“Hey you write little screen plays, because I always did, I think it’s because I always wanted to be a director when I was in high school. I wanted to be an actor but I can’t talk in front of a camera, obviously. And so I was like okay I’ll read a book so he gave me Stephen King’s dark half. I said was wow this is a really good book. So I started to read more and more. As I started reading, I started writing more. The more I read, the more I wrote. I became addicted to writing, until I had kids and I stopped writing for a while. That’s what killed my energy.”
-How Bill began writing and what has stopped him for a moment.
"As soon as he says Oregon, I had the loudest gunshot sound through out the whole auditorium. And I had strobe lights on the audience and they just did one big flash. Then the whole stage was black and all you heard was the sergeant yelling “Medic, Medic, Medic.” And the lights came up and EVERYBODY was crying! It was the greatest feeling as a writer! Like, I hit the mark. What I wanted to do. I wanted to have that..”
-Bill discussing his WWW II play he wrote and directed.
“I was putting some much time into that (horse races) I dropped out of school. My schooling was crap, I don’t have any schooling besides a high school diploma. I did some writing classes in school, journalist classes, and advertising class and organized crime class and that’s pretty much my schooling. Now I’m just a schlub.”
-Bill discussing his education.
There's so many more quotes to add to this, like his other plays and the book has has published. His life is interesting with the horse races and the comedy routine that I did not quote in here.
For my interview I chose my manager Bill because he is interesting. He is not just some 30 something managing a fast food place; his character goes much deeper than that. He writes books, screen plays and comedy. Bill is a reserved person so I wanted to interview him to bring out more of his personality, which is pretty funny. My main goal was to get him to talk about his background in literacy and to share some personal stories. I have succeeded that goal with a little bit of pushing. Bill wanted a set list of questions before I conducted the first interview. I told him that we would go with the flow and i would ask any questions I needed to to help guide the interview' otherwise he was free to speak about anything that pertained to writing, reading and etc. This at first was a little challenging but once Bill started telling stories it became easier. For the first interview i was focused more on the background information. The second interview I allowed Bill to talk about what ever came to mind. It proved to be a good idea, there were a few interesting stories that he spoke of. Now i just need to figure out if I want to make this into an oral history project or a creative non-fiction
I already made a post on this, then Weebly decided to time out my session. Thanks Weebly.
I believe that this article is a great example for us on how to do an oral history paper. There is not much interference from the interviewer so that allows the interviewee to retell their own story without stopping to answer specific questions. I found that its better to let the person being interviewed to ramble (for lack of a better term) on about their experiences.
An interviewer would have never known to ask about the hobo Callahan who made such an impact on Banks' life. "I was sayin', "Lord, help me, Oh Lord, help me," until a white hobo named Callahan, he was a great big guy, looked like Jack Dempsey, and he got a scissors on me, took his legs and wrapped 'em around me. Otherwise, I was about to fall off the Flyer into a cornfield there." There is no other person the Banks mentions that gets a character description like Callahan does. This shows the importance of that person in regards to Banks' life and survival of the Great Depresssion. "No kindness. Except for Callahan, thehobo--only reason I'm alive is 'cause Callahan helped me on that train. And the hobo jungle. Everybody else was evil to each other. There was no friendships. Everybody was
worried and sad looking. It was pitiful." Having these words come directly from the person who lived through the experience validates that information; this makes he a reliable narrator. People are more adept to believe Banks rather then some person who interviewed him and put it into their own words instead of Banks'.
Lost in Translation was an interesting article. At first I thought it was based on an Asian culture and that it was a boy narrator. As I continued to read, I realized that I was wrong, once we are told that she's Polish.
The interior is Plato's cave; Egyptian temple, the space of mystery and magic, on whose threshold I stand a humble acolyte. The way Hoffman describe the library really grabbed my attention. I think when we are writing, a lot of the time we become so focused on format and the fact or non facts that we forget that details really bring meaning to a paragraph, sentence, etc.
Hoffman shows us how to write a literacy narrative without it being like "at age 5 i picked up my first book and read it all the way through, then at age 6 I..." Her technique of writing keeps the audience interested in whats she's telling. She still creates a time line of her literacy but never gives us dates. She leaves that information up to us to figure out. I think as writers we should not give any details like that if our audience has the intelligence to fill in the blanks themselves.
Did tweeting make me more mindful and connected to the place?
