy.
“It is more difficult for a kid to spend 200 grand to go out of state than ever before,” he said. “I don’t care how well off your family is—that’s a challenge. You were just accepted to M.I.T.—I’ve had three of these in the last five years—‘$210,000 please. Shut up, write check. What do you mean merit? Everyone here merits money.’”
The numbers reflect this challenge. Of the 68 seniors, 52 of them are attending a school within Michigan, and Kalamazoo Central senior Radhika Sharma confirmed that, in many cases, money played a large factor in the decision.
“I know of a lot of students who stayed in-state for going to college if they had the [Kalamazoo] Promise simply because it was beneficial and economically suitable for their family to stay in-state,” she said.
Sharma will be attending Wayne State University’s MedStart program next fall, a program that already guarantees her acceptance to Wayne State University’s medical school in four years. Only 15 students in the nation matriculate into this program each year. She noted that having access to Mr. Streeter, who has office hours and gives students his e-mail and phone number, was much more beneficial than any conversation she had with her guidance counselor at Kalamazoo Central.
“My conversations with him were more in depth about where my next step would be, where I should apply, why I should apply, and it was more overall and in depth, whereas with my counselor at the home school it was more like, ‘Are you fulfilling the courses you need to fulfill?’ It was more getting me to graduation, whereas he was more taking me beyond and into college,” she said.
Streeter himself noted that though KAMSC students are forced to do a lot of outside work before their senior year—talking to people and writing papers, required college visits, resume prep, personal essay writing over the summer—most of them recognize the advantage of it when they actually start applying.
“Probably seven out of 10 seniors that walk in in the fall say something to this effect: ‘You know that thing you asked us to do Mr. Streeter when we were freshmen, and sophomores, juniors? Scared the crap out of me. I did a really good job, I did a whole new interview with everybody. Because if I had not evolved through that I would be here with my freshman list and I’d be dead just like my home school friends,’” he said.
The bottom line is simply this—Jon Streeter wants KAMSC students to be able to go where they want to go.
“My goal is, anyplace you say you want to be? I want you to have that as a choice,” he said. “You don’t want to go to Duke? Turn ‘em down.”
By Jessica Maas
College acceptance rates may be down throughout the country this year, but the high school seniors at the Kalamazoo Area Mathematics and Science Center (KAMSC) had a secret weapon—Mr. Jon Streeter.
Streeter, who has been at the center since a year after it opened in 1986, has acted as the college consultant to KAMSC students for the last 14 years. He meets students in their very first semester and continues to interact with them until they make their college decision choices as seniors.
“If you come in as a freshman I give you a little monologue, I give you a little assignment which essentially is, ‘Where do you think you want to be 12 years from today? Go find a guy doing that—talk to him, pick his brain. ‘What’s your life like, what’s your job like, any chance I can shadow you?’” said Streeter, who continued that the students are then required to find undergraduate programs for that specific career. “So if you want to go to Yale, what do the other Yale applicants look like? Here’s the top quartile—gods, goddesses, people from other planets—here’s us, 25th to 50th, mainstream who they accept—that’s what you need to look like by the beginning of your senior year. If I can do anything—summer experiences, enrichment plans, travel, research teams, whatever we can do to make the field level aside from a decent GPA and some test scores, that’s what we’ll do, and you tell me that in your freshman year.”
Streeter knows the kids. And, maybe more importantly, he knows other people.
“I’ve visited over 100 colleges, I’ve done over 175 visits over a 12 year period. And I know admissions people, I know who handles our applications, I know who runs the store, and I know what kids I have where, so if you’re a junior or senior Math/Science Center and Dartmouth is on your mind, I can hook you up with both of the women we have there, you can do a visit, you can follow them to classes, you can meet Dan Perish, the dean, you can meet Caroline Kur, the reader for Michigan—I can help,” he explained.
And his process works. So while “The New York Times” is reporting that the number of applications at some of the most selective colleges in the U.S. is going up and the acceptance rates at those same schools are therefore decreasing, the 68 high school students in this year’s KAMSC graduating class are still getting in.
One student was accepted to Brown, whose admittance rate this year was only 9.3 percent after a 20.60 percent increase in applications. Two students were accepted at Cornell, one was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania, and one is turning down Stanford to attend Harvard; all of those schools experienced increases in the number of applications this year, and the latter two each accepted less than eight percent of those.
In total, the graduating class received 213 offers of admission from 72 colleges or programs. And the Ivy Leagues were not the only elite schools offering—KAMSC students also had offers at academically well-known schools such as Emory College, George Washington University, Northwestern University, Oberlin College, University of Chicago, and Vanderbilt University.
But while the offers don’t seem to be an issue, deciding where to go can pose one. Streeter admitted that in-state schools currently look more attractive to families, given the current state of the economy.
“It is more difficult for a kid to spend 200 grand to go out of state than ever before,” he said. “I don’t care how well off your family is—that’s a challenge. You were just accepted to M.I.T.—I’ve had three of these in the last five years—‘$210,000 please. Shut up, write check. What do you mean merit? Everyone here merits money.’”
The numbers reflect this challenge. Of the 68 seniors, 52 of them are attending a school within Michigan, and Kalamazoo Central senior Radhika Sharma confirmed that, in many cases, money played a large factor in the decision.
“I know of a lot of students who stayed in-state for going to college if they had the [Kalamazoo] Promise simply because it was beneficial and economically suitable for their family to stay in-state,” she said.
Sharma will be attending Wayne State University’s MedStart program next fall, a program that already guarantees her acceptance to Wayne State University’s medical school in four years. Only 15 students in the nation matriculate into this program each year. She noted that having access to Mr. Streeter, who has office hours and gives students his e-mail and phone number, was much more beneficial than any conversation she had with her guidance counselor at Kalamazoo Central.
“My conversations with him were more in depth about where my next step would be, where I should apply, why I should apply, and it was more overall and in depth, whereas with my counselor at the home school it was more like, ‘Are you fulfilling the courses you need to fulfill?’ It was more getting me to graduation, whereas he was more taking me beyond and into college,” she said.
Streeter himself noted that though KAMSC students are forced to do a lot of outside work before their senior year—talking to people and writing papers, required college visits, resume prep, personal essay writing over the summer—most of them recognize the advantage of it when they actually start applying.
“Probably seven out of 10 seniors that walk in in the fall say something to this effect: ‘You know that thing you asked us to do Mr. Streeter when we were freshmen, and sophomores, juniors? Scared the crap out of me. I did a really good job, I did a whole new interview with everybody. Because if I had not evolved through that I would be here with my freshman list and I’d be dead just like my home school friends,’” he said.
The bottom line is simply this—Jon Streeter wants KAMSC students to be able to go where they want to go.
“My goal is, anyplace you say you want to be? I want you to have that as a choice,” he said. “You don’t want to go to Duke? Turn ‘em down.”
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Profile Final Draft
Crossing Community Borders Led Barraclough to the Front of the Classroom
By Jessica Maas
Laura Barraclough begins her Urban Sociology class one Monday morning with a question: “What is an ethnic enclave?”
Her students take notes, and answer and ask questions throughout the lecture, but many of them may not know that it was a class similar to this one that answered so many questions for the second-year sociology professor and led her to want to teach others.
Born in the San Fernando Valley in California, Barraclough crossed community borders everyday, from the rural area she lived in to the suburban area of her magnet school and even beyond that to the nearby Los Angeles city she loved.
But these borders didn’t just represent population size; crossing those lines also meant interacting with different groups of people and, maybe more importantly, different ways of thinking.
Barraclough recognized the racial and attitudinal borders at a young age. At school, her best friends were Mexican, Peruvian and Korean, but at home she listened to a barrage of derogatory comments from her father and neighborhood friends; she can still remember going out riding and picking up on the way other children talked about Mexicans.
“And I didn’t have anything to say back to it, I just heard the tone and I knew it was wrong, I knew I objected to it because I had Mexican friends at school, but I had none of the knowledge to, like, ‘Hey, what are you doing, why are you talking that way?’ So the only thing I could come up with was ‘Hey, they’re not Mexicans, they’re Hispanics.’ That was it—that was all I had to say,” says the now thirty-one-year-old Barraclough. “So I convinced basically everyone I knew to stop saying Mexican and instead say Hispanic, but there was no content behind that, it was just, ‘Here’s something bad, and I don’t know what to do with it.’”
It wasn’t until she went to college that she really began to understand.
“I took this class called Ethnic Diversity in the City by Professor George Lipson, who’s my mentor to this day, and he just laid it all out, you know?” says the UC San Diego alumna. “In ten short weeks he explained to me and everybody else why my parents were this way, and how this persists, and it was the piece I’d be looking for—both the p-i-e-c-e and the p-e-a.”
Today, Barraclough works inside the classroom and out to help students understand systems of inequality like those she grew up surrounded by. She teaches classes like Prisons and Public Policy and Race and Racism; she guides senior students on capstone projects, including one on the school-to-prison pipeline; she helped two students put together a documentary on prison re-entry in Kalamazoo over the summer; and she’s been working with one student all year on an independent research project related to homelessness.
On one Friday, the five-foot-six brunette hesitantly interrupts her energetic Urban Sociology students to start class; the beginning is the only time she ever appears nervous at the front of the classroom, and may contribute to the initial impression that some students get of her.
“I thought that she was a little bit soft at first, like kind of a soft teacher you could get away with, and then we were reading this really cool article…and no one read this article, and she got so angry…and she was like, ‘If you don’t do my reading, please don’t show up in my class. I give you attention, why don’t you give me your time?’ And it was just, like, ‘Damn,’” says Dana Robinson, who took a class with Barraclough last year and is working on the homelessness project with her this year. “And then she was like, ‘If you haven’t done the reading, class is dismissed. Please take the time to do something fulfilling.’ And it was so scary and then everyone was scared into place and did their reading for the rest of the quarter…So she’s really nice, but she cuts you down when you need to be cut down.”
Though she always looks shy in the beginning, it quickly ends. As soon as she launches into her lecture about gender and urban areas, Barraclough’s in her element, gesturing animatedly with chalk in her right hand and typed notes in her left. Her dress usually tends toward casual, and on this day in particular she sports jeans, sandals, a yellow sweater layered over a yellow shirt, and a pair of her trademark long earrings that hang near her shoulders.
