Shitty First Drafts

Shitty First Drafts

The excerpt that we had to read from was that of Shitty First Drafts by Ann Lamott and it talks about the drafting process for writing. Lamott covers major topics including her attempt at discouraging the rumor that famous authors write their acclaimed novels in one sitting. The truth is that they don’t they usually spend days to even weeks on paragraphs just to make them sound correct. In the excerpt, Lamott jokes about how her friend decides on whether to write for the day or to kill himself because writing novels of a certain magnitude can be a jaunting task. The excerpt taught me to always use the draft system although I believe that the system I have now is the best for my type of writing.

Multimodal Definition

Brian Ingebretsen

2/4/14

English 1A

A New Frontier for a Common Language

In my opinion, multimodal means that the written word is being portrayed through the eyes of the media meaning that, we are exploring new technologies to get our messages across to our friends and even around the world. That is the beauty of multimodal communication, you can reach to the farthest corners of the world with just the click of a button and you are connected to them almost instantaneously. We aren’t separate countries anymore; we are a connected world with new ideas coming from the U. S. to Australia to Germany to Mexico. This new was of communication helps us see every aspects of the world, the television and the internet bring us up close to events on the other side of the world while calling and writing keeps us up to date with people who living a completely different life with different values and morals. I, personally, use this form of communication a lot which helps me stay in contact with those whom I left back at home to come to Sac State. I communicate with people in different states and, to a certain degree, with people in different countries.

Genre Analysis 1

Brian Ingebretsen

2/22/14

ENGL 1A

Genre Analysis Beginning Assignment

The first text I chose was Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and I chose this particular text because it is full of emotion and depicts a haunting version of nature. This story uses a lot of description which is how the romantic era writers wrote back when the period was in full swing. Without this emotion in the writing, the stories and poems would’ve had no purpose and irrelevant.

For the academic article, I chose the piece entitled “WORDSWORTH and LAKE DISTRICT TOURISM: ROMANTIC RESHAPING OF LANDSCAPE”. The article discusses the influence that the Romantic Era of writing affected the actual natural landscape. This relates to my theme of how many ways nature was depicted in Romantic era writings.

For my image, I chose the Romantic Era painting Wanderer above the Sea Fog and the reason I chose this image is because it literally depicts nature as a grand and beautiful force. The painting depicts success in the form of being on top of the world and looking out at the wondrous scene. This painting, too, goes with my topic because of the way nature is shown.

Draft 3

Brian Ingebretsen

2/22/14

ENGL 1A

The Ink within a Heart

My literary history is somewhat in its prepubescent stages; I understand the dynamics and mechanics but I have yet to do anything remarkable with it. I enjoy writing to the fullest extent; I love where your ideas can take you and I love the satisfaction of creating well thought out and profound statements such as this one. To me, writing brings about blissful solace while simultaneously delivering a message that is both powerful and assertive, cementing the written word as the pinnacle of the conveyance of ideas. The writing in my life will be ever changing and with the help that I have received from my teachers combined with what I learned from my experiences, I know that my writing ability has only begun to blossom.

            I grew up in the small town called Pleasanton in the state of California and I took to reading at young age. I loved reading so much that it developed into a love of writing and from then on I would always do my best on school essays and papers using the diction and syntax that I had known at the time so it’s safe to say that in my early years I wasn’t a very good writer. I had all of the ideas but due to my stubbornness and laziness, they rarely got out onto paper which is ironic because if I wasn’t told to write I would write like crazy. Little by little, however, I learned how to write more fluently and how to really get my ideas across; I grew out of my stubbornness and began to write. Once I got into high school, my writing had just passed the threshold of mediocrity which meant that I had been underprepared for what the higher education had in store for me. This would prove to be my downfall in the beginning but with the right teachers, I excelled to a new dimension of writing that I had never once entered before. I was able to add emotion into my writing, it wasn’t just a school essay anymore and it was a testament to myself and to what I have been through. I used my experiences to fuel the paper I was writing to make the emotion tangible and hard to put down even for the most obscure of papers such as a book review or a compare and contrast piece. However, I was still missing the story telling aspect of my writing, I had the connections and the depth but I needed to develop my story. At about the same time I was just beginning American Literature in my junior year of high school with a teacher who had a reputation of being one of the hardest and she indeed live up to her name. Though it was difficult, I developed that new story aspect to my writing therefore completing my goal. I could now tell a story with depth and emotion, I could take any writing assignment and make it my own that is full of my experiences and my emotions. She is the defining figure in my journey of the written word because she helped me complete my goal, I have all of the ingredients to make a fantastic paper and maybe even someday, a novel.

