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Writer’s Evolution Annotated Bibliography

 

 

Lisner, Emily. ‘“Writing Freely: “Tragedy to Triumph.”’ December 2011. MS.

 

The final paper in my English 125 class, Writing Freely: “Tragedy to Triumph, was is a 1200-1500 essay word that respond to the question, “How does one learn to write?” This final piece of reflective writing aims to advance a specific and complex argument that incorporates both personal experience as well as class material. The argument is supported by detailed evidence and critical analysis, and aims to include a discussion of broader implications. The wording of this assignment was intentionally broad, as narrowing down this question created the argument. This assignment builds on the previous semester assignments, thus this essay showcases evidence of close reading. In addition to following the assignment prompt and address the overarching question, this assignment created an opportunity to make an argument about writing pedagogy in general. Through the analysis of my own experience with writing, as well as the writing that we had read in class, I was able to address what tactics do and do not work with writing.

 

In order to address the question, “How does one learn to write?” I had to define exactly what writing went. In the context of this class, writing was not just limited to traditional published writing. Therefore, I broadened the conversation of writing to include graffiti writers and musicians like Kanye West. Tracing writing back to its very roots, I discussed the process of learning to write as a child and how freeing that experience was. As we aged, I argue that our creativity is gradually lost and writing becomes a chore. Therefore, I used a personal example of my own experience with writing for a personal experience to showcase how writing can be reflective of the process of self-discovery. I then was able to establish a theme of using tragic life events and situation and translating them into an opportunity to showcase it through writing. This was reflected by using Kanye West’s Through the Wire, which he wrote after being in a car accident. Ultimately, this assignment allowed me to place many different types of “writers” into a conversation that they would traditionally not be included in.

 

Lisner, Emily. “Taking Risks to Get Back Up.” 11 September 2011.  MS.

 

As the first paper ever written in college in English 125, this paper was critical in developing close reading, analytical, and argumentative skills.  The goal of this paper was to compare two versions of Kanye West’s “All Falls Down” to make an argument about the way Kanye West creates meaning in the song. By critically analyzing both versions, I was able to distinguish differences between the version on The College Dropout and the version on John Legend’s Solo Sessions Vol. 1: Live at the Knitting Factory album. I analyzed musical, poetic, rhetorical, and narrative techniques, In order to make specific claims about the difference between these two versions. Ultimately, I was able to argue that the studio (commercialized) version of the song acted as a mask to true emotion and vulnerability, and therefore the live version with John Legend allowed for a more personal experience.

 

It was in this essay, that I made the connection between music and writing with self discovery, that was later utilized in my Writing Freely: “Tragedy to Triumph end of semester essay. This essay also taught me the importance of paying attention to detail such as word choice. While analyzing the difference between the two versions I noted that Kanye changed the word from “you” to “I’m” which was a way to further insert himself into his music. I also began to understand the connection that the lyrics have to historical roots, which I later used in my Jay-Z and Kanye West: Watching The Throne of The Past, Present, and Future essay. I had to do further research on the topic in order to discover deeper meaning behind the lyrics. This process can be broadened into the process of writing a comparative analysis essay, as one must learn to pay attention to detail in order to highlight the similarities and differences between multiple pieces. This paper was critical in developing the necessary skills to complete essays that were referred to throughout my portfolio.

 

Lisner, Emily. “Re-Mediated: Taking Risks to Get Back Up.” 3 December 2012. MS.

 

The Re-Mediated assignment in the Writing 220: Gateway to the Writing Minor course challenged me to use an existing essay or project and present the argument from this essay in a different medium. This assignment allowed me to use a different medium in order to emphasize elements of the essay that were not necessarily possible in its original medium. When considering the essay Taking Risks to Get Back Up mentioned previously, it was clear to me that the medium of traditional writing would not allow the audience to connect with the argument as much as they could through another medium. This essay was entirely focused on comparing and contrasting two versions of Kanye West’s All Falls Down, and I spent a large portion of my essay describing the lyrics and musical choices and aspects of the song. Therefore, my re-mediated version would allow me to do more than just allow the audience to imagine how the music would sound—I wanted to let them hear it.