She talks for 40 minutes before splitting the class into small groups and handing them envelopes containing identical scenarios. Each group reads about a recently-divorced woman with two children and a very low income, and they are then asked to come up with a “plan” for the woman, including a new job, new housing, and a childcare situation; Barraclough encourages them to be creative. The options are presented on note cards, and the students talk in groups for about fifteen minutes before engaging in a whole class discussion and presenting their thoughts. One group states that they weren’t able to come up with a scenario, but that they understand the take-home message about the woman’s situation.
“She cares deeply about students, and works with them, and really wants to take them to a new place in their thinking and this critical place of understanding the world,” says Kiran Cunningham, Barraclough’s department chair. “She’s got a lot of passion that she operates out of that I think is infectious, and students come away from her classes just wanting to know more.”
For Barraclough, it all goes back to crossing borders and that one class she had in college with George Lipson.
“…that has driven me to this day, that one class. It’s why I’m an urban sociologist, it’s why I study the stuff I do, because I feel like there’s probably a lot of students who are having similar experiences like I was.” She pauses.
“And I don’t know if that’s true,” she laughs, “but I feel like if they’re out there, I want to make this available, you know?”
By Jessica Maas
Laura Barraclough begins her Urban Sociology class one Monday morning with a question: “What is an ethnic enclave?”
Her students take notes, and answer and ask questions throughout the lecture, but many of them may not know that it was a class similar to this one that answered so many questions for the second-year sociology professor and led her to want to teach others.
Born in the San Fernando Valley in California, Barraclough crossed community borders everyday, from the rural area she lived in to the suburban area of her magnet school and even beyond that to the nearby Los Angeles city she loved.
But these borders didn’t just represent population size; crossing those lines also meant interacting with different groups of people and, maybe more importantly, different ways of thinking.
Barraclough recognized the racial and attitudinal borders at a young age. At school, her best friends were Mexican, Peruvian and Korean, but at home she listened to a barrage of derogatory comments from her father and neighborhood friends; she can still remember going out riding and picking up on the way other children talked about Mexicans.
“And I didn’t have anything to say back to it, I just heard the tone and I knew it was wrong, I knew I objected to it because I had Mexican friends at school, but I had none of the knowledge to, like, ‘Hey, what are you doing, why are you talking that way?’ So the only thing I could come up with was ‘Hey, they’re not Mexicans, they’re Hispanics.’ That was it—that was all I had to say,” says the now thirty-one-year-old Barraclough. “So I convinced basically everyone I knew to stop saying Mexican and instead say Hispanic, but there was no content behind that, it was just, ‘Here’s something bad, and I don’t know what to do with it.’”
It wasn’t until she went to college that she really began to understand.
“I took this class called Ethnic Diversity in the City by Professor George Lipson, who’s my mentor to this day, and he just laid it all out, you know?” says the UC San Diego alumna. “In ten short weeks he explained to me and everybody else why my parents were this way, and how this persists, and it was the piece I’d be looking for—both the p-i-e-c-e and the p-e-a.”
Today, Barraclough works inside the classroom and out to help students understand systems of inequality like those she grew up surrounded by. She teaches classes like Prisons and Public Policy and Race and Racism; she guides senior students on capstone projects, including one on the school-to-prison pipeline; she helped two students put together a documentary on prison re-entry in Kalamazoo over the summer; and she’s been working with one student all year on an independent research project related to homelessness.
On one Friday, the five-foot-six brunette hesitantly interrupts her energetic Urban Sociology students to start class; the beginning is the only time she ever appears nervous at the front of the classroom, and may contribute to the initial impression that some students get of her.
“I thought that she was a little bit soft at first, like kind of a soft teacher you could get away with, and then we were reading this really cool article…and no one read this article, and she got so angry…and she was like, ‘If you don’t do my reading, please don’t show up in my class. I give you attention, why don’t you give me your time?’ And it was just, like, ‘Damn,’” says Dana Robinson, who took a class with Barraclough last year and is working on the homelessness project with her this year. “And then she was like, ‘If you haven’t done the reading, class is dismissed. Please take the time to do something fulfilling.’ And it was so scary and then everyone was scared into place and did their reading for the rest of the quarter…So she’s really nice, but she cuts you down when you need to be cut down.”
Though she always looks shy in the beginning, it quickly ends. As soon as she launches into her lecture about gender and urban areas, Barraclough’s in her element, gesturing animatedly with chalk in her right hand and typed notes in her left. Her dress usually tends toward casual, and on this day in particular she sports jeans, sandals, a yellow sweater layered over a yellow shirt, and a pair of her trademark long earrings that hang near her shoulders.
She talks for 40 minutes before splitting the class into small groups and handing them envelopes containing identical scenarios. Each group reads about a recently-divorced woman with two children and a very low income, and they are then asked to come up with a “plan” for the woman, including a new job, new housing, and a childcare situation; Barraclough encourages them to be creative. The options are presented on note cards, and the students talk in groups for about fifteen minutes before engaging in a whole class discussion and presenting their thoughts. One group states that they weren’t able to come up with a scenario, but that they understand the take-home message about the woman’s situation.
“She cares deeply about students, and works with them, and really wants to take them to a new place in their thinking and this critical place of understanding the world,” says Kiran Cunningham, Barraclough’s department chair. “She’s got a lot of passion that she operates out of that I think is infectious, and students come away from her classes just wanting to know more.”
For Barraclough, it all goes back to crossing borders and that one class she had in college with George Lipson.
“…that has driven me to this day, that one class. It’s why I’m an urban sociologist, it’s why I study the stuff I do, because I feel like there’s probably a lot of students who are having similar experiences like I was.” She pauses.
“And I don’t know if that’s true,” she laughs, “but I feel like if they’re out there, I want to make this available, you know?”
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Week 8 Reading Response
It seems that this week I either really loved or really hated each piece we read. I LOVED George Orwell, but didn't really love at all/was pretty indifferent to Mark Kramer's "Access" and Joan Didion's "Slouching Towards Bethlehem."
I really enjoyed Orwell's whole piece. I thought that he had a really good narrative going for awhile that I was really interested in, and I also really enjoyed his transition into the four motives for writing--maybe because I identify with them, but whatever. I found them all to be really true in some sense--some more than others--but the way he writes is really engaging and, in some cases, amusing. I particularly enjoyed the last paragraph: "All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand...And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality" (316). I love this. LOVE. It's just...true.
Mark Kramer, in contrast, didn't do a lot for me. I had a really hard time relating to his piece or even really understanding it--I felt like there was a lot of history or something that maybe I just don't know, and that was standing in my way. I just didn't...connect...with the piece, and had a really hard time figuring it out. I re-read the first few pages over and over again, thinking that maybe I just wasn't getting it or something, but I still found that I wasn't getting it. I don't know.
Joan Didion...I have really mixed feelings about. I wonder if I would've like it better if the intro had been different, but I felt like there was a really hard transition from the beginning and her just saying "When I first went to San Francisco in that cold late spring of 1967 I did not even know what I wanted to find out, and so I just stayed around awhile, and made a few friends" (85) to the rest of the piece. I mean, What? I was like, Really? Is that really all you're going to say about it? I was confused at first, and then I obviously figured out what the piece was about, but I just...was irritated, I suppose, with her beginning. There were brief moments of her piece that I thought were good/interesting, but for the most part I was just unenthusiastic about her piece.
I really enjoyed Orwell's whole piece. I thought that he had a really good narrative going for awhile that I was really interested in, and I also really enjoyed his transition into the four motives for writing--maybe because I identify with them, but whatever. I found them all to be really true in some sense--some more than others--but the way he writes is really engaging and, in some cases, amusing. I particularly enjoyed the last paragraph: "All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand...And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality" (316). I love this. LOVE. It's just...true.
Mark Kramer, in contrast, didn't do a lot for me. I had a really hard time relating to his piece or even really understanding it--I felt like there was a lot of history or something that maybe I just don't know, and that was standing in my way. I just didn't...connect...with the piece, and had a really hard time figuring it out. I re-read the first few pages over and over again, thinking that maybe I just wasn't getting it or something, but I still found that I wasn't getting it. I don't know.
Joan Didion...I have really mixed feelings about. I wonder if I would've like it better if the intro had been different, but I felt like there was a really hard transition from the beginning and her just saying "When I first went to San Francisco in that cold late spring of 1967 I did not even know what I wanted to find out, and so I just stayed around awhile, and made a few friends" (85) to the rest of the piece. I mean, What? I was like, Really? Is that really all you're going to say about it? I was confused at first, and then I obviously figured out what the piece was about, but I just...was irritated, I suppose, with her beginning. There were brief moments of her piece that I thought were good/interesting, but for the most part I was just unenthusiastic about her piece.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Week 7 Reading Response
To begin with, I thought the piece by Gay Talese about Frank Sinatra was really impressive for someone who never talked to the man. It does make me wonder about certain things, though--like, can Talese really say that Sinatra was worried about something, or upset about something? These are all things that he would've had to get secondhand, and so is it really something Talese can rely on without attributing to the specific people (which would obviously disrupt the narrative)? Is this ethical? Does it not deceive the readers?
In terms of the piece itself, though, there were parts that I liked and parts that I thought were rathet boring. I'm not sure about the effectiveness of the opening, for example--it didn't seem all that catchy to me, and I'm not sure I would've kept reading if I didn't have to. But I thought the sections with his parents were interesting, and also the scenes of him doing the two different tapings (the first when he had a cold and didn't finish taping, and the second when it went really well). Despite my maybe-lack of enthusiasm about the piece as a whole, though, I can see how it would've been a really big deal at the time, considering the man himself and the fact that Talese didn't actually interview him. So in that regard, I think he did a really great job with the piece; I'm just not all that fascinated with it.
I really liked the Ted Conover piece in the Literary Journalism book, though. I was again unenthused about the beginning, but I really came to find the story about their perspective of AIDS to be really interesting. There were parts that the narrative slowed, I thought, but overall Conover did a really good job with scene and dialogue, and just with conveying all the misconceptions and lack of concern about AIDS by the people there. There was one line that especially stuck out to me: "'You know Ted,' he had said, touching my arm, 'how you kill is how you will die'" (337). I'm not sure that Conover actually included this scene for the reason it sticks out to me (the fact that all these people are killing other people through AIDS, and that's also how they themselves are going to die), but it really stuck out to me. Overall, I think that the piece is a really good expose, so to speak, of the attitude in Africa about AIDS and how it relates to the trucking profession.
