My Portfolio

   
Hey guys,
             Wow it’s already the end of the year. Time has some fast wings… Anyways, for my portfolio, I have decided to remix a blog post into poems, revise my Literary Analysis, and then there’s all the required things we need.

            So, my blog post was about the plot structure of the book The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and where everything goes on Freytag’s pyramid.  I am remixing this into a collection of acrostic poems that still have the plot structure of the book, just in a different form with more details that’s hopefully more fun to read.

            For the revision paper, I chose to do my Literary Analysis.  I chose this paper because I know I could have explained what I was trying to get across better and I think that I accomplished this by not just restating the story and adding what I thought and by going beyond the story and more about Kamau as a character.  I got that idea from the writing center , and because I never really felt right about how I explained it.  Also, I didn’t think I could do much on any of my other papers, due to the fact that I wasn’t motivated enough or I had nothing else to say on the topic.

            Hits and misses, those were actually pretty easy to come up with.  I know what I do well on because when I write them I get all excited about it and feel like I’m actually doing something right and with these two things, I felt that way.  My misses were pretty easy because you can tell by grades and when I wrote the free posts I felt like I was just doing something to fill up words on a page, I didn’t really care, which a sad thing is. 

            As a writer, I feel like I have improved, but not like total one eighty in the right direction or an arrow going straight up in improvement.  Its more of a squiggly, hazy, colorful line that has its own ideas and can rise and fall with certain projects but that is slowly going the right way.  I’ll get there someday, I know it, I just have to work at it some more.  I have the most fun with projects that let me be creative but in an unusual way or in a way that lets me just write out my thoughts.  I can get everything out and look at it and it all makes sense to me.  Also, projects that have visual stuff in them I usually have more fun with.  I work harder on those. 

Poetry and this Macbeth stuff along with short stories I feel were my best sections in class this year because I was interested and I had fun in class and the homework let me read and get into a characters head and analyze how they felt and what they did and how its justified.  As a writer, I am having more fun and taking a more, in my opinion, creative and fun twist on my projects and I am becoming more comfortable with other people seeing and reading and commenting on my work.  At the beginning of this year if you asked me to read a paper aloud or put it up on the screen I would just look at you, and I’d still do that today, but the blogs I feel have let me be a little more comfortable with it because I don’t have to have so many correct things and format stuff or formalities.  I can be myself and people can see that and I don’t have to know how they felt or why and I can post it and be done. 

I have improved in that I can not only let others read some of my work but I am more confident in my writing style.  If I have this section where I go on about something I know its there for a reason and I know that my crazy formal voice and how I say things is just how I do it and I don’t have to be as self conscious about everything, although that’s really hard to do for me. 

My strength as a writer, I believe, is that I can usually explain things, although the way in which I do can sometimes be pretty confusing and I understand it and I can have squirrel moments but I can make them make sense with everything, if any of this makes sense to you, yay, I’m not messing this all up. 

As you can probably tell I need to work on formality in my voice.  I’m really easygoing and I just kind of talk, not trying to be formal, but trying to be friendly and bubbly and crazy and me.  This really hurts some of my writing but its also a big part of writing later on in life.  There's also formatting, but that’s not as big of a deal as my organization.  I have weird ways of ordering things, usually in the order that I think them up in—that’s confusing because my thoughts kind of go all over everywhere and nowhere all at once—and I can get it but the reader cant.  I need to work on that.

Well I hope you guys had as much fun this year as I did and did well and found out things about yourself that you didn’t know.  That they are good things, things that you like.

So…thanks, and best of luck, with all of this as well as your future endeavors, whatever they may be,  

Wendy

 

 

 

 

              My time at the writing center was, well, quite fast.  I met with my person who was going to help me with my revision and I feel like she really did.  I was told to go beyond  the story “The Return” and go more into Kamau as a person.  I had been listing really everything that had happened in the story in order and by changing that and going further I could improve my paper. 