I believe that it did, I went to the woods because that is my happy place. But, I never thought about the reasons why it was my happy place. Tweeting about these woods made me realize the little details and why I feel so connected to it. When i was younger it was just a place to take walk with my Grandma and her dog. Now I still go there to take walks with her but we no longer have they dog; we bring my little sisters along. It does my mind good to see them out in nature and the old people. Lol. I had to think before I tweeted when something captured my mind. Once i figured out my theme tweeting became a little easier. I really enjoyed taking pictures of the woods and uploading them to twitpic. I showed people the beauty that is basically hiding in the retirement community. Twitterive
For the past few weeks we have been allowed to use Twitter and Weebly to create a project called Twitterive. The Twitterive has allowed us to take the details we tweeted and put them into a multi modal point of view. The process began, at first we were encouraged just to tweet what we saw or thought. Pictures were a good way to get what ever point you wanted across to your audience. Then we started going to new or old places of interest and tweeting about our surrounding. I believe this is the turning point; where we became more focused on the subject at hand. Details became a major player in our tweets. Everything was being looked at more closely; the old tire swing wasn't just a tire swing but the symbol of your childhood. Tweeting these observations allowed us to use our technology we've all grown so found of and at the same time build this bond between place and technology. We went some where; pulled out our trusty cell phones and tweeted, this was the process.
Now the product is what is posted on our Weebly websites under Twitterive. This is where we took our findings and developed them into different types of writing. The product is an interesting combination of tweets. It was entertaining to read other classmates twtterives to see what they did with their themes and tweets.
“Look! I lost another tooth,” smiled Sabrina with a big toothy ( well toothless) grin.
“You did Bri! That’s three in three weeks. You look just like a jack o’ lantern. All I would have to do is paint you orange,” I said.
Sabrina runs into the other room laughing.
A few days later Sabrina returns home from school.
“Kir, I can’t be your jack o’ lantern any more.”
“Aw, why do you say that?”
Sabrina looks at me and opens her mouth.
“See I lost another tooth; I have too many holes. Pumpkins don’t look like this,” Sabrina sighed.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Sill girl, you can still be my jack o’ lantern. In fact you are an even better jack o’ lantern then before; the more holes the better.”
This seems to appease Sabrina for the moment.
I know Kirsten said I still look like a pumpkin but I need to find one to see if she is really telling the truth.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going for a walk in the woods, I’m going to bring Grandma and Sammy.”
“Oh, okay. Please be back in thirty minutes. Dinner will be ready by then,” I said.
Sabrina, Samantha and Grandma set off toward the woods. Not to far long they met up with some monsters.
“Grandma, save me! Look at those little monsters! They have yellow tape all around them,” yelled Sabrina.
“Come here little girl. We shall take you deep into the forest to find what you are looking for,” said one of the monsters.
“Uh, no thanks!” Sabrina said while grabbing both Sammy’s and Grandma’s hands.
They ran so far that the ended up on the other side of town.
“All I see is dirt Grandma,” said Sammy.
“Yeah me too,” said Sabrina.
“You might see dirt but I see something big and orange if you walk over there,” said Grandma.
The girls turned around and saw …
“It’s a jack o’ lantern! The biggest one I’ve ever seen!” said Sabrina running toward it.
She stopped suddenly.
“Alright, have it your way little girl. You didn’t want to follow us so we followed you,” laughed the monsters.
“You’re not getting my big sister!” yelled Sammy as she threw water from her water bottle at them.
“Thanks Sammy for saving me,” said Sabrina hugging her sister.
“Monsters like being dirty; so it figures a little water would make them run,” laughed Grandma.
The girls started walking toward the huge pumpkin again.
“One, two, three, four!” Sabrina counted. “ Look Grandma, this jack o’ lantern lost four of his teeth too.”
Kirsten was right, I can still be her little jack o’ lantern.
Where the leaves come to play
Young and old can be found
There’s a canoe to your right
And the unpaved path to your left
If you remembered to bring a pole
Fishing is straight ahead.
I’ve been here many times
And still come today
My grandmother brings me
And I bring my little sisters
We discover nature together
Things that are old to us
And are new to them
Lily pads in the water
And pine cones on the ground
Do you hear the campers shouting
Sam heard a dog barking
Sabrina wants to sit with Grandma
We all find a place on the dock
To sit back and watch
Nature put on a show for us
I really enjoyed reading the really short stories from the book Micro Fiction. They were funny and short, right to the point. Each story gave enough details for the readers to have a scene in their heads. I found the story about getting a green grade was the funniest because the Dr. said that a translator wouldn't be necessary but he let these people talk about getting test for TV instead of TB. If you know people with an accent that are speaking English, you know how many times these kind of mistakes happen.
"An Encounter" was a story about a few boys skipping school; they meet a ecentric old man that gives the main character and his friends a few pieces of advice. This story is not hard to follow but I keep getting the feeling that there is more to this story. I want to know more about the main characters and their background rather then what they author gave me. The character of the old man was pretty well developed, he gave me this creepy feeling while he was talking to the boys. What was his purpose of being in this story? Is he supposed to symbolize the boys concensous because they are doing something they shouldn't be?
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