Nikki:

My first thought is “wow, long paragraphs.” Nikki definitely improved over time in breaking up her paragraphs—though some are still long. I think her development as a writer is most obvious in her memoir drafts. By breaking up the paragraphs, changing the order of ideas, and adding more of herself, Nikki created a much more coherent paper. I really enjoy her voice, but sometimes when she is writing in the purely academic context, she loses that voice in sometimes unorganized thoughts. I think she has improved on that a lot.

Melanie:

I think Melanie developed as a writer greatly by experimenting with paper organization. There were quite a few changes between drafts that changed the ordering of paragraphs and ideas. Overall I feel like this helped me to understand her ideas and follow her thought processes. I also think she seems more confident in her writing.

Rachel:

In her papers Rachel uses a lot of quotations and examples from her own life. She improved greatly in using those examples to support her original thoughts. At the beginning it seemed as though they didn’t really fit into the paper and were kind of thrown in from left field, but throughout the semester she began to incorporate all of her ideas together in a more effective way.

Myself:

I’m not really sure how much I improved over the semester. I’m actually kind of unhappy about the end products I turned in. I feel like for most of my first drafts I had clear ideas except that they were missing or ignoring important aspects of my arguments. When I tried to explore those aspects, I think it just left my papers feeling incomplete and under-developed. I think my memoir improved a lot. With every draft it was a completely different paper, and I think the end product definitely contained more narrative and substance than the first couple of drafts.

Kayla Horner

Art of Persuasion

Memoir 2^nd Workshop Draft

Beautiful Girl,

I am writing this memoir in part because I want to, I need to. For so long my childhood looked like a big messy dream tied into a couple of and excluded specific memories. I need(ed) to go back, sift through, understand, and heal. But I am also writing this memoir because I want you to hear it. Because I know what it is like to be a young girl, broken and lost. I know what it is like when your father denies you an intensely needed hug or accepting word, when the boy you love tells you that you are un-lovable. I know what it is like to feel there is no hope or reason to live, and to find yourself staring at a huge pile of pills. I know how it feels to sit in your closet sobbing so hard that your chest is pounding in your head, yet no sound breaks the darkness of the room, and you remain alone. But I also know that those moments of solitude and pain are not all that life promises. I also know that many joyful memories have been drowned by my sorrowful emotions, just waiting to resurface. I want you to hear my hope, and to see happiness in your life.

I have been rereading my journal entries from when I was a young girl, and desperately trying to tie memories to those passages. It is hard to remember specific details that you once struggled to forget. So here is my first advice to you: don’t try to forget. Don’t try to pretend your life is not happening, because no matter how far back in your brain or deep in your heart you push it, there it will throb like a sore thumb until you face it and grow.

The other advice I’d like to give you is to journal, or write your own memoir. People have been arguing with me that not everybody is meant to write, and perhaps they are correct. But there is a tremendous amount of healing that can come from the act of journaling, and even more so from the act of rereading your entries. My challenge for you is to just scribble down your day, your thoughts. Recount your painful memories on the page, and even more importantly, recount your joyful experiences. I didn’t do a very good job of writing about what made me happy growing up, and I greatly regret it, because I have no tangible entry to include in this memoir about my joy, only pieces of memory. The painful entries, I have plenty. Here is what I wrote.

My face could be mistaken for a waterfall. She lashes out at him with the sword of her words, aiming for his heart. She wants not to kill him but to injure him so badly that he must leave the fight. She looks to me for support and my guilt is spilled on the ground as she pierces my skin, using her cheap and childish words, telling me that it is because of him that she does not get what she needs.

I laid staring up at the ceiling, my tears blurring the moon’s glow through the skylight. I just laid there silently, intently listening to my Mother’s verbal outburst and desperately trying to hear my father’s quiet words, to hear what hurt her so badly that she would say such things. The only words I remember were her screaming “I hate you. I want a divorce,” over and over. I remember a pain so deep in my gut that I couldn’t even make a sound. Only now, thinking about the logistics of our living situation do I remember that my older brother was in the bed beneath me and my younger brother in the crib in the corner. Three of us were in that room, but the darkness encased me tightly in my bed, and I was alone.

During one of the good nights such a scene was forgotten and we were watching a movie. I can’t remember what the movie was, but I do remember my mother laughing. She laughed loudly and heartily with a big, glowing smile. I was sitting on my Dad’s lap and he was rubbing the palm of my hand against his. He told me he used to do that to get me to sleep when I was a baby. I’m sure it worked well because I still find that feeling calming. When the movie was over they let me crawl into bed to sleep with them. It was dark and quiet, the moon shining softly through the skylight. I laid right between them, my father on my right, my mother on my left, and I shared both their pillows. Strands of my mother’s long, soft hair fell out of her silly, blonde bun on top of her head and fell against my cheek, filling my nose with a sweet scent. I was warm and the comforter was soft. Sleep came quickly in such warmth. Before long, though, they each started to snore, a quiet rumble at first, and then in bursts of competing thunder. The sound was deafening and made comfort and sleep impossible. I was driven out into the cold bedroom to find retreat elsewhere.

I let the tears shed from my eyes and let my heart slow to a normal speed, wait for the pain to die down so I can hear the birds once again, but not even God’s beautiful gift of the outdoors can cure me. God created such beautiful things for my eyes gaze upon like the tiny pearls in the sky and the creatures hunting in the darkness, but my heart doesn’t feel it. I walk along the dark, deserted streets and imagine all the people safely in their beds dreaming of ridiculous things. When I come to my destination, though my heart’s destination is not yet met, I stare at the house, wondering if anybody cares that I’m gone.

Inside my home the walls are bright white and pictureless with a single ficus tree by the window. I was sitting on the hard couch and staring blankly at the wall, just listening to my parents fighting in the kitchen. It was the usual bull-shit about who did what, and I hate you, and blah blah blah. Eventually words were said and their attention was turned to me, both waiting for me to say who was right. If I said my mother was right, then I would be dubbed as psychotic and stupid as my father labeled her. If I said my father was right, my mom would cry and not speak to me. If I kept silent they would both be mad at me for not revealing each other’s shortcoming. She wanted to be proven right, and self-righteously he wanted her to know what was wrong with herself so she could improve. What did I do? I left. I wandered out into the dark and cold and let my sobs bounce off the surrounding houses. Eventually I would climb up on top of our roof and perch myself right next to one of the skylights. I sat there for hours just listening to the fight the whole neighborhood could hear; the tears on my shirt illuminated by the moon.

