Alma Guillermoprieto "Telling the Story, Telling the Truth"

Guillermoprieto writes about her career as a reporter and a newspaper writer in this essay. She begins with an account of a report she made about Salvadoran soldiers and their massacring of 800 men, women and children. She wrote an article for the Washington Post about the very repulsive act done by the soldiers to a small ten-elevator country. After, been among the only two reporters to write an article on this story, she was labelled by the Reagan administration as a person who cannot be trusted. 
Eventually, Central America became unrecognized on the U.S. media map. It dropped of it. She says, "it was as if I had dropped into that void as well." It seems that the media had ignored Central's America's history, strives, pains and its existence in the world. However, her desire is to make it impossible for "the U.S. reader to ignore Latin America." As such, she writes stories not hard news like that of the U.S. media. The hard news contains fact and to her has no connection to reality. When she writes, she blends information, analysis and her reactions. She makes the reader focus on Latin America not the U.S. To ensure that, she does not mention the U.S. in her writings. She does not interview ambassadors or any U.S. official in order to keep the reader's focus on Latin America. She does research or spends a month in the locality she will be reporting on. To get the U.S. readers to savor Latin America, she is specific about her writings. She wants the reader to feel, see and experience what she did. She says she places the reader in a discomforting zone by using the word "I."  She plans out a choreography in which she casts the major and minor characters. She figures out how t use the characters in order to portray the truth to the reader. One main idea is that she balances her strengths and weaknesses in writing the stories. in the end the advise is to give yourself the "freedom to fail." 
I liked reading Alma Guillermoprieto essay because she shows how to tell a story and make your readers focus on what you want them to not what they want to. I think this article will help me in writing telling my story to my classmates. So that they do not focus on what they expect me to be or tell them, but they see my story from my perspective.

"Transforming 100 Notebooks into Thirty-five Thousand Words" by Sonia Nazario

Sonia Nazario writes about a fourteen year old boy's journey from Mexico to United States in search of his mother. Nazario reports the life of the boy after he is in the States. After a series of interviews, research and retracing Enrique's steps, she says, "I had a hundred and ten notebooks, hundred of hours of taped interviews, and typed notes from more than one hundred phone interviews." Looking at such a superfluous amount of information, she says,"I was overcome with a feeling of paralysis."

She knew she had reduce the information somehow.

The first step of the process was what her editor, Rick Meyer, insisted on: the transcribing stage. Nazario used six full weeks to write out all the reports she had collected using MS Word. This made everything organized and easier to keep track of. This is an important step especially since we have to sort of a report for our final project. Transcribing all our reports will organize them and make it easier to know what to use.

This leads to the next stage which is "garbaging it down." Nazario compresses all the information she has into the first rough draft. In this stage, Nazario ignores the left side of her brain. She only cares about the chronology of the records. She says," Chapter 1 began the day Enrique's mother stepped of her mother's porch, leaving her five-year-old son behind. It ended the day Enrique decided to step of the same porch and find her." I think this stage is really important for us because we have to tell our story. We don't want it to start with something that should have been placed at the end of our video. Nazarro said the draft had to through 10 more drafts before it was reduced to 35000 words.

Nazarro narrates how in getting to her goal she reduced the draft by taking out all the unnecessary characters and accounts. She realized that it was okay to leave some information out and skip some of them. Some details did not take away or add any meaning to the story of Enrique. However, some trivial information in the beginning was valuable in the end. For example, Enrique wearing two left shoes was evidence to the mother that she was really speaking to her so.

In the end, Nazaro says she is on the eleventh draft. It is not easy to cut down more information at this stage. However by asking her self questions like: "Is it  really necessary?," If I keep it, how can I make it better, shorter?" will help her. 

In the initial stages of my final project, I have taken a lot of advise from Nazaro's essay. I plan to make sure the account I present is very important and necessary in telling my story.

