Reflection of Self-Publication and Progress of the Quarter

Today I posted 12 copies of my efficient drinking how-to guide at Stratford Heights student housing area.  I was struggling to come up with a creative idea for self-publication, so I decided to do this because I thought it amusing.  The document could serve as useful to some of the residents living in those buildings, although I'm sure a lot of them already understand the concept of my guide.  

This quarter has been easier than I expected, but also informative as far as learning rhetorical strategies and experimenting with various forms of writing.  I only thought it was easy because most English classes require loads of work and this class moved at a very reasonable pace that allowed me to accomplish all of my other assignments.  I wish I would have participated more in class, but early in the morning and without a hand to push me I tend to be shy.  Despite this, the class benefited me and will also serve as a good intro in the future as I plan on taking many more English classes and plan on working toward at least a minor in English.

Here is the link to the document I posted at Stratford Heights on June 12.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfzf3xsh_8hkr2dmzt&hl=en

The photos of me were emailed to your UC email address.

Reflection on Mission Statement

I know my mission statement is short but after reviewing numerous examples I found it hard to write anything more than I did. I tried to remain clear and precise and also to adhere to the values of an imaginary philanthropic society. Someone reading this mission statement would have no doubts as to what were the functions of the Casey Penn Society, and also would not question the motives and capabilities of the society based on the direct language I used. Although this mission statement is not at all long, I feel it is still an effective statement of the aspirations for my made-up organization.

Mission Statement Assignment

The Casey Penn Center for Philanthropy and Education seeks to improve the social well- being of every individual in the central region of Andean Latin America through the effective organization of community outreach programs and student-centered learning activities. Our community outreach and education services focus on promoting social equality, cultural awareness and meaningful education through the leadership of highly qualified scholars and volunteers from the international community. The effects of our services are intended to stretch beyond the realm of Andean Latin America, with the hope of spreading our humanitarian values on a global scale.

Reflection on Recast

For this assignment I chose to recast the Monson poem into a short fictional story. I went through each line and organized the events of the poem chronologically by the page numbers he had listed. Then I tried to make a story out of the nonsense that was the chronology. Some of the parts of the index were difficult to splice into the story such as Aristophanes, the section titled Alphabetical order, and the section titled Altitude, so not every single portion of the poem was converted into the story. Because this is a short story I tried to be somewhat vague but also descriptive at the same time, allowing the reader to imagine the events in between each sequence I described as they would want to. The final section of the story involving the amputations with axes made the story twist in a manner I wasn't expecting, but overall I was satisfied because it didn't leave the story predictable in any way. Altogether this was assuredly my favorite assignment of the quarter and this poem has to be one the most unique I've ever seen.

Link to Recast

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfzf3xsh_12fvxn33ks

Reflection and Explanation of Parody

My initial response to this poem was disgust and utter hatred toward the ideas presented, but admirable toward the literary talent of the poet. First I wanted to parody the author by turning him into the subject of the poem, naming it Unoriginal Dumbass, and then using numerous explitives to characterize the poet and his view of the world. After reconsidering I researched the author and found exactly what I envisioned about him, he was an environmentalist and claimed to be an inhumanist, which is basically someone who would rather not be human. So instead of being childish and simply poking fun at the man, I decided to utilize an approach that shows appreciation for the history of mankind and the interdependent nature of every living thing on the planet, rather than Jeffer’s human-hating, vegetarian, tree-hugging/environmentalist approach.
I found it very difficult to manipulate his poetic structure into my own satire, so I decided to leave a large portion of the poem in its original form. As stated earlier, I enjoyed his literary style and determined it best to simply change some of his negative descriptions of the ground-apes into positive ones. The term ground-ape is unique so I decided to keep it. I only changed one word, happy to grateful, in the second section of the poem because I wanted to portray the hunters as empathetic in the process of having to kill the mammoth, while also keeping the author's original poetic style.
The final section of the poem was most disagreeable to me, so that is where I made the most changes. This is where my ideas replace his. I try to show more compassion for life, in contrast to him simply wishing he were a worm. And, I try to be blunt and rational about the importance of death in the cycle of life. This may seem like a very boring attempt at a parody, but I believe that if the author read it today he would consider it to be one.

Link to Parody

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfzf3xsh_11gsh5cddb