On another occasion I found myself in the same place, only not to hear fighting, but rather to find peace. I cannot find it, but remember writing a poem while sitting on top of my roof and staring at the moon. It was cold and my fingers could barely bend to scribble the words onto the page, but the trees were still and the stars were quiet. Everyone I knew was asleep and I was left to dream, “a special guest to the stars” as a line from the poem states. I love the night, the stars and the moon, I love being outside in the cold air, letting it clear my nostrils and my mind. There is something calming about the cold dark, and something inspiring about a lone beacon in the sky. I have retreated to the night too many times to count, and still find myself wandering the streets in the moments when my heart is heavy. Though, at this point in my life I more often go out at night to just be in peace and to dream dreams that I emotionally cut off somewhere along my childhood. Dreams that could not exist for me in my home.

Here I battle for my Sanity, and it seems as though I exist on the losing team. I cannot explain to you why it is so because I do not know the foundation of insanity, nor do I know the precise moment one becomes enslaved by such. All I know for sure is that my mind is slowly transforming into something scary, undesirable, and uncontrollable, something that allows no courage, compassion, no comfort, and most and worst of all, no reality. Holes are my boss, routine is my motive. Nothing matters or has purpose, no good reason explains my everyday attempts at life. “Strength,” as I used to call it, is powerless against the inevitable slipping away into madness and into nothing but my madness. Imperfect, impure, un-loved, undesirable, misunderstood, a mistake, denied, discredited, unsatisfied, unintelligent, intolerable, unwanted...all the essence of me.

I was 14, I was dating a boy and I swore I loved him. I desperately wanted him, like all those before him, to just see me, wholly me and love me. I wanted him to see how beautiful I was and to find me worthy to fight for. I had given my heart and body too soon to a boy too immature and selfish to see me for who I was, and I ended up abandoned with a shattered heart. Sitting at the kitchen table, devastated, I tried to reach out to my father. I needed my Daddy to hold me and tell me how beautiful I was, how worthy of true love I was, but I was unable to tell him what happened to me, even more unable to outright ask him to tell me those things.

The only thing I could do was rebel and act up, praying that he would patiently pursue my heart and make it better. But the only response he could muster for my rebellion was “okay, Paula.” He called me by my mother’s name. My mother is beautiful, but there was nothing more painful for me than to hear my father calling me Paula, because with the name came all the negative things he believed about her. He had deemed me insane.

He didn’t know the destruction he caused, but every time those words were spoken to me, he told my heart that no matter how emotionally abused and mistreated I was by the men I sought, it was always my fault. No matter how strong and independent I tried to be, I could not escape the “inevitable slipping away” into insanity. Through those words he told me that I was unworthy of love because if I tried to commit myself to a man, I would only cause him years of pain just as my mother had caused him. Sitting at my kitchen table I made the vow to never marry. I think this must be around the time that I stopped writing. The moment I felt like I had no power and nothing to offer, the moment I gave up to the lie that emotion and feeling was evil unless you were a male. That a woman has to keep her tongue quiet and a smile plastered on her face in order to be sane.

Years went by that I believed this to be true, almost my entire time in high school I believed it. I made friends and got involved in after school activities, but I also hid my body and my heart and my beauty. I went to the boys section in Wal-mart and bought long shorts and cargo pants: 30” waist, 30” length, and I went through my brother’s box for GoodWill and picked out large shirts. My hair was in a strangled pony-tail or messy bun, not so much as mascara adorned my face while I sat in the uncomfortable desks in my English class. I did the exercises and wrote the papers that I had to. I wrote what they wanted to hear, when they wanted to hear it, but I don’t recall ever writing much that I truly cared about. To me, writing had become a hoop that I just had to jump through to make it through school and the rest of my life. But eventually all that changed. Eventually I realized that I was believing a big, fat lie about myself. I began to realize how beautiful I am, and how much love and warmth and joy I have to offer a special someone.

It was a gorgeous day. Sam and I were spending the afternoon walking around a quiet pond just as was our routine. We talked intimately about our pains and sufferings, about our dreams and our joys. He found me beautiful and openly cherished me for it, being careful to take care of my heart. A couple of months later and it was time for me to move to college and start a new life. It got me thinking about who I was and what I wanted to do with my life, what I had to offer the world. Sam was there, encouraging me, and showing me that my past experiences and pains with my family was not all that I was. He believed in me and knew that I had much to give the world if only I could just tap into the depths of my being. He pursued my heart and asked me to be his, and I got to make the choice. I had the power to move forward with my life with a heart full of gratitude, and with a confidence in myself that would grow stronger in the years to come.

Here I sit today, in make-up and an adorable, girly jacket, my hair straightened and sitting upon my shoulders with a smile upon my face. Did I need any of that to be beautiful? No, I was already beautiful, all of that is an expression of my confidence and pride to be a woman. Nonetheless, here I sit revisiting my memories and writing this letter. It is an assignment, sure, but it is also a huge step towards finding the enjoyment and healing in writing I once had and lost.

No, I am not completely healed from the pain I experienced growing up. And no, I don’t have an ending to share about meeting the man of my dreams and living happily together until deep into old age. In fact the only ending I have is really more of a beginning. I have a long future ahead of me that promises to be full of adventure and growth. A life that will teach me how to be passionate and to love myself and others.

This is my third piece of advice to you, Beautiful Girl. Don’t believe the lie that you are anything but beautiful, and desirable. Don’t give up when life is hard, because life has more to offer you than you know. More importantly, you have more to offer the world than you have discovered. Stay hopeful, dream, and write.

Imitation Exercises:

1. M.S. If one must worship a bully, it is better that he should be a policeman than a gangster.

IM. When attempting to rob a bank, it is best to note the police car parked out front.

1. M.S. To regain the stage in its own character, not as a mere emulation of prose, poetry must find its own poetic way to the mastery the stage demands—the mastery of action.