              Also, I had to work on my phrasing.  By changing some words and sentence structures and such I could put across what I wanted to without it being all confusing to the reader, which wouldn’t be good.

              After working on all this stuff I focused on my formal voice which I think I improved, for that paper—right now it’s not too great… but that’s not the point.

              The information I got from the writing center I feel really helped me because I learned how to better explain points and how to better word and order them to make sense without being too simple like “he came home.  People were scared.  The end” and by going beyond what the words say on the page and go more into what Kamau was like before and after jail, before and after his return, and what he was like before and after his whole wife-problem.  The moods he has changes how everything is described, as the author is him but isn’t because he says “Kamau did this” and “Kamau did that” which means it isn’t.

             Anyways,  so that’s the helpful advice I got and I hope it helped with my revisions because I don’t know of much more I could do with this paper after this.

 

 

 

Understanding Kamau

In “The Return”, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o uses certain language to express the shifting mood of Kamau as he nears and arrives home from jail in order that Thiong’o might show Kamau’s mixed emotions towards everyone and everything in his home village as well as how although some of the mood shifts may be sudden, some complement each other to convey emotion to the reader.  He puts words in order in ways such as “cool living water, warmed his hearts” (195), to show how opposites attract and he also uses organization in paragraphs to try and get the reader to feel Kamau’s emotions, such as hope and disappointment.

Thiong’o uses certain language in a way that makes the reader feel what Kamau is feeling and sympathize with him through his words.  When the reader reads phrases such as: “…appeared much as everything else did- unfriendly” (195), they feel like Kamau where everything seems to dull down because just coming back from prison and walking all that way back with no one there is a bit of a drag for anyone.  Then in the first sentence “The road was long” (195), you feel as if you were about to walk down an unending boring pathway; one that you may or may not see the end of, and if you do, you may not like it. 

Thiong’o writes “He made quick, springing steps” (195). When he uses this language, the reader can see someone skipping down the seemingly boring road and everything brightens up again because the man, the character in the short story, isn’t bored and tired and as pessimistic as before.  He is excited to get home to his family, his woman, and is hoping that they will be very warm in welcoming him back home.

Even though Kamau is pessimistic about some things such as his surroundings, which when he starts out seem harsh and mean, and the seemingly thriving and happy places all around him as he nears closer and closer to home, the green grass and trees by the Honia River he so loves, Kamau holds positive feelings towards his home and the people who were there with him the whole way back. Not once on his way home does he think that they don’t want to see him, that they won’t remember him, or that they will treat him differently.  He missed his home when he was away in jail and it is shown when Thiong’o writes “A painful exhilaration passed all over him and for a moment he longed for those days” (195). All the happy memories of home just hit Kamua all at once, which can be painful, and it made him that much more determined and excited to get back home. 

All of the memories about his home Kamau has shared with the reader have been good ones.  He doesn’t remember anything that was bad about his time at home, or if he does he doesn’t share it, which makes contrast between his memories of his time in prison.  This suggests that his time at home was way better at prison, and it strengthens Kamau’s excitement and his motives for acting as happy as he is. He wouldn’t be reminiscing about his village and people there with him if he didn’t have these happy memories to think about on his way back; he would be dreading his return, or at the least he wouldn’t be as happy and painfully excited.

Although Kamau has some positive feelings towards his home and people, his pessimistic side shows through mostly when he arrives home and the people, people he knows, are scared and hesitant around him.  When this happens, Kamau feels angry, like he’s been betrayed by the people he knew; his friends and family.  He is worried and all the optimistic thoughts he had about his return start to fade.  An example of this would be when Kamau sees his father for the first time since his leaving, and he is met with “strange vacant eyes” (197), which sounds sad creepy enough as it is without the fact that the person to whom those eyes belong is Kamau’s own father. 

All this does s fuel the fire of doubt in his head that was slowly growing and telling Kamau that his return would be bad, that he would be treated different- bad different—and that he wouldn’t like it as he had thought he would. 

