Author: Korin (Page 7 of 7)

Korin Griffin

Professor Brod

ENG110 Section F

September 30th, 2019

I believe that Lamott is saying that writing a first draft is more about the process than the product. Your first draft should just be anything and everything you can think of. It does not really matter if it makes complete sense, you can make it make sense, later on, in your second draft. It is just a starting point to what will turn out to be an amazing piece of writing, if you just follow the process. In regard to my own first drafts, I have not really followed the process as much as I should have. I do usually revise after I write my first draft, but usually only once and not too in depth. But, I want to become and even better writer, so I am going to work on following her process of doing three drafts. The first draft will consist of writing anything and everything I can think of down, just getting all of my thoughts out and into words. My second drafts will consist of building and fixing the big scheme of things a little bit more, just tidying things up. Lastly, my third draft will be inspecting things very closely, fixing EVERYTHING on a global AND local scale.

Korin Griffin

September 19th, 2019

ENG110 Section F

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Ted Talk

There is a technical difference between summarizing a story and paraphrasing a quote. Summarizing, in short, is an overview of a story. Summarizing a story captures the basic and key points and/or ideas of a reading, story, article, material, text, etc. It is a balanced, unbiased, shortview that explains material. This way the reader can understand the gist of whichever material you are writing, talking, or arguing about. Paraphrasing is putting a quote from a reading or text into your own words and ideas. This puts your own twist on the quote to explain it in a different way than it is explained in the text. It shows your own interpretation of the quote. Paraphrasing helps clarify, “dumb it down”, the meaning behind quotes. Paraphrasing should be used when you have already used a lot of quotes and when you want to infuse your own voice. Summarizing should be used to make the reader understand what the story or article, that you are talking about, is saying. Summarizing gives background information to the reader. 

Original quote #1:

“Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” 

Paraphrase #1:

Telling a story of another person isn’t powerful, what is powerful is making the story define the person. 

Original quote #2:

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

Paraphrase #2:

The problem with stereotypes that are created in a single story is that they are not completed, not completely untrue. This makes it seem like the one story is the only story to tell.

Korin Griffin

September 17th, 2019

ENG110 Section F

Leslie Jamison’s “Devil’s Bait” is an interesting piece that explains what Morgellons disease is considered to be and digs deeper into the topic of empathy. What is empathy? How do we show empathy for others? What is Morgellons disease? What is it about Morgellons disease that coincides with empathy? These are the questions I had asked myself before reading this essay.

Morgellons disease is a condition that features a type of itching or “crawling” feeling coming from the skin and the extraction of strange “fibers’ from different areas of the skin all over the body. In the beginning of the piece on page 222, it explains a bit of what Morgellons is, “The sickness can start as blisters, or lesions, or itching, or simply a terrible fog settling over the mind, over the world… people said they had a strange disease, and no one –or hardly anyone– believed them.” There was said to be almost 12,000 that had self-diagnosed their Morgellons disease and still not many people believed that this was a real disease. People told them they were crazy, doctors would turn them away, nobody was willing to help find a cure for something they didn’t believe to be real. 

Jamison tells the stories of a couple of patients of Morgellons that she meets at a conference/support group. As she tells their stories, she also explains her reflections and feelings a bit. On page 238, she feels, “ I wanted to do nice things for everyone out of a sense of preemptive guilt that I couldn’t conceptualize this disease in the same way as those who suffered from it.” These emotions that she feels, the sympathetic acts that she longs to do for people, shows empathy. Empathy is when we try to understand how people are feeling. We put ourselves into their shoes and try to feel their emotions as best we can and share those feelings and emotions with others.

