Free Write

Reading Home Girl was kind of hard to keep focused on because it was all over the place going back and forth between the interview with Badu, and an explanation of her life told in the eyes of author Michael Hall. I really enjoyed how he made such a visual image with the objects, paintings and meaningful heirlooms that surrounded Badu's house. I also enjoyed reading the interview itself. He did an interesting way of weaving the interview into the story and the life of Erykah Badu.

Blogging Rhetorically #3

While reading about Erykah Badu, a singer and dancer, I noticed the way that the author designed the layout of his essay. He used a simple conversational interview with Badu and his own research as a way to portray an informational essay. I was able to directly relate it to our new essay topic. This essay requires us to incorporate an interview with someone and using the information that we find, to answer a specific question.

Hall uses Badu as a way of explaining her life in a “biography” format. We learned that she is more than just a singer and a dancer; she raises her children, grows herbs, helps in her old neighborhood in Dallas and continues to work on her album. It surprised me to see that Hall didn’t have to have such a specific question on Erykah Badu. With or without a specific question, the essay was well thought out and organized in a way that made it easy for the reader to understand. When I think about giving an interview I fail to think that talking to the interviewee more than once would be a good idea. With this essay in mind, it was a good idea for Hall to interview Badu for a long period of time. He was able to figure out what Badu was all about, not just simple background information that anyone could Google. Instead, he was able to find a deeper meaning in every single movement that Badu made throughout the interview.

“I had already learned something that morning about waiting for Badu. She had been in her home studio until five in the morning, so we had started our interview almost two hours late.”

As the interview continued, Hall’s idea of Badu being more than an artist was explained well with a visual of what Badu had lying around during the interview.

“A box of art supplies sat on a cluttered table next to a couple of palettes of dried orange and purple paint; on the wall were paintings of and by mom and her other child, nine-year-old son Seven. A piano and guitar sat next to the fireplace, and a hundred stalactites of colored candle wax descended from the mantel”

This detailed explanation of what lay around throughout the interview was a way in which Ballinger defined as “Reading” the visual. This visual gives us a language to talk about what we see, not just creating assumptions of what we see. But what continues to confuse me is how we are supposed to bring “reading” the visual into a paper like this.

Hall used the quotes from his interview in an interesting way. He was able to manipulate the paragraphs in his essay to fit with the things that Badu responded to. For example, Badu talked about the Maze that was painted on the floor of her house and the meaning behind it. The maze on the floor of her house was to symbolize a nourishing environment and a place “that I could retreat to when things got too busy for me” In the next paragraph, Hall wrote about Badu and her daughter sitting together as she did her daughters hair while she sucked on a bottle. This visual made it seem like it was a response to the paragraph prior to it, Badu talking about having a nourishing environment.

I continue to think about this essay and the idea behind it and after reading this essay/interview, it’s easier to understand what is required of this paper.

Image Freewrite

This image makes me feel strong and patriotic. The image of the two men with muscles that are larger than my head create a feeling of unity and power. We as a nation have a lot of power and nothing can bring us down. We as Americans, feel this power when we work together and unite as one. Seeing these two men work together really puts a feeling on their faces in the photo. They are working extremely hard to pull together and work together. This picture could fall under a couple of topics if I really had to write a full essay about it. It could be about teamwork and the way we unite as one to get something done, or it could be about America and our ability to be one team that fights off the rest. The fact that their are no real faces on these people also make it feel like its not focused on one individual which is good to see because America is not based on one individual, we are all different people and we all fight for our rights together. Although seeing that there are no women in the picture, it makes me wonder if there is a meaning behind the illustrators doing so.

I think the real story of this photo does have to do with Americans and their unity of people working together. Our ability to do this only happens when we are working together and int his photo, two men are striving to pull a rope, as a team, beat their battle. Bringing in the idea of no real faces and a dark shaded area on the eyes and feautres of the men, makes it something deeper than just two men because they don't want to be too specific about who they are labeling as "men". Every single person in America is a part of this team that is able to fight for their rights--together as one. It's telling a story of how and what we do in order to gain this strength. We have a strength and a bond that no one can break. The boldness of the word "strength" makes the story a stronger story.

There wasn't a lot of color in the picture so it made me feel solid and since it was mostly about patriotism, Americans work as one, sot he colors shouldn't be a rainbow of colors, it should be a select few. The fact taht its orange blue and black throws my emotions off track a little because I don't know how orange blue and black relate to being united as one, being american, and having a large amount of patriotism. Instead, I feel as if our nation's colors, red white and blue, does play a role in creating unity, patriotism and strength. But I think what makes this image so unique is that it ISN'T just using the colors that we associate America with. Since its not you average red, white and blue, we can make assumptions about why the illustrator chose orange blue and black.

The boldness of the word 'strength' makes the image itself, strong. It's the first thing that pops out of the picture and into my mind creating its very own story about America's strength and power. Without this boldness of the word 'strength' my eyes wander around, yeah the text underneath and above the word 'strength' are meaningful, but not as meaningful as the word itself because its type is different and not as bold. When I see the font type being bold, that itself makes me feel like there is a strength that America has and that no one can knock down.

Free Write: Generating Ideas

People I know whom I can't forget:
-my parents/grandparents
-Jessica and James
-Topher
-Coach Tracy/Coach Danny
-Elizabeth/Brooke
-old assistant principle
-Sammy

Controversies in the local community
-in school/out of school bullying
-littering/recycling
-underage drinking/drugs
-sexual assault

• What to do when someone gets homesick at camp: other counselors, parents of campers, program director, nurse
• What to do when the boys you babysit for start to fight: parents, other babysitters, older siblings
• Procrastinating work: other students, professors
• Approaching people of higher authority (parents, teachers...)
• Packing/organizing a suitcase
• Making my bed
• knowing the subway system in NYC and how to get around: NYC police, MTA authority, my friends because they've been living in NY their entire life
• planning other peoples birthday parties: my friends because they are just as social as I am
• finding the best clothes and shoe sales: my sister, she knows where all the sales are and where to find the best deal.
• staying up late when I need to get something done: my roommate, she can stay up the entire night studying for a test the next day, other students

It amazes me when I wake up in the morning and my roommate, is not there. Rather than sleeping, I wake up to her walking in from the library pulling an all-nighter, studying for an exam. I would use her as a way of explaining how she pulls off, not sleeping for at least 6 hours, prior to a large exam the next day. She is a good example because first of all, she is clearly capable of doing so, and how she keeps herself from going to bed is questionable. Although I can pull of the same idea of staying up late, she makes pulling an all-nighter, a whole different story.

Free Write: Essay 2 reflection

Starting this essay was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. When I first started my topic I had to really break down my question to an even smaller question which is what I think made essay 2 so hard for me in the beginning. My question continued to chanage multiple times which made it really hard to start the essay itself. There were things I wanted to talk about that I couldn't talk about because it didn't have a lot to do with my question. Once I figured everything out it was extremely easy to put down on paper with added research to make it a "discovery essay". I think the hardest part about this essay was the actual writing of it. I had to manipulate paragraphs and figure out how to mix the research that I found, into my own personal experience. After my first rough draft, I realized it needed a lot of work, so re-read my essay nearly five times and edited it. After editing I feel like it could still use a lot of work, but its what I think is close to perfection. I want to fix my conclusion and I would like to see if I could add more personal experience into the whole idea of "Heirloom Jewelry" and jewelry in general.