When he was looking at the river, Kamau is feeling this deep depression when he sees his “hopes dashed on the ground” (198), because of how everyone acted around him and how he had been announced as dead to everyone.  He had expected to see smiles of joy and his wife but when he returned, they smashed and fell like the pieces of a broken mirror—sad and dangerous.  A mirror that had probably broken when Kamau was sent to prison, one that had been taped back together countless times until it just couldn’t take all the sadness and pain.

Kamau goes through sporadic mood changes because of how his thoughts and actions differed from those of people he knew and how they are opposite of what they were supposed to be.  The way home was barren and lonely and dull, yet Kamau felt excitement and happiness.  He gets home to this lush and green and lively place and is met with scared and confused friends, which all messes with his mind and change his mood.

Although his mood changes are sporadic, they can complement each other in quite a few ways.  As an example, when the “…cool living water, warmed his hearts as he watched its serpentine movement around the rocks and heard its slight murmurs” (195), Kamau, even though he knows that the water is freezing and serpent-like, which can be scary in some way—maybe to foreshadow his bad return--, warms his hearts- his heart how it was before he left for jail which Kamau wants to hold on to and how it is now after his experience, hardened a little bit.  Not as open and happy, but with a little wall to keep him steady. 

  It almost makes the scene seem pretty and reassuring that Kamau could find a way to describe water in two ways that are completely opposite yet right on the same page.  As if he was looking into the face of danger or doubt and just laughing or thinking happy thoughts to banish them.  Again with his “painful exhilaration” (195), Kamau feels excitement towards his return home, but feels it painfully because he does not know what to expect from his friends and family but at the same time wants to see how it will all play out.  He’s anxious as to whether he’ll be remembered or if he’ll be and how people will react to his return.  He wants things to be the same as they were but is worried that they will not be.  Not all of Kamau’s mood shifts complement each other though.

Kamau feels different emotions at the same time, but without them complementing each other like they do in some cases.  They are conflicting and contrasting.  For example when his bag of things that reminded of home and of everything he loved and had before he left fell into the river, the river that made him excited to arrive home.  The river that he so loved; that had welcomed him home, “he was shocked and wanted to retrieve it… he did not know why, but somehow he felt relieved” (198).  He felt this urgency to get this memorabilia of his wife, but then felt relief that it was gone.  He felt lighter without all the baggage on his shoulders that would make him into a depressed and reclusive man.  Kamau was happy that he could move on with society and keep on with his life, as his wife has without him.  These mood shifts and the way they are written out in text let the reader feel how Kamau does with specific word choice.

Thiong’o makes conveying emotions with words look easy, and he does a fine job of it.  Kamau wants to “fly to hasten his return” (196); running is too slow for him-- he wants to get back as fast as possible.  He cannot contain his excitement and/or anticipation any longer and wants that much to get back home. 

Kamau could “scarcely believe [the river still being there] to be true until he had actually set his eyes on [it].  It was still there; it flowed” (195):  Kamau did not know if anything had changed in the village where he lives but when he sees the river flowing and all the green plants he is filled with reassurance and stability because there is something normal in that sight, something that he can relate to that doesn’t tell him that everyone has moved on without him.  It tells Kamau that he is coming home to the same place, geographically at least. 

He sees it and instead of looking a weary traveler, he looks, although hardened from his experience in jail, excited and hopeful that things will be like before and his wife will be there when he gets to his house.  The reader can feel what Kamau feels through Thiong’o’s word choice.  The author makes the reader feel bored and tired as Kamau does by describing the road in the way he does, saying it was long and how little dust clouds were angry but then settled back down slowly as if they too were too weary for swirling around; they could only move like smoke.  The clouds were close to the ground, tired. 

As Kamau walks down this road he seems “more and more conscious of the hardness and apparent animosity of the road… the road stretched on” (195).  Thiong’o’s words just ooze with the feeling of the weary traveler and how he must feel on that road, like there will be no end to this and he will never return home.  Thiong’o’s word choice and the feelings they convey are important to understanding the main character, Kamau, and how by seeing how Kamau cannot go back to the society he lived in however long ago because it waits for no man.  The reader can see that through Kamau’s eyes and understand.