IM. To become the best percussionist I can be, not the best there ever was, I must first learn to accept the secret—to play for myself.

1. M.S. As most of these old Custom House Officers had good traits and as my position in reference to them, being paternal and protective, was favorable to the growth of friendly sentiments.

IM. Since that stray dog was so friendly and I love dogs so much, I have four already, I knew I had to keep him forever.

1. M.S. To regain the stage in its own character, not as a mere emulation of the prose, poetry must find its own poetic way to the master they stage demands—the mastery of action.

Variation. Poetry must find its own poetic way to mastery of action—mastery the stage demands—if it is to regain the stage in its own character, not as a mere emulation of prose.

Alternate Expression. Poetry will never be defined on stage as apart from common language until it develops the action that the stage demands.

Kayla Horner

Dr. Sarah Allen

Voice

There are two choices of what we can say in this paper: either personal voice is developed by the content/substance the author decides to put in the paper, or it is developed by the way the author says it. If voice is the content, and we only have two choices of what to say, then obviously the class will be comprised of two voices: 50% of the class will sound alike and likewise for the other 50%. On a grander scale, Aristotle asserts that opinions are owned by the community, they do not belong to one person, and Bartholomea furthers that with the argument that nothing anyone can think to write is original but only a concoction of what has already been said. If this is true: if my voice will sound like 49% of the rest of my class, and nothing I can say will be original, then how do I express my individuality? Must I forever include an everything bagel into the content of my paper in order for it to be recognized as my work? I don’t think so. Although, it does reveal a certain amusement in my style of writing. In fact, it is my style that reveals my voice; that allows the reader to see a small part of my personality. Surely, certain aspects of my style will change depending on the topic or the audience I write to, but it will always be glittered with the word choices and sentence structures that point to my personality. Hopefully this will be displayed through my interpretation of a passage in “On Truth” by Harry G. Frankfurt.

As Spinoza allegedly asserts, if I believe that my joy comes from outside of me, from the material things I own or that which I associate with, then I love it. I naturally love what makes me happy: love=happiness. I am happy when I ride my motorcycle, and I LOVE my motorcycle. I love that I can get on it and be free to go wherever the winding road takes me or the wind pushes, that while on it I am no longer the dolled-up girl, or the servant waitress, but a free motorcycle chick. It reminds me that I do not belong to the restaurant or the judgmental looks from guys and girls (not all bad), but that I have the freedom to look like a badass and go where I please...my motorcycle allows me to see another side of who I am, and I love it for that reason.

I try to ride it every time I can and I take good care of it to make sure I don’t lose that freedom, lose that side of myself, because if I forget who I am on that bike, then I can forget that I am an individual. I will become no more than a puppet going through the motions of what society expects of me, and I will have no real reason to live. If I allow myself to forget the truth of who I am (an individual), then I allow myself to hate my life, and hating my life would make it difficult for me to keep living. Therefore, if I love my life, then I must love that truth.

Doing this imitation exercise presents a handful of new problems and questions, none of which I can adequately answer or solve—I can only explore them. The first is probably the most crucial, and possibly the most obvious, to continuing the study of whether voice is shown through content or style: what is voice? Is it a portrayal of who you are as a person? Is it your personality on the page? I think for the sake of further exploration I am going to say yes, and yes. Voice is the individual living inside of you who has been grown and influenced by your genetic temperaments and the experiences and interactions throughout a lifetime, and therefore it is solely you—no two people could possibly have the same exact voice.

The second question is actually shown just before I engage in the imitation: I simply state (as if it were an obvious truth) that style changes depending on the type of writing and audience I write to/for. And this struck me as odd because, since I believed that voice (my personality/my self) is found in style, I don’t like the idea that I would essentially change who I am or the way I present myself solely on my audience. I would like to think that I am a consistent person who is the same no matter where I am. And yet, I find it to be true that I do present myself differently with my friends opposed to my professors—and I suppose it should be so. I suppose that since there are multitude of different discourse communities in which to be a part of, there will obviously be different ways to speak, different rules to follow, and different ways to present yourself. I guess this also means that you do not necessarily need to change who you are to be a part of these communities, but rather are reaching into the depths of your being and allowing different aspects of yourself show in different situations. Looking at my imitation, I even displayed that without really thinking about it. I state that riding my motorcycle allows me to “be” different than I would be apart from it. Not a new person, but a different part of the same person, and therefore more fully conscious of the whole person.

Now that those statements are qualified, I can finally engage in the question of how this voice is shown. Is it through content or style? Well, what is style? I believed that it is simply the way you say something. This sounds right, I mean since everyone has different backgrounds and are in different discourse communities then they must all have their own way of saying something. But how does this “saying something” happen? The two examples I used in the beginning of the paper were word choice and sentence structure. That sounds smart and great for the paper, but to be honest, I really would have no idea where to even begin if I was to try to analyze the individuality of my sentences (aside from my favorite use of parenthesis), and I don’t believe I generally use words that can be thought of as creative or solely mine. So how can my self, my personality, be shown through something as vague and boring and un-definable as style?

On the other hand, what is content? Is it just the bulk, the “stuff” of the paper, what the paper says, and the point/argument it makes? Again, depending on the situation or assignment, you may have to write a paper with content that you do not connect with on a personal level, however, there must be some situations in which it peaks your interest and plays with your passion and therefore it is possible, probable even, that it would contain your voice. If it is something you truly care about and believe in, then the content is a part of yourself on the paper. For example, when I refer to my motorcycle I am revealing much of what is important to me like freedom and individuality. The passage is no longer something that is somewhat hard to picture because of his choice of the word “object,” and rather carries a sign that people can relate to (or at least create an image of). Interesting...by changing a single word, the content of the imitation is slightly changed into something much more personal and tangible—so does/can style change content, or does word choice play a role separate of style?

So the next question: in imitating Frankfurt, have I succeeded in restating his content with my own style? Obviously this will be very difficult to answer since I never decided what either of those two things mean, but I will try to make do. In changing the word “object” to “motorcycle,” I changed the content to be about a single thing that I love. I used the example where there was not previously one in order to create better understanding and to relate it in the way I understood it to mean, which could be my own style. This is furthered by the fact that the basis, the foundation, and the essential argument (the content) I made was the same as Frankfurt’s, and since they were obviously different then my voice must have been influenced by my style.

