Final Reflection

The idea of “wobbling” has been present throughout this course for me.

Before Lacy described what she meant by “wobble”, I of course, thought of the song. So, for your listening enjoyment, here’s a link to the video to the song if you would like J

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE_64SdD27w

From Day 1 of doing improv, I was forced to come out of my comfort zone. Initially, I really didn’t like the idea   these activities and didn’t see the point.

But through the semester, I really started to like all of the improv activities. It was a nice mental break for me. I liked starting the classes off with these things, and by getting up and doing stuff I was able to stay more focus throughout the class.

This semester made me realize how much I’ve become use to a structured and defined classroom environment. Lacy really let us be more expressive as students than ive ever been allowed to. For example, when concerning our midterm project she told us “there’s no wrong way to go about doing this.” That’s what ive been wanting a teacher to tell me my entire academic career! However, those words stressed me out!

I’ve always had teachers give me so many boundaries especially when it came to major grades. It was really weird to have the exact opposite. Once I got over it, and realized that it really was okay to take the assignment it a new direction it really helped me enjoy the project more and it really helped to lower the stress level of projects.

Overall, I really started to enjoy these things that got me out of my comfort zone. Im still not always 100% there with getting out of my comfort zone, but this semester really did help. I really enjoyed it and am very thankful for the experience.

I hope you guys have a great Christmas break and spring semester J

and remember.... 

Reflective Blog Post on Literacy Narrative

What it was like for you to figure out what to write about.

Like most writing assignments I’ve ever done the process of deciding what to write about and where to begin is a random one. A lot of times I’ll think of a few things in the moment and then change it later on as a random idea pops into my head. I knew that I wanted to go into the direction of my childhood because I figured it would be pretty easy, and I loved reading when I was a kid. My initial though was to talk about when my mom would read Dr. Seuss books to me when I was younger. But I eventually decided to focus on a story that dealt with school because I felt that a school environment could be more dynamic and entertaining than my former pre-bedtime routine.

I’m truly scattered and unorganized when it comes to revision. I guess I just like to let things happen and not put too much thought into them. I started with a wide variety of ideas which included:

·         Learning how to read and write
·         Writing short stories in school
·         Childhood diary
·         Story time in elementary school
·         When my mom would read to me
·         Reading short novels like the Junie B. Jones collection
·         How AP classes helped my writing process

·         Somehow i was also thinking of incorporating the idea of the internet in this project….I’m not sure what I was thinking there

What it was like for you to revise your work.

Like I mentioned before, I went with a topic from my childhood in the school setting.  So I knew that I wanted to write about story time but I had no idea how. Lacy gave me some advice to try to put the readers in the moment with me as a child at story time in order to see what it was like from my childhood perspective. I really liked this idea so I decided to go with it.

Prior to our first draft being due, on October 4^th we had a homework assignment to try out different techniques with our work. I tried to revise my work by reading it backwards…my narrative made little sense already, and this only made things worse. I then tried to write several different leads or catch beginnings…this was okay, but I still didn’t like anything well enough to incorporate it into my first draft.  I then tried to examine the use of my verbs and I didn’t find this very beneficial since it was a story set in the past. So in all, my revision process was a bust!

We also, had to write different styles of our narratives but they all were too weird for my liking. Even when writing simple drafts in my day book, they all seemed to be lacking and it was just becoming a narrative. I really had no idea what to do about it, so I just kept it for the time being even though it really frustrated me. However, when I started typing up my first literacy narrative draft I had the idea to include little bits of what my thoughts would have been in that moment. I think that it was a bit unorganized and didn’t make too much sense until you were able to realize that, but I kind of liked doing it and it made it a little fun.  

What it was like for you to edit your work (include here the editing goal(s) you came up with in class.

My editing process wasn’t much better. When Lacy told us to write goals for this project, I was a little stumped so I put down standardized goals for any project. I just wanted to get a good grade, get it done, and make it interesting. For my first draft I added some more detail and thought segments. I still wasn’t 100% happy with the turn out but I submitted it anyway.