In terms of the piece itself, though, there were parts that I liked and parts that I thought were rathet boring. I'm not sure about the effectiveness of the opening, for example--it didn't seem all that catchy to me, and I'm not sure I would've kept reading if I didn't have to. But I thought the sections with his parents were interesting, and also the scenes of him doing the two different tapings (the first when he had a cold and didn't finish taping, and the second when it went really well). Despite my maybe-lack of enthusiasm about the piece as a whole, though, I can see how it would've been a really big deal at the time, considering the man himself and the fact that Talese didn't actually interview him. So in that regard, I think he did a really great job with the piece; I'm just not all that fascinated with it.
I really liked the Ted Conover piece in the Literary Journalism book, though. I was again unenthused about the beginning, but I really came to find the story about their perspective of AIDS to be really interesting. There were parts that the narrative slowed, I thought, but overall Conover did a really good job with scene and dialogue, and just with conveying all the misconceptions and lack of concern about AIDS by the people there. There was one line that especially stuck out to me: "'You know Ted,' he had said, touching my arm, 'how you kill is how you will die'" (337). I'm not sure that Conover actually included this scene for the reason it sticks out to me (the fact that all these people are killing other people through AIDS, and that's also how they themselves are going to die), but it really stuck out to me. Overall, I think that the piece is a really good expose, so to speak, of the attitude in Africa about AIDS and how it relates to the trucking profession.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Profile for the Week
This is the link to my profile choice for the week:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/theater/09meriwether.html?ref=todayspaper
I picked this piece for a couple different reasons. One, it's only 1,004 words. Let's be clear, though--I didn't pick a piece that short so that you all would have less to read, but because there were a lot of people last week who said that they didn't think that they could adequately convey a person in only 1,000 words. Personally, I think that excuse is lame. Is it hard to convey someone in 1,000 words? Yes. But is it possible? Of course--it just depends on how hard you're going to work at it.
In Part V of Telling True Stories, Jon Franklin writes the following: "While the writer must draw a true portrait of the character, it can't ever be a complete one; no writer can capture a whole person. Every person is involved in many parallel, consecutive stories...The reporter usually ends up choosing just one facet of a person's life" (127).
Is this the best profile I've ever read? No. But I do believe that it is a good example of a short profile that does what Franklin is talking about--it highlights one facet of Elizabeth Meriwether's life (the chaotic-ness of her career) and yet seems to also convey a sense of her personality (at least as it relates to this). I also think that there are certain aspects of it that are really strong: the beginning does a good job drawing readers in (with the reference to being fired from Obama's campaign--now, everyone wants to know why), and it gets across general aspects of her life (age, alma mater, what she wears/looks like) in a way that isn't boring. While there are parts of it that seem a little promotion-like, I do think that it remains very focused on her, and that overall it does a good job of illustrating this one section of this woman's life (I do begin to feel like I know her, to an extent).
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/theater/09meriwether.html?ref=todayspaper
I picked this piece for a couple different reasons. One, it's only 1,004 words. Let's be clear, though--I didn't pick a piece that short so that you all would have less to read, but because there were a lot of people last week who said that they didn't think that they could adequately convey a person in only 1,000 words. Personally, I think that excuse is lame. Is it hard to convey someone in 1,000 words? Yes. But is it possible? Of course--it just depends on how hard you're going to work at it.
In Part V of Telling True Stories, Jon Franklin writes the following: "While the writer must draw a true portrait of the character, it can't ever be a complete one; no writer can capture a whole person. Every person is involved in many parallel, consecutive stories...The reporter usually ends up choosing just one facet of a person's life" (127).
Is this the best profile I've ever read? No. But I do believe that it is a good example of a short profile that does what Franklin is talking about--it highlights one facet of Elizabeth Meriwether's life (the chaotic-ness of her career) and yet seems to also convey a sense of her personality (at least as it relates to this). I also think that there are certain aspects of it that are really strong: the beginning does a good job drawing readers in (with the reference to being fired from Obama's campaign--now, everyone wants to know why), and it gets across general aspects of her life (age, alma mater, what she wears/looks like) in a way that isn't boring. While there are parts of it that seem a little promotion-like, I do think that it remains very focused on her, and that overall it does a good job of illustrating this one section of this woman's life (I do begin to feel like I know her, to an extent).
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Other Profile Responses
The responses for those people who posted their profile late:
Simona—
There’s so much going on in this piece! I think you need to narrow the focus—my original understanding was that the piece was about The Strutt as a place (and part of the writing reflects this), but you spend a lot of time talking about the individual characters involved, especially Kelly. You need to decide what/who the piece is about and go from there. If the piece is about Kelly, make it about Kelly (and The Strutt would obviously be part of that, but you need to set it up differently than it is now); if the piece is about The Strutt, you need more about The Strutt—what does it look like on the inside, what kinds of people go there, how do they interact?
Regardless of that, I think that you need to become concise and decide what the most important details are to the piece—you have some HUGE paragraphs that readers will get lost in, and these could easily get condensed. We don’t need to know everything you’ve learned about these people in the last two weeks, just what is most important to the narrative you’re telling. I think that once you do these things, the piece could turn out really well.
John—
I think that the one thing your piece is obviously missing is a scene from inside the barber shop. How do these people really interact, in your eyes? What is the atmosphere like? All the background details that you put in about the owner and how he got to where he is today are really interesting (though I’d be interested to know if he regrets anything—not going to school, for example—is he still happy with the choices he made?), and you do a good job describing the neighborhood, but I want more about the shop—and the customers. Can you talk to any of them? What do they have to say about the place? Why do they keep going back, or why did they come to begin with? And what about co-workers? What are they like?
I think that you could easily streamline some of the earlier stuff in the piece (especially the stuff about him), and work in some stuff about the shop. I think that he’s really interesting, but now I want to know about the place itself? This is a really cool subject, and I look forward to reading the final version of your piece!
Steven—
This is a cool subject—she has an interesting background story, and that, integrated with the program itself, makes for an interesting piece, I think. There are a few areas that could be strengthened, though. For example, I think that I could use some more fleshed out details about what she’s like as a person—I need to know not only what she looks like, but what makes her an individual? And the biggest thing is that this piece just seems really wrapped up to me, bow and all, as if she suddenly just had an epiphany one day and now everything is great. Is it really that simple? Was it as easy as just having a conversation with her parents? I need more about what was going on—event-wise, and in her head. Is she really perfectly happy now, or is she just trying to convince herself that she is?
I also think that we need more voices in this story. Get Katanski, maybe even try to get her parents or one of her closest friends—we just need someone else in this piece. Good job, though, so far—I look forward to reading the finished piece!
Simona—
There’s so much going on in this piece! I think you need to narrow the focus—my original understanding was that the piece was about The Strutt as a place (and part of the writing reflects this), but you spend a lot of time talking about the individual characters involved, especially Kelly. You need to decide what/who the piece is about and go from there. If the piece is about Kelly, make it about Kelly (and The Strutt would obviously be part of that, but you need to set it up differently than it is now); if the piece is about The Strutt, you need more about The Strutt—what does it look like on the inside, what kinds of people go there, how do they interact?
Regardless of that, I think that you need to become concise and decide what the most important details are to the piece—you have some HUGE paragraphs that readers will get lost in, and these could easily get condensed. We don’t need to know everything you’ve learned about these people in the last two weeks, just what is most important to the narrative you’re telling. I think that once you do these things, the piece could turn out really well.
John—
I think that the one thing your piece is obviously missing is a scene from inside the barber shop. How do these people really interact, in your eyes? What is the atmosphere like? All the background details that you put in about the owner and how he got to where he is today are really interesting (though I’d be interested to know if he regrets anything—not going to school, for example—is he still happy with the choices he made?), and you do a good job describing the neighborhood, but I want more about the shop—and the customers. Can you talk to any of them? What do they have to say about the place? Why do they keep going back, or why did they come to begin with? And what about co-workers? What are they like?
I think that you could easily streamline some of the earlier stuff in the piece (especially the stuff about him), and work in some stuff about the shop. I think that he’s really interesting, but now I want to know about the place itself? This is a really cool subject, and I look forward to reading the final version of your piece!
Steven—
This is a cool subject—she has an interesting background story, and that, integrated with the program itself, makes for an interesting piece, I think. There are a few areas that could be strengthened, though. For example, I think that I could use some more fleshed out details about what she’s like as a person—I need to know not only what she looks like, but what makes her an individual? And the biggest thing is that this piece just seems really wrapped up to me, bow and all, as if she suddenly just had an epiphany one day and now everything is great. Is it really that simple? Was it as easy as just having a conversation with her parents? I need more about what was going on—event-wise, and in her head. Is she really perfectly happy now, or is she just trying to convince herself that she is?
I also think that we need more voices in this story. Get Katanski, maybe even try to get her parents or one of her closest friends—we just need someone else in this piece. Good job, though, so far—I look forward to reading the finished piece!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Writing Process - Profile
Profiles are not my favorite thing to write. It's possible that they could be, I suppose, but I'd need to have years to work with one person and a guaranteed income. People fascinate me, I've known this for years; I can meet someone (or even not meet, but simply observe a person), and know almost instantly whether or not he or she is intriguing and complex, whether or not I want to know more. I feel like, then, a profile should be a good outlet through wish to do this, but I just wish that I had more time, from every angle.
I always have the worst time with opening a piece--it's something that I ponder for days, tossing ideas around and around in my head, and regardless of whether the initial introduction is the one I end up using, it needs to inspire me in some way, or I can't write the rest of the piece. Obviously, this can be a problem. With this piece, I don't know how I feel about, because the intro I ended up using turned the piece into something different than I originally thought it was going to be about. And that could be okay, for now--I don't know if I have enough about what I originally thought I was going to write about, I need to ask her more questions, but I feel like the piece as it is is kind of boring. I don't know why anyone would want to read it, and that's what I'm most struggling with at the moment.
I always have the worst time with opening a piece--it's something that I ponder for days, tossing ideas around and around in my head, and regardless of whether the initial introduction is the one I end up using, it needs to inspire me in some way, or I can't write the rest of the piece. Obviously, this can be a problem. With this piece, I don't know how I feel about, because the intro I ended up using turned the piece into something different than I originally thought it was going to be about. And that could be okay, for now--I don't know if I have enough about what I originally thought I was going to write about, I need to ask her more questions, but I feel like the piece as it is is kind of boring. I don't know why anyone would want to read it, and that's what I'm most struggling with at the moment.
