Here are the guidelines:
- Reading responses must be AT LEAST 200 words.
- Include your full name at the end of your comments. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
- From the "Comment As" drop-down menu, choose Anonymous, then click "Publish."
- Reading responses are due by midnight on the night PRIOR to our discussion of the required reading.
Moore takes on an interesting way of looking at essays along with a sarcastic tone. He understands the students’ point of view with regards to how we are always told how to write essays. In the chapters we read so far Moore frequently reminds us that we are writing for the readers. We are now able to look at essays and be more comfortable at taking risks but at the same time being able to do so in a set of steps that would not confuse a reader. The examples by Moore also establish a trust between the reader and the author. The one that resonated with me was the example used from Richard Rodriguez’s work that reminded me of my mother asking about majoring in English, as seen on page 17, the detail in Rodriguez’s writing was very relatable with that of my mother’s actions. Moore also advices readers to be willing to receive critique, an important factor as we understand that throughout this course we will be reading to our classmates and may end up receiving criticism and we should not be afraid or offended by it. Moore also advices us to look at others work, something that I rarely do, and will try to do so more often so that I learn from my fellow classmates and writers. During the last few pages I read I was reminded of my creative writing class, an act of writing that requires many adjectives with words that aren’t really used in regular speaking.
ReplyDelete-Evelyn Zamarripa
Among the three various sections of Moore’s “Crafting the Personal Essay: a Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction”, the section titled “The Personal (Not Private) Essay” is the section that provides the readers with the information that will impact their work and what they themselves produce when it comes to a personal essay. On page 9, Moore wrote, “ So remember, though personal, the essay is never meant to be private. Privacy is for your diary. Essays are for readers”. This quote goes into context on how such an essay should be written. While the essay itself should be deep in the events and emotions of the writers, nothing should be off limit. The author's life is enriching and personal, and that adds the flair a personal essay needs. If the author were to withhold any information because of how personal the information was, the essay could be lacking in the hook which might cause readers to be unimpressed and bored with the writing. Overall, the main aspect that Moore gets across with this section is that while it may require the author to leave their personal and intimate thresholds, the gain from such an action is true interest in their writing as the more intimate the writing is, the closer it relates to the everyday reader in which it makes the bridge from reader to author.
ReplyDeleteDavid Leal
After reading sections of Moore's "Crafting the Personal Essay..." the section that stood out for me in terms of information, guidance and mentorship type of writing is "Pursuing Mental Rabbits". This section of the book is arguably the most relatable to many writers. Sometimes we experience writers block and think t ourselves "Why am I doing this? What are am I even doing anyways?" or similar questions. Moore gives us an answer by comparing a beagle chasing a rabbit to us writing and it is the perfect way to answer the questions of our own. We shouldn't write because we have to, we should write because we want to and for most of us, if not all, it is fun. The last paragraph, page 91 he says: "Writing is no different - the efforts pay off eventually, but along with the hard work, always remember to keep the spirit of playful exploration alive." this statement is an effective way to wrap up the topic that Moore had discussed throughout the chapter. It is a great closing statement that is memorable which is what he wants and what any mentor would want for their apprentices. When writing make it fun!
ReplyDelete-Marco Garza
Moore’s take on writing an essay is a breath of fresh air. As he says in The Gentle Art of the Personal Essay, it is drilled into us that essays should have a rigid monotonous structure from the time we first learn to write. We are told that to get the good grade and to sound smart we must follow all the rules, otherwise our writing will be incohesive and confusing. This is confusing because the books that we read and the articles we find online and in magazines rarely follow this structure, as a result when we write our scholastic essays we often feel disconnected from our words, we get bored. I especially like how frequently we are taken back to the question, “Why do I write?” I feel like that is an important question for any artist to ask themselves. To me, that ability to ask yourself and answer that question are fundamental. How can we write for our readers if we do not know why we are writing for ourselves? The next piece of advise Moore offers us is to not be too insecure. It is important for us as writers to take criticism. After all, if we are writing for our readers don't we need our readers to tell us where they feel disconnected from our writing? Otherwise what is the point? Last semester I took the Intro to Creative Writing course and the hardest part for me was allowing people to read what I had written. I didn’t want to hear that I should write more or less or that I was giving too much detail or not enough. It’s tough not to take those things personally. It’s hard not to take the advice to heart. But we need to take that advice and, instead of curling up and giving up on writing, learn from it. Be better. Grow as an artist.