Korin Griffin

September 14th, 2019

ENG110 Section F

Unfollow Response

“Unfollow” is an emotional roller coaster ride filled with anger, confusion, sympathy, and joy. It tells the story of a girl named Megan Phelps-Roper who is a member of the Westboro Baptist Church and she believes that all tragedies are a blessing and a sign from god. Throughout the story, her beliefs waver from fully faithful to questioning everything she has ever believed in. On page 73, it explains her beliefs, “She believed that all manner of other tragedies– war, natural disaster, mass shootings– were warnings from God to a doomed nation, and that it was her duty to spread the news of His righteous judgements.” This means that, in simple terms, she practices hate crimes. Such as going on strike at funerals for homosexuals and soldiers and gay-pride parades, praising of 9/11 and famine and death. Phelps-Roper was born into this religion and her whole family practices together. 

Although, as the story goes on, she sees herself questioning her faith. The social actions that Phelps-Roper encounters causes her to change her beliefs. On page 87, she speaks to her sister about her wavering faith, “‘Does it really make you happy when you hear about people dying or starving or being maimed? Do you really want to ask God to hurt people? I ask myself these questions. I think the answer is no.” This shows that Phelps-Roper goes through major personal transformation. She goes from being the spokesperson of hatred for Westboro Baptist Church on twitter to realizing her true beliefs and fleeing the Church and her family. 

Social Media, specifically Twitter, is a huge impact on Phelps-Roper in terms of her beliefs. At the beginning of the passage, Phelps-Roper starts using Twitter as a public place for her to spread the news and messages of the beliefs of Westboro Baptist Church. An example of the messages she posts (on page 73) reads, “Thank God for AIDS!…You won’t repent of your rebellion that brought His wrath on you in this incurable scourge, so expect more & worse! #red” Reading that tweet, I felt disgusted. To “repent” means “feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one’s wrongdoing or sin.” What she is saying, I think, is that you won’t feel any regret or remorse about your sins in which gave you AIDS, so expect worse or death. These are the types of messages that she was raised to believe, and for awhile she had always felt so strongly about this. 

Throughout the story, her Twitter page grows immensely, and she encounters significant interactions with two people who oppose and argue with Phelps-Roper. David Abitbol questions her about the “Death Penalty for Fags’ sign. He suggests that “if gay people were killed they wouldn’t have the oppurtunity to repent.” on page 82. This was the first step of her wavering faith. Then, C.G. proceeds to make her question her beliefs. On page 83, it reads, “C.G. urged Phelps-Roper to think of how much hurt it must cause the families of the deceased to see Phelps-Roper and her family rejoicing.” A bit further on page 83, she digs deeper into her confusion of her faith. With the passing of a famous actress, named Brittany Murphy, Phelps-Roper finds herself crying instead of praising God for this tragedy. “When Brittany Murphy died, Phelps-Roper had seen the disparity between her reaction and that of the rest of the church as a sign that something was wrong with her. Now the contradiction of her mother’s glee and her own sadness has made her wonder if something was wrong with the church.” it reads. This shows her personal transformation because before interacting with Abitbol or C.G., she never would have felt such sorrow for the loss of Brittany Murphy and never would have questioned her beliefs. 

It’s interesting, but not too surprising, to me that such calm interactions changed Phelps-Roper’s perspective on her views. She made friends with these people from having arguments with them. Despite their views, despite Phelps-Roper believing they were evil inside, she still became friends with them because they were just genuinely likeable. When arguing, neither Phelps-Roper nor Abitbol or C.G. used hateful tone. They just simply presented their beliefs and messages from their own perspective in a calm tone. Whether their statements were considered rude or not, they spoke them in such a way that wasn’t hateful or spiteful, just simply knowledgeable. 

If I were to meet Phelps-Roper today, I wouldn’t know where to begin. So many questions and thoughts race through my mind that I can’t collect them all together. I have my own personal connections to homosexuals and people who have been diagnosed with AIDS, so it might be a bit difficult for me, at first, not to say something hateful. I would have to keep in mind that she is a changed person. She no longer believes in the practices that make my skin crawl. I would want to ask her questions about her mother, deep questions that would require her to explain their relationship a bit. Also, I would ask her how her bible is different from other bibles. I am very close with many extremely faithful people, but I have never met anyone that sees a faith in God’s hatred and I would like to understand how her Church interpreted their bible to be a hateful practice. I would like to gain more details about the Planting Peace building and if it has changed the Church’s views since the passing of Fred Phelps.