I think I have decided that my voice, in its rawest and purest sense, is talking about what I care about in the way that makes most sense to me. And therefore, when writing in different styles and different situations about different topics, my work may or may not contain my voice. Is my voice presented in style or content? I would say both, and neither at the same time.

Beautiful Girl,

I am writing this memoir in part because I want to, I need to. For so long my childhood looked like a big messy dream tied into a couple of and excluded specific memories. I need(ed) to go back, sift through, understand, and heal. But I am also writing this memoir because I want you to hear it. Because I know what it is like to be a young girl, broken and lost. I know what it is like when your father denies you an intensely needed hug or accepting word, when the boy you love tells you that you are un-lovable. I know what it is like to feel there is no hope or reason to live, and to find yourself staring at a huge pile of pills. I know how it feels to sit in your closet sobbing so hard that your chest is pounding in your head, yet no sound breaks the darkness of the room, and you remain alone. But I also know that those moments of solitude and pain are not all that life promises. I also know that many joyful memories have been drowned by my sorrowful emotions, just waiting to resurface. I want you to hear my hope, and to see happiness in your life.

I have been rereading my journal entries from when I was a young girl, and desperately trying to tie memories to those passages. It is hard to remember specific details that you once struggled to forget. So here is my first advice to you: don’t try to forget. Don’t try to pretend your life is not happening, because no matter how far back in your brain or deep in your heart you push it, there it will throb like a sore thumb until you face it and grow.

The other advice I’d like to give you is to journal, or write your own memoir. People have been arguing with me that not everybody is meant to write, and perhaps they are correct. But there is a tremendous amount of healing that can come from the act of journaling, and even more so from the act of rereading your entries. My challenge for you is to just scribble down your day, your thoughts. Recount your painful memories on the page, and even more importantly, recount your joyful experiences. I didn’t do a very good job of writing about what made me happy growing up, and I greatly regret it, because I have no tangible entry to include in this memoir about my joy, only pieces of memory. The painful entries, I have plenty. Here is what I wrote.

My face could be mistaken for a waterfall. She lashes out at him with the sword of her words, aiming for his heart. She wants not to kill him but to injure him so badly that he must leave the fight. She looks to me for support and my guilt is spilled on the ground as she pierces my skin, using her cheap and childish words, telling me that it is because of him that she does not get what she needs.

. I laid staring up at the ceiling, my tears blurring the moon’s glow through the skylight. I just laid there silently, intently listening to my Mother’s verbal outburst and desperately trying to hear my father’s quiet words, to hear what hurt her so badly that she would say such things. The only words I remember were her screaming “I hate you, I want a divorce” over and over. I remember a pain so deep in my gut that I couldn’t even make a sound. Only now, thinking about the logistics of our living situation do I remember that my older brother was in the bed beneath me and my younger brother in the crib in the corner. Three of us were in that room, but the darkness encased me tightly in my bed, and I was alone.

During one of the good nights such a scene was forgotten and we were watching a movie. I can’t remember what the movie was, but I do remember my mother laughing. She laughed loudly and heartily with a big, glowing smile. I was sitting on my Dad’s lap and he was rubbing the palm of my hand against his. He told me he used to do that to get me to sleep when I was a baby. I’m sure it worked well because I still find that feeling calming. When the movie was over they let me crawl into bed to sleep with them. It was dark and quiet, the moon shining softly through the skylight. I laid right between them, my father on my right, my mother on my left, and I shared both their pillows. Strands of my mother’s long, soft hair fell out of her silly, blonde bun on top of her head and fell against my cheek, filling my nose with a sweet scent. I was warm and the comforter was soft. Sleep came quickly in such warmth. Before long, though, they each started to snore, a quiet rumble at first, and then in bursts of competing thunder. The sound was deafening and made comfort and sleep impossible. I was driven out into the cold bedroom to find retreat elsewhere.

I let the tears shed from my eyes and let my heart slow to a normal speed, wait for the pain to die down so I can hear the birds once again, but not even God’s beautiful gift of the outdoors can cure me. God created such beautiful things for my eyes gaze upon like the tiny pearls in the sky and the creatures hunting in the darkness, but my heart doesn’t feel it. I walk along the dark, deserted streets and imagine all the people safely in their beds dreaming of ridiculous things. When I come to my destination, though my heart’s destination is not yet met, I stare at the house, wondering if anybody cares that I’m gone.

Inside my home the walls are bright white and picture-less with a single plant by the window. I was sitting on the hard couch and staring blankly at the wall, just listening to my parents fighting in the kitchen. It was the usual bull-shit about who did what, and I hate you, and blah blah blah. Eventually words were said and their attention was turned to me, both waiting for me to say who was right. If I said my mother was right, then I would be dubbed as psychotic and stupid as my father dubbed her. If I said my father was right, my mom would cry and not speak to me. If I kept silent they would both be mad at me for not revealing each other’s shortcomings so that they could improve. What did I do? I left. I wandered out into the dark and cold and let my sobs bounce off the surrounding houses. Eventually I would climb up on top of our roof and perch myself right next to one of the skylights. I sat there for hours just listening to the fight the whole neighborhood could hear; the tears on my shirt illuminated by the moon.

On another occasion I found myself in the same place, only not to hear fighting, but rather to find peace. I cannot find it, but remember writing a poem while sitting on top of my roof and staring at the moon. It was cold and my fingers could barely bend to scribble the words onto the page, but the trees were still and the stars were quiet. Everyone I knew was asleep and I was left to dream, “a special guest to the stars” as a line from the poem states. I love the night, the stars and the moon, I love being outside in the cold air, letting it clear my nostrils and my mind. There is something calming about the cold dark, and something inspiring about a lone beacon in the sky. I have retreated to the night too many times to count, and still find myself wandering the streets in the moments when my heart is heavy. Though, at this point in my life I more often go out at night to just be in peace and to dream dreams that I emotionally cut off somewhere along my childhood. Dreams that could not exist for me in my home.