ReplyDeleteDawn Bustamante
In “Crafting the Personal Essay” by Moore, she examines the different forms in writing as all writers occasionally do. We begin with reading “Pursuing Mental Rabbits”, where childhood memories are the ones we look at first, why? They are the memories we choose to begin our trail of stories. The title says it all we try time and time again to pursue old memories and try and remember every detail. This is important to some people because those whom go on and choose to write a Memoir of their life, always begin with those childhood memories. The analogies in this chapter helped myself in understanding how to describe certain forms of remembrance for my own writings. Next, “The Gentle Art of the Personal Essay” where we go back and recall the times we were in high school and learned only one form of writing an essay and now it is completely different. The personal essay is us and we write so others can understand or just simply see it. Just as in the third part “The Personal (NOT PRIVATE) Essay”, nothing we say or do and especially write isn’t private anymore. Unless we keep in a journal locked up. We choose to let those words be seen. All in all these reading were interesting and insightful.
ReplyDeleteChristina Velasquez
After reading just three chapters of Moore’s “Crafting the Personal Essay” I have come across ways of understanding different types of essays. In the beginning of the chapter of The Gentle Art of the Personal Essay he mentions how we are taught, or drilled to write in essay form, or that our essays were to have all of these intelligent/big words in them based on our teacher’s criteria and grading system. Well its true, in my opinion. I have definitely had to live by this structure for so long, and I can say that because of it, it has caused me to write essays solely for a grade. In which I gain absolutely nothing from because of the lack of interest it instills in me. I definitely do not write unless I have to, but some tips and advice that Moore mentioned in his readings I feel will really benefit me. One thing that I really liked that he focused on was making sure that we understood that our writing must be prioritized for our readers. The entire set up is to be insured in a way that the reader fully understands, and is able to grasp interest in our writings. As mentioned on page 5 “If the reader does not comprehend, we have failed to do our task well.” This stuck with me because. I am one of those individuals who have trouble understanding or engaging in the things that I read, so the thought of picking up a book to read would definitely be my last resort. Though, through out all of the sections of the readings Moore really focused on us as his readers, making sure that everything that was said was understood, and explained to the reader the best way possible. It is because of that, that I was not only able to find interest in the reading, but I was also able to learn a broad amount from it as well. The break down by Moore in each of the three sections in the book are surely made to help as a guidance for his readers. For example, “Pursuing Mental Rabbits” is a section in the reading that many of us as readers/ writers can relate to within our personal life and experiences. We all go through our own hardships in life and often feel like giving up. Moore was able to compare personal life experiences to writing which in turn helped me relate as a reader, and have a better understanding as a writer.
ReplyDeleteLeslie Luna
Let me just start off by saying that I ~abhor~ the five-paragraph essay. It's completely useless to me (for most papers) because I feel so limited in what I can do. The five-paragraph essay can't handle how longwinded I am. I didn't know the origin of the word 'essay' so I found that very interesting. I also really appreciated Dillard's words at the end of the first chapter: "The material is the world itself, which so far, keeps on keeping on." It spoke to me and I completely agree. I do have to say that I really try not to be the person who defends their work to death. I do my absolute best to stay quiet and listen to what others have to say because Moore is right. "If the reader does not comprehend, we have failed to do our task well." I made it a point to say this because as a writer I feel that one of my biggest goals is to have someone understand what I'm trying to say. I don't communicate well verbally. At least I don't think so. Over the years, I've found that the best form communication for me is the written word. I'm the most honest when I write and I've certainly had arguments with friends over the things I write. It's extremely personal to me and I do my best to never keep secrets from myself when I write. This does give me some problems, of course, when I remember that I am not writing just for myself. I did say that I am trying to get other people to understand my voice so I sometimes have to take a step back and 'remember the audience' as Moore says. I really like that question that Moore poses about Rodriguez's work: "why does he feel compelled to tell strangers the ins and outs of his conflicted feelings?" I wonder the same thing about myself. I do it in the hope that I might help one of those strangers even if just a little bit. And I drop nine thousand balls (78) in the process as well, but again, Moore is right: “chasing rabbits is fun.”
ReplyDeleteAngie Acuña
In “The Gentle Art of the Personal Essay,” he encourages us to break down the walls of what we’ve been told all of childhood about writing, to fall in love with the process, and to find the freedom that writing offers. Moore’s, “The Personal (Not Private) Essay,” really helped me understand that although I might feel like my idea is clear in my essay it might not be, but only because I am the only one who can give my reader a window into my memories. And another thing I struggle with is withholding back from details and being more vulnerable in my essays in hopes of allowing my reader to “resonate” with me. And lastly in “Pursuing Mental Rabbits,” the most impacting part was when Moore quoted Scoot Russell Sanders, “the glow of happiness had to cool before it would crystalize into memory.” At times I find it hard to remember details of my childhood or I try really hard to remember details when I’m experiencing something impactful in my life, but reading this chapter helped me to realize my brain does remember. And the memories will come back if I follow my mental rabbits.