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s use of language to convey emotion to the reader in order that they might understand how Kamau feels and what exactly he is thinking of when returning home is done in a way as such that the reader may sympathize with Kamau without having known him as a friend or anything.  The story “The Return” helps the reader really get to understand him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                The Game

 

They meet at the dance

He works for Chandresh

Evening is when she performs 

Before, he was brought up on books

Only he didn’t know why

Overcast in her dads shadow as a child she was

Known by few 

They have to compete

Him against her—they don’t know it

Eloquent tents are used as chess pieces—for

                         their game 

Not allowed to travel with the circus

Isobelle helps him plan some things

Getting restless; he waits

Hoping to find out why this is all happening, wanting

To know who his opponent is

Celia is the daughter of a magician—a real magician

Illusionist is her job at the circus

Rendezvous with Marco

Costumes with Mme. Padve

Understanding more and more about the game-- courtesy of Tsukiko

She starts her new life at the circus

 

 

Being reminded about the game

“Your Move” is all the card says 

Everything is black and white

Really amazing tents and

Illusions by Celia

Not knowing who her opponent is 

Marco is her opponent

Only that’s a problem—for they are in love

Rules are only one survivor

Getting worried

Everything starts falling apart

No one knows what to do, people

Start dying

They find a way out, an

Everyday farm boy

Replaces them

No more games

 

 

 

They are bound by rings

Having been set up for this as children little

Explanation given about it 

Celia

Is the daughter of Prospero the Enchanter the

Ring was burned into her finger

Courtesy of her father

Unknown to her to bound her to her opponent

Starting a game

Orphan Marco isn’t the child of a magician

New ideas are written in his journal

Later made into a tent at the circus

Young when brought into the game as well 

Circus that is black and white

Only comes at night—few know when

Made up of many tents—few know where

Everyone wants to go

Stunning acts 

At last they meet

They discover their opponents 

Not both can survive

It’s in the rules

Getting brave, getting a replacement who's

Happy to help

They can leave

  

             Well I mean at first the audience of my blog post was just anyone who read my blog and it was just kind of there to be informative about the book, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  To change this, I made my post into a poem.  I guess the new audience would be people who wanted to know more.  I didn’t just tell you all about the book and everything that happens in my blog post and I didn’t in my poem either—I’m not going to spoil a book—but with the poem there is more detail about some actions and there is more background information.  Like odd book summaries I guess.  Tailoring to the new audience, an audience that wants to know more about the book and the characters in plot details, the poem is in three parts.  The first two are pretty basic, the title and author’s name, but the last one I chose because it’s a line is a main idea within the book.  The circus only comes at night.  All the main plot points in this book happen at night—the circus performs, the dinners are held, most of the major scenes, and the black and white theme of the book fits better with night than it would day—it also makes it more interesting.

                To understand my acrostic poems better, it would be nice to have read my post that I did on September 30^th because it lists main characters and plot points.  It might just help organize where things go or why I said some things if it confuses you.  I am telling them some of the big points and some of the small because its details that connect everything together.  The rings bind them together and are the reason for many problems they face and Celia being the daughter of Hector/Prospero the Enchanter is important because of how he visits her over the course of the book, how her and Marco escape, and how she could do the magic well and from an early age—its sets up the reader for her being a part of the circus because they already know she can do magic.  The outcome of this I guess would be hopefully for someone who reads these to maybe read the book, I mean they don’t have to, they could just find these interesting—that’s OK too—but it would be nice because everything would make so much more sense and… yep. 

                This purpose is appropriate because it explains things I wrote in the post while adding details that make the story and the way they are listed kind of follows the plot, with some exceptions.    The purpose of this piece has changed in that I am not just here to list points and characters for a certain format and I can choose what points or characters I do or do not put in and if I do, how much detail to add, to make it more interesting or complex. 