Here I battle for my Sanity, and it seems as though I exist on the losing team. I cannot explain to you why it is so because I do not know the foundation of insanity, nor do I know the precise moment one becomes enslaved by such. All I know for sure is that my mind is slowly transforming into something scary, undesirable, and uncontrollable, something that allows no courage, compassion, no comfort, and most and worst of all, no reality. Holes are my boss, routine is my motive. Nothing matters or has purpose, no good reason explains my everyday attempts at life. “Strength,” as I used to call it, is powerless against the inevitable slipping away into madness and into nothing but my madness. Imperfect, impure, un-loved, undesirable, misunderstood, a mistake, denied, discredited, unsatisfied, unintelligent, intolerable, unwanted...all the essence of me.

I was dating a boy and I swore I loved him. I desperately wanted him, like all those before him, to just see me, wholly me and love me. I wanted him to see how beautiful I was and to find me worthy to fight for. I had given my heart and body too soon to a boy too immature and selfish to see me for who I was, and I ended up abandoned with a shattered heart. Sitting at the kitchen table, devastated, I tried to reach out to my father. I needed my Daddy to hold me and tell me how beautiful I was, how worthy of true love I was, but I was unable to tell him what happened to me, even more unable to outright ask him to tell me those things.

The only thing I could do was rebel and act up, praying that he would patiently pursue my heart and make it better. But the only response he could muster for my rebellion was “okay, Paula.” He called me by my mother’s name. My mother is beautiful, but there was nothing more painful for me than to hear my father calling me Paula, because with the name came all the negative things he believed about her. He had deemed me insane.

He didn’t know the destruction he caused, but every time those words were spoken to me, he told my heart that no matter how emotionally abused and mistreated I was by the men I sought, it was always my fault. No matter how strong and independent I tried to be, I could not escape the “inevitable slipping away” into insanity. Through those words he told me that I was unworthy of love because if I tried to commit myself to a man, I would only cause him years of pain just as my mother had caused him. Sitting at my kitchen table I made the vow to never marry. I think this must be around the time that I stopped writing. The moment I felt like I had no power and nothing to offer, the moment I gave up to the lie that emotion and feeling was evil unless you were a male. That a woman has to keep her tongue quiet and a smile plastered on her face in order to be sane.

Years went by that I believed this to be true, but eventually I realized that I was believing a big, fat lie. I began to realize how beautiful I am, and how much love and warmth and joy I have to offer a special someone.

It was a gorgeous day. Sam and I were spending the afternoon walking around a quiet pond just as was our routine. We talked intimately about our pains and sufferings, about our dreams and our joys. He found me beautiful and openly cherished me for it, being careful to take care of my heart. A couple of months later and it was time for me to move to college and start a new life. He pursued my heart and asked me to be his, and I got to make the choice. I had the power to move forward with my life with a heart full of gratitude, and with a confidence in myself that would grow stronger in the years to come.

No, I am not completely healed from the pain I experienced growing up. And no, I don’t have an ending to share about meeting the man of my dreams and living happily together until deep into old age. In fact the only ending I have is really more of a beginning. I have a long future ahead of me that promises to be full of adventure and growth. A life that will teach me how to be passionate and to love myself and others.

This is my third piece of advice to you, Beautiful Girl. Don’t believe the lie that you are anything but beautiful, and desirable. Don’t give up when life is hard, because life has more to offer you than you know. More importantly, you have more to offer the world than you have discovered. Stay hopeful, dream, and write.

]]> http://goafr.edublogs.org/2008/12/01/15/feed/ 0 http://goafr.edublogs.org/2008/11/30/reading-response-truth/ http://goafr.edublogs.org/2008/11/30/reading-response-truth/#comments Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:21:14 +0000 goafr http://goafr.edublogs.org/?p=14

Kayla Horner

Reading Response

Truthiness

Q. How do Nancy Miller and Frankfurt define “truth” differently?

Frankfurt’s opinion of what makes truth is quite obvious. He believes it is something outside of human experiences (does not change from person to person depending on their experience or personal beliefs). Truth is fact, and reality, and can be observed and used to create expectations for the future. Nancy Miller’s views on truth is a little less easy to spot. She lays out many opinions about what truth is and how autobiographies should be created. She talks about “truthiness” and how memoirs contain a certain amount of truth without fact....but nonetheless breaks the “autobiographical pact” between author and reader that when they stamp “true story” on the cover, it must be true. She also quotes Oz in his disclaimer for the readers to ask about themselves instead of wondering if the events on the page happened to the author. Basically saying that it doesn’t matter what actually happened so long as you learn from it. Miller explores the genealogy and DNA dispute and makes the statement that to focus only on the biological truths that a family tree and DNA place on us, and disregard family narratives and memories that may not be entirely true, is to lose a huge portion of who you could be. This is kind of a weird statement, but she is saying that your perception of yourself is caused by experience and interactions, not just biological. Therefore your truth is not just biological or a given or fact, but is made up of experience.

Dear Diary,

I haven’t spoken with you in a long time. I’ve been rereading my journals and am surprised by how many of them I have, how many entries I have written. I can’t really remember being so in love with writing to you, but I guess it makes sense. Many of the entries are filled of such sorrow and balled-up pain, unspoken to the world. I suppose in a way I needed you. I didn’t know what my entries would mean, I didn’t know what the content of the entries meant for me or why the experiences happened the way they did, but apparently I did know the healing that could come from putting my feelings into words. Perhaps I secretly thought that one day I would tell my story, share the pain and the joys I felt, and connect with young girls who felt like all was lost. I’m not sure any of what I’ve shared within your pages could do so, nor what little I can piece together about them now, but perhaps it would make a somewhat interesting read anyway. Even if my words will never be published, if my experiences will never help others, maybe I will find further healing and growth by recounting them. Here is what I wrote:

My face could be mistaken for a waterfall. She lashes out at him with the sword of her words, aiming for his heart. She wants not to kill him but to injure him so badly that he must leave the fight. She looks to me for support and my guilt is spilled on the ground as she pierces my skin, using her cheap and childish words, telling me that it is because of him that she does not get what she needs.

Every morning I can remember until the day I moved out of the house I would wake up to screaming upstairs, every night it would be my lullaby. All the one-on-one car ride conversations or those in the garage were centered around each other. My Mother trying to convince me that my Father was a terrible person, irresponsible, and emotionally abusive, my Father trying to convince me that my Mother was psychotic, inaccessible, and emotionally abusive. They gave me detailed descriptions of each other’s dark secrets, and forced me to choose between them, to mediate and speak the words they were unable or unwilling to say to each other.