            Unbeknownst to myself, my writing achievement had also affected my personality and the way I look at others. I learned to convey more emotion and look at things in regards to depth and symbolism to fully understand someone. The same year as my writing breakthrough I took a class on psychology which opened my eyes to what humans really think and how to read in verbal cues so mixing that and a new depth and understanding, I have learned to view humans in a more eloquent light. Understanding where they came from and what they are feeling at that very moment, the emotion that they use the most, their heart break and tears of joy, really makes me happy that I learned so much. Now I plan on using my newly found ability to succeed throughout my college career and into the future, I plan to use this ability at work, I plan to use it with my family, and I plan to use it in my everyday life. I am a biological science major and my goal is to become a forensic biologist who works in a lab and uses superior skill to solve cases and provide justice back into a dangerous world. Though the only writing I would be doing would consist of lab reports and police reports, my people skills will help me just as much as the evidence. If I can make the suspects or victims comfortable I can get more out of them, using their valuable information to help stop a killer or a thief. With this new skill, I can already see the stars of success in my future.

            Writing encompasses everything that we do whether it is scientifically or personally related. It takes us places that we may or may not want to go, it’s that powerful and affect the way people feel towards one another. Writing divides and pulls together, it hurts and heals, and it ultimately makes you into a better person. Writing is viewed in hundreds of different perspectives; right now you are feeling different about reading this than I am writing it. There are different experiences that can go into an essay like this and those experiences often turn the paper into a completely different story. This assignment is the same for all of us yet our papers could not be any more different. This is why the concept of writing will never be perfected and why it will keep on changing and improving and getting better, there will always be different interpretations of writing as well as different feelings towards it.

Writing Fundamentals

Brian Ingebretsen

2/4/14

English 1A

College Writing Fundamentals

The English language has a spectacular set of rules to make speech and writing an eloquent art form. Each rule is essential to sentence structure and even one mistake could be futile to the entire speech or paper or whatever is being written. Some rules are as simple as spelling but can become harder with actually punctuation tactics and sentence structure menders. These rules are put to the test every day and often reflect in average speech but an area in which these rules matter significantly is the multimodal form. The multimodal form includes combining the media with writing to educate people in a new area of learning with help from the web to television.

Anzaldua Reading Assignment 1

Brian Ingebretsen

1/30/14

ENGL 1A

The Important Pathway known as Speech

The readings How to Tame a Wild Tongue and Mother Tongue are incredibly similar because they both discuss the importance of speech in both families and in the world around us. Language and speech is a pathway that transports ideas and thoughts to others but some ideas just aren’t right. The author of HTWT, Anzaldua, describes the difficulty of calming her tongue and others’ failed attempts to calm it themselves leaving confusion and frustration for the main character. This symbol illuminates the power of language and how it affects those around us because her family do not approve of the language she wants to use just like how the dentist got angry with her tongue. She can choose her own language and as she gets further down with her story she notices that there are many languages to choose from.

The story is parallel to the Mother Tongue story where a woman, Tan, is caught between two different dialects: her professional dialect and her personal dialect. The power of language binds families and partnerships but morphing into the appropriate form which may get confusing if heard by the wrong person, in this case her mother. Tan had grown up using her mothers language so it is a shock from her mother to hear Tan speak professionally and in a different tongue. Both authors have the power to change their dialects to whomever they want and this affects my life as well. I have three different dialects: one for my friends, teachers, and family and they are each crucial in the task of holding these bonds close and dear. My friendly language involves a lot more slang with my family dialect being a little more formal and my teachers being completely formal. It is amazing to see how language changes a person, you may see a hardened criminal on the street who talks tough yet probably talks to their mother like anyone else would. Language is a powerful thing and it is nearly essential for our way of life.

