The Age of (Answering) the Essay (Journal Entry 10)

I believe that I will write this blog entry along the way as I read the article.

First off, I am very fond of the statement made saying that an expert on literature doesn't need to be an expert at writing. Because same.

I understand his disinterest in why we have high school English classes and how we write papers, simply copying old white men who have been dead for centuries. But also, the way he explains it doesn't make it seem like a good argument to me. Is it because I dig history and find that trying to walk in footsteps that themselves were copying the classics is kinda dope? Probably.

The way Graham writes makes me think one of us is using commas the wrong way. either he doesn't use them as much as he should, or I'm tossing them out like bombs in a Blitzkrieg.

This b has typos in his own dadgum article. Maybe that's why he wrote it in the first place? Just another aspect of high school papers he didn't like was editing.

"Questions aren't enough. An essay has to come up with answers." Bitch, where? The way this phrase was worded, it makes me feel as though the essay itself creates multiple answers along it's course. For what I can remember, all the essays I've written had a single answer and were drawn out to answer one question. Gosh, I hope I am reading this man wrong, because he seems very wishy-washy.

Mister Graham. How do rivers "backtrack"? Pretty sure if they run into a wall, they overflow and spread out. Either do your research or get a thesaurus.

I do not like this man or his attempts at explaining what the various types of "essays" are.

My Main(e) Man is a Lobster (Journal Entry 9)

Where to start with this article. Maybe my reason for disliking it is because it is indeed exploratory and I cannot recall ever reading another exploratory piece of literature? Who knows. All I know is that reading that article was like re-reading a paper I bullshitted my way through to meet the word count. He goes into the greatest amount of detail possible for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

He has almost three full paragraphs on the science of a lobster, the genus of it, where they're from, where they go. He talks about how lobsters feel about being put into the pot, alive, breathing. How would he know what the lobster is feeling? IS HE A LOBSTER?!

That's it. That's why he wrote this article, the only possible reason to go into this much detail is because he wants to become a lobster, he wants to rule them and put a stop to thier unnecessary annual slaughter by the glutonous American deities. Like. Wallace, babe. Please calm down.

He has a whole paragraph on his cab driver! Please, Wallace. Slow your roll.

Just because I've never eaten a lobster doesn't mean I don't know how they work. I imagine a lobster festival is the same as any themed carnival- a central idea with booths and tables and a big ol' picnic surrounding that main idea. Ive never touched a lobster, but I've been crabbing. Crabs and lobsters are basically the same thing.

Probably the only thing I liked in this article: When he goes into the detail of why/how a lobster's shell color changes when it is killed. For some horrible reason, my favourite thing about emptying crab pots and preparing them, was indeed killing them. I don't even like crab meat! But shaking the crab pot into the big wash bin, watching the crabs crawl on each other, confused, and then heating up the kettle and pouring the water on them. The brown and blue shells would turn bright red and hey'd scrabble about and I know I'm probably a serial killer for thinking so, but that's my fav part. I love to cook, and maybe it's a primal thing? Killing your food? I don't know. Shut up, Wallace.

Pre-lobster (Journal Entry 8)

Wallace writes his article on the many different emotions it takes to be a lobster and to eat a lobster. He goes into great detail of what a lobster is, and why there are annual harvests of thier flesh.

What To Fix (Journal Entry 7)

Okay, yes hello. I overslept. Uhm, places in my rough draft I noticed were a little too rough...

Is it possible to just say "everything after the intro"? Because I feel as though that everything afer hte intro in my rough draft is too rough. That because I concentrated so greatly on the additions, that my words do not flow as freely as in the intro.

Things from the rubric I'm probaby missing:

• I really need to differentiate between sections of how the book can effect large crowds vs a certain type of person
• To expand on how the "text" affects the reader, maybe throw in a few quotes or reviews about the book
• Literally why does the book matter? Look up to see if there is research on kids having fictional figures to identify with?
• Start building a bibliography, dumdum

Things to consider cutting:

• Find a new way to say "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" or "this series"
• All the times I talk about kids relating to the text? Like, who else does?

Re-wording the paper:

• Consider switching the place of the 2nd section paragraph

First Essay (Journal Entry 6)

Dear Future Elizabeth,

UHM YES HELLO. THE TIME HAS COME TO WRITE AN ACTUAL ESSAY ON THE PERCY JACKSON SERIES. I REPEAT. THE TIME HAS COME TO WRITE AN ACTUAL ESSAY ON THE PERCY JACKSON SERIES. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. 

