Poetry
How have I grown as a poet? This question can be answered now that we are at the end of this poetic process. The perspective of my poem has shifted drastically over the course of this project. Whether it was refinement, or redoing the whole poem, the message of the poem got stronger and stronger as the project went on. At first, the rhyme scheme of my poem was forced. I would try to have the words rhyme, and match the rhyme scheme in my poem, but unfortunately, the result of this was that the content ended up not making sense. The final poem ended up flowing a lot better because I spent many hours of refinement having the poem make sense. The end result of the poem ended up being more “flowy” and clear. When I first started writing my poem, I did not know my perspective on the content that I was writing about. The base of the whole poem was unclear to me, but I knew that I wanted to write about war. The poem really started to take shape after I figured out what my poem was to be about, and the perspective that it was from. This meant that I had to re-write my whole poem, then again. I started with a “duh” perspective. Then I figured out that I wanted my poem from the perspective of Death. I thought I was done there, but then I added a turn that made my poem really come together. My poem started out with the perspective that, “War is bad.” but then my final perspective ended up being more complex to state in a sentence.
A really important change that was made in my poem was definitely adding the perspective of death. At first I had a really basic perspective that was not very interesting. The poem was pretty bland. Basically it was an elegant way to say that war is bad and it makes people sad. I was overall, not impressed by what I wrote. The content was pretty non-reflective and obvious. I had to do something, and I was a little by a recently watched movie, The Book Thief. This movie was told from the perspective of death. Death in that movie was particularly nice for being “death”. So I basically I took this perspective and I twisted it into a creepy dark Death. I really made the message of my poem clearer in the end because then I had some theme to base my whole poem off of instead of trying to pull ideas out of thin air. My revised poem:
Welcome to the town of slaughter.
Where downed bloody soldiers eat mines.
And empty souls drink red water.
Where soldiers stay in the confines,
of white pale gates made out of spines.
This is the town I am fond of.
Is clearly from a perspective of evil with the last line of the poem. This perspective stays true throughout the whole poem. In the beginning of revising my poem I had a simple, almost statement, that was very weak in displaying the message. Unfortunately the only evidence I had of this poem was deleted for the reason that it was so terrible.
Another really important change that was made within my poem was that I added a turn. This turn was very effective in the end because It really brought the narrator, “Death” some morals and the message that, “War is bad.” is proved when Death himself thinks that war is bad. Having Death think that war is bad in the turn, even though he likes death, is very powerful. In the last stanza of the poem, I added the phase,”This is the town that brings sorrow to me” instead of,“This is the town I am fond of.” This turn breaks the repetition of the poem, and it adds emotion to the seemingly emotionless narrator. This really brings the message and emotion together at the end. In my first draft of the poem, I did not have this turn. I just kind of had the poem stop and it really didn't conclude to an ending. The ending I had was originally just these lines:
Where poisonous gas spills out nonstop.
And fills young soldiers’ precious spent lungs.
This is the town I am fond of.
The poem really didn't have a strong ending that packed a punch. It just ended at the same repetition of lines and the reader would not have know who “I” was. It just seems like I am a really bad person for writing this from my perspective. My final poem ended with a clear more clarifying ending like so:
This is the town that brings sorrow to me;
When I have to see grieving family.
But…
Death is a wondrous thing.
Sincerely, Death.
This line really concludes the whole poem and clarifies the repetition and perspective that has been stated throughout the whole poem. I did this change to basically clarify the whole poem and it added another poetic device to my poem so it was kind of a win/win situation.
The last change I made was changing and adding the last stanza of the poem. The first draft of my poem ended with,”This is the town I am fond of.” and it really didn't draw my poem to an end like I wanted it to. I ended up having the poem get signed by death to clarify the perspective of the whole poem. In the last stanza ended up being super out of place in my first draft. The flow was off and the rhyme scheme worked a little, but not too well. I did not like the end result of this poem, so I changed it. I made the stanza lines rhyme and with the same syllable count. This ended up making the lines definitely flow a lot better then they had in previous drafts. My final draft ended with,
“This is the town that brings sorrow to me;
When I have to see grieving family.
But…
Death is a wondrous thing.”
This flows way better then barely rhyming “me” with “families” and having the syllable count off. The ending ended up being a lot stronger as a result of this change. The change really made me happy with the flow and it really clarified the message of my poem.
A really important change that was made in my poem was definitely adding the perspective of death. At first I had a really basic perspective that was not very interesting. The poem was pretty bland. Basically it was an elegant way to say that war is bad and it makes people sad. I was overall, not impressed by what I wrote. The content was pretty non-reflective and obvious. I had to do something, and I was a little by a recently watched movie, The Book Thief. This movie was told from the perspective of death. Death in that movie was particularly nice for being “death”. So I basically I took this perspective and I twisted it into a creepy dark Death. I really made the message of my poem clearer in the end because then I had some theme to base my whole poem off of instead of trying to pull ideas out of thin air. My revised poem:
Welcome to the town of slaughter.
