My Writing: Rebekah Hartshorn

I did it!!! I've been procrastinating this class for as long as I could and turns out that my trepidation was well placed. However, I'm really grateful for Dr. Burton's help this semester.

Next steps and draft: Neverending Writing

Jonah and I discussed fantasy as I was exploring the roles fantasy plays in literacy, and more specifically the role of The Neverending Story. We talked about how fantasy doesn't get as much respect as it probably deserves for the role it plays. (Though in recent years, the position of fantasy as being looked down upon has changed a little bit.)

•     My main goal for the hour is to get a really solid thesis hashed out. Especially because I'm still not entirely sure of the direction I would like to take.
•     In brainstorm-fashion, I want to get sections written about the different aspects of the claim.
•     If I have time, I will start threading them together, and organizing them.
•     If I still have time, I will start fleshing these ideas out and pull in more research and examples. 

 

Annotated Bibliography: The Neverending Story

Working Thesis: Although many scholars dismiss The Neverending Story as fantasy geared toward children, it can play an important role for children in becoming literate.
I would really like to address the use of the alphabet and tie it into literacy (especially early literacy) though I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to do that yet.

English Symposium Disaster

Early on, I picked which session I wanted to attend for the English Symposium, then despite having reminders in my planner for pages and pages this week. I remembered desperately Thursday evening, that I had been planning to go earlier that day. I wrote it something like 3 more times for Friday. Then Friday at 5:30pm, I remembered in a panic that I was supposed to go to that. I don't know how things get so thoroughly forgotten.

Playful Prewriting: The Neverending Story

 

Checking In on Research

First off, I want to say thank you to Lizzi. The sources she found are helpful and she has really great ideas. I think I will be using a good number of the sources she provided.

I'm still thinking about what arguments will divide an educated audience for my thesis. I'm leaning toward the idea that while music does play a key role in showing character development, it's the silences that really give us the information we need about them.

I like the direction of focusing on music and using Wit as a supporting feature. I'm mulling over the idea of pulling in John Cage and 4'33" as another supporting example of the use of silence. I realized that I needed to go back to part of the film, near the end and analyze the use of the music particularly as the story reaches its climax. 

I'm still in the research phase and I've got a little more research still to do. By the end of tomorrow, I hope to be on to the paper writing full force. Mostly, though, I'm just glad to be writing about music.

Research Ideas for Jonah

I found too many things, really. Picking the things that would be most interesting and relevant was a little bit difficult. Because your paper focused on The Runaway Bunny, most of my ideas revolved around that.

Writing in Class to Blog-Essay

Mine isn't as complete as I would like. It takes me a long time to write these things.

Vivian Bearing is a Professor of 17^th Century Metaphysical Poetry by John Donne, from the film Wit. She has stage 4 ovarian cancer. Vivian herself takes on the role of narrator, as well as every other version of herself that she conjures up to help her tell her story. Although there are many ways to look at Vivian’s character, both the subtle and obvious uses of music and background sounds in the HBO film adaption of Wit contribute to the complexity and purpose of Vivian’s character.

Analysis of Edson’s Wit

1.      Genre: Drama. Wit is really meant to be performed, you just can’t get quite as much out of your own imagination and the words. Drama is a collaborative effort of many minds and views of the world. Without actors and directors, and you only have a playwright, while still meaningful, it isn’t as complete. 

5 Theses of Wit

Being specific is hard and I know I didn't succeed in that, though I could revise these into more specific theses. 

Wit Impressions

Reading the play isn't my first encounter with Wit. I had seen the movie before I took this class. I enjoyed reading the play,  a lot. It gave me a chance to savor and think about the words. 

The stage directions, were very important. Included in that, Vivian breaks the fourth wall all the time. The play begins even, with the the house lights partially on. That is a significant choice on the part of the writer. It engages the audience more and tells them that they are a part of this. She also was to have her IV pole with her, throughout the play, no matter what the scene really was. 

Even the fact that some of the characters were supposed to double up as other characters, I felt was significant. It's as if these memories and flashbacks are just shadows, they're not really happening. They are a facade that Vivian is putting up over the top of everything that's going on around her. Which, of course, is the case. In some ways that's what a memory is. 

One of the most meaningful things was the almost juxtaposition of Vivian actually being afraid and showing the humanity she always shied away from, with Sally, and with her only visitor, her mentor, reading her a story, and comparing it to an allegory for God. 

Writing Plan and Record: Rebekah Hartshorn

① Jan 19, 2016. 10:15 pm
Observations: The poems are similar in that they are both about love, have overtones of death, and deal very much in the abstract (or dare I say metaphysical, obviously).
Possible direction: I don't know how to talk about both poems in the same paper. Perhaps, the similarity of the experience of love in death from A Valediction: Forbidding Morning and the transcendent experience of love in The Extasie.

Fast Formal Analysis Outline

1. Genre An example of metaphysical poetry. It used the juxtaposition of ideas that are seemingly unrelated. In this case it astronomy and a compass to describe their love.

2. Narrator/Persona
 A man who is leaving his lover, reassuring her that their love is stronger than their separation.

Confessions of a Procrastinator

In a recent interview, Rebekah discussed with us her struggles and difficulties with writing.

“I am a procrastinator of the first degree,” she claimed. She was quick to reassure us that it was not that she dislikes doing the work. There is something in the massive amounts of energy required to start a piece, which fills her subconscious with dread. Her conscious, of course, is too busy distracting itself to notice that a project is being put off. It takes so much thought before she can even start that she needs to create a clear picture of where she is going. After that she somehow needs to jump-start the creative process with a small shot of excitement to launch herself over the anxiety it causes. For her, that anxiety is all but insurmountable. That conflict of procrastination and anxiety is enemy number one in Rebekah’s academic writing career.

1949 Skyriter

There are so many things that I love about having a literary life. I love owning books. I love holding and treasuring my cherished volumes. I love reading them—there’s nothing better than taking a dip into storytelling and beautiful language to refresh a person and lend them a new determination for life. I love words and what they mean. How they sound. How they look on a page. I love to read aloud and observe how the symbols, little black lines, and a patchwork of positive and negative space change into a musical rhythm of meaning and emotions.