For my final draft I wanted to try something different. I liked the inserts I did with my thoughts and wanted to try and incorporate that again, but in a different scenario or in a new way.  I worked on it over our Thanksgiving break and most of my revision process took place on the computer. I typed random thoughts and starting points, and deleted most of them very quickly. The first day of doing this I quit because I couldn’t think of any ideas that I really liked. Throughout the day I continued to think on it and I decided that it might be cool to write about my position on literacy now, and try to display the contrast of my feelings of literacy between my pre-adulthood and adolescent years.

I loved this idea because this project really helped me realize this contrast because it forced me to think and remember how much literacy meant to me as a child. I decided to put this story in my more current classroom setting of English class to keep that sort of theme common between my two narratives.

So with that topic I began, I tried to incorporate the thought process again, but it didn’t seem to work as well in a story that was in present tense.  I played around with it for a little while and decided to put in inserts of writing in my day book instead.  This seemed to work pretty well at portraying my thoughts like I did in the first draft.  Towards the end of my paper I decided to insert a reflection of the contrast of these two time periods for me.

What else do you want to say about this assignment?

This project was overall, pretty interesting. Like I mentioned earlier, it made me realize things that I has forgotten or never put too much though into before. It was a whole new experience to experiment with different ways of writing a paper. It really challenged me to think and be creative. 

Reflective Blog Post on Ethnography Project

For me, it was pretty easy to figure out what to write about because I just stuck with my original idea.  I chose to write about writings on desk tops and supposed meaning behind them. When I originally did it, I didn’t think much of the purpose behind the pictures I took. Therefore, through the revision process I had to think more deeply about my topic. It was a little tiresome to kind of create meaning for something that is usually seen as meaningless, but I made it through J.

Working in a group always has its pros and cons. I would say that lack of communication was our biggest problem. We all weren’t always on the same page with things. But overall we got along pretty well and my group was really fun to work with.

Initially, I was hesitant to the fact that the project wasn’t in a traditional form, but I really warmed up to the idea. It was fun to do something out of the ordinary and it didn’t seem to put as much pressure on the whole thing as the traditional style projects do.

I thought this project was pretty fun, and it was nice to take a project in our own direction. I liked that we were able to decide what we wanted the topic to be and all of the dynamics that we wanted to explore about that certain topic.  

Ethnography Project Update

I decided to use this weeks blog post to talk about my groups project and kind of where we are...
So our main idea is words or written objects that are seen in places that are considered to be "non-traditional". We're looking at things like graffiti and writings on desk tops and trying to bring light to those items meaning. My group decided on doing a prezi presentation, they haven't really added their parts to that yet but im staying hopeful that they will :) haha. I think with prezi I'm mostly limited to just words...I don't know if this will portray our point in an interesting way or if it will just get boring. I also, conducted an interview but i'm not sure how to incorporate that into the presentation...I was thinking maybe just adding important quotes of what the girl said. Maybe there's a lot more to prezi then what I'm doing and I'm just limiting myself.

Anyways, if you guys have any advice or suggestions I would LOVE to hear them. Thanks :)

Things aren't always what they seem...

In class on Thursday we read Hazel Tells Laverene by Katharyn Machan. It was a twist on the old fairy tale, The Princess and the Frog. This immediately made me think of Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.   It is a revised look at the land and characters of Oz from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the 1939 film. Wicked is the story of the Wizard of Oz from the viewpoint of the Wicked which of the West. It's also a really famous musical. I don't read a lot, but I will admit it's a really good read :)

Wicked takes a whole new spin on the land of Oz. In Wicked, the Witch is misunderstood, the Witch of the East is a religious zealot, Munchkins are prone to mob violence and bigotry, the Wizard is a dictator, and animals can talk.  


I'm completely in love with things like this. Even things like getting someones perspective or opinions on various topics is really interesting to me. It opens us up to newer ways of looking at a situation with every perspective that we gain. Like in Wicked, you begin to sympathize with the wicked witch because you start to understand the reasoning behind her antics. 