Reflection on Essay 2

I think the essay was a very interesting topic to research and write about. The topic of originality is a very complex subject. I loved writing about it. I think I did a great job with my claims and argument. The peer review gave me a chance to see things I could change and make better. My partner told me to  take each of the technological advancement and talk independently about them. I think the reason I did generalize the t.v., telephone and radio was because I was trying to show that all three were as a result of the need to communicate. Also, it was a little difficult finding resources to show the history of these three. I think I will definitely expound on the three inventions further in my revision. So far I have not seen anything I want to delete. However, I think my idea of the plagiarism was not clarified in my essay. Devices like "turn it in" that picks up ideas that are "original" should not exist. There is no such thing as stealing ideas, just researching. Of course, that is a really controversial claim to make. However, everything we think and those we research are not our own, but that of someone else. Thus, all papers written today are not original. They cannot be. To take Barthes advise, there should be no name on a students essay except the original writer of that idea. I hope that will clarify my point about plagiarism.

"If Black English Isn't a Language,Then Tell Me, What Is?" by James Baldwin

This week's reading is James Baldwin's essay "If Black English Isn't a Language Then Tell Me What Is." Baldwin explains the meaning of language as a "temporal identity," that "divorces one from the communal community." As he expounds on this point, Baldwin's explanation of language is indisputable. Perhaps, the most powerful phrase that I saw in Baldwin's essay is:

                                    A language comes into existence by means                   of brutal necessity, and the rules of the                 language are dictated by what the language                     must convey"

No honest truth have been spoken than this quote from Baldwin. It also does not fall from what we have been discussing in class and what my narrative essay tried to convey. Language is a great tool. It is an indelible mark between people that makes it plausible for them to express their ideas, thoughts and concepts to each other. For a person outside the language "umbrella"-so as to speak- to understand this language, will be a "smash" to them. Why? Baldwin suggests that "language reveals too much about oneself." He gives an example: "to open your mouth in England...you have confessed your parents, your youth, your salary, your self-esteem and, alas, your future." Watching the documentary 7 up makes this claim more potent than not. I don't know if these children lived in England, but some lived in parts of London. You could predict-by looking at the lives they had as kids -whether with regards to school, or interests- then, you could tell what their future was like - a claim that might not always be true. However, the general picture is that the way a person speaks can tell you their whole story-if only you can understand their language.

Baldwin continues with another great quote, "It is not the black child's language that is in question, it is not his language that is despised: it is his experience." Baldwin says a child cannot be taught to let go of his experiences. It cannot be forced to enter a "limbo" in which she is not black or white. What Baldwin says here goes in line with his quote, "language is a proof of power." Language is an attribute that shows the world how distinct a particular group is. For whites who could not or might not still understand black English, power is taken away from them in this regards. For when every person or group develops a language, they tell the world they are independent, strong and capable. Probably, another scary fact is having a language shows ownership. However, that scares people. For those who are used the status quo, that idea is a great grief on their minds.
For us who speak a different language, we should not view it as a way of assimilating into a new culture, but as a "new language" of our own culture that we have the privilege to understand and own when most people around us don't.
                                    

Bonus blog

"The Boston Photographs" by Nora Ephron

This is a make-up for last week's blog post 3 which was a reflection of our narrative essay. This post will evaluate Ephron's style of wrting in the article "The Boston Photographs." This sensationalized real life account describes the horrifying images of a woman and a child as they are rescued by a firefighter from a fire escape. Ephron begins the article with the words of the Boston Photographer. He describes how he took that photo in that instant: the scene surrounding the heartbreaking photo of a woman, a child and a firefighter. Ephron continues with a highly descriptive paragraph of what the photos looked like. A description that creates a visual image that is hard to contend with. In our minds, we see the image of the three victims on the fire escape, then we see the fireman holding up the ladder, then we see the the the fire escape and the child slipping. We see a woman holding tho the child as she holds on to the firefighter. The next disturbing picture is the woman falling in mid sky with the child, succumbed to gravity we might say. Ephron tells us that the woman dies while the child survives.

Ephron says the pictures were a great example of photojournalism, a type of journalism she argues is powerful than written journalism. By looking at these photographs, one will unreluctantly agree.
The Boston Photographs received a negative reaction from the public who felt that these were sensationalized photos meant to look like "sideshow act." However, Ephron and some journalist will disagree with the public's reaction and find the importance of publishing such photos however graphic and disturbing it might be. Some journalists thought it was an important issue for the public to know about the deterioration  of the fire escapes. Was that their true intention?

