Fairytale Fiction “The Red Path” by Lauren Matthews

Lauren’s presentation was about a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood that she is working on turning into a novella. She talked a lot about the historical and symbolic meaning behind the story. She talking about the link the story had to powerful woman and womanhood. She mentioned one retelling where Little Red was saved by a group of woman who helped her to escape the wolf by laying a path for her across a river that the wolf could not cross. Little Reds safety came by women's influence, and the story tells us how powerful that can be.

She also told us that in some of the stories, Red had to choose between a path of pins or a path of needles to make it to her destination. In some stories, she chose neither, but the choice did not seem to make a difference. The paths were a metaphor for the girls growing up and experiencing maturation. The red hood is also seen as a metaphor for this, as well as the girl going through the wolf, and back out again. It was interesting to think of the story in this way, and relate a deeper meaning to all the events beyond the normal “curiosity killed the cat” message, or something like that.

Lauren also focused a lot on the relationship between the girl and the wolf within her story. Just as the girl had to go through the wolf to reach a new understanding, the girl could not take her place in the world without her connection and struggle with the wolf. In Lauren’s tale itself, the initial encounter between the girl, Lilla, and the wolf was more of a prologue into the rest of the story. After the wolf kills her grandmother, and supposedly kills her, he lives for many years killing and stealing the skins of the people he encounters. Until one day, when he is disguised as a man, he crosses paths with the king and his queen - Lilla. The story then unfolds about the struggle between Lilla and wolf both being the last of their kind (him having killed her family, and her having all the wolves killed after that) but still being unable to kill each other, until one day they are both being hunted and must ban together to survive. It was a reeeeally interesting retelling, and I hope that one day I will be able to read the whole story.

Style Academy #4 - Participles

Exercise #1- Identify the Participles

I fell ten feet to the ground, landing on my back.
I fell ten feet to the ground, and I landed on my back.
When I fell town feet to the ground, I landed on my back.

The first way the sentence it written, it definitely gives it a sense of motion, sort of like you are reading it in the moment it it happening. The second why makes it feel like one cause and effect action, but nothing more than that. And the last way, adding "when" gives sort of a disconnect to the audience, like it happened at some point, but it does not matter because it did not happen now.

Shifting the weight of the line to his left shoulder
(kneeling carefully)
(submerged)
watching the blood trial away and the steady movement of the water . . 

Again, they make the sentence more concise an floating. Changing the phasing from a participial to another tense makes the sentence more interesting and more connected.

Long credited with changing the way Y.A. fiction is written
Empowering a generation to demand stories that reelected their realities

Exercise #2 - Creating Participles 

The girls stood in the road by the side of the car.
Growing more tired by the minute, the girls stood in the road by the side of the car, wishing the engine would start working soon.

Review
I have never really consciously thought about adding participles into my writing, but after