Workshop Two Responses
For the two in my group who have posted their profiles:
Andrea—
I think this is a really fascinating story and you’ve got a really good start. I’d like to see more detail in some places—you pass through the marriage/divorce really fast, for example, as well as the post-divorce, and I think you could make it more individual to her. I also think that breaking up the description and quotes will help the piece aesthetically, and maybe you could shorten some of the quotes in order to free up more words. I also had some confusion about timeline stuff—like, you call the guy her ex-husband before they’ve actually been divorced in the story, and I think you could just refer to him as “this guy she knew from earlier whom she started seeing.” That’s easy to fix, though. And also just remember to vary the words you use to begin sentences—there are times you repeat them a few times, and that can make it harder to read.
I wonder if there’s a way that you can re-create some earlier scenes from her life—a scene from their marriage and how it wasn’t working, something with her kids, etc. I don’t know how easy it would be to get that from her, but if you can, that’d be cool. Great job so far, though!
Myles—
I LOVE this piece—you do a wonderful job carrying the reader through it, and keeping it interesting. You’re obviously going to have to streamline parts, since you’re 500 words over the word limit, but what you have right now is a really great start.
I wonder if there’s some way you can slip in more about his personal life. It obviously isn’t central to the piece—and it shouldn’t be—but if you could just slip in a few details here or there, I think that would help to make him more than one-dimensional. The other thing I’m wondering about is the use of “me” in the fifteenth paragraph—I think it’s the only time that you put yourself in the piece, and I don’t think that you need to, I think that it stands really well on its own (and the one-time use of it is kind of abrupt and causes the reader to pause).
The ending and the beginning are both really powerful, for which I applaud you—they can be the most challenging to write, in my opinion, and you do them really well in this piece. I can’t wait to read the final draft of this!
Andrea—
I think this is a really fascinating story and you’ve got a really good start. I’d like to see more detail in some places—you pass through the marriage/divorce really fast, for example, as well as the post-divorce, and I think you could make it more individual to her. I also think that breaking up the description and quotes will help the piece aesthetically, and maybe you could shorten some of the quotes in order to free up more words. I also had some confusion about timeline stuff—like, you call the guy her ex-husband before they’ve actually been divorced in the story, and I think you could just refer to him as “this guy she knew from earlier whom she started seeing.” That’s easy to fix, though. And also just remember to vary the words you use to begin sentences—there are times you repeat them a few times, and that can make it harder to read.
I wonder if there’s a way that you can re-create some earlier scenes from her life—a scene from their marriage and how it wasn’t working, something with her kids, etc. I don’t know how easy it would be to get that from her, but if you can, that’d be cool. Great job so far, though!
Myles—
I LOVE this piece—you do a wonderful job carrying the reader through it, and keeping it interesting. You’re obviously going to have to streamline parts, since you’re 500 words over the word limit, but what you have right now is a really great start.
I wonder if there’s some way you can slip in more about his personal life. It obviously isn’t central to the piece—and it shouldn’t be—but if you could just slip in a few details here or there, I think that would help to make him more than one-dimensional. The other thing I’m wondering about is the use of “me” in the fifteenth paragraph—I think it’s the only time that you put yourself in the piece, and I don’t think that you need to, I think that it stands really well on its own (and the one-time use of it is kind of abrupt and causes the reader to pause).
The ending and the beginning are both really powerful, for which I applaud you—they can be the most challenging to write, in my opinion, and you do them really well in this piece. I can’t wait to read the final draft of this!
Monday, May 3, 2010
Profile Draft
Professor Laura Barraclough has seen a lot in her life, but before she moved to Michigan almost two years ago, she’d never seen a “Deer Crossing” sign.
“My husband had her and her partner out to our place for dinner soon after they arrived, and they talked about coming out there and on the way out—we live in the country kind of in some woods—and on the way out they saw one of those “deer crossing” signs, you know, and they were talking about how they didn’t know what to do about it—like does that mean they should slow down because, like, a deer is going to go across the road; does that mean they need to wait for deer to cross?—they weren’t sure what to do with this deer crossing sign,” says Department Chair and Professor of Anthropology and Sociology Kiran Cunningham.
The California-native hadn’t even wanted to come to Michigan. Though she longed to leave her teaching position at a college for nontraditional students and the job description for an urban sociologist at Kalamazoo College seemed written specifically for her, she underwent each step of the application process without any intention of actually taking the job.
“At every stage of the interview process it was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do the phone interview, but I’m not going to move to Michigan,’ you know? ‘Yeah, I’ll go on the campus interview, but I want to stay in L.A.’—that was the whole thing, and I think that actually helped me to relax and do well on my interview,” said the thirty-one-year-old Barraclough. “So the day after I returned from my interview from here, I got the phone call with the offer, and then I was like ‘Oh, crap, now I really have to, like, take this seriously.’ Because I hated my current job, here’s the perfect job in a place that I would not ever have considered.”
With the help of her three-year partner Emerson, though, she decided to take the leap, and found herself loving the seasonal beauty of Michigan in her next visit to look for housing in June. Though she admits to initially feeling out of place at the small, private liberal arts institution—where she grew up, everyone went to large universities—and being so nervous in her first quarter that she couldn’t eat before teaching, it isn’t obvious from her teaching now.
She maintains a quieter, more relaxed reign over her students than some professors, but is clearly in charge nonetheless. On one Wednesday afternoon, she wears a white blouse and jeans as she looks at her students from behind black-rimmed glasses and gestures with her typed notes in her left hand and chalk in her right. Her black earrings, which dangle so far they almost touch her shoulders, sway a little as she begins by outlining the differences between race and ethnicity on the chalkboard for her Urban Sociology class. It’s less than 20 minutes into her interactive lecture when she realizes that most of the students haven’t completed the reading, and she decides to continue for a few minutes in spite of that, before she stops again upon completing a section.
“I don’t know how much further to go because I don’t know if I’ll just be talking to myself up here,” she says. “Cortez and Manning also have critiques of labor market segmentation, and theory, but, if we haven’t all, if we’re not all on the same ground about what that is, um, and what the critiques are, I’m not sure, I mean, how should we should we handle this, that we’re in uneven state here with the reading? I know you all are really busy, but now, how do we use this time? What would you like to do?”
Six seconds of silence pass before she speaks again, outlining what her original plan was and how it isn’t going to work now, and then asks them again what they would like to do. Twelve seconds pass then before a suggestion is made, and Barraclough continues her lecture briefly before attempting the revised version of her plan. Five minutes in, she rejects it as well, and tells the students to go home, do the reading before Friday, and they will pick up with the subject then.
“It’s something I have to do with almost every class every quarter—there’s always a day where nobody has read, and so I was actually surprised that five people had read,” she says later. “I always just have to, you know, abandon whatever I had planned, and I usually end up letting the class go early, because there’s just nothing you can do.”
That flexibility, though, isn’t needed often. On another day, she lectures about gender and urban areas for about 40 minutes before splitting the class into groups of four or five and handing them envelopes containing the same scenario. Each group reads about a recently-divorced woman with two children and a very low income, and they are then asked to come up with a “plan” for the woman, including a new job, new housing, and a childcare situation; Barraclough encourages them to be creative in their ideas. The options are presented to the students on note cards, and they talk in groups for about fifteen minutes before engaging in a whole class discussion and presenting their thoughts. One group states that they weren’t able to come up with a scenario, but that they understand the take-home message about the impossibility of the woman’s situation.
“She cares deeply about students, and works with them, and really wants to take them to a new place in their thinking, and this critical place of understanding the world,” says Cunningham. “She’s got a lot of passion that she operates out of that I think is infectious, and students come away from her classes just wanting to know more.”
Barraclough herself grew up in a state of confusion about the world: at home, her father and friends frequently made racist and politically incorrect remarks, but at school, her best friends were Mexican, Peruvian, and Korean. She knew that something was wrong, but it wasn’t until she went to college that she really began to understand the contradictory messages.
“I took this class called Ethnic Diversity in the City by Professor George Lipson, who’s my mentor to this day, and he just laid it all out, you know?” she says. “In ten short weeks he explained to me and everybody else why my parents were this way, and how this persists, and it was the piece I’d be looking for—both the p-i-e-ce and the p-e-a. So that has driven me to this day, that one class. It’s why I’m an urban sociologist, it’s why I study the stuff I do, because I feel like there’s probably a lot of students who are having similar experiences like I was.”
She pauses. “And I don’t know if that’s true,” she laughs, “but I feel like if they’re out there, I want to make this available, you know?”
Though she’s comfortable in Kalamazoo now, there are still moments when she’s surprised that she’s here.
“To some extent, I still walk around this campus and think, “What? This is…what? Red brick?’ You know, like, this is supposed to be concrete, and cheap paint—whatever paint the UC people had free that year, you know?” she says. “It continues to be a culture shock.”
“My husband had her and her partner out to our place for dinner soon after they arrived, and they talked about coming out there and on the way out—we live in the country kind of in some woods—and on the way out they saw one of those “deer crossing” signs, you know, and they were talking about how they didn’t know what to do about it—like does that mean they should slow down because, like, a deer is going to go across the road; does that mean they need to wait for deer to cross?—they weren’t sure what to do with this deer crossing sign,” says Department Chair and Professor of Anthropology and Sociology Kiran Cunningham.
The California-native hadn’t even wanted to come to Michigan. Though she longed to leave her teaching position at a college for nontraditional students and the job description for an urban sociologist at Kalamazoo College seemed written specifically for her, she underwent each step of the application process without any intention of actually taking the job.
“At every stage of the interview process it was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do the phone interview, but I’m not going to move to Michigan,’ you know? ‘Yeah, I’ll go on the campus interview, but I want to stay in L.A.’—that was the whole thing, and I think that actually helped me to relax and do well on my interview,” said the thirty-one-year-old Barraclough. “So the day after I returned from my interview from here, I got the phone call with the offer, and then I was like ‘Oh, crap, now I really have to, like, take this seriously.’ Because I hated my current job, here’s the perfect job in a place that I would not ever have considered.”
With the help of her three-year partner Emerson, though, she decided to take the leap, and found herself loving the seasonal beauty of Michigan in her next visit to look for housing in June. Though she admits to initially feeling out of place at the small, private liberal arts institution—where she grew up, everyone went to large universities—and being so nervous in her first quarter that she couldn’t eat before teaching, it isn’t obvious from her teaching now.