Ephron who feels that the the Boston Photographs is just like any accident or war photos thinks that they should be published. She questions why the last picture, that shows the woman and the child lying on the ground, was not released. She says that death is part of life; that photos that has been released in the past about automobile accidents were focused on death not the mangled cars. She concludes that photojounalism is meant to disturb readers. 

I do not agree with Ephron's argument. Just because photos have been taking does not mean they should be released. The readers are the main deciders of what should or should not be published, not the editors. At the end of the day, you have to get paid and that only depends on the consumer rate. You might not care about the paycheck, then I guess that will be a different issue. However, every journalist and editor should consider the benefit of photos or any article when been published. Is it really worth it? How will I react to these photos if I was the consumer? In the end, we have to live with these decisions, can I live with it? Journalist sand editors may find that, by considering such questions, it might be useful to exclude some information, that in the long run has no benefit to them or the reader.

"Free Writing Exercises" by Peter Elbow

My blog post today is on Peter Elbow's "Free Writing Exercise."  Elbow's essay offers us one main tip-to freewrite. He says it is the only way to write a powerful piece. "Freewritings help you by providing no feedback at all," he says. Elbow compares the concept of freewriting to writing something and putting it in a bottle in the sea. You are never getting that bottle back from anyone. Likewise, in freewriting, one can write knowing no one has to read the 10 minute rambling of the same words.

He continues to expatiate the difference between writing and freewriting when he says, "Writing....[permits] more editing. But that's its downfall too." Elbow says that when writing we are inherently focused on the grammar and the spelling of our words. However, that constant need to edit when writing is what makes writing not not only hard but as Elbow says, "dead." For us to write great pieces we have to to freewrite. When we develop the habit of freewriting, we will produce writing that is not forced but reflects our voice. A voice that speaks to us when we are writing-"our source of power."

Moreover, by freewriting our minds to not become blocked as we try hard to write our first paragraph and get it right. Elbow says that is the "formula for faluire." Write anything that comes to mind and after that you can correct them and come up with new ones. The idea that you willl get everything right the first time is unlikely and "a secret way to give up writing."

I find Elbow's essay more like Lamott's essay which we read last week. Both essays have the idea of not getting it right the first time, not even great writers do. However, there is a contrast between what Lamott says in his essay about the voice in our heads. He gives us a formula - a writing process. However, Elbow tells us to freewrite. This is a habit we have been practicing in class-not as freely as Elbow tells us to since we are given prompts to write about, yet it is a great way to start the morning. I plan to start freewriting especially for my essays. I have noticed that there is always a great line in the rambling I make on a page.

"Shitty First Drafts" by Anne Lamott 

This is my second blog post. My post is about Lamott's essay "Shitty First Drafts." As the name implies, the essay focuses on how terrible first drafts are, which they should be. Lamott's essay addresses a misconception I have about great writers; that somehow, they sit down " and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter." Lammott says that idea is a "fantasy."

She refers to the first draft as a "child's draft," where creativity runs wild. You can write anything you feel or want "knowing no one is going to see it." When you revisit this draft later, you will find an idea or sentence that will steer you in the right direction. Lamott discusses the writing process he uses when he has to write food reviews. Clearly, it is a very frustrating state. She talks about how his first draft will contain "descriptions of the food,one dish at a time." She knew it was horrible but he would "trust the process." She will go back to the writing again and find a second idea or concept. She will then write the second draft which he says will turn out "fine." Of course, this writing process will continue every time she had to write.

In the last few paragraphs, Lamott's advice proves useful especially for me. He says, "All good writing begins with terrible first efforts." I like her essay because she offers the perspective of writing from great writers. Writing is an arduous task. You can only get what you put in it. We as humans are bombarded with different ideas and ways of thinking because we are all from distinct backgrounds, cultures and nationalities. As such, we all greatly influenced by these factors. I know I am. Lamotts's decision to shut up all these voices is one I plan to take. Not that I don't think my writings should not be influenced by the voices of the "vinegar-lipped Reader lady" or "the emaciated German male" or even my "parents." Yet, these voices sometimes hinder the best and explicit ideas.

I love to write first drafts but they are really daunting to initiate. However when I begin, I find that there has been these great ideas bottling inside of me. It might not always be the best ideas but as Lamott said "the first draft is the down draft - you just get it down."