 

I decided the most appropriate medium would be the use of an audio essay via YouTube. In order to do this, I edited the essay to read more as a script for the audio essay. I removed any portion of the essay that described the music and instead simply replaced it with the music itself. I also edited the paper to ensure that the language would sound professional yet casual for an audio essay. This was my first time ever creating an audio essay, so there was an initial challenge with figuring out how to use iMovie. In addition to recording my voice reading the essay, I also had to find the appropriate portions of the song to incorporate into the audio recording. This assignment taught me the importance of exploring different mediums in order to elicit a different experience for the audience. I realized how powerful the incorporation of audio could be in this process. In terms of my portfolio, this project provided me with the ability to understand the importance of the inclusion of new media, which is critical for the Capstone project.

 

Lisner, Emily.  “Cancer Journal.” 25 February 2011.  MS. 

 

In the essay, Writing Freely: “Tragedy to Triumph” I discussed my own experience with learning how to write.  Further, I also discussed the relationship between tragedy and writing. The essay required the incorporation of our own personal experience with writing, and I wanted to trace this relationship back to an example in which I wrote not because I was required to—but because I wanted to. When I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, I kept a journal to document this experience. This essay aimed to demonstrate how writing could help to document the road to self-discovery. By including my cancer journal into this essay, it helped the readers to understand how writing allowed me to discover more about myself through an unfortunate situation.

 

Furthermore, by including a personal example, I was able to position myself with the other writers that I included in my essay. Among these writers was Kanye West. By including my cancer journal, I was able to show how Kanye’s Through The Wire and my cancer journal actually shared many similarities. These similarities included raw honesty and vulnerability. Additionally, I noted a similarity between West and myself as we both incorporated humor within our writing. I argued that writing, in both journal and musical forms, were utilized as means to cope with unforeseen circumstances. While the overarching guiding question of this paper was simply, “how does one learn to write?” I had to narrow it down in order to create an interesting and creative argument.

 

Lisner, Emily.  “Humans Of The World.” 9 December 2014.  MS. 

 

The course Comm 440: Global Iconic Events was focused on the media coverage of news events that have attracted a large international audience. The course spent time deciphering what exactly qualified as a news event and a global iconic event, and there were several characteristics that must be present in order for this consideration, including the ability to provide the audience with uplifting or traumatic experiences and memories. For our final paper, we were directed to select a global event and analyze how the media covered it, especially through the first three days of coverage. When discussing the paper, examples such as the attacks on September 11th or the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton were mentioned.  While I did find these events fascinating, I was more interested in the idea of individual life events that gain a large audience through social media.

 

In class, we watched a short documentary that showcased people who discussed one moment—or event—that significantly altered their lives. These stories ranged from a drunk driving accident to the death of a family member. This documentary inspired me to further explore this topic. In order to do this, I used “Humans of New York” as an example of a way to share everyday life events in a digitized format for a global audience. I approved this topic with my instructor because it was a bit different from the traditional approach to this paper, and she was excited that I had found a topic that I was so passionate about. I divided my paper into six sections including: Introduction, Background of Humans of New York, Humans of New York as a Global Exploration, Case Studies, Social Sharing and Conclusion. In the case studies section, I chose three photos from Humans of New York to analyze. This assignment helped me to learn how to take a different approach to an assignment while still ensuring that it covers the assigned material. 

 

Lisner, Emily. “Jay-Z and Kanye West: Watching The Throne of The Past, Present, and Future.” March 2012. MS.

