Bohannon Response (5-7) Your Goal is to catch the readers attention...

Chapter seven was definitely my favorite chapter, some for obvious reasons and then for other reasons as well. This chapter like the others was short which I liked but I also liked the chapter because for a minute we stopped focusing so much on the main format of writing papers, and looked at how to catch our audiences attention. Audience is the most important thing when writing a paper or even a literacy narrative, which we are in the process of doing. In this chapter Bohannon kind of portrayed a very comforting and relaxed ton, as she presented us with ideas that she seemed to like very well. Her tone seemed willing to help and give us these fun ideas to kind of ease our minds off of the other aspects that go into the paper. I also liked this chapter personally because I always try hard to have a great beginning sentence and paragraph. The reason is because I feel like the very beginning of the paper is where the reader is captured. Like Bohannon stated, If you want someone to read your work of his or her own accord, you have to introduce your writing in a way that will grab your readers attention. I agree heavily with Bohannons thoughts and I find this chapter very helpful in guiding me to having a great introduction.

As a young child, you rarely have the ability or authority to make choices on your own, especially when I come to what religion you will be practicing for the rest of your life. You go through the process of all the rituals that your religion offers, whether its reading the bible, Quran or attending bible study or vacation bible school. Your beliefs are not of your own quite yet because you are too young to fully understand and you are affected heavily by your familys religious beliefs. Whether you know it or not, as you grow up around that religious atmosphere, your speech, reading, writing, entire life is affected based on your practiced beliefs. You grow up following the rules of your religion because they have become that comfortable to you. You are now conscious of what you say or do; basically your entire life is encompassed in you and your familys belief. As you grow older to make decisions on your own, you can make the decision to continue to allow this social force to be a part of your life or to choose another that will affect your life in both a similar and different manner.

Response to Molly Daniel and Parish Jenkins (Literacy Narrative) 1. Starting around the fifth grade, I became interested in poetry and just being able to write down my feelings. I could not keep a journal but I would write a poem in place of writing in a daily journal. In fifth grade I was around ten years old, and my poetry wasnt as deep and didnt involve a huge source of syntax at that time. This began to change as I was introduced to other forms of poetry. I began to learn tone, voice, syntax and many more aspects of

literature that could be involved in the art of poetry. As that ten year old poet, I thought that poetry always rhymed, and that it had the exact same rhyme scheme. As I furthered my study of literature I began to slowly accept not rhyming every ending word to the one before it. My set thought on a poem always having to rhyme, I think stemmed from nursery rhymes, though they are not considered much of poetry. With nursery rhymes there is a constant rhythm and as a younger poet this was the path that I tried to continue to follow. As mentioned earlier, that mindset changed, and with reference to Edgar Allan Poe, Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou and so many more poets, my poetry began to branch out. Learning the extrinsic aspects of a poem and how they need to sound or look, I feel as though I have gotten much of my deeper, intrinsic writing from poems. To me, I think poems should always convey a meaning, and the tone should serve some purpose. One poem that is still confusing to me to this day is the poem The Red Wheel Barrow. If anyone has read this poem, it is very short, and unexpected of a poem. Unexpected is the word I use because for some reason a poem to me should have more meaning, and should be a lot longer than what that poem was. This poem helped me, but in two different ways .This poem showed me that writing a poem or writing anything does not have to include huge words or a thousand words to get a point across. This poem was conveying a message though it didnt seem like it did at the time. It made me realize that being verbose in your writings is not always the case, when you want to convey meaning. This poem also made me feel like I had a mission, which was not to write with a lack of meaning but to always have purpose to my writing. Though this was the thought I had after reading the poem and even the thought I somewhat have now, I know that the poet had a purpose in his mind. Writing is purpose, so whether short and to the point or verbose and long winded, whatever someone writes, it has meaning behind every word. 3. This particular literacy narrative was very interesting to me because this womans personal experiences truly molded and shaped the way she sees reading and writing today. Alicia Lepiankas parents were very active in reading themselves and they were also active when reading to their daughter Alicia. Her mom would read to her before each of her naps, and her dad would take her to the library to pick out books to read. This constant activity with reading, really affected the way Alicia read and her view on reading. She loved reading and was even able to skip the 1st grade, because of the great amount of reading she did. The social force affecting her literacy was her parents and community. Her writing was reflected upon differently, for Alicia learned two things about herself when figuring out her relation with writing. Alicia wrote in her book she had gotten, but didnt know if this was okay. So when asked by her parents who wrote it, she lied, resulting in her father putting soap in her mouth. At this moment Alicia learned a sense of her morals, that lying is not okay, and also that she wouldnt like writing because of her consequence. This narrative shows overall that your personal experiences can shape your literacy, and that you and your familys belief/morals can shape your literacy as well.