Okay, lets see how I wanna do this.

Outline, gotta outline the paper, but not in the traditional "five paragraph format". Got it. No intro, no conclusion; but I lowkey might do that because this essay is gonna be persuasive as HECK. The intro should definitely be one of those "now imagine this..." and I say "you're a chubby little white girl in elementary school. No friends, you read by yourself at lunch, and are bullied terribly." And then I go into the actual gory details of the bullying Alicia did, right? Like the panic attacks and the therapy and all the sad stuff. And then! Bam, Percy Jackson came into my life and now I have a tattoo. Wow this makes a whole lot f sense right now to me. This should totally be my outline. Yes. Okay, got it.

Uhm.
Intro does not need a thesis statement.
Body paragraphs can def be drivel, but have PERSUASIVE reasoning behind it, not just a lot of crying.
Elizabeth. This is involves possibly marking/sticky-noting sacred text, okay? You can get through this. Just color code those sticky notes and try no to have the pages fall out of the spine like the cover did. (Also consider getting a new copy of the book. You've had this one for about 10 years, babe.)
Start breathing, you forgot how to breathe, you're too excited. Okay. Yes. Good. We've gotta get an A++ on this.

You're gonna do great!

Love,
Past Elizabeth

Three Worded Paragraphs (Journal Entry 5)

Barthes shares his opinion on rhetoric and the different views he has on the multiple ways people use language.

When I think of reading, I only really think of the book series that I read multiple times over. The ones that I have grown feelings for and accustomed to. I am not sure if I want Barthes to change how I read them if I have grown so attached, but I understand where he is coming from. That every time you read something, look at all the perspectives; not of the characters, but of the readers' and the author. How the author put themselves in the book, or withheld a bit. I suppose the next time I want to cry and read Percy Jackson,  shouldn't pay so much attention to the story, but to what the words are saying? Yeah, the deep stuff.

Paragraph 1:

• Well-spoken
• Blacken
• Pure

Paragraph 2:

• Pleasure
• Grammarian
• Change of code
• Lexicographical 

Paragraph 3:

• Selective baffles
• Lost
• Always the other, the author

Paragraph 4:

• Disposessed
• I desire the author
• Prattle 

Paragraph 5:

• Ideological
• Every fiction is supported by a social jargon
• Sacerdotal

Paragraph 6:

• Regionality
• Agents of the State
• It is a warrior

Paragraph 7:

• Paranoias
• Jargon
• Marxist

Paragraph 8:

• Systems
• Us
• Inhabit

Paragraph 9: 

• Atopia 
• War of languages
• Dissociated 

Paragraph 10:

• Erethism 
• Desquamation 
• Writers hackles 

Paragraph 11:

• Outside languages
• Not a language
• War of fictions

The Case of (Note Taking) Reparations (Journal Entry 4)

Howdy. While reading "The Case For Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I wrote down every word I didn't recognize and the questions my brain produced while reading. I figured I would put part of my notes here, and build on them, to better understand the article.

Kleptocracy (mentioned more than once) - a government or state in which those in power exploit and steal; rule by a thief. Coates seems to be calling the local government of Chicago and the Red Lining districts a kleptocracy.

Debt peonage - the use of laborers bound in servitude because of debt. This is how the tenants of the Red Lining district couldn't get out of thier contracts.

Sharecropping - a tenant farmer who gives part of his crop up as rent.

Rosenwald School - this was apparently the informal term used for the "black only" schools in the South and the segregated community. 

Nuremberg Laws - Nazi law that prohibited relationships with people who basically weren't Aryan enough. The corrupted Federal Housing Administration set up "racial policies" around the Red Lining districts and other parts of Chicago that resembled the Nuremberg Laws.

Halcyon talk - halcyon- denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful. In relation to the article, basically people started realizing that segregation wasn't an actual necessity.

Brown vs. Board of Education - Supreme Court case that finally abolished segregated schools across the nation. 

There were a few things in the article that I do not recall ever hearing about, and want to look into. For one, why was I never made to know the Supreme Court cases? Like honestly? But as a future history teacher, I intend to know of all the things Coates spoke of in this article.

What to look up for next time: Chicago bombings; how normal home owning works vs why the CBL had to even form; negative wealth.