My Writing: Sage Madsen

This semester... wow! It's been one of the hardest semesters ever, but thankfully I had a lot of really amazing experiences despite the all-around difficulty. This class has been one of those amazing experiences. I'd never studied John Donne poetry before, and I ended up studying him in other classes this semester as well... alongside all his intense poetry, I came to understand life a little more, too. 

Almost getting past the "thought blurps" now!

Here we go. One hour.

The way that Rowling is able to convey the frustration behind gender roles is in a way almost non-chelaunt. She never comes out and says that the way society views gender is wrong, but she alludes to this idea several times in each of the seven books in the series.

Pre-draft Plan: Harry Potter

Okay, super duper fast...

My plan for the draft is to basically start condensing all my post-y note annotations and my gathered sources into actual coherent sentences. It's going to be messy, and it's going to be a bit bumpy, but it's going to be fun. My first drafts are always a bit scatter-brained, but it's basically just getting the word vomit out and then arranging those words so that they start to turn into something. 

The discussion in class was super great because Kayla and I were going crazy with all the sources we'd found. There is so much information, the trick will be consolidating it. I'm excited to let off the brakes for one hour and just sort of fly down the mountain of information I've been stacking up.

Annotated Bibliography

So. Long story short, Monday night I found out that someone had gotten a hold of my Amazon account and started buying all kinds of junk with my credit card information. I've spent the past two days in every level of you-know-where, so let's just skip ahead to the part where I finally upload that annotated bibliography and move on with the rest of my life. Sound good? Great. Let's go.

Shakespeare Symposium

So let's be real, I didn't think Shakespeare had a whole lot to do with my paper (Gender roles in Harry Potter), but I was pleasantly surprised and proven wrong. However, the Symposium schedule was not ideal for Sage's schedule. I work until noon, and then I have classes starting at one and so things were looking a smidgen bleak. Nothing was going to work, but sitting around crying about how much my life (and schedule) stinks wasn't going to solve any of my problems.

So I put on my big girl pants and made something work. There weren't a lot of options for me time-wise, but I noticed that the Shakespeare session started at 12:15, so I begged and pleaded with by boss and she let me leave a few minutes early.

Playful Prewriting for Potter

So guys, can I just tell you how fun this week has been? I've been super duper stressed out about life, and so sitting down with one of my favorite stories of all time was definitely an answer to a prayer I didn't know I had been praying. I decided to read all the Harry Potter books because I had no idea which one to focus on, and so on Monday night I put in a request to the school library for all seven books. I didn't get them until Thursday night, and so I set about trying to read them all in less than four days. I got through the fourth one and a few chapters of the fifth, and I went through quite a few post-y notes. But I have never had more fun reading books than I did this past weekend. It's been a definite dream to be able to analyze Harry Potter like I've analyzed books for my past English classes.   I haven't finished post-y noting the third and fourth books yet, but I"m excited to keep at it this week and add in more sources that apply to the things I found and wrote down as I read.

I've also talked with a lot of friends and family this week while reading. My little brother hasn't read any of the books himself before... my mom read us the first two books when we were younger, but he wasn't old enough to understand much of what was going on. When I asked him why he hasn't read them before, he said that they looked too thick. My roommate hasn't read the books before either, and when I asked her why, she said that the books came out when her family was living on a farm in a remote part of Brazil, so she didn't have access to the books. These two were the only ones I had talked with who hadn't read the books before, so I'm excited to continue to find more people to get "data" from about this.

I'm planning on doing a social media poll on Facebook to find out which books are the favorite out of the series, why people like them, which characters are more relatable, and if people haven't read the books, why they haven't. I'm excited to get even more information about this.

Impact of Gender: Who was Harry Potter Written For?

In an attempts to make something of the thoughts that have been bumbling around my brain for the past few days, I'm just going to start typing and hopefully what comes out makes sense. Here's a little sneak peak at my wonderfully messy brain pattern.

The success of the Harry Potter series is astounding. It's been over a fifteen years and we're still talking about it. Girls and boys, kids and adults, English majors and Chemical Engineering majors, book-lovers and movie lovers... you can't say who loves it more, because Barnes and Noble doesn't record each book-buyer's gender, occupation, age or media preference. You can do a survey online, but chances are, the ones that love it the most are the ones who will be reading it instead of taking surveys.

What makes it so successful? I believe, and this is an opinion I've been itching over for the past six years, that Harry Potter has "both-gender appeal." The MC is a boy. The title is a boy's name. Let's take a look at the cover:

      

The only "girly" thing here is a unicorn, but let's be honest - that is not the focal point of the cover. There is a boy wearing tennis shoes, flying on a broomstick, attempting to catch a ball that is flying through the air. They always say that you can't judge a book by the cover, but I remember doing just that when I was little. I immediately decided this book was for boys, but did that stop me from reading it? No. I was that girl that wanted to play football during recess and serve a mission when I was 21 and watch sports on TV and play with Hot Wheels, all to prove that I could be "as tough" and "as brave" and "as fast" and "as strong" as a boy.