Annotated Bibliography Mini Assignment

Graffiti on dumpster, Charlotte, North Carolina. 30 Oct. 2012. Personal Photograph by Kristen Armstrong. JPEG file.

This picture was taken on the side of the back entrance to the Atkins Library. Our Ethnography Project is focusing on unique or different forms of literature. We are primarily focusing on literature that encompasses a sense of freedom of expression. Graffiti is an example of this because there are no limitations when it comes to this form of expression.


T-shirts hanging, Charlotte, North Carolina. 30 Oct. 2012. Personal Photograph by Kristen Armstrong. JPEG file.

These t-shirts were strung outside of the Atkins Library. On each shirt, someone put a message of anything they wanted. The purpose of this display was unknown to us. We wanted to include this picture because many of these shirts held a hurtful or sad message...things that are not always publicly addressed. However, many of the shirts were anonymous, and thus, left a lot of room to express concerns or feelings freely.


Writing on desk, Charlotte, North Carolina. 30 Oct. 2012. Personal Photograph by Kristen Armstrong. JPEG file.

This photo was taken in a classroom in the building Denny. The writing on the desk can sometimes show a students realest thoughts. No one is there to grade or critique what you're writing on a desk top so there are no worries of being proper or saying the right thing.

Fieldwork Mini-Assignment

For our fieldwork mini-assignment, we decided to focus on expanding on a greater number of examples and providing explanations on  how those examples tie into our unifying theme. 

 We decided on the theme of Public Expression. This theme appealed to all of us for many different reasons.Our examples that we utilized were writings on desk tops, expressive t-shirts, and random writing around campus.  These"forms" of literature are far from what is traditionally thought of literature.  The non-traditional aspect of these examples is what originally attracted me to explore these forms of literature further. For myself, I love the authenticity and creativity attributed to forms of literature that fall under this theme. Things like writings on desks are often overlooked and thought to not have much importance; but while observing and taking note of all of these forms of public expression I believe that one thing that ties them together is a great significance to the author. Since most of these examples were anonymous  authors were left with no room for judgement, ridicule, or limiting rules. Therefore, opening up a wide range for creativity. 

                                                                  Desk, desk top writings, chalk and picture of concept map:

The first place we re-visited was the building, Denny. Last time, I only confined myself to the rooms that I had classes in. This time around, we visited rooms I had never been in. We were primarily focused on finding different writings on desk tops. I believe that the writings from students on desk tops during class are the realest depiction one can get of what is going on in their head. There's no certain standard for this type of writing, leaving much room for creativity and freedom of expression.

Graffiti, t-shirts, and re-mapped areas:

We then traveled to the front of Atkins Library. In front of the library, there are many t-shirts with various writings on them. None of us were really sure what these shirts were for or what purpose they served. When taking a look at many of them, we saw that some advocated things like non-violence and anti-bullying. Most seemed to come from a place of hurt or despair. Very few of the t-shirts had any bit of a positive outlook. Happy or sad, they all contained messages to that had a lot of meaning to the author. Most of these T-shirts were anonymous  I think that this leaves a lot of room for these people to express exactly what they want without any fear of other's opinions.

As we continued around campus, we noticed a couple of spots that contained graffiti and sidewalk chalk. We couldn't read any of the graffiti but it still appealed to us because of the creativity it contained. The sidewalk chalk contained mostly messages that brought attention to certain events going on around campus.

My Mapping Blog

The place that I decided to map out is the building Denny. I really just drew the class room that I go into the most.:

Sorry that it's blurry, technology keeps failing me tonight :/

Denny mostly has lecture hall that have those annoyingly small wooden desk. I'm quite the doodler when I get bored in class. The desks in Denny let me know that I'm not alone haha. Almost every desk has writing on it. One day I was at a desk that was holding an on-going debate on the best fraternity haha. Other writings I've seen are initials of two people who are going to be together forever...and expressions of how awful a person thinks a particular class is. 