ReplyDelete~ Joy Perez
In these two reading selections, author Dinty Moore has managed to make me rethink my process as well as actually look back at past criticisms of my writings to see how I can improve. For the second chapter “The Personal (Not Private) Essay”, Moore makes it clear that when we are writing our essays we cannot alienate our audience and not get lost in our own ideas. Basically, we can’t make things too personal when writing an essay where only we know the specifics and instead need to write in a mindset where we look at things from the readers’ point of view as they will be seeing (or reading) things for the first time. The seventh chapter “Pursuing Mental Rabbits”, I feel, can work as an extension of the previous one as it also deals with the idea of keeping the reader in mind and not going out of control when writing details when making a point. Overall both chapters kind of made me go back and remember the times where people told me that the subjects of my writings were not always clearly defined and therefore could not understand the message or relate to it, now I at least have an understanding of what I need to take into consideration when writing something personal to me.
ReplyDeleteNarciso Garcia
"THe Personal (Private) Essay" discusses the difficulties of transferring the story that you are trying to tell over to paper. When it comes to reading non-fiction, a reader can only see what is written. If you write something vaguely, then the reader will only see vagueness. This is why writers of non-fiction have to express their memories as vividly and as well-detailed as possible. I feel that this is an area where I'm incredibly weak in. Often when I write my fiction, I'm not as strong in writing action or setting. With non-fiction, the actions and setting are critical in writing the memory that you wish to express. Non-fiction can't exactly be basic in terms of a premise. Questions such as "What am I trying to show here?" or "What story of my life am I trying to tell?" come up. To make a non-fiction story work, it has to be broad and detailed. Or else readers will see nothing other than a basic memory that's not the least bit interesting to read.
ReplyDelete"Pursuing Mental Rabbits" discusses the idea of looking back at your childhood memories and getting a better understanding of them. When you analyze something that occurred in your best, you may gain a different opinion of that event and finally understand some of the things that occurred. Sadly, this idea seems to apply to several of my very negative memories. As I've grown older and have gained a much better understanding of how the world works, I realize that several things that happened when I was younger are much worse than I how I viewed them at the time. Needless to say, chasing rabbits doesn't always give you pleasant feelings.
Michael McCormick
"The Gentle Art of the Personal Essay" right from the beginning begins with saying the 5-paragraph form has been drilled in us ever since we began to write. This is true but what I get out of what Moore is saying, is that how you interpret the tools provided to you. We all write and don't want to hold back on our writing because sometimes have a lot to say. Which is fine too, but when we do that sometimes we are just running off in our thoughts and not remembering our audience and that’s what Moore emphasizes not lose track of our audience.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that stood out was when Moore states, “the essayist does not sit down at her desk already knowing it all” which is right because one as a writer is not always right and there is always room for improvement and that’s what makes a good writer. A good writer takes feedback and takes it into consideration because everyone thinks differently and relates to things differently.
“The Personal Essay” the metaphor that I liked a lot was “her piano is silenced” what I got from this was that the piano symbolized a powerful memory he had from his mother. With this memory, he connects with the audience the emotions are screaming through that text because even though you haven’t experienced loss first hand you’ve heard of someone or seeing someone go through it and see their pain.
“Pursuing Mental Rabbits” this simple metaphor gets me thinking about how no matter the decision you make you will look back to your life and try to make sense of it all. Trying to make sense of our own mental rabbits can either make us or break us.