 

The essay Jay-Z and Kanye West: Watching The Throne of The Past, Present, and Future was written for English 225: Academic Argumentation in Hip-Hop Studies. This course focused on developing advanced academic argumentation skills within the multidisciplinary field of hip-hop studies. This semester long paper serves as an album review, while utilizing close reading and analytical techniques in order to make an argument about the album. The assignment also required the use secondary scholarly sources in order to position the album within the field. This essay includes 11 outside sources that provides social and historical context. However, the primary form of analysis in this paper came from the selection of three songs on the album: “Made in America,” “Murder to Excellence,” and “New Day”. A close reading of these three songs provided demonstrated the artists’ connection to the civil rights movement. Ultimately, this paper argues that Kanye West and Jay Z use this album to demolish the caste system that does not allow fellow African Americans to bathe in similar success.

 

This paper allowed me to put into practice what I had developed in English 125, which was similarly focused on the field of hip hop. By taking this course with the same instructor as 125, I was able to achieve writing development and mentorship for a full-year. This paper challenged me to take my writing to a new level in terms of length, argument sophistication, and close reading skills. Prior to this paper, the longest paper I had written was 10 pages. This paper was assigned to be between 12 and 15 pages. Additionally, this paper also required the use of close reading with the incorporation of scholarly sources in order to support the argument. This assignment incorporated peer review, as well as an entire class devoted to work shopping each class member’s paper. This process made the assignment more manageable, and also taught me the importance of review and revision. However, because we only wrote one paper across the entire semester, I did not have the opportunity to utilize these developed skills within the same class context.

 

Lisner, Emily. “Leaders or Followers?” 26 April 2014. MS.

 

Comm 362: Digital Media Foundations was a course that focused on the intellectual foundations needed to understand both the Internet and new media. The course provided historical framework of the Internet, and also a modern day perspective on online communities, social media, and user interfaces. The final paper in the course asked us to select one form of new media technology to analyze and make a claim about. This claim must be supported by both the class readings and outside research. Additionally, the incorporation of pictures (screenshots) of the new media would be an additional way to aid the argument. This paper was written gradually, as we had to submit a shorter version of the paper in the middle of the semester to be peer reviewed by the class. A successful paper would be well written and would also investigate a unique argument about the chosen form of media.

 

I chose to investigate Twitter, as I am an avid user of the platform. I specifically analyzed the “hashtag” and “follow” features in order to make the claim that Twitter reduces individuality. Additionally, I used one the framework of scholar Arnold Pacey in order to further analyze twitter. Pacey explains the various aspects of technology and notes that they are cultural, technical, and organizational. The challenging portion of this paper was balancing analysis with explaining the technology itself. We were instructed to write as if we were explaining this technology to a grandparent, and therefore I could not assume that the reader had any background knowledge on Twitter. In order to do this, I included an explanation followed by a screenshot, which would further explain the platform. This style of analysis helped to prepare me for the Humans Of The World paper in Comm 440. Additionally, this paper inspired me to continue to explore the topic of social media for my Capstone project. My Professor for this course, Andre Brock, has been an excellent resource for my Capstone project and has provided me with further research to consider with my project.

 

Lisner, Emily. “Collaboration: Successful Peer Tutoring for Learning Disabled Students.” 26 April 2013. MS.

 

Writing 300: Seminar in Peer Tutoring was an ULWR course that prepared me to serve as a peer tutor in the Sweetland Center for Writing. In order to do so, this course provided me the framework of the theories related to peer tutoring in writing as well the opportunity to practice tutoring and observe current tutors at Sweetland. Additionally, this class provided lessons on grammar, formatting and style. The final essay in the course was a research essay about an issue related to the writing center. This argument was derived from both the readings and our own experiences at the writing center. This research essay included scholarly sources to support the argument. Additionally, I had to present my research project to the class and create a handout that would help to illustrate the argument of the essay. My observations in the peer tutoring center, class readings and personal experience led me to select the topic of learning disability in the tutoring centers. As someone with a documented disability, I noted the lack of appropriate resources for students like myself. On the tutoring side, I noted that there was not proper training that would prepare student tutors to assist students with learning or physical disabilities.