Where downed bloody soldiers eat mines.
And empty souls drink red water.
Where soldiers stay in the confines,
of white pale gates made out of spines.
This is the town I am fond of.
Is clearly from a perspective of evil with the last line of the poem. This perspective stays true throughout the whole poem. In the beginning of revising my poem I had a simple, almost statement, that was very weak in displaying the message. Unfortunately the only evidence I had of this poem was deleted for the reason that it was so terrible.
Another really important change that was made within my poem was that I added a turn. This turn was very effective in the end because It really brought the narrator, “Death” some morals and the message that, “War is bad.” is proved when Death himself thinks that war is bad. Having Death think that war is bad in the turn, even though he likes death, is very powerful. In the last stanza of the poem, I added the phase,”This is the town that brings sorrow to me” instead of,“This is the town I am fond of.” This turn breaks the repetition of the poem, and it adds emotion to the seemingly emotionless narrator. This really brings the message and emotion together at the end. In my first draft of the poem, I did not have this turn. I just kind of had the poem stop and it really didn't conclude to an ending. The ending I had was originally just these lines:
Where poisonous gas spills out nonstop.
And fills young soldiers’ precious spent lungs.
This is the town I am fond of.
The poem really didn't have a strong ending that packed a punch. It just ended at the same repetition of lines and the reader would not have know who “I” was. It just seems like I am a really bad person for writing this from my perspective. My final poem ended with a clear more clarifying ending like so:
This is the town that brings sorrow to me;
When I have to see grieving family.
But…
Death is a wondrous thing.
Sincerely, Death.
This line really concludes the whole poem and clarifies the repetition and perspective that has been stated throughout the whole poem. I did this change to basically clarify the whole poem and it added another poetic device to my poem so it was kind of a win/win situation.
The last change I made was changing and adding the last stanza of the poem. The first draft of my poem ended with,”This is the town I am fond of.” and it really didn't draw my poem to an end like I wanted it to. I ended up having the poem get signed by death to clarify the perspective of the whole poem. In the last stanza ended up being super out of place in my first draft. The flow was off and the rhyme scheme worked a little, but not too well. I did not like the end result of this poem, so I changed it. I made the stanza lines rhyme and with the same syllable count. This ended up making the lines definitely flow a lot better then they had in previous drafts. My final draft ended with,
“This is the town that brings sorrow to me;
When I have to see grieving family.
But…
Death is a wondrous thing.”
This flows way better then barely rhyming “me” with “families” and having the syllable count off. The ending ended up being a lot stronger as a result of this change. The change really made me happy with the flow and it really clarified the message of my poem.
Globalization
This project was all about globalization, but since globalization is a vast subject, we were to pick our own research topic that we were passionate about and write an Op-Ed or opinion editorial about our certain topic. I chose to defend how globalization builds community, and I used skiing as an example. A big part of this project was gathering evidence to defend the topic that you are writing about. This proved very difficult for me because I found almost nothing about how skiing relates to globalization. The research part was probably the hardest part because there was almost no content for my position, but rather against it. The second part of this project was to learn how to write an Op-Ed, after that, we began writing. The first draft was made, then the second, then the third, and I probably had about seven drafts that I kept changing. Another aspect of this project was the political cartoon. This consisted of a cartoon made to support our perspective, and once again, many drafts were made.
I have a new understanding of globalization. I understand what it involves, what impacts it has, and what it is. I had no idea what in the world globalization was before this project. Growing up in Durango, I hadn't really realized what is going on behind the scenes. It opened my mind to the reality. I really took away the big picture. Being only exposed to a small mountain town, I was clueless about what globalization is. I learned about the politics, free trade, upper and lower classes, so much new information.
While making different drafts of my cartoon, I gained a lot of valuable experiences. I just kind of scribbled lines in the beginning having something half resemble what I was aiming for. Even still, after multiple drafts of my political cartoon, I am still gaining knowledge on different cartooning techniques. Some techniques I learned over this whole cartooning process are definitely something I can use with anything; the upcoming poetry project, or if I ever have another project involving drawing overall. My favorite technique is probably symbolism. I can really bring my message across by using symbols, which is what I did in this project. My whole cartoon in fact, is a symbol. I also used exaggeration and irony in my cartoon. My cartoon has come a long way since my scribbles on a piece of lined paper.
The writing for this assignment was definitely hard for me. It is in this new wild format that I had never seen before. No long paragraphs, mainly opinions, it was a new style of writing that definitely took some adjustment. The op-ed style of writing was confusing to me at first. Writing research papers that backed up every statement was completely different from this style of opinion. I really enjoyed writing this small paper because, well, it was short, but also because it is opinion based. I definitely would use an op-ed format if I were to ever try to persuade someone of something. It really gets the point across in a rather short writing. Overall this project was very fun, and it introduced to me completely different skills that I will take with me in the future.