I let the tears shed from my eyes and let my heart slow to a normal speed, wait for the pain to die down so I can hear the birds once again, but not even God’s beautiful gift of the outdoors can cure me. God created such beautiful things for my eyes gaze upon like the tiny pearls in the sky and the creatures hunting in the darkness, but my heart doesn’t feel it. I walk along the dark, deserted streets and imagine all the people safely in their beds dreaming of ridiculous things. When I come to my destination, though my heart’s destination is not yet met, I stare at the house, wondering if anybody cares that I’m gone.

Inside my home the walls are bright white and picture-less, with a single plant by the window. I was sure to keep it cluttered with stuff, but sometimes that didn’t do my lungs enough justice. I cannot count the times I found myself wandering dark streets. I still find myself retreating to the dark, especially the rain, when my heart is heavy. Just to breathe and cry in isolation, my sobs bounced off walls of the surrounding houses. I became a part of the nature, running before God and begging to be heard, to be seen, to be loved.

Of course there are good times as well. I cannot find it, but remember writing a poem while sitting on top of my roof and staring at the moon. It was cold and my fingers could barely bend to scribble the words onto the page, but the trees were still and the stars were quiet. Everyone I knew was asleep and I was left to dream of the people somewhere else in the world, staring at the same moon and dreaming of me, waiting to find and meet me and cherish me.

I’m not sure why I have seemed to return to nature and paper in the same instances and manner. I cannot really explain why two distinctly different places provide the same solace and refuge, but for both I am now grateful, because things were quite different for me when home.

Here I battle for my Sanity, and it seems as though I exist on the losing team. I cannot explain to you why it is so because I do not know the foundation of insanity, nor do I know the precise moment one becomes enslaved by such. All I know for sure is that my mind is slowly transforming into something scary, undesirable, and uncontrollable, something that allows no courage, compassion, no comfort, and most and worst of all, no reality. Holes are my boss, routine is my motive. Nothing matters or has purpose, no good reason explains my everyday attempts at life. “Strength,” as I used to call it, is powerless against the inevitable slipping away into madness and into nothing but my madness. Imperfect, impure, un-loved, undesirable, misunderstood, a mistake, denied, discredited, unsatisfied, unintelligent, intolerable, unwanted...all the essence of me.

It had happened again. My body was taken and my heart was left shattered. My world was spinning and I needed to hear an encouraging word. I would never tell my Daddy what happened nor ask him straight up, but my actions and words were intensely begging for him to hold me, to tell me how beautiful I was and how worthy of true love I was. But the words he spoke instead were “okay, Paula.” No matter how many times I attempted to reform, no matter how sane I attempted to act or how much I distanced myself from my mother, still I was “powerless against the inevitable slipping away.” Deemed insane and uncomforted by my father in these moments; undesirable and mistreated by the other men I so desperately sought. Insane and unworthy I made the vow to stay away from marriage. I think this must be around the time that I stopped writing. The moment I felt like I had no power and nothing to offer, the moment I gave up to the lie that emotion and feeling was evil unless you were a male. That a woman has to keep her tongue quiet and a smile plastered on her face in order to be sane.

My name is Kayla Horner, and I wear a mask. Many, in fact. They are beautiful with many colors. Each person sees me in a different color of the mask depending on how I want them to see me.

The year I went to middle school I had a choice to make. In my school there were 3 very distinct social groups and therefore, for me, 2 options to choose from. If you were not lucky enough to be a Mexican or a Mormon then you could choose to either be a punk or a loner. I dyed my hair blue, became a drummer, and joined the kids at the edge of school grounds. I cussed and pretended to like their music, I joined in the burning of people’s hair and ditched school because obviously hacky-sack held more importance in the scheme of my life than school.

One day after school I fought a girl that used to be my friend. It ended in my favor that day, but I ended up in the principles office the next sitting in front of a cop. Later he talked to my Dad on the phone and told him that when I walked through the door and he saw my blue hair he thought to himself, “we’ve got a hot one here.” (not hot as in attractive, but hot as in guilty). But by the time our meeting was over he found that I was the most respectful girl he talked to regarding that issue that day. After my first year, I decided that punk was not me and the rest of my middle school years were spent flitting about, pretending to be as much of a bad-ass as the Mexicans were, or as pure as the Mormons were, or as confident in myself as the loners to handle being friendless. I changed to a high school in a different part of town, made friends, and got good grades in school. I didn’t write to you much anymore, dear journal, and in fact I did not enjoy writing at all anymore.

I am writing to you now partly because I have to. I got into “Teacher Education” mostly out of necessity to figure something out and avoid doing nothing, certainly not because of my passion. But I guess my heart always knew and kept quiet about what I needed. I guess it always knew that I would return to you, return to the conversations we have had, and eventually my passion would return and healing would come. I’m hopeful.

]]> http://goafr.edublogs.org/2008/11/23/memoir-1st-draft/feed/ 0 http://goafr.edublogs.org/2008/11/13/beginnings-of-a-memoir/ http://goafr.edublogs.org/2008/11/13/beginnings-of-a-memoir/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:00:02 +0000 goafr http://goafr.edublogs.org/?p=12

Dear Teacher:

I am writing this memoir partly because I have to. Throughout my entire life I have been pushed and pulled and stretched in any way people around me wanted to. I have followed the rules of authority and my social groups, and done as I’ve been told, and that means that even though I’ve not enjoyed writing or school or homework, I do it anyway because that’s what has been asked of me.

I’ve always been a pushover in this way. It started with my parents. They were dysfunctional and broken people unable to communicate with each other. They fought day and night, all the time, and used me, the middle child and only girl, as their mediator. My mother would vomit chunks of the injustice in her life onto my lap, spew some quick and hurtful curse word about my father who was in the garage, and send me on my way to relay to him what she was unable to. Of course I never did. Nor did I relay to her the fact that he thought her to be a psycho. I did go, though. I did listen to them both, attempt to capture how they felt, why they felt, and what they wanted, and it was this that I told the other. At 10 or so I was obviously the best person for the job, my older brother had his own life, he was a piano prodigy with big dreams and lots to do, and my little brother was the angel who was to be unharmed and let to watch tv in peace. But me, I was no one, I was there...I would listen...I cared and showed each understanding and compassion...and I did as I was told. And so I was, for years and years, the mediator. Didn’t ask why, didn’t wonder whether I should be hearing such things, or whether I had anything to say for myself; rather I accepted my role, and embraced that identity—if I can even call it that.