 

In addition to research on the topic, I reached out to the Director of the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities with questions on my topic. I also had a meeting with Virgina Grubaugh, who is the coordinator of learning services in the office of Services for Students with Disabilities. This conversation was pivotal, as she had noted a disconnect with Sweetland but was not sure how to address it. Additionally, I met with Lila Naydan, Naomi Silver, and Melanie Yergau from Sweetland and the English Department in order to understand the relationship between Sweetland and The Office of Services for Students with Disabilities. Ultimately, I concluded that there was a lack of communication between the Peer Tutoring Center and Services for Students with Disabilities. Additionally, I found that students with learning disabilities are not aware of the services that the Peer Tutoring Center offers, and tutors are not adequately equipped to tutor these students. In order to combat this, I proposed the use of a flyer in both the Peer Tutoring Center and in the Services for Students with Disabilities office to assure that both the tutee and the tutor have the most productive possible tutoring session. I created two flyers: one for Sweetland tutors and one for students with disabilities. This is a paper that I am particularly proud of because my conversations and proposal had the potential to leave a lasting impact. This skills acquired through this paper were also particularly useful in later projects including the Capstone, as I had to learn how to reach out and set up personal interviews in order to acquire all necessary information.

 

Lisner, Emily. “What Compels You To Comment on Social Media?” Sweetland Minor in Writing Blog. 15 March 2015. MS.

 

The Sweetland Minor in Writing Blog allows for students in the minor to communicate and use the collective power of the group to troubleshoot and gain advice from peers. For my final project, I am investigating the comments section on social media to determine how comments affect the overall experience of social media. In order to gain insight on the topic, I decided to turn to the Minor in Writing community to see what compels them to comment on social media. I prefaced this post with an explanation of my project and my initial comments and then asked others to comment and share their own experiencing with commenting. Four of my peers responded to this post, and provided me with interesting insight into the topic. Some of these comments helped me to consider factors that I had not previously thought about. For example, one of my peers commented “Sometimes, if something has so many likes, I’ll like it by popular demand (I guess it’s kind of like group think?” Previously, I had not questioned the authenticity of a like or comment—I assumed that users commented or liked because they were genuinely compelled to do so, independent of the behavior from others.

 

The use of this blog showed me how helpful it is to pose questions, concerns, or ideas to a group of people that is essentially going through the exact same process as I am. It has been a sense of comfort to read the blog throughout the semester, as I was able to gain tips from others on how to handle the demand of this course. Additionally, my peers have provided me with really helpful insight on my own topic.

 

Lisner, Emily. “Get Local: 7 Top Urban Farmers Markets in the U.S.” http://www.abesmarket.com/the-scoop/article/the-article/get-local-7-top-urban-farmers-markets-in-u-s.html 13 June 2013.

 

As an intern for Beringea, a private equity firm that provides expertise, capital and advising to portfolio companies, I had the opportunity to utilize my writing skills in an environment that extended outside of the classroom. I worked with one of Beringea’s portfolio companies, Abe’s Market, to help them expand their content development. IN order to do this, I researched, pitched and wrote articles for their blog. I pitched an article about urban farmers markets, and after seeing an outline for how I wanted to approach this article, the content management team at Abe’s Market told me to run with the idea. After extensive research on the topic, I identified what I believed to be the top seven farmers markets in the country. I wrote an article that described these markets, identified a specific event that the reader should not miss, and the market’s days and hours of operation. In order to write effectively, I had to be concise and clever with my writing. This blog post was intended to be both informative and entertaining to an audience who is most likely knowledgeable and passionate about food.

 

After I completed a draft of the article, I sent it back to the editor at Abe’s Market, who had many recommendations and changes to the article. In addition to cutting down the word count, the editors wanted me to add another market to the article. I struggled with the processes of adding more, when also simultaneously trimming down the article. This was the first article I had ever formally published, so it was a fascinating experience to have to balance the wants of publishers, editors, the company I was working for, and my own opinions. While this was a very small article for a fairly informal blog, the experience was still critical in helping me to understand how the writing and editing process works outside of the classroom.

 

 

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