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

Annotated Bibliography

Link to my Annotated Bibliography

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfzf3xsh_10cf76mtdh

Reflection of How-to Guide

Overall this group project went smoother than the last, although one member didn't turn in his part of the project on time so we had to exclude his section of the guide.  The collaborative writing process went well because we all had a common theme and we were familiar with the type of language that would apply to our particular audience.  For my part I tried to be sarcastic but also very serious at the same time.  I felt this type of language would be most attractive to a group of young, broke college students who were looking for a cheap way to get drunk on the weekend.  Altogether this project was fairly easy, but also amusing because it is the first time I've had the opportunity to write about something so ridiculous in school.

How-To Guide

Link to Final Compilation of How-to Guide

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfzf3xsh_7cj5k6pd6

Link to my final edition of "Efficient Drinking"

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

Link to my original draft of "Efficient Drinking"

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfzf3xsh_9f2sf3pc5