She maintains a quieter, more relaxed reign over her students than some professors, but is clearly in charge nonetheless. On one Wednesday afternoon, she wears a white blouse and jeans as she looks at her students from behind black-rimmed glasses and gestures with her typed notes in her left hand and chalk in her right. Her black earrings, which dangle so far they almost touch her shoulders, sway a little as she begins by outlining the differences between race and ethnicity on the chalkboard for her Urban Sociology class. It’s less than 20 minutes into her interactive lecture when she realizes that most of the students haven’t completed the reading, and she decides to continue for a few minutes in spite of that, before she stops again upon completing a section.
“I don’t know how much further to go because I don’t know if I’ll just be talking to myself up here,” she says. “Cortez and Manning also have critiques of labor market segmentation, and theory, but, if we haven’t all, if we’re not all on the same ground about what that is, um, and what the critiques are, I’m not sure, I mean, how should we should we handle this, that we’re in uneven state here with the reading? I know you all are really busy, but now, how do we use this time? What would you like to do?”
Six seconds of silence pass before she speaks again, outlining what her original plan was and how it isn’t going to work now, and then asks them again what they would like to do. Twelve seconds pass then before a suggestion is made, and Barraclough continues her lecture briefly before attempting the revised version of her plan. Five minutes in, she rejects it as well, and tells the students to go home, do the reading before Friday, and they will pick up with the subject then.
“It’s something I have to do with almost every class every quarter—there’s always a day where nobody has read, and so I was actually surprised that five people had read,” she says later. “I always just have to, you know, abandon whatever I had planned, and I usually end up letting the class go early, because there’s just nothing you can do.”
That flexibility, though, isn’t needed often. On another day, she lectures about gender and urban areas for about 40 minutes before splitting the class into groups of four or five and handing them envelopes containing the same scenario. Each group reads about a recently-divorced woman with two children and a very low income, and they are then asked to come up with a “plan” for the woman, including a new job, new housing, and a childcare situation; Barraclough encourages them to be creative in their ideas. The options are presented to the students on note cards, and they talk in groups for about fifteen minutes before engaging in a whole class discussion and presenting their thoughts. One group states that they weren’t able to come up with a scenario, but that they understand the take-home message about the impossibility of the woman’s situation.
“She cares deeply about students, and works with them, and really wants to take them to a new place in their thinking, and this critical place of understanding the world,” says Cunningham. “She’s got a lot of passion that she operates out of that I think is infectious, and students come away from her classes just wanting to know more.”
Barraclough herself grew up in a state of confusion about the world: at home, her father and friends frequently made racist and politically incorrect remarks, but at school, her best friends were Mexican, Peruvian, and Korean. She knew that something was wrong, but it wasn’t until she went to college that she really began to understand the contradictory messages.
“I took this class called Ethnic Diversity in the City by Professor George Lipson, who’s my mentor to this day, and he just laid it all out, you know?” she says. “In ten short weeks he explained to me and everybody else why my parents were this way, and how this persists, and it was the piece I’d be looking for—both the p-i-e-ce and the p-e-a. So that has driven me to this day, that one class. It’s why I’m an urban sociologist, it’s why I study the stuff I do, because I feel like there’s probably a lot of students who are having similar experiences like I was.”
She pauses. “And I don’t know if that’s true,” she laughs, “but I feel like if they’re out there, I want to make this available, you know?”
Though she’s comfortable in Kalamazoo now, there are still moments when she’s surprised that she’s here.
“To some extent, I still walk around this campus and think, “What? This is…what? Red brick?’ You know, like, this is supposed to be concrete, and cheap paint—whatever paint the UC people had free that year, you know?” she says. “It continues to be a culture shock.”
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Reading Response - Week 5
I definitely had a preference for one of the pieces over the other--I LOVED "Memory," but was not as much a fan of "First Family of Astoria."
Both authors chose interesting subjects, but Tracy Kidder hooked me pretty early. He used great scene and dialogue,and I think the most important thing was the emotion I felt reading the piece. I got really upset about these elderly people in this place, and started thinking about my own family and friends who could end up like this, or even myself; I became really emotionally invested in this piece and these people, and I think anyone who knows me knows that that isn't easy. I thought it worked really well that he used various different subjects (he even captured them all really well, despite the fact that he didn't always talk about each one for very long), and I really felt that he made the home accessible. Too often, I think, we write off places like this as just one of those places where the old people go and hang out, but he made them real people, with real issues and lives--I LOVED it.
I was less impressed with Trillin's piece, despite the bio about him that makes him sound really great. The subject of the piece itself is interesting, but I wonder if he could've approached it differently in writing. I understand that he wasn't there while all of this was going on, that he couldn't necessarily really recreate it himself, but I just wasn't very attached to the piece--I had to focus more, I wasn't desperate to know what was going to happen. I did think that his description of various members of the Flavel family was good, though they seemed a little sensationalized to me--it was like a bad soap opera. I don't know, maybe I'm missing something, but the piece just didn't really resonate with me.
Both authors chose interesting subjects, but Tracy Kidder hooked me pretty early. He used great scene and dialogue,and I think the most important thing was the emotion I felt reading the piece. I got really upset about these elderly people in this place, and started thinking about my own family and friends who could end up like this, or even myself; I became really emotionally invested in this piece and these people, and I think anyone who knows me knows that that isn't easy. I thought it worked really well that he used various different subjects (he even captured them all really well, despite the fact that he didn't always talk about each one for very long), and I really felt that he made the home accessible. Too often, I think, we write off places like this as just one of those places where the old people go and hang out, but he made them real people, with real issues and lives--I LOVED it.
I was less impressed with Trillin's piece, despite the bio about him that makes him sound really great. The subject of the piece itself is interesting, but I wonder if he could've approached it differently in writing. I understand that he wasn't there while all of this was going on, that he couldn't necessarily really recreate it himself, but I just wasn't very attached to the piece--I had to focus more, I wasn't desperate to know what was going to happen. I did think that his description of various members of the Flavel family was good, though they seemed a little sensationalized to me--it was like a bad soap opera. I don't know, maybe I'm missing something, but the piece just didn't really resonate with me.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Revised Personal Essay
Authority Issues
When I started preschool, my mother told the women in charge that if they told me something was a rule, I’d be guaranteed to do it. Not only was that true at the time, but the same philosophy continued to play out in my life as the years progressed: I always had my homework done on time, I was always within earshot of my mother’s voice when I went outside to play with my friends, and I always ate all my food before leaving the dinner table.
Years later, though, the obedience with which I listened to authority wasn’t quite as harmless. Right before high school, my parents decided I should start weight training for softball. My mother introduced me to Deanna, who was to serve as my personal trainer, and I began a simple weight lifting program three days a week.
But it soon spiraled out of control. I became infatuated with Deanna; she was a great athlete with incredible muscle definition, and I wanted to be just like her. So I watched her behavior and adopted it as my own; I increased my exercise and decreased my food intake. Before long, numbers consumed my life—how many calories I ate, how many miles I ran, how much I could bench press, how much I weighed.
By the time I graduated I could go almost entire days without eating. I believed that I needed to workout every day to be a better athlete, that any day off was a day wasted, and that running was the only way I could purge myself of the feeling of excess flesh experienced after eating.
Things changed a little in college. I ate more, and regularly, and the succession of two knee surgeries in two years curbed my exercise obsession somewhat. But my thought processes were still very cyclical—I could go some months without feeling too constrained by my thoughts about eating, and then I’d go through a period of months where I felt totally controlled by my consciousness of food, from the time I woke up in the morning to the time I crawled back into bed.
And then, right before my sophomore year, I realized I had an eating disorder. Nothing special happened; it was an ordinary day, marked only by that sudden comprehension and the overwhelming feeling caused by the weight of it.
I researched it. I wrote about it. I admitted the words out loud very rarely and only in moments when I struggled most with it, but I regretted it every time. I didn’t want to be pitied or appear weak, I didn’t want people watching me while I ate, and I definitely didn’t want it to define me.
In the spring, though, I agreed to sit on a panel about eating disorders in athletics because they needed a student. After the presentation, a school psychologist came up to talk to me.
“Have you ever gone to see anyone about this?” she asked.
The thought of therapy did not thrill me, but I thought about it, and as I entered another period of feeling fixated on food, I decided to try it. When I returned for the next school year, I began seeing Jennifer, a young psychologist with a cramped, undecorated office. Jennifer forced smiles, asked textbook questions and gave textbook answers, and just appeared all-around uncomfortable in her own skin—I was skeptical that this insecure woman sitting across from me was ever going to help.
But I tried anyway—Jennifer assured me that these things simply take time, that I shouldn’t expect results too soon. Four months and one statement from Jennifer later, though, I walked out her door for the last time.
“I don’t understand why you have an eating disorder—you’re thin and beautiful.”
I found a new psychologist. Patty was the antithesis of Jennifer—much older and much more experienced. But even she wasn’t helpful. She asked me to keep lists of what I ate and she wanted to have “goals” each week; how many times I would eat dessert, for example. I dutifully scribbled lists on yellow sticky notes and followed the goals she set for me, but I found myself standing in the cafeteria, staring at all the food and trying to decide what would be acceptable to write down—it was like I needed to prove that I had a problem.
As I realized that my sessions weren’t helping, I stopped talking about eating during them. I discussed school-related stress or problems with my mother, and only talked about eating when Patty asked me about it. Yet I kept going back because it was supposed to help—therapy was supposed to make me better.
At my last session before summer break, though, I knew I wasn’t going back. I still put the groceries away with the nutrition facts pointing away from me and I still couldn’t go near a bathroom scale, but I was content to simply understand that I had a problem—I didn’t want to write lists or make goals or comb through the sorts of punishment techniques my parents used when I was five. So I went to my last session, talked about my final exams and plans for the break, and told Patty to have a good summer. Then I walked out of her office and pushed open the outside doors for the very last time.
When I started preschool, my mother told the women in charge that if they told me something was a rule, I’d be guaranteed to do it. Not only was that true at the time, but the same philosophy continued to play out in my life as the years progressed: I always had my homework done on time, I was always within earshot of my mother’s voice when I went outside to play with my friends, and I always ate all my food before leaving the dinner table.