                The attitude of these poems has gone from just like a school suited tone in my original blog post to a tone that’s more mysterious, a lighter tone.  It’s like I can write anything and its supposed to be original and cool and out there so why not do some acrostics??  I am now facing this project with an attitude that’s more “what if I put this phrase here” and “how cool would that be if” instead of “which points go where on this pyramid thing” which gives more leeway and adds more fun to it all.  There are still original aspects of my stance in that I am still telling you the points, just in a more interesting way that I hope is more fun to read.

                Poetry I think connects to this book and the plot very well in that the book is this whole bowl of multiple stories that happen at multiple times to multiple people and they all intertwine in and out of their stories while keeping their own end of the stick held high.  In poetry, you can use all these different techniques to add emphasis that you cant with just writing.  If I were to put random line breaks or periods or change the form of a sentence to fit a word order/pattern, I would just get points off for format and such.  But by doing this with poetry I can change it up and make it interesting, like the book was.  The acrostic part was a cool thing I thought.  It’s so much cooler than just a poem sometimes because there can be two stories or more.  You could have a story in the poem and a whole different one as its backbone going down the side, which layers things like the book did.  This is a big change from my original post because I have taken more liberties and instead of labeling everything with rising action, falling action, etc., I have it all listed in three different ways that say the same thing with new words and layers to sort of connect it more to the style of the book.  I feel like this made my remix more interesting and it makes it more mysterious and at the same time black and white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two “hits” that I feel I had over this year have probably been the writing we did as warm ups in the beginning of class--those free writes that we had about certain things-- and the blog post I did on the Psychological setting in Lord of the Flies.  I liked the free writes because I could always figure out what I wanted to sand how I could say it and I could make notes with arrows that connect all over that look really confusing to most people, and I always ended up having lots to write, more than I could do in 5-10 minutes, which I think is a good thing, because usually I don’t have that problem, I have the opposite.

I likes my post on the Psychological setting in Lord of the Flies because I think I got my point across well and just like I wanted it to be.  I think that I described my reasons well and with substantial evidence and enough of it to make a statement.  I feel like I could actually stand up and talk about it—when I wrote it, not now, that would be hard on my memory—because I actually liked the topic I had to look for and I actually wanted to see how it impacted the book.  When I want to do something or write something I can usually do pretty well but if I feel in doubt or something, its not so good.

                My “misses” for the year would probably have to be the free blog posts and my research paper.  I choose these because I feel like I could have done much better, I know how I could have, but the ideas for revision and things either didn’t come till late in the blog case or they just didn’t motivate me enough in the case of the research paper.

                All the free posts I did for the blog I feel were pretty bad.  I had no ideas I was just coming up with something and writing it down, nothing all that interesting or special.  I’d have all these ideas when we had no free posts and then we got them and I was like “eh… no… I’ll just do…” and I feel like I didn’t really care that much by that point and had no cool idea that I could put up there.  Then we do our last free post and about a week or two later I am standing there just zoning out and I get all these ideas that motivate me but I cant do anything about it because I have nowhere to write them.  It just aggravated me, which is why these were a “miss” in my book.

                My research paper I feel was a “miss” because by the end of it I was so tired of Western Europe and its art and how it looked that I just didn’t care.  I was so happy to finish it, and I felt bad that I felt that way.  I usually feel the opposite for papers: I don’t want to do them and slowly but surely I get more motivated and finish interested and excited.  I went opposite in this project, which explains partially why the grade wasn’t that great.  Even when Dr. D mentioned the revisions, I couldn’t bring myself to revise the paper, because I wasn't motivated or remotely interested anymore.  I was excited for only the visual aspect really but I think that’s because it really connected with my whole theme.  This colorful poster board that had to do with art, it just fit.  Anyways, those are my “misses” and I still stand by the fact that I am not motivate enough sometimes and I couldn’t do any better than I did on that project because of this for the most part.