But I still played with Barbies, pretended to make dinner on my toy kitchen, went to ballet class, and preferred the colors pink and purple. I recognized that I was a girl, but most of my friends growing up were boys (including my little brother) and so I naturally went along with their adventures, and they would go along with mine. But there came a time when his friends started teasing my brother for playing "sissy girly doll games" and so he stopped. 

No one ever teased me for playing soccer and riding bikes and wearing tennis shoes. But they teased boys for playing dress-up and wanting to try ballet and wearing pink.

In a nutshell, it's okay for girls to like boy things but NOT okay for boys to like girl things. 

J.K. Rowling was encouraged to use a name that wouldn't mark her as a woman. This was done in an attempt to appeal (cover first) to the male demographic. Men don't want to read a book written by a woman, do they? 

That is, I believe, one of the main driving forces behind the success of Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling appeals to both girls and boys by appealing first to the boys. 

I would like to research why Harry Potter isn't considered to be a "boy book" when it's main character is a boy, but why a book about a girl is often considered to be a "girl book." 

Here's what I've been looking over in search of social media and groups to learn from and discuss this with:

Shannon Hale's Official Blog

Study done on Gender Imbalance (reading the comments...)

Blog specifically about gender bending in Harry Potter

Why boys can't like girl books (reading the comments...)

There are a lot more to dig through, but there's at least my starting point! 

Research Ideas for Lizzi

     The formatting is super weird for the hanging indent... I had a hard time figuring out how to make it look like a works cited page... haha. :) Here are five sources that I found for Lizzi's essay: 

      Timmermans, Stefan, and Hyeyoung Oh. “The Continued Social Transformation of the Medical           Profession”. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 51 (2010): S94–S106. Web. 

I thought this article would be a good place to start looking into the background behind Jason's career and how patient care wasn't often a priority to him... it might give some good insights as you're comparing the two different fields, too. 

    Balkrishnan, Rajesh et al.. “Trust and Satisfaction with Physicians, Insurers, and the Medical Profession”. Medical Care 41.9 (2003): 1058–1064. Web...
     
I also liked this article in respect to the behavior of doctors and medical professionals in the work place. I feel like achieving a good background knowledge of the more medical side of the play can definitely add to the depth of your essay. You don't even really need to use anything directly in your essay from these sources, but just knowing about some of this information can help you examine the world of poetry and medicine more objectively.

     Hulme, William E.. “The Problems of College Students”. Christian Education 34.1 (1951): 17–25. Web.

Even though this article is from the 1950's, I felt like it still had some interesting ideas that are prevalent even today. It talks about certain issues that college students face, something that could add to your second paragraph (in mentioning Vivian's college flashback). 

      Fagiano, Mark. “Pluralistic Conceptualizations of Empathy”. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 30.1 (2016): 27–44. Web.

In regards to your third paragraph, this could be extremely helpful in analyzing Vivian and Jason's lack of emotional ties to others. 

            Dalrymple, Theodore. “Between the Lines: On the Detection of Fakes”. BMJ: British Medical Journal 334.7599 (2007): 905–905. Web.

           Raby, Philip. "Medical Classics: Wit". BMJ: British Medical Journal  334.7599 (2007): 905-905. Web. 

So this particular source is small in size... it's just a side article in the BMJ and so the sourcing is a little tricky. I went ahead and did two sources just in case it was harder to find... but really, this article was short, sweet and to the point. You could also look further into Raby's course that he teaches, but this article I felt like put a good point out about how uncomfortable medical students should feel as they watch "Wit." The play is used by medical professors to teach their students how NOT to treat their patients. This could add to your argument that Jason has time to change; by using the example of what happened to Vivian, his future (and the future of other medical students) can be far better.

Basically there are so many fun articles to research. I had a hard time stopping at just five.

Just a Comma - Essay Analysis of Wit (Sage, re-post)

[Something went wrong with Sage's post, so I'm posting it a second time for her]

Alrighty Professor Burton, under an hour. I kind of rushed through the final two paragraphs because I didn't want to break my promise and go over that hour. But I managed to do it. First draft. Phew! I was hyperventilating a bit at the end there... 

Just a Comma - Essay Analysis of Wit

Alrighty Professor Burton, under an hour. I kind of rushed through the final two paragraphs because I didn't want to break my promise and go over that hour. But I managed to do it. First draft. Phew! I was hyperventilating a bit at the end there... 

A bit about Wit

So I'll be honest, I've missed the last few classes and so I'm a little confused. Okay, maybe lots
confused. I found myself staring at the computer screen, wondering how I could manage to whip up some wonderful observations with so little time... and then feeling a little bit of hopelessness. Missing so much class has been hard. Can I offer a suggestion? Don't allow yourself to be convinced that going on vacation in the middle of the school year is a good idea. Because it's not. Not ever.

Anyway. Moving past that, and onto the assignment.