When I hit middle school my role at home continued, but a new identity was shoved on me as well. I went to a school that had three very distinct social groups, and therefore 2 choices that I could make for myself. If you were not lucky enough to be Hispanic or a Mormon, then you could be either a punk or a loner. Afraid to be alone, I looked at the punks, took a gulp, and jumped in. I dyed my hair blue and took hits and got into fights like they expected.

I still jumped through the hoops teachers required such as going to class and doing my homework.

But even more impacting, I learned to keep mostly quiet about how I felt or who I wanted to be because it seemed that every time I spoke, it was too much emotion, too much of me, and my father would say, “ok, Paula.” I didn’t want to be like my mother. I didn’t want to be like her. I wanted to be sane, I wanted to make people happy, to be accepted and loved, and so I kept quiet. I pretended to be as cool as the other punks, stronger than the other girls I fought, I pretended to care about my classes and what the teachers were saying so that I could receive their praise, and I pretended that I had no thoughts, and no dreams. I was merely a shadow, a quiet reflection of what people around me required of me.

But teacher, I am also writing this memoir because I want to. Because I’ve wanted to. Throughout my entire life I have been pushed and pulled and stretched in any way people around me wanted to...and now is my time, my chance to speak for myself. This is my chance to use my words and my written thoughts to claim independence, a unique identity.

Where to go, what to do?  From reading the memoirs assigned in Persuasion, reading "the Madwoman in the Attic" by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, having conversations with people I know about writing and life in general, and in attempting to finally write my own memoir I have discovered a lot about myself, and the way I am and the reasons for that.  I am in the process of seeing myself as a gendered person with a story to tell, just because I am a woman.  I look at the struggles within my family and the dynamics of our relationships and see my outcry for independence and have been transforming my view of writing from a constraint given by teachers, a mundane task, to a freeing, defining act.  If there ever was a defining moment in my writing career it would be now.  If there ever was a moment where I've questioned my faith, or my role in my family, or my desires for a man and to be loved and accepted it would be now.  I want to write about it all.  I want to speak of my newly forming independence and voice...I want to share my exploration of what life is, especially one without religion...but I know that others will see, I know that others will hear...I know that if I was to submit my paper into the writing contest and it was to get published in the crucible someone from my church might read it.  Someone that i've mentored might hear my wavering voice, and certainly my mother would like to read it.  Either I make her look insane because that is what my father, what this patriarchical society tells me she is because she speaks, or I speak out against my father and claim feminism, that my mother has the right to speak, and no she isn't crazy.  who do I offend? And if I do so, will it connect with my transformative writing experience?

Does the Reader Know Kayla Wrote This?

There are two choices of what we can say in this paper: either personal voice is developed by the content/substance the author decides to put in the paper, or it is developed by the way the author says it. If voice is the content, and we only have two choices of what to say, then obviously the class will be comprised of two voices: 50% of the class will sound alike and likewise for the other 50%. On a grander scale, Aristotle asserts that opinions are owned by the community, they do not belong to one person. Bartholomea furthers that claim with the argument that nothing anyone can think to write is original but only a concoction of what has already been said. If this is true: if my voice will sound like 49% of the rest of my class, and nothing I can say will be original, then how do I express my individuality? Must I forever include an everything bagel into the content of my paper in order for it to be recognized as my work? I don’t think so. Although, it does reveal a certain amusement in my style of writing. In fact, it is my style that reveals my voice; that allows the reader to see a small part of my personality. Surely, certain aspects of my style will change depending on the topic or the audience I write to, but it will always be glittered with the word choices and sentence structures that point to my personality.

Before I can begin my imitation and analysis, I feel it necessary to address a crucial, and possibly obvious, question in order to further the study of whether voice is shown through content or style: what is the definition of voice? Is it a portrayal of who the author is as a person? Is it her personality on the page? I think for the sake of further exploration, I am going to say yes, and yes. Voice is the articulation of the individual living inside of the author who has been grown and influenced by her genetic temperaments and the experiences and interactions throughout a lifetime. Therefore it is solely the author—no two people could possibly have the same exact voice.

In imitating a passage from Harry G. Frankfurt’s “On Truth,” I will be rewording and re-organizing the content of his beliefs about the relationship between truth and love into my own style, and consequently my own voice.

As Spinoza asserts, if I believe that my joy comes from outside of me, from the material things I own or that which I associate with, then I love them. I naturally love what makes me happy: happiness=love. I am happy when I ride my motorcycle, and I LOVE my motorcycle. I love that I can get on it and be free to go wherever the winding road takes me or the wind pushes, that while on it I am no longer the dolled-up girl, or the servant waitress, but a free motorcycle chick. Using my motorcycle reminds me that I do not belong to the restaurant or the judgmental looks from guys and girls (not all bad), but that I have the freedom to look like a badass and go where I please...my motorcycle allows me to see another side of who I am, and I love it for that reason.

I try to ride it every time I can and I take good care of it to make sure I don’t lose that freedom, lose that side of myself, because if I forget who I am on that bike, then I can forget that I am an individual. I will become no more than a puppet going through the motions of what society expects of me, and I will have no real reason to live. If I allow myself to forget the truth of who I am, then I allow myself to hate my life, and hating my life would make it difficult for me to keep living. Therefore, if I love my life, then I must love the truth that I am an individual.