Years later, though, the obedience with which I listened to authority wasn’t quite as harmless. Right before high school, my parents decided I should start weight training for softball. My mother introduced me to Deanna, who was to serve as my personal trainer, and I began a simple weight lifting program three days a week.
But it soon spiraled out of control. I became infatuated with Deanna; she was a great athlete with incredible muscle definition, and I wanted to be just like her. So I watched her behavior and adopted it as my own; I increased my exercise and decreased my food intake. Before long, numbers consumed my life—how many calories I ate, how many miles I ran, how much I could bench press, how much I weighed.
By the time I graduated I could go almost entire days without eating. I believed that I needed to workout every day to be a better athlete, that any day off was a day wasted, and that running was the only way I could purge myself of the feeling of excess flesh experienced after eating.
Things changed a little in college. I ate more, and regularly, and the succession of two knee surgeries in two years curbed my exercise obsession somewhat. But my thought processes were still very cyclical—I could go some months without feeling too constrained by my thoughts about eating, and then I’d go through a period of months where I felt totally controlled by my consciousness of food, from the time I woke up in the morning to the time I crawled back into bed.
And then, right before my sophomore year, I realized I had an eating disorder. Nothing special happened; it was an ordinary day, marked only by that sudden comprehension and the overwhelming feeling caused by the weight of it.
I researched it. I wrote about it. I admitted the words out loud very rarely and only in moments when I struggled most with it, but I regretted it every time. I didn’t want to be pitied or appear weak, I didn’t want people watching me while I ate, and I definitely didn’t want it to define me.
In the spring, though, I agreed to sit on a panel about eating disorders in athletics because they needed a student. After the presentation, a school psychologist came up to talk to me.
“Have you ever gone to see anyone about this?” she asked.
The thought of therapy did not thrill me, but I thought about it, and as I entered another period of feeling fixated on food, I decided to try it. When I returned for the next school year, I began seeing Jennifer, a young psychologist with a cramped, undecorated office. Jennifer forced smiles, asked textbook questions and gave textbook answers, and just appeared all-around uncomfortable in her own skin—I was skeptical that this insecure woman sitting across from me was ever going to help.
But I tried anyway—Jennifer assured me that these things simply take time, that I shouldn’t expect results too soon. Four months and one statement from Jennifer later, though, I walked out her door for the last time.
“I don’t understand why you have an eating disorder—you’re thin and beautiful.”
I found a new psychologist. Patty was the antithesis of Jennifer—much older and much more experienced. But even she wasn’t helpful. She asked me to keep lists of what I ate and she wanted to have “goals” each week; how many times I would eat dessert, for example. I dutifully scribbled lists on yellow sticky notes and followed the goals she set for me, but I found myself standing in the cafeteria, staring at all the food and trying to decide what would be acceptable to write down—it was like I needed to prove that I had a problem.
As I realized that my sessions weren’t helping, I stopped talking about eating during them. I discussed school-related stress or problems with my mother, and only talked about eating when Patty asked me about it. Yet I kept going back because it was supposed to help—therapy was supposed to make me better.
At my last session before summer break, though, I knew I wasn’t going back. I still put the groceries away with the nutrition facts pointing away from me and I still couldn’t go near a bathroom scale, but I was content to simply understand that I had a problem—I didn’t want to write lists or make goals or comb through the sorts of punishment techniques my parents used when I was five. So I went to my last session, talked about my final exams and plans for the break, and told Patty to have a good summer. Then I walked out of her office and pushed open the outside doors for the very last time.
Revised Outline
This is my revised outline for my personal essay:
Complication: Jess follows authority
Development:
1) Jess develops disorder
2) Jess attends therapy
3) Jess hates therapy
Resolution: Jess rejects authority
Complication: Jess follows authority
Development:
1) Jess develops disorder
2) Jess attends therapy
3) Jess hates therapy
Resolution: Jess rejects authority
Reading Response - Week 4
I'm going to focus on the two pieces we read from Literary Journalism for my response.
I really loved LeBlanc's "Trina and Trina" piece. I thought that LeBlanc did a really great job of being in the piece herself without taking the focus away from Trina (though I'll admit that I was a little confused on the occasions when she would reference herself as identifying with Trina), and the piece was successfully about this huge cultural phenomenon without LeBlanc ever having to say that at all. She did a great job balancing telling and showing--I really felt like I could see it, like I was there (there was so much description and detail--it was great)--she did a great job with transitions, and I was so impressed by how much of her life she'd obviously devoted to Trina in order to be able to write this piece. In short, I was incredibly inspired by this--I would love to be able to do it as well as she did. I did wonder, though, if she overstepped in terms of being too much a part of the subject's life. Maybe the rules are different with Trina (like, you have to decide based on who your subject is), or maybe there isn't a line(?), but I wonder if becoming so involved and invested in your subject's life can cause a loss of outside perspective that change's the piece. It doesn't seem to have had a negative effect in this piece, but it's something to keep in mind, I think.
I had a very different experience with Orlean's "The American Man at Age Ten" piece. I liked the piece, I thought it was interesting and that she'd obviously spent a lot of time with him (some of the details and stories were really cool), but it lacked the coherency and center that I felt with LeBlanc's piece. Orlean did, at times, seem to be making a statement about gender (which would make sense given her title), but it didn't seem to resonate throughout the piece, so I was confused about whether or not that was the point. And while I enjoyed all the detail and description she gave, I also had a harder time following her organization; I know that LeBlanc's was clearer because it followed more of a timeline (the piece spanned years), but there were times that I just felt really lost within Orlean's piece (and maybe that was intentional to a degree(?), but if so, I don't think it was very successful). Part of me was also very inspired by Orlean, but the piece itself didn't resonate with me the same way that LeBlanc's did (though I believe that it could have). Both pieces, though, gave me really great ideas as I begin to plan my own profile, so I really enjoyed them both in that sense.
I really loved LeBlanc's "Trina and Trina" piece. I thought that LeBlanc did a really great job of being in the piece herself without taking the focus away from Trina (though I'll admit that I was a little confused on the occasions when she would reference herself as identifying with Trina), and the piece was successfully about this huge cultural phenomenon without LeBlanc ever having to say that at all. She did a great job balancing telling and showing--I really felt like I could see it, like I was there (there was so much description and detail--it was great)--she did a great job with transitions, and I was so impressed by how much of her life she'd obviously devoted to Trina in order to be able to write this piece. In short, I was incredibly inspired by this--I would love to be able to do it as well as she did. I did wonder, though, if she overstepped in terms of being too much a part of the subject's life. Maybe the rules are different with Trina (like, you have to decide based on who your subject is), or maybe there isn't a line(?), but I wonder if becoming so involved and invested in your subject's life can cause a loss of outside perspective that change's the piece. It doesn't seem to have had a negative effect in this piece, but it's something to keep in mind, I think.
I had a very different experience with Orlean's "The American Man at Age Ten" piece. I liked the piece, I thought it was interesting and that she'd obviously spent a lot of time with him (some of the details and stories were really cool), but it lacked the coherency and center that I felt with LeBlanc's piece. Orlean did, at times, seem to be making a statement about gender (which would make sense given her title), but it didn't seem to resonate throughout the piece, so I was confused about whether or not that was the point. And while I enjoyed all the detail and description she gave, I also had a harder time following her organization; I know that LeBlanc's was clearer because it followed more of a timeline (the piece spanned years), but there were times that I just felt really lost within Orlean's piece (and maybe that was intentional to a degree(?), but if so, I don't think it was very successful). Part of me was also very inspired by Orlean, but the piece itself didn't resonate with me the same way that LeBlanc's did (though I believe that it could have). Both pieces, though, gave me really great ideas as I begin to plan my own profile, so I really enjoyed them both in that sense.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Profile Pitch
For my profile, I’m planning to write about Laura Barraclough, a K College professor in the anthropology and sociology department. Though originally from California, the state perceived to be setting trends for prison conditions around the country and whose own prison population has grown by over 500 percent since 1982, and raised by a sheriff father, Barraclough herself is a supporter of prison abolition. She teaches a Prisons and Public Policy class at K, worked with students last year to create a documentary about specific prisoners in Kalamazoo, and is currently working on a research project for which she’s conducting interviews with members of the community who seem to find themselves in and out of the system. I’d like to explore the relationship between her upbringing/background and the current work and research she’s doing with prisons. The fact that the prison population in the United States is growing exponentially and that the public’s opinions are generally based off of propaganda (and many haven’t heard of the idea of prison abolition, at least in a serious context) makes the subject of prisons itself all the more relevant today.
Professor Barraclough was out of town at the end of last week, but I have contacted her and am just waiting for her reply to know if she’ll agree to the project. I’m also planning to speak with members of her Prisons class from last quarter, other faculty in her department, and observe her teach some of her class periods this quarter. I know that she also attends meetings for a committee with some relation to the prison system and that she invited students in her class last quarter to go, so I may be able to attend one of these and speak with other people there as well.
I took Barraclough’s Prisons class last quarter, so I know a lot about the state of the prison system in the United States and how it relates to various other factors, of which race and class are the biggest. Therefore, I feel knowledgeable about the subject in such a way that I can write about it as it relates to her life.
Professor Barraclough was out of town at the end of last week, but I have contacted her and am just waiting for her reply to know if she’ll agree to the project. I’m also planning to speak with members of her Prisons class from last quarter, other faculty in her department, and observe her teach some of her class periods this quarter. I know that she also attends meetings for a committee with some relation to the prison system and that she invited students in her class last quarter to go, so I may be able to attend one of these and speak with other people there as well.
I took Barraclough’s Prisons class last quarter, so I know a lot about the state of the prison system in the United States and how it relates to various other factors, of which race and class are the biggest. Therefore, I feel knowledgeable about the subject in such a way that I can write about it as it relates to her life.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Week 3 Reading Response: Writing For Story
I'll admit to be a little skeptical of Franklin--in general, but especially with regard to his outlining process. Though I myself tend to think in somewhat of a scientific-ish manner while I'm constructing a piece--I have a jumbled blueprint in my head and it's when the pieces in it start to fit together that I really feel like I've hit something--his process, at first anyway, seemed to be almost too analytical. It really does make sense, in terms of having the conflict and the resolution match, knowing where one is going, etc., and I feel like it could be really helpful, so I'm going to try it--but I still feel a little weird about it.
I really enjoyed the two stories of his own that he included in the book--they were interesting on their own, but they also provided good examples to use in his description of the outline process because the reader was familiar with them.