Response to Anzaldua 1. The genres that I noticed were English, Spanish, Chicano language and Anglo- language

2. I think Anzaldua uses so many different genres to first relate to the title of her writing. She refers to several genres to show that a tongue can speak several languages freely and cannot be tamed unless forced to be tamed. She also uses several genres to connect to the aspect that our language connects us to the world and more specifically to each other. She demonstrates this as she speaks of her different experiences with adapting to several languages in different settings, and how English influences the Spanish language. Anzaldua probably also introduces these several genres to show the privileges that most languages have over her own native language. English and Spanish are dominant languages all over the world but Chicano language is looked down upon because its a language that was somewhat made up by the Chicano People. These different genres somewhat puts the writing all over the place and it confuses the reader just a little. Even though it becomes confusing at times, I also think the range of genres really help the writing show clear contrast between how each language develops and operates. It also helps the reader see the different effects on each type of language and culture. 3. The several genres represent how languages can influence or affect each, in which English has affected the Spanish language in some form. Anzaldua states Pocho is an Anglicized Mexican or American of Mexican origin who speaks Spanish with an accent characteristic of North Americans and who distorts and reconstructs the language according to the influence of English. This comment reveals the downfall of English language and its effect on the Spanish language. With the words like distort, Anzaldua makes the point that sometimes languages are just meant to stay in their very own form rather than to be connected. Anzaldua also speaks of her language, Chicano being looked down upon. If a person, Chicano or Latina, has a low estimation of my native tongue, she also has a low estimation of me. This reveals the barrier placed upon the Chicano language and image that the English and Spanish language does not carry as often or at all. 4. I personally like Spanish so it was interesting hearing about the different ways Spanish could be spoken in. It became a little confusing at times as she shifted from the different types of genres or languages. I wouldnt say I loved it but I definitely found it somewhat interesting. I also enjoyed the quotes that were thrown in every once in a while to sum up the piece in different ways.

Fight Club Response (2) I will have to say that this film is definitely in the dark comedy genre of movies. The dark aspect is the most obvious and seems to be the main point of the film but there are hints of comedy throughout the movie that gives light to many of the situations that take place. The dark aspect of this film comes from many things like the depression that the main character feels at the beginning of the movie. He lives a life of loneliness and depression and this mood that is portrayed presents a dark and gloomy aspect to the audience. Along with his dark emotions

comes his physical appearance which is just restless and lost. Another component to this film being a dark film is the setting and actors that are in the movie. In this film there are hardly ever any bright, sunny and happy settings. For an example, one dark setting that is revealed in the house, which is presented as raggedy and torn. The color of the house is dark and gray. Also a lot of the settings takes places in the basement which many people would relate to darkness and isolation; so this gives off the impression of a very gloomy and dark setting. Also I noticed that most of the time, the film was surrounded around actual darkness as far as it always being night time when the fight club would go out and do their works or duties. There may have been some sources of daylight but I noticed that a lot of the movie portrayed darkness through the physical aspect of it being dark outside. With the physical aspect as mentioned earlier comes along with the intrinsic aspect of darkness which deals with the dark emotions of depression, anxiety and much more. I feel that the killing and wrongdoings could have presented this movie as a dark film but one can have these things in a movie and it not contribute to the actual dark theme of the movie. The comedy comes in to make light of many of the situations that in reality most of us would find very disturbing or wrong. Brad Pitt becomes the character who brings out much of the comedy in this film with his sarcastic comments and just uncaring attitude toward his actions. One place I saw comedy is when the members of the fight club were told to go and start a random fight with someone. As we saw them failing to do so, it became funny and a film of comedy. Essentially, this film is obviously very dark but does include small portions of comedy at certain points in the movie.

Response to Oprah and James Frey I would have to say that I do agree with Oprah and mainly because her argument deals with morality. One aspect of morality is telling the truth and this is all one thing we learned as a child. Reading James Franks book with the notion that the events are what he remembered automatically indicates that what he remembered was true. The fact that this book is labeled as a memoir, no one dares to question it because of the intensity of the story and because people know how harsh and sad that life he lived could be. When serious issues are exaggerated upon and lied about the entire mood and response of the audience changes. If this book was categorized as a novel then it would be looked at in a different light. It would be looked at as more of a narrative and story- telling experience rather than a very deep and defining life story. Because people take issues like drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicide so seriously, I think that it was wrong to alter any bit of the truth about each of the events. Once people have read one thing and they hear it was partially not true or all of it not true, it just totally changes the light of the book and the message as well.

Breaking genres can definitely alter ones perspective both about the author and the content. It draws the reader not only away from the true message at the time but could potentially place barriers on what the reader will believe after that. Breaking genres also seems to bring discomfort to many, because we are so used to either not hearing the truth or things being what they really are. To me, I think its good that genres are categorized, specifically for the purpose of the reader trusting their authors and trusting the content. I know that I wouldnt want to read a non-fiction book about something tragic to find out it was not true after all. So I think definitely categorizing genres brings along comfort and stability for readers and it keeps them wanting to read more if they know that the content is substantial.