I chose to write journal entries about the book Ellen Foster written by Kaye Gibbons. Each of the journal entries are written by Ellen showing her perspectives over different scenarios throughout the book. The first journal entry she writes is about her dad being an abusive father. She writes about how she is tired of being abused and she ends up finding another place to go. The second journal entry is saying how she was only able to stay at her Aunt's house for a short while until she had to go back to her father's house.…
It was the year of 2014 going into 2015 and I was an eighth grader. This was my second year attending Bennett Academy charter school. My English language arts teacher, Ms. Walton, had told to my classmates and me that in mid-November we will begin to start our huge assignment. That assignment was to be completed before the graduation date of May 21st, 2015. Ms. Walton told us that we need to have at least fifty pages and no less.…
I learned a lot from reading the story and picking apart the authors word. It was a very useful assignment and the techniques I learned from it will be used in my near…
This is Rhetorical Critique on an excerpt of the book “Bird by Bird” written by Anne Lamott. The story has the broad topic of the first draft. Lamott decides to approach the topic and says why first drafts are important. Lamott expresses her affinity to the topic by explaining her past experience and attributes to them by explaining her process. Many people don’t like to write first drafts but after reading the story they at least will understand the importance of them.…
Joan Didion in the article, “On Keeping a Notebook,” explains that keeping a notebook is very different than keeping a journal. Didion supports her explanation by giving examples of what she wrote in her notebook, and explaining why she wrote those things. The author’s purpose is to inform, in order to let her audience know that keeping a notebook is important. The author writes in an informal tone for the audience. Joan Didion writes using pathos, ethos, and rhetorical devices.…
Writer, Joan Didion, in her essay, On Keeping a Notebook, demonstrates the importance of keeping a notebook. Didion's purpose is to explain why she feels this way. She adopts a didactic tone in order to describe her ideas and get them across to the audience. Joan uses several rhetorical devices such as flashbacks, logos, and imagery. Didion opens up her essay with an account from her own notebook.…
In Russell Baker’s “On Becoming a Writer” he emphasizes how quickly one can discover a passion for something that they never knew they had. Baker describes that in High School writing was a challenge for him, and something that he was never very interested in doing whether it be in class or out of class. Although it is apparent to the reader that Mr. Fleagle is very passionate about what he teaches, Baker describes his teacher, as being “notorious among City students for dullness and inability to inspire”. When Baker is assigned an informal essay, he still isn’t very excited about his assignment. Like many High School students, Russell procrastinates until the last minute.…
During my junior year at Stephen Decatur High School, I was enrolled in American Literature with Mrs. Moore. At first I thought she was a hard teacher because she made us write a lot. I enjoyed writing creative pieces, but in her class she gave us a prompt or we had to analyze a text and prove how the author believed in the American Dream or not. The first essay we wrote I scored a 29 out of 30 and was proud of myself because English has not always been my strongest subject. Our next assignment was on The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.…
According to Joan Didion, in order to get married love and planning are not necessities. But there is one question we must ask ourselves: what are the necessities of marriage? Some might argue that love, time, effort, planning, communication, and big elaborate ceremonies are essential to marriage. Although many couples do fall in love and plan out huge elaborate weddings, many couples marry due to various absurd reasons. In a recent survey, hundreds of Las Vegas couples were asked when and why they got married along with various other questions about their relationship.…
Throughout the first semester of College Composition, I wrestled with three essays, all differing in format and content. The first was a narrative that reflected our educational experience. After this came an analysis of a visual text, followed by a research paper. The narrative was the easiest to write; however, I acquired important skills for writing the other two, which were in a less familiar format. With the three essays, I learned about my own writing skills and habits concerning development and critical thinking, time management, and organization.…
David Bartholomae sought to explain the difficulties students had in adjusting to the writing style expected of them in your standard university. This urge led him to write an essay which he named “Inventing the University” In this radical essay he explains in great detail why students seem to have such difficulty in writing university discourse and some practices we could put into the current public school systems that would help alleviate some of the difficulty most college freshmen face. In this essay I will be covering some of the major points he hits upon throughout his essay. Bartholomae starts by explaining the experience of a freshmen first entering college.…
In Joan Didion’s “Goodbye to All That”, she reminisces on her experiences as a young woman living in New York and the experiences that led her to move away at age twenty eight. As Didion grew older, the novelty of a city she once loved dearly wore off. By reflecting on her own youth in New York, Didion warns that the promise of a new city and its experiences can lead to one’s downfall, shattering all illusions of a young writer trying to make their own. This essay is Didion’s personal reflective piece that displays her nostalgia for an optimistic time of her youth in New York. This essay is about how Didion both fell in and out of love with New York and describes why she left her pseudo home of eight years.…
From the time I began writing essays for school, I was told that I had to write in the third person, write the complete truth, and stay on topic all the time. If I did not follow these questionable rules, the grade I received on the paper would reflect that in a negative way. I was trained to believe that each and every paper had a pre set structure and I had to stick to that structure. College completely messed that up. Works such as “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott and “On Keeping a Notebook” by Joan Didion were introduced to me and encouraged me to find my own style and stick to it.…
My History As A Writer Throughout my lifetime I have come to love and absolutely hate writing. The reasoning of the assignment or topic has a lot to do with my affinity and disgust. Although learning new things, like writing, was something that I loved doing in elementary school, that all changed when it was daily implemented. As an art form I recently come to love writing down my thoughts, ideas, opinions and stories.…
Joan Didion and Eve Babitz were both born and raised in California. Joan was born in Sacramento, and Eve in Hollywood. Joan moved to New York City in her early 20’s, while Eve stayed in California. They both had a love for writing and first worked in magazine publications before moving onto fiction novels and memoirs. Eve had a string of lovers in her life but never chose to settle down and get married and have children.…