Overall, there were some things that Franklin said that I really liked and some that I didn't. I liked his analyisis of transitions, for example, as well as his talk about the story changing itself and the writer having to adapt as a result. But I don't want to write the end of my story first (I don't usually write the beginning first, but I definitely don't want to write the end first), even though I recognize that, unlike poetry, I do need to have an idea of what the end is before I start. I also didn't really like his last chapter, though I don't yet have a concrete reason as to why--I was with him for awhile, but then he started talking about being at a stoplight and his world changing, and he lost me. Maybe it was that it was too abstract, I don't know, but I didn't like it.
I do think that the outlining was the most important part, though, and it is something that I want to try as I figure out how to revise my piece (because I wholeheartedly recognize that I don't even know what I'm trying to say).
I really enjoyed the two stories of his own that he included in the book--they were interesting on their own, but they also provided good examples to use in his description of the outline process because the reader was familiar with them.
Overall, there were some things that Franklin said that I really liked and some that I didn't. I liked his analyisis of transitions, for example, as well as his talk about the story changing itself and the writer having to adapt as a result. But I don't want to write the end of my story first (I don't usually write the beginning first, but I definitely don't want to write the end first), even though I recognize that, unlike poetry, I do need to have an idea of what the end is before I start. I also didn't really like his last chapter, though I don't yet have a concrete reason as to why--I was with him for awhile, but then he started talking about being at a stoplight and his world changing, and he lost me. Maybe it was that it was too abstract, I don't know, but I didn't like it.
I do think that the outlining was the most important part, though, and it is something that I want to try as I figure out how to revise my piece (because I wholeheartedly recognize that I don't even know what I'm trying to say).
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Responses to Personal Essay Drafts
Steven –
I think I’m confused about what you want the take home message of this piece to be. Is it about you, or is it about your grandfather? There is some mention about your relation to him and how you personally felt about his death, but the piece itself seems to be more about him as a person, and I think you could make a greater connection to yourself and the impact this had on you. What is the relationship between you and him/his death, and why is it important for you to be talking about it now? If you answer this question, the focus of the piece may become clearer.
I do think that you have some really great lines, but the piece as a whole could be strengthened if you could put in some scene or dialogue—there’s too much telling/description the way that it is, and it’s easy to get lost in this. Is there a time that you can remember with your grandfather, or a time that you had a discussion about him that could be recalled/depicted on the page? It feels like you’re talking about him in a very impersonal and removed way, and though it’s clear that you didn’t necessarily have much of a relationship with him, I think I need to feel something more behind this emotion-wise—why should the reader care about your grandfather’s death? Why is it important?
John—
I think you’re off to a good start with this piece. I like the scenes that you show, the picture you paint that way, but I’m wondering if we can get some more detail in the description areas that could help to flesh the piece out a little more. For example, in the third paragraph, you give important details in your family in one huge sentence—these are important details, and the length of the sentence makes it easy to get lost in them. I’m also wondering if we can get more of them; maybe you could give us a better picture of your parents overall.
I also think that we need to see more of your reaction when your father moves out. It’s clear that this event was a big deal for you at the time, but we see your mother and brother in that last scene and not you. What was your response to discovering your father had left?
I also think the last line is a cop out, to an extent. Leave us with something more concrete and provocative than that. And on another note, some of the commentary you provide in parentheses (“Don’t ask me why I remember…,” for example) is unnecessary and distracting.
Andrea—
I really like the subject you chose—it’s not something that gets written about all the time and that was really refreshing. You also do a really great job with creating scene in this piece, which is nice because it breaks up some of the longer, descriptive paragraphs and allows for the piece to flow well. I’m wondering if you can work in some more details about yourself as a person, because you give us very little other than the background about your medical history, which is pertinent to the piece. But can you add in a few more details about you that would allow for the reader to see more of a character?
I also like both the beginning and the end of the piece—the beginning because it’s catchy, without giving too much away (you have to read on to figure out what’s going on) and the end because it’s conclusive to an extent, but also provocative. I think the structure of the piece works well, and you may just need to go over some little things (word choice, sentence structure, etc) to polish up the piece. Other than that, great job—this is a really good draft!
Simona—
I think that your story has a lot of potential—it’s an interesting topic—and that maybe it just needs to be reorganized. I wonder if there’s a way that you can streamline the beginning, or break it up a little bit, so that we can get to some dialogue earlier, or at least not have those big, looming paragraphs.
I like the translations and the part about the ring, and I think that you could possibly do more with these to make a better ending—you wrap-up too quickly (and too obviously) and it’s very abrupt. The line “I am assuming you have been able to guess at the essence of my story from the beginning” is both unnecessary, and leaves me, as a reader, to wonder why I’ve been reading it if it was going to be that obvious. What makes this story individual/unique? Was there a moment when the American dream was shattered for you that you can recall and use? I definitely think that it’s there, but that you need to feel that the story is legitimate, and the way you end the piece right now doesn’t make me think that.
Myles—
I think that you have really good organization in this piece. The reader can kind of flow into the story, which is really nice (and probably ideal)—you provide some really nice details and dialogue that allow for a picture to be seen, especially in the beginning.
My concern is more about the second page. You go into a lot of longer paragraphs with much more “telling” and try to explain the phenomena in your town. I don’t think that you need to try to explain it, but that you need to give more about how it relates to you (we get some of that in the beginning with the locker room scene, but we need more—and if you could work in a few more details here and there about yourself it would allow for a greater character on the page). I’d also like another scene towards the end of the piece, something to break up all the larger paragraphs of information (paragraphs that I think could be streamlined if you focus more about how the town relates to you). I do think that you’ve got a really great draft here, though, so good work!
I think I’m confused about what you want the take home message of this piece to be. Is it about you, or is it about your grandfather? There is some mention about your relation to him and how you personally felt about his death, but the piece itself seems to be more about him as a person, and I think you could make a greater connection to yourself and the impact this had on you. What is the relationship between you and him/his death, and why is it important for you to be talking about it now? If you answer this question, the focus of the piece may become clearer.
I do think that you have some really great lines, but the piece as a whole could be strengthened if you could put in some scene or dialogue—there’s too much telling/description the way that it is, and it’s easy to get lost in this. Is there a time that you can remember with your grandfather, or a time that you had a discussion about him that could be recalled/depicted on the page? It feels like you’re talking about him in a very impersonal and removed way, and though it’s clear that you didn’t necessarily have much of a relationship with him, I think I need to feel something more behind this emotion-wise—why should the reader care about your grandfather’s death? Why is it important?
John—
I think you’re off to a good start with this piece. I like the scenes that you show, the picture you paint that way, but I’m wondering if we can get some more detail in the description areas that could help to flesh the piece out a little more. For example, in the third paragraph, you give important details in your family in one huge sentence—these are important details, and the length of the sentence makes it easy to get lost in them. I’m also wondering if we can get more of them; maybe you could give us a better picture of your parents overall.
I also think that we need to see more of your reaction when your father moves out. It’s clear that this event was a big deal for you at the time, but we see your mother and brother in that last scene and not you. What was your response to discovering your father had left?
I also think the last line is a cop out, to an extent. Leave us with something more concrete and provocative than that. And on another note, some of the commentary you provide in parentheses (“Don’t ask me why I remember…,” for example) is unnecessary and distracting.
Andrea—
I really like the subject you chose—it’s not something that gets written about all the time and that was really refreshing. You also do a really great job with creating scene in this piece, which is nice because it breaks up some of the longer, descriptive paragraphs and allows for the piece to flow well. I’m wondering if you can work in some more details about yourself as a person, because you give us very little other than the background about your medical history, which is pertinent to the piece. But can you add in a few more details about you that would allow for the reader to see more of a character?
I also like both the beginning and the end of the piece—the beginning because it’s catchy, without giving too much away (you have to read on to figure out what’s going on) and the end because it’s conclusive to an extent, but also provocative. I think the structure of the piece works well, and you may just need to go over some little things (word choice, sentence structure, etc) to polish up the piece. Other than that, great job—this is a really good draft!
Simona—
I think that your story has a lot of potential—it’s an interesting topic—and that maybe it just needs to be reorganized. I wonder if there’s a way that you can streamline the beginning, or break it up a little bit, so that we can get to some dialogue earlier, or at least not have those big, looming paragraphs.
I like the translations and the part about the ring, and I think that you could possibly do more with these to make a better ending—you wrap-up too quickly (and too obviously) and it’s very abrupt. The line “I am assuming you have been able to guess at the essence of my story from the beginning” is both unnecessary, and leaves me, as a reader, to wonder why I’ve been reading it if it was going to be that obvious. What makes this story individual/unique? Was there a moment when the American dream was shattered for you that you can recall and use? I definitely think that it’s there, but that you need to feel that the story is legitimate, and the way you end the piece right now doesn’t make me think that.
Myles—
I think that you have really good organization in this piece. The reader can kind of flow into the story, which is really nice (and probably ideal)—you provide some really nice details and dialogue that allow for a picture to be seen, especially in the beginning.
My concern is more about the second page. You go into a lot of longer paragraphs with much more “telling” and try to explain the phenomena in your town. I don’t think that you need to try to explain it, but that you need to give more about how it relates to you (we get some of that in the beginning with the locker room scene, but we need more—and if you could work in a few more details here and there about yourself it would allow for a greater character on the page). I’d also like another scene towards the end of the piece, something to break up all the larger paragraphs of information (paragraphs that I think could be streamlined if you focus more about how the town relates to you). I do think that you’ve got a really great draft here, though, so good work!
Writing Process - Personal Essay Draft
My writing process for this draft was kind of ridiculous. I basically had a really hard time coming up with a topic to write about--I didn't want to write about anything I'd written about before, I didn't want to write about anything too cliche, and I didn't want to write about something I learned post-breakup. Therefore, I felt a little limited, and spent days wracking my brain to come up with the "right" topic--an event that was big enough to have had an impact on my life, and something that would make me just want to start writing.
I'm not sure that actually ever happened. I wrote half an essay on a completely different topic because I was running out of time, though it felt wrong the whole time I was doing it. So, partway through, I started reading creative nonfiction, hoping something would inspire me, and eventually the first line of this essay came to me. From there, I was able to write the essay almost completely non-stop (though I cut out some things and moved some things around). And, maybe a little surprisingly, I didn't feel (and still don't) that uncomfortable writing it or having other people read it (which is maybe a good thing?). But I still don't feel very inspired by the piece--I feel like it possibly has potential, but something just feels off about it. So I'm hoping that feedback will help, and I'll be hit by a much-needed burst of ideas/inspiration.