I love writing like this. It's uncensored, it's real, it has no set guidelines and rules, and it's much more entertaining than any other form of writing that I have ever read. In Denny, you can't get any cell phone service what so ever, but honestly I haven't minded that too much this semester and I can attribute that to all of the writing on the desk tops that haven't ceased to entertain me. :)

The joys of grammar....

In class on Thursday we talked about grammar. When I get any paper back from an English class half of my points off are ALWAYS for grammar. So of course, I get a little annoyed and question the significance of grammar. However, when thinking about it in class I realized that there are certain grammatical errors that I can't stand! I thought I would use this blog to talk about them. :)

When someone can not use the correct forms of your and you're:

Knowing the difference between too, to, and two:

When someone has to go out of their way to misspell something: 

I don't mind a misspelled word that much, but this shows that it can be pretty important: 

Maybe grammar is more important than I give it credit for. When it comes to myself...I couldn't care less about it! but as soon as I see a silly mistake from anyone else...it's suddenly some big thing that bothers me. Does any one else have any grammatical pet peeves? 

Midterm Reflection

     My writing group met in the Atkins Library at 10am on Tuesday morning for our mid-term assignment. We were pretty lost at first. We asked around to other groups, some told us to look for a short story but avoid books, while others said to look for a poster or something like that. Eventually, we saw the newspaper section on the second floor of the library and decided that it would be a good place to find something. We each grabbed a paper and looked for a while.  We found an article in the Charlotte Observer on the city of Belmont creating a “bicycle culture”. A link to the article is here.This article immediately stuck out to us, for various reasons. 

     Getting a photocopy of the article proved to be more challenging than what we anticipated. There were several technical malfunctions with the copiers we were trying to use. Luckily, the librarians at the library were nice enough to help us out.

                Once we finally got that out of the way, we found a quiet spot and did our writing beside the text. This wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be once we got going. I actually was able to write a lot. That really surprised me.     

     The article said that in 1991 Belmont became the first city in North Carolina to adopt New Urbanism-a neotraditional zoning in order to measure growth and development.  This adaptation included measures like creating many sidewalks throughout the city.  All of this was in an attempt to create a “bike-friendly city”. Basically, the city of Belmont was on a big health kick, and made many changes to adapt to this new way of life.

     I was interested in the length that the city of Belmont went to create a certain “culture”. Our culture is essentially, who we are. However, we have a role in creating a big part of our culture. It’s up to us to decide who we’re going to be. I thought about the lengths we often go in order to improve our own culture; sometimes these lengths are more extreme then others. Just like how the city of Belmont strived to create a “bike-culture”, we strive for our own sense of culture and a definition of who we are.

     I believe that one aspect of our culture involves our writing and writing processes. We all have our own, individualistic “cultures” when it comes to our writings. This can be made up of different places, events, or people that have had an impact on our writing. Our Literacy Narratives for example, describe one event that we seem to think has had a significant impact on our writing. That assignment-along with this semester-has made me realize certain events of my life, and their impact on my writing, and culture as a whole.  

Middle School "Revision" Days-September 30,2012

 Writing into the day for Thursday's class involved reading a short piece from Katherine Bomer called Writing a Life. She talks about revision, and using it in a large context. She believes that revision opens up our minds to greater possibilities

It's interesting to think about how much "revision" we experience in our lives, and what prompts us to go through revision.


I think that the biggest time period of revision that I went through was in middle school. Haha..back then I'm sure that I was the most awkward kid alive. Looking back, it's pretty embarrassing haha.  Middle school was that time of figuring out where to fit in and who you want to be essentially. For me, I think that process involved molding myself into every group there was until I just decided to be me and do things that I like. It's crazy how I would make myself change so much just because I would see other people that were always seeming to have fun who acted like that. All I can say now is that I'm so thankful that I'm no longer in that stage!

Where did our creativity go-September 22, 2012

In class on Tuesday we watched a short video on creativity. It was called Creativity requires TIME 

The video got me thinking about a conversation I recently had with one of my teachers. He seems to think that most college kids are completely lacking in creativity. He references the younger years when we could just get some crayons and draw a picture. If we were to do that now, it would most likely take much longer because it wouldn't look right, we would need to start over, or we wouldn't want to because we have better things to do.