I have a new understanding of globalization. I understand what it involves, what impacts it has, and what it is. I had no idea what in the world globalization was before this project. Growing up in Durango, I hadn't really realized what is going on behind the scenes. It opened my mind to the reality. I really took away the big picture. Being only exposed to a small mountain town, I was clueless about what globalization is. I learned about the politics, free trade, upper and lower classes, so much new information.
While making different drafts of my cartoon, I gained a lot of valuable experiences. I just kind of scribbled lines in the beginning having something half resemble what I was aiming for. Even still, after multiple drafts of my political cartoon, I am still gaining knowledge on different cartooning techniques. Some techniques I learned over this whole cartooning process are definitely something I can use with anything; the upcoming poetry project, or if I ever have another project involving drawing overall. My favorite technique is probably symbolism. I can really bring my message across by using symbols, which is what I did in this project. My whole cartoon in fact, is a symbol. I also used exaggeration and irony in my cartoon. My cartoon has come a long way since my scribbles on a piece of lined paper.
The writing for this assignment was definitely hard for me. It is in this new wild format that I had never seen before. No long paragraphs, mainly opinions, it was a new style of writing that definitely took some adjustment. The op-ed style of writing was confusing to me at first. Writing research papers that backed up every statement was completely different from this style of opinion. I really enjoyed writing this small paper because, well, it was short, but also because it is opinion based. I definitely would use an op-ed format if I were to ever try to persuade someone of something. It really gets the point across in a rather short writing. Overall this project was very fun, and it introduced to me completely different skills that I will take with me in the future.
African Imperialism: Creative HIstorians
This assignment was a study on African imperialism. We took a long time to research African Imperialism and came up with Interview questions. We then found people to interview and emailed, called, or skyped these people. After that, we started to plan out and write a historical fiction about an event that happened in real history. Another part of this project was a creative piece. It could be a dance or sculpture. I chose to do a sculpture.
Out of the literary elements, I think I incorporated historical integration the best. I watched King Leopold's Ghost and took an event from there. It was a central theme in my story. I took an event of imperialism with the Congo and incorporated that in my story. A section in my story utilizes this event well. Rapu would not sign the paper. He did not know what it was since they had no written language. He asked, “What is this?” in Bantu, but their only response was, ”It is for peace.” This section of my story clearly explains the event that actually occurred in history.
Out of all the literary elements, I believe I did the worst at making round characters. I just introduced my character with his name and told that he was a pygmy. That was about it. The reader had to imagine this character, but it was hard without background. I think this element was hard for me because I am better at technical writing. I have never really written a historical fiction. I tried to research the average visual appearance of a tribal pygmy.
Two revisions I made in my story were adding more detail to the story and making the story make sense by incorporating different analogies so that they made sense. Some parts of my story were lacking in detail and other part were fine. I added more detailed descriptive parts to my story. I had some analogies in my story that didn't make sense at first so I had to change them. I added two small paragraphs with detail to further help the reader visualize the setting.
I did 3 challenge extensions for this project. I did a 2nd art piece, story from two perspectives, and used some of the literary elements. I chose these options to challenge myself, and the project was not challenging enough for me. For the two perspectives I incorporated this paragraph,"Jens Peeter had finally left this hellish place of Basoko in the Congo Basin. After two long years, there was a list of things that he would not miss, but at the very top of this list was the oppressive overwhelming heat. It was the first thing he had noticed when he got to the Congo. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with that anymore. " This makes the story interesting.
Out of the literary elements, I think I incorporated historical integration the best. I watched King Leopold's Ghost and took an event from there. It was a central theme in my story. I took an event of imperialism with the Congo and incorporated that in my story. A section in my story utilizes this event well. Rapu would not sign the paper. He did not know what it was since they had no written language. He asked, “What is this?” in Bantu, but their only response was, ”It is for peace.” This section of my story clearly explains the event that actually occurred in history.
Out of all the literary elements, I believe I did the worst at making round characters. I just introduced my character with his name and told that he was a pygmy. That was about it. The reader had to imagine this character, but it was hard without background. I think this element was hard for me because I am better at technical writing. I have never really written a historical fiction. I tried to research the average visual appearance of a tribal pygmy.
Two revisions I made in my story were adding more detail to the story and making the story make sense by incorporating different analogies so that they made sense. Some parts of my story were lacking in detail and other part were fine. I added more detailed descriptive parts to my story. I had some analogies in my story that didn't make sense at first so I had to change them. I added two small paragraphs with detail to further help the reader visualize the setting.
I did 3 challenge extensions for this project. I did a 2nd art piece, story from two perspectives, and used some of the literary elements. I chose these options to challenge myself, and the project was not challenging enough for me. For the two perspectives I incorporated this paragraph,"Jens Peeter had finally left this hellish place of Basoko in the Congo Basin. After two long years, there was a list of things that he would not miss, but at the very top of this list was the oppressive overwhelming heat. It was the first thing he had noticed when he got to the Congo. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with that anymore. " This makes the story interesting.