I'm not sure that actually ever happened. I wrote half an essay on a completely different topic because I was running out of time, though it felt wrong the whole time I was doing it. So, partway through, I started reading creative nonfiction, hoping something would inspire me, and eventually the first line of this essay came to me. From there, I was able to write the essay almost completely non-stop (though I cut out some things and moved some things around). And, maybe a little surprisingly, I didn't feel (and still don't) that uncomfortable writing it or having other people read it (which is maybe a good thing?). But I still don't feel very inspired by the piece--I feel like it possibly has potential, but something just feels off about it. So I'm hoping that feedback will help, and I'll be hit by a much-needed burst of ideas/inspiration.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Personal Essay Draft 1
Couch Time
By Jessica Maas
“I don’t understand why you have an eating disorder—you’re thin and beautiful.”
In that moment my psychologist handed me the reason to never have to return to her cramped, bare office: she clearly knew nothing. Lucky for me, the red numbers of the digital clock indicated it was the end of our session, and though there was at first an uncomfortable pause after her remark, I managed to spit out a few words in response before flying out the door.
I’d been attending weekly sessions with Jennifer for about three months. Though her smile and questions always seemed forced and unsure, I was convinced that therapy alone would solve my problems and that progress with Jennifer would improve.
It had only been a year before, just weeks before my sophomore year of college, that I’d even realized I had a problem. What had started in my freshmen year of high school as a simple weight training program three days per week for softball had become, by my senior year, hours of cardio, weight training, and agility work almost every day. It was my sophomore year that I began regularly stepping on my father’s bathroom scale in the morning, waiting for the red numbers to indicate if I was winning or losing the game, waiting for them to indicate how many Wheat Thins I was allowed to count onto my plate that day. My junior year I started skipping a lot of meals, so by the time I was a senior I could go almost entire days without eating.
I equated running with purging. Though as an athlete it was necessary and healthy for me to run, my body wouldn’t feel clean and light unless I worked up at least two miles worth of sweat on the treadmill or pavement. My days were planned around when it would be most convenient to run or workout, and I couldn’t relax until after I’d done so. If for some reason it was impossible to exercise that day, I felt heavy, antsy, and incredibly guilty.
But I never believed that I had a problem—I merely thought I was a healthy person. In college, I continued to play softball, but the succession of two knee surgeries in two years managed to curb my exercise obsession somewhat.
But I still had an unhealthy relationship with food, though I didn’t realize it until after my first year. And then it just came to me, one day in the summer—nothing special happened; it was an ordinary day. The only difference was I knew that I had an eating disorder.
The realization of that overwhelmed me. I wrote about it a little in my poetry class that fall, and even did a performance piece centered around it, but admitting it out loud made me feel exposed and naked. I didn’t want people to know because I didn’t want them to be judging me or watching me eat—I didn’t want people to think of me as a weak person or someone who needed to be watched. So I tried my best not to tell anyone, though I agreed to participate in a panel discussion about athletics and eating disorders in the spring. After the presentation, a psychologist from the school came up to talk to me.
“Have you ever gone to see anyone about this?” she asked me.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, just think about it. It could help you.”
The thought of therapy did not thrill me, but I did think about it, and that was how I ended up with Jennifer the next fall. My eating had improved to an extent throughout college—I was eating regularly, and eating more, which I attributed to my friends and the schedule of the cafeteria. But my thought processes were very cyclical—I could go some months without feeling too constrained by my thoughts about eating, and then I’d go through a period of months where I felt totally controlled by my thoughts about food, from the time I woke up in the morning to the time I crawled back into bed. I’d have huge internal debates about whether or not to have a granola bar after class or eat a snack at 9 p.m., and these thoughts exhausted me.
So I went to therapy. The problem was it seemed to be exacerbating the problem rather than helping it. I was thinking about food and my choices more often—which I hadn’t previously thought possible—and she never seemed to tell me anything that I didn’t already know. After Jennifer demonstrated her complete ignorance, I found a new psychologist because I believed that maybe I’d just had a bad one and that therapy could still help me.
Patty was the antithesis of Jennifer—much older and much more experienced. She’d sit on the couch across from mine, sipping on the large to-go cup of Diet Coke she had leftover from lunch, and nod and talk to herself as I talked, and then something I said would hit her and she’d suddenly ask me another question—she seemed much more aware, and was much more “go with the flow.”
But even she wasn’t helpful. She asked me to keep lists for her of what I ate everyday and she wanted to have “goals” each week; how many times I would let myself eat dessert, for example. I dutifully scribbled lists on yellow sticky notes and followed the goals she set for me, but I found myself standing in the cafeteria, staring at all the food and trying to decide what would be acceptable to write down and when I should have dessert based on the number she set for me that week—it was like I needed to prove that I had a problem.
As I began to realize that my sessions were not helping, I stopped talking about eating during them. I discussed stress related to school or problems with my mother, and only talked about eating when Patty asked me something about it. Once, I discussed my fear of other people knowing that I had an eating disorder, but I tried hard to stay away from the intricacies of the problem itself. Yet I kept going back because it was supposed to help—therapy was supposed to make me better.
At my last session before summer break, though, I knew I wasn’t going to go back. I was content to simply understand that I had a problem—I didn’t want to write lists or make goals or comb through the sorts of punishment techniques my parents used when I was five. So I went to my last session, talked about my final exams and plans for the summer, and then left the office. I pushed open the doors, walked outside, and stared up to where the sun sat gleaming in a calm, blue sky.
By Jessica Maas
“I don’t understand why you have an eating disorder—you’re thin and beautiful.”
In that moment my psychologist handed me the reason to never have to return to her cramped, bare office: she clearly knew nothing. Lucky for me, the red numbers of the digital clock indicated it was the end of our session, and though there was at first an uncomfortable pause after her remark, I managed to spit out a few words in response before flying out the door.
I’d been attending weekly sessions with Jennifer for about three months. Though her smile and questions always seemed forced and unsure, I was convinced that therapy alone would solve my problems and that progress with Jennifer would improve.
It had only been a year before, just weeks before my sophomore year of college, that I’d even realized I had a problem. What had started in my freshmen year of high school as a simple weight training program three days per week for softball had become, by my senior year, hours of cardio, weight training, and agility work almost every day. It was my sophomore year that I began regularly stepping on my father’s bathroom scale in the morning, waiting for the red numbers to indicate if I was winning or losing the game, waiting for them to indicate how many Wheat Thins I was allowed to count onto my plate that day. My junior year I started skipping a lot of meals, so by the time I was a senior I could go almost entire days without eating.
I equated running with purging. Though as an athlete it was necessary and healthy for me to run, my body wouldn’t feel clean and light unless I worked up at least two miles worth of sweat on the treadmill or pavement. My days were planned around when it would be most convenient to run or workout, and I couldn’t relax until after I’d done so. If for some reason it was impossible to exercise that day, I felt heavy, antsy, and incredibly guilty.
But I never believed that I had a problem—I merely thought I was a healthy person. In college, I continued to play softball, but the succession of two knee surgeries in two years managed to curb my exercise obsession somewhat.
But I still had an unhealthy relationship with food, though I didn’t realize it until after my first year. And then it just came to me, one day in the summer—nothing special happened; it was an ordinary day. The only difference was I knew that I had an eating disorder.
The realization of that overwhelmed me. I wrote about it a little in my poetry class that fall, and even did a performance piece centered around it, but admitting it out loud made me feel exposed and naked. I didn’t want people to know because I didn’t want them to be judging me or watching me eat—I didn’t want people to think of me as a weak person or someone who needed to be watched. So I tried my best not to tell anyone, though I agreed to participate in a panel discussion about athletics and eating disorders in the spring. After the presentation, a psychologist from the school came up to talk to me.
“Have you ever gone to see anyone about this?” she asked me.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, just think about it. It could help you.”
The thought of therapy did not thrill me, but I did think about it, and that was how I ended up with Jennifer the next fall. My eating had improved to an extent throughout college—I was eating regularly, and eating more, which I attributed to my friends and the schedule of the cafeteria. But my thought processes were very cyclical—I could go some months without feeling too constrained by my thoughts about eating, and then I’d go through a period of months where I felt totally controlled by my thoughts about food, from the time I woke up in the morning to the time I crawled back into bed. I’d have huge internal debates about whether or not to have a granola bar after class or eat a snack at 9 p.m., and these thoughts exhausted me.
So I went to therapy. The problem was it seemed to be exacerbating the problem rather than helping it. I was thinking about food and my choices more often—which I hadn’t previously thought possible—and she never seemed to tell me anything that I didn’t already know. After Jennifer demonstrated her complete ignorance, I found a new psychologist because I believed that maybe I’d just had a bad one and that therapy could still help me.
Patty was the antithesis of Jennifer—much older and much more experienced. She’d sit on the couch across from mine, sipping on the large to-go cup of Diet Coke she had leftover from lunch, and nod and talk to herself as I talked, and then something I said would hit her and she’d suddenly ask me another question—she seemed much more aware, and was much more “go with the flow.”
But even she wasn’t helpful. She asked me to keep lists for her of what I ate everyday and she wanted to have “goals” each week; how many times I would let myself eat dessert, for example. I dutifully scribbled lists on yellow sticky notes and followed the goals she set for me, but I found myself standing in the cafeteria, staring at all the food and trying to decide what would be acceptable to write down and when I should have dessert based on the number she set for me that week—it was like I needed to prove that I had a problem.
As I began to realize that my sessions were not helping, I stopped talking about eating during them. I discussed stress related to school or problems with my mother, and only talked about eating when Patty asked me something about it. Once, I discussed my fear of other people knowing that I had an eating disorder, but I tried hard to stay away from the intricacies of the problem itself. Yet I kept going back because it was supposed to help—therapy was supposed to make me better.
At my last session before summer break, though, I knew I wasn’t going to go back. I was content to simply understand that I had a problem—I didn’t want to write lists or make goals or comb through the sorts of punishment techniques my parents used when I was five. So I went to my last session, talked about my final exams and plans for the summer, and then left the office. I pushed open the doors, walked outside, and stared up to where the sun sat gleaming in a calm, blue sky.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)