Ugh. Thesisisss.

So I'm not gonna lie, I don't like thesis statements. Trying to write them, trying to find them in what other people have written, and trying to make someone understand that you DO have a thesis statement in your introduction but maybe they didn't look hard enough? It's enough to make me want to throw my hands in the air and yell "Who wants to be a math major?"

But that's beside the point. And hating on thesis statements isn't going to get this blog post posted. So for now, I'll just fake it 'til I make it and pretend that I love love love LOOOOOVE writing not one, but FIVE thesis statements. 

About the assignment: I have never ever heard of the "5 different claims." This is all  new to me and so I'm probably going to do this wrong. I've watched the video dozens of times and read through the slides a whole lot too, but I still don't get it. Which is probably why this has taken me so doggone long to post something. 

Anyway. Moving on.

Hiding Behind the Wit

As I was reading this play, I knew the very moment I started what to expect from the ending.

Didn't make it any less painful.

Anyway, I thought Margaret Edison did a brilliant job of telling this story through the drama genre. There were things accomplished through this format that wouldn't have been possible through any other genre. The actions scenes were raw and powerful. Here are some of the other things I noticed while reading:

Writing Plan and Record: Sage Madsen

7:30, January 19

So I'm just going to come out and say it: I've been putting this part off because frankly, it's a little embarrassing to put your brainstorming ideas out in the open. It's like wandering outside of your apartment with half your make-up on, or missing your pants. It's just not natural for me. I'm fine with putting the finished product up... but the untested theories, the unproven drafts of the drafts... not so comfortable. But I could keep complaining, or I could actually start getting some of my brainstorming out there.

Frogs and Wheelbarrows

So confession time... I love poetry. I love reading it, I love writing it, and I especially love to take it apart. Not the way you would dissect a frog, mind you. There is a good chance that if you make one wrong move, the whole project is ruined and there goes a perfectly good dead frog. But a poem? You don't have to kill the poem before you take a peak inside. You don't have to worry about "messing up," because a poem can be interpreted in more than one way. A frog is a frog, and there isn't any hidden symbolism tucked behind the left ventricle.

Writer's Block

If someone were to ask Sage Madsen about her writing, she'd probably try changing the subject. It makes her uncomfortable. When it comes to her writing, Sage would rather you left that subject well alone, thank you very much. 

If Sage were theoretically writing this, she would feel the starting feelings of that uncomfortableness that was mentioned earlier. But Sage isn't here right now; she's taking a break and so let's continue before she comes back. 

Book at Me Now

I can tell you the moment my life began. I was born, but that's not quite the start that I'm referring to. I'm talking about the life that begins when you find your world. 

My mom tells me that the minute I figured out how to crawl, I was crawling towards a book. I had my favorites... and before I was three, I had a stack of them memorized. To my sisters, reading those books over and over again was torturous, but I apparently didn't care one smidgen what they thought. I hadn't figured out the whole "reading" thing quite yet, but that didn't stop me from loving books. 

You can't tell a two year old "No." Seriously, try it. You won't get far. 

I eventually learned that there were more books in the world than Dr. Seuss, and sometime after that is when it started. "It," meaning, my world. That world got put into orbit the minute I finished reading my first "real" book, Matilda. In that moment, I realized that my world had existed for quite some time, but it hadn't been able to move anywhere until I gave it a place to go. 

My literary life became painfully obvious when I was in junior high. I was that girl... the one who ate her lunch in the library because she got turned away from every table in the lunchroom. I found refuge in books... I found friends in books... I found myself in books. I launched myself into those worlds in order to escape the world that obviously didn't need me in it. 

I foraged around the lives of each and every character, seeking to find similarities between my situation and theirs. I found myself striving to emulate certain character traits: the courage of Katniss, the kindness of Cinderella, the intelligence of Hermione, the wit of Elizabeth, the imagination of Leslie, the independence of Enna, the hopefulness of Miri... I craved happy endings for these girls as much as I craved my own, and I almost saw the end of their stories as the beginning of my own. 

My mom tried using this love of reading to her advantage... she would take away my book and tell me I could have it back when I cleaned the bathroom. Instead of grounding me from hanging out with friends (the way she would punish my other siblings), she would ground me from reading. I remember her taking all my books away and locking them up, but I told her that she couldn't stop me from reading the billboards and the street signs and the magnets on the refrigerator. 

If that isn't the definition of a literary life, I don't know what is. 

I walk into Barnes and Nobles and feel like I'm home. When I plan out my dream house, the first design is always my own personal library (complete with those rolling ladders like in Beauty and the Beast). I'm friends with my favorite author on Facebook. If I could minor in Harry Potter Studies, I would. After I finished reading The Hunger Games, I crept through my basement pretending I was defending myself with a bow and arrow. When I meet someone who has read The Goose Girl, I start hopping up and down and end up making these strange squeaking noises like a really excited baby mouse. 

It would be embarrassing, if it wasn't my life.