Imitating this piece presented a handful of problems that I didn’t expect, none of which I can adequately answer or solve—I can only explore them. The first is actually shown just before I engage in the imitation: I simply state (as if it were an obvious truth) that style changes depending on the type of writing and audience I write to/for. This struck me as odd because, since I believed that voice (my personality/my self) is found in style, I don’t like the idea that I would essentially change who I am or the way I present myself solely on my audience. I would like to think that I am a consistent person who is the same no matter where I am. And yet, I find it to be true that I do present myself differently with my friends opposed to my professors, on my bike opposed to serving food—and I suppose it should be so. I suppose that since there are multitude of different discourse communities in which to be a part of, there will obviously be different ways to speak, different rules to follow, and different ways to present oneself. I guess this also means that one does not necessarily need to change who they are to be a part of these communities, but rather are reaching into the depths of their being and allowing different aspects of themselves show in different situations. Looking at my imitation, I even displayed that without really thinking about it. I state that riding my motorcycle allows me to “be” different than I would be apart from it. Not a new person, but a different part of the same person, and therefore more fully conscious of the whole person.

However, surely an author will not connect with every text she writes on a personal level. Surely not all texts she writes will reflect a part of who she is. A human depth can only go so far; a person can only truly be a part of so many discourse communities. Therefore there must be varying levels of voice depending on who the author writes to and in which community. For example, I can only speak of the freedom I feel when riding my motorcycle. I am unable to write truthfully, in my voice, about hanging out at biker bars or getting into fights with rough men and women decked out in leather, because I am only a limited part of that community. My words do not reflect those you might hear in such a bar because I have not experienced them, have not been initiated into that group of people, and therefore that language does not reflect who I am. A piece including such descriptions or language might be somewhat entertaining, but it would not contain my voice. Basically, an author may write a fully developed, well thought out and supported text that contains none of her voice or her personality because she does not connect with the audience she writes to; she is not a part of that specific community.

Now that I have qualified what my voice is, and how it changes depending on the audience I write for and the depth of my connection to that discourse community, I can finally engage in the question of how this voice is shown. Is it through content or style? Well, what is style? I believed that it is simply the way you say something. This sounds right. Since everyone has different backgrounds and are in different discourse communities then they must all have their own way of saying something. But how does this “saying something” happen? The two examples I used in the beginning of the paper were word choice and sentence structure. That sounds smart and great for the paper, but to be honest, I really would have no idea where to even begin if I was to try to analyze the individuality of my sentences (aside from my favorite use of parenthesis), and I don’t believe I generally use words that can be thought of as creative or solely mine. So how can my self, my personality, be shown through something as vague and boring and un-definable as style?

On the other hand, what is content? Is it just the bulk, the “stuff” of the paper, what the paper says, and the point/argument it makes? Again, depending on the situation or assignment, you may have to write a paper with content that you do not connect with on a personal level. However, there must be some situations in which it peaks your interest and plays with your passion and therefore it is possible, probable even, that it would contain your voice. If it is something you truly care about and believe in, then the content is a part of yourself on the paper. For example, when I refer to my motorcycle I am revealing much of what is important to me like freedom and individuality. The passage is no longer something that is somewhat hard to picture because of Frankfurt’s choice of the word “object,” and rather carries a sign that people can relate to (or at least create an image of). Interesting...by changing a single word, the content of the imitation is slightly changed into something much more personal and tangible—so does/can style change content, or does word choice play a role separate of style?

So the next question: in imitating Frankfurt, have I succeeded in restating his content with my own style? Obviously this will be very difficult to answer since I never decided what either of those two things mean, but I will try to make do. In changing the word “object” to “motorcycle,” I changed the content to be about a single thing that I love. I used the example where there was not previously one in order to create better understanding and to relate it in the way I understood it to mean, Since my tentative definition of style is to state something in the way I understand it, then placing the example to further reader comprehension could be a reflection of my style of writing. This is furthered by the fact that the basis, the foundation, and the essential argument (the content) I made was the same as Frankfurt’s, and since they were obviously different, then my voice must have been influenced by my style.

I think I have decided that my voice, in its rawest and purest sense, is writing about what I care about in the way that makes sense to me, within a community that I confidently belong to. And therefore, when writing in different styles and different situations about different topics, my work may or may not contain my voice. Is my voice presented in style or content? I would say both, and neither at the same time.

]]> http://goafr.edublogs.org/2008/11/13/paper-2-imitations/feed/ 0 http://goafr.edublogs.org/2008/11/13/reading-response-talking-back/ http://goafr.edublogs.org/2008/11/13/reading-response-talking-back/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:37:52 +0000 goafr http://goafr.edublogs.org/?p=10

Bell Hooks, an African American woman, describes what “talking back” means in her community, her family, for her as a black and as a woman. She addresses the dangers of talking back, and the reasons to do so anyway. Simply, talking back for Hooks growing up, meant to speak to an adult when not spoken to. She was not allowed to speak, not allowed to express creative power, or have a voice. The punishment for talking was physical abuse and madness, as she grew to fear. The definition of talking back expanded to her being as a whole, not just because she was a child, but because she is a black woman. In a society where women have no power, and blacks have no power, and both must stay in line, she was “not allowed” to speak other than in the confinements of a journal. Women like her must not express themselves through writing (the form of talking back that she focuses on) because it could lead to nervous breakdowns and isolation and insanity when their expressions are not accepted or poorly judged. Talking back is a political act, courageous, threatening the dominating powers, and it is also healing and promising opportunities for new growth. It is to speak freely and powerfully, whether you are truly confident about the outcome or not. Talking back is to not be content with the current power dynamics, not content with your given role in society, and speaking out against it.

Henry Gates, Jr. talks back and cites examples of talking back numerous times in his book/articles. Taking pride in the things that traditionally cause the Black race shame, Gates wolfs down big slices of watermelon, blasts his “Negro music,” paints Jesus black, and celebrates a special victory in the achievements of black men and women. He is well aware of the expectations whites have of the black race, and he shoves it back into their faces, he talks back. He decided to write his book in the voice of his father, a charismatic Negro man telling stories of absurdity or hilarity, or whatever...stories that revealed secret pieces of Black culture that only they knew. He recognizes how differently blacks talk when a white person is in the room and he knows that whites only hear parts of blacks speech/voice, he realizes that whites will be reading his book, but he desires to break the barrier, to speak as though they weren’t listening, the act of speaking itself an act of defiance. He is not caring about what whites and snobby blacks find inappropriate for him to say and reveal, he does not care whether his words will be accepted...he cares about the defiance, about speaking the truth, and claiming the power. He is talking back.