Draft 2

Brian Ingebretsen

2/16/14

ENGL 1A

The Ink of a Heart

My literary history is somewhat in its prepubescent stages; I understand the dynamics and mechanics but I have yet to do anything remarkable with it. I enjoy writing to the fullest extent; I love where your ideas can take you and I love the satisfaction of creating well thought out and profound statements such as this one. To me, writing brings about blissful solace while simultaneously delivering a message that is both powerful and assertive, cementing the written word as the pinnacle of the conveyance of ideas. The writing in my life will be ever changing and with the help that I have received from my teachers combined with what I learned from my experiences, I know that my writing ability has only begun to blossom.

            I grew up in the small town called Pleasanton in the state of California and I took to reading at young age. I loved reading so much that it developed into a love of writing and from then on I would always do my best on school essays and papers using the diction and syntax that I had known at the time so it’s safe to say that in my early years I wasn’t a very good writer. I had all of the ideas but due to my stubbornness and laziness, they rarely got out onto paper which is ironic because if I wasn’t told to write I would write like crazy. Little by little, however, I learned how to write more fluently and how to really get my ideas across; I grew out of my stubbornness and began to write. Once I got into high school, my writing had just passed the threshold of mediocrity which meant that I had been underprepared for what the higher education had in store for me. This would prove to be my downfall in the beginning but with the right teachers, I excelled to a new dimension of writing that I had never once entered before. I was able to add emotion into my writing, it wasn’t just a school essay anymore and it was a testament to myself and to what I have been through. I used my experiences to fuel the paper I was writing to make the emotion tangible and hard to put down even for the most obscure of papers such as a book review or a compare and contrast piece. However, I was still missing the story telling aspect of my writing, I had the connections and the depth but I needed to develop my story. At about the same time I was just beginning American Literature in my junior year of high school with a teacher who had a reputation of being one of the hardest and she indeed live up to her name. Though it was difficult, I developed that new story aspect to my writing therefore completing my goal. I could now tell a story with depth and emotion, I could take any writing assignment and make it my own that is full of my experiences and my emotions. She is the defining figure in my journey of the written word because she helped me complete my goal, I have all of the ingredients to make a fantastic paper and maybe even someday, a novel.

            Unbeknownst to myself, my writing achievement had also affected my personality and the way I look at others. I learned to convey more emotion and look at things in regards to depth and symbolism to fully understand someone. The same year as my writing breakthrough I took a class on psychology which opened my eyes to what humans really think and how to read in verbal cues so mixing that and a new depth and understanding, I have learned to view humans in a more eloquent light. Understanding where they came from and what they are feeling at that very moment, the emotion that they use the most, their heart break and tears of joy, really makes me happy that I learned so much. Now I plan on using my newly found ability to succeed throughout my college career and into the future, I plan to use this ability at work, I plan to use it with my family, and I plan to use it in my everyday life. I am a biology major and my goal is to become a forensic biologist who works in a lab and uses superior skill to solve cases and provide justice back into a dangerous world. Though the only writing I would be doing would consist of lab reports and police reports, my people skills will help me just as much as the evidence. If I can make the suspects or victims comfortable I can get more out of them, using their valuable information to help stop a killer or a thief. With this new skill, I can already see the stars of success in my future.

            Writing encompasses everything that we do whether it is scientifically or personally related. It takes us places that we may or may not want to go, it’s that powerful and affect the way people feel towards one another. Writing divides and pulls together, it hurts and heals, and it ultimately makes you into a better person. Writing is viewed in hundreds of different perspectives; right now you are feeling different about reading this than I am writing it. There are different experiences that can go into an essay like this and those experiences often turn the paper into a completely different story. This assignment is the same for all of us yet our papers could not be any more different. This is why the concept of writing will never be perfected and why it will keep on changing and improving and getting better, there will always be different interpretations of writing as well as different feelings towards it.