Korin Griffin

September 12th, 2019

ENG110 Section F

Limits of Friendship 2.0

Before:

I think the newer generations are going to be different. They will have grown up on technology. As I have grown, I’ve noticed a HUGE shift in technology. I was born in the year 2000, technology has developed so much since then. Technology was certainly around in 2000, but nothing compared to today’s technology. Konnikova asks, “So what happens if you’re raised from a young age to see virtual interactions as akin to physical ones?” I think that children who are currently growing up with all this technology are going to live a very different life than any of us have. I’m not sure if it will be good or bad. There are pros and cons to both sides. Personally, I think it would be much better if they grew up with more physical interactions than virtual ones. Virtual is not real and you have so much control, which could be good but could also be bad. It gives you the option to control what you see and do, but it also allows you to just flee away from any problems. Physical interactions force you to be responsible and learn to do things on your own, which has worked out greatly in my favor. Physical interactions, I feel, allow you to gain more common sense than virtual interactions. The touch, the feel, the learning as you go, instead of controlling what you learn and what you don’t learn in virtual interactions. 

After:

I think the newer generations –the younger children that are growing up right now– are going to be so much more different than any generation we’ve ever seen. They will have grown up on technology. As I have grown, I’ve noticed a HUGE shift in technology. When I was younger technology was not as nearly advanced as it is today; the TV’S and computers were still big brown or black boxes, the newest phones were flip or slide (if you were wealthy enough it was the blackberry), the latest playstation system was a PS2, social media was just starting out, “smart” technology wasn’t even a thought, etc. Now today: our TV’s and computers are essentially flat, almost everything is touch screen, gaming systems sometimes are connected by motion sensors, social media is essential for almost every situation, “smart” technology has developed (TV’s, phones, cars), etc. 

“So what happens if you’re raised from a young age to see virtual interactions as akin to physical ones?” Konnikova asks. I’m not sure if growing up with so much technology will be good or bad. There are pros and cons to both sides. Personally, I think it would be much better if they grew up with more physical interactions than virtual ones. Virtual is not real and you have so much control (almost too much), which could be good but could also be bad. It gives you the option to control what you see and do, but it also allows you to just flee away from any problems. Running away from all of your problems, instead of facing them head on, will not help you very much in life. Virtual interactions allow you to control what you want to be responsible for and what problems you face and which ones you don’t while physical interactions force you to be responsible and learn to do things on your own. Physical interactions, I feel, allow you to gain more common sense than virtual interactions. The touch, the feel, the learning as you go, instead of controlling what you learn and what you don’t learn in virtual interactions.  Being thrown head on into learning things yourself has been so beneficial for me. It has made me a responsible and independent individual. 

Reasoning:

I went back and reflected on the revisions made on my paper before making any decisions or edits. Vague language is a weakness that I have in my writing. I tried to fix that by making my sentences and word choice a little sharper/ more specific. The phrase “Show, don’t tell.” has been drilled into my head and that seems to be all I can focus on while I revise. I never notice how much of what I’m writing is just telling while I’m doing it, I only ever notice when I go back to revise or someone has pointed it out to me. For example, in my “before” paragraph, I only told the reader about “the HUGE shift in technology.” but didn’t actually explain what those shifts were. I added a few examples for clarification. I was told on my revisions, “Don’t be afraid to dig in.” So, I dug in a little bit deeper about what kind of control that the virtual interactions would give a person. After I finished my revising, I noticed that this one paragraph was so much larger. With this in mind, I decided to split the one paragraph into two separate paragraphs, making it a little more organized and clearing up the separate topics. Even though the two topics are pretty much the same and go hand and hand, I think it seems clearer when the subject shifts a little bit into a new paragraph. If this still seems confusing and a bit long, if I were to revise again, I would try to cut some of the unnecessary details.