- Abigail Vasquez
Moore’s focus in the chapter, “The Personal (Not Private) Essay” was on invoking feelings into readers that do not know you and successfully reaching them. One of the tips I enjoyed was where Moore talks about reading someone else’s work and finding out what made a certain scene in the work so compelling or not so compelling. To take note of this and learn from them and hopefully this will make your writing better as you go along. I have done this before, when I started writing at a young age, I wrote to escape reality. My writing wasn’t good but as I continued writing I realized I enjoyed it. Then came the desire to improve my writing, I began re-reading some of my favorite authors books and studied them. What made them so good? How did they convey the romance so well or the interaction between characters. This helped me greatly, my writing improved drastically, the detailing in my story became better and the way I conveyed emotion was clearer then before. Of course, even now I still think there’s always room for improvement. Another thing I enjoyed while I read was the part where he talks about how such a “small tool” which is gesture can be so powerful. Instead of stating a character is upset you describe it in certain gestures that has become recognizable in the characters you write about. Something familiar that gives their frustration or worry away. In “Chasing Mental Rabbits” I like how he talks about the “fuzzy truth” we had discussed this in class but after reading it my understanding of it grew. To me it seemed that as Smokey enjoyed chasing the rabbit we can enjoy chasing our own “mental rabbits” because they will expose to us “fuzzy truths” which to me seem like memories that we have forgotten. Some of these memories might be painful to remember and yet I cherish them for they made me who I am.
ReplyDeleteAlejandra Rodriguez
In “The Gentle Art of the Personal Essay”, Moore focuses on letting us know that despite what we were taught in elementary, middle school, and high school we do not have to follow any specific format when it comes to the personal essay. There shouldn't be a mechanical aspect to writing, you should be able to make up your own format as you go. I enjoyed reading this small chapter because it summed up my feelings about writing in high school very well. In elementary and middle school I was part of a competitive creative writing program that really made me love writing we never did have to follow a format it was just free-form writing about a prompt that was assigned. When I got to high school, teachers started instilling the idea of MLA and other formats (not to mention that we would be deducted a significant amount of points if certain thesis statements weren’t there or our margins were off by .15627 centimeters) and it became too stressful to think about to where it clouded my inspiration, creativity, and will to write about something that really matters. I always knew my writing (or anyone's for that matter) was better when a specific format was not involved. In “The Personal (Not Private) Essay, Moore said something that really stood out to me. “In our highly visual culture - television, movies, videos on an iPad - it is important to remember just how magical good writing can be. It is an act of alchemy, really, this ability of our best writers to transform the abstract lines and circles that represent the twenty-six letters of the alphabet into vivid, too-real-to-be-forgotten experiences.” I completely agree with Moore on this. I believe that the art in being a writer is overlooked way too often and taken for granted. Finding the inspiration within yourself to create a work, having the courage to share those personal feelings with an audience, and just being comfortable with the fact that you never know what your mind will come up with when writing is an underappreciated art.
ReplyDelete-Starleen Rendon
I liked the perspective that Moore has in, “The Gentle Art of a Personal Essay”. I never thought of it, but for the longest time the five-paragraph essay has been drilled into me all throughout my high school years. I did think about the format to be boring, but I felt like I was the only one. He is right about what a personal essay should be, and if anything what the definition of an essay is only just encourages me to want to explore when writing than being afraid to take risks.
ReplyDeleteThe Personal (Not Private) Essay had some good tips about writing your essay. Of all the other tips that I can The one tip that I can relate the most is where I as the writer need to convey my feeling or knowledge to my reader. There are plenty of times where I write sentences that are almost one sided since my reader at times won’t know what I am talking about. I need to work on it to better improve my essays and better myself in communication, since I know that I do that outside of essays. I couldn’t agree more with Moore in, “Pursing Mental Rabbits” about exploring as a writer to explore their own writing. If anything I feel that chapter 7 and chapter 2 should have been placed next to each other instead of having them so far apart. It felt more of a continuation of Chapter 2, especially since it talks about exploring your writing. This chapter seems to focus on exploring your mind and conveying your thoughts onto paper. I agree with Moore that in the aspect of being brave to explore and not to fear it. Let things flow rather than placing a barrier allows the writer to continue their journey. The readings were truly enjoyable and enlightening.
-Benito Reyes
In “The Gentle Art of the Personal Essay”, we're reminded about the structure that we were taught when we began to write. The five-paragraph essay structure is not something that I enjoy using when I write, because I feel like it restricts me in the sense that when I want to go in depth with my information or story, I have to narrow it down and only explain a couple of things. On another note, when I want to brainstorm and break down my story, I have to choose only certain topics and make sure they will flow properly, but that is something I do not like, because I can have more information about one topic rather than another one, but can’t imply it to my story. In “Pursuing Mental Rabbits”, it is not easy to remember everything or every detail you went through in your whole life, but certain things can be used as tools to remind you. For example, the five senses can be used as mental markers, something you smell, see, taste, feel or hear can bring back so many memories, but in order to remember every detail or almost every detail, you have to be exposed to what triggers your mental rabbit.
ReplyDelete-Claudia Anzaldua