The video we watched had the idea that if given more time, there's more time to let creativity flourish. 

I agree with what my teacher was saying, which makes me think the opposite of the message the video displayed. We've had a lot of time to grow, mature, get new creative ideas, etc. However, we're less creative and more limited than we were as children...so is time really the answer to the lack of creativity? 

Kid's drawing:

I think that as kids we were free. No one was going to tell us that our stick figures sucked and looked like crap because we were kids. If I still drew the same pictures and was all excited and confident like I was when I did anything like that as a kid...everyone would think I was crazy! Now we have expectations. I think that, more than anything limits our creativity now....What do you think?

I do what I do for Erin-September 15, 2012

In class on Thursday we looked at a blogging site, wdydwyd?. This site is filled with pictures and descriptions of different people answering the question: Why do you do what you do?

This got me thinking on what exactly moves people, and makes them act.  In my day book I made a little list of the things I came up with. Some of my ideas were: religion, parental influence, to make a difference, peer-pressure, self-satisfaction, and some people just do things for the hell of it. Whatever the reason, I believe that we all have some rhyme and reason behind our actions--some underlying force that we allow to move us.

According to Sara Bareilles in her song “Bottle It Up”—she does it for love…she really gets that point across by repeating “I do it for love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love….” Over and over again in that one song alone.

My day book entry...nothing spectacular.

For myself, I thought about some things that I do personally and my reasoning behind it.  I work with a mentally retarded girl for my job.  Her name is Erin and she’s 23 years old.  She loves playing hide-and-seek and doing puzzles.  When we’re not doing one of those things, she’s always interested in asking me a hundred questions (most are repetitive) on my day. Around her, I take on a more simplistic view of life.

I never imagined that as a college student I would be running around still playing hide-and-seek, or any of the other countless things I find myself doing to make her laugh, but I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I consider my job a complete blessing.  It’s hard to describe, but I do all that I do with her simply to see the smile on her face.  That smile makes every worry of my “normal” world go away in an instant.  Knowing I have the power to put even a little bit of joy-even for a moment- in her life makes everything worthwhile for me.

Erin, my best friend Bristol (who introduced me to Erin, and also works with her), and me. An example of something weird that I'll do to make her laugh:

All of that to say, Erin’s smile, joy, and laughter is the reason why I do what I do. J

Childhood Memory :) September 6, 2012

So, today we did our writing into the day on this typewriter video-I can't find it on youtube to post a link, sorry (:. I didn't really get any deep meaning out of it...in fact, I didn't really understand it. However, it reminded me of when I was a little girl. My Grandma had a typewriter similar to the one in the video. It brought me back to all of those memories of me sitting there typing away. For the most part, I would never type anything sensible, it was mostly gibberish but it meant more to me than that. It made me feel like a little adult and I was positive that I was acting out exactly how my life would be when I grew up...thank God technology has updated from typewriters. I'm really glad that adulthood isn't like that now  

Anyways, that was one of my childhood memories, feel free to comment with one of yours :) 

Are we that different after all? August 30, 2012

The writing into the day that we did as a class on the Langston Hughes' poem was the most interesting for me.  The poem got me thinking a lot about the differences that we share, in general.  It made me more aware of the fact that most of us are afraid of differences. I was pretty much all over the place when I was attempting to write about it:  

As noted in the poem, there is still an underlying string that ties us all together—the fact that we’re American, or human to be more general.  However, that provoked the thought in me that we usually shy away from different people who may have any similarities that would go deeper than that. 

Some people think that they are generally accepting of differences (myself included). But to say that is to at least note that we’re aware of certain differences. If we were that accepting would we notice them at all? It seems to me that if we truly didn’t see variations among us as strange or whatever you want to call it, then we wouldn’t even take a mental note of it. I’m not sure if I’m even making sense at this point….probably not. Oh well, I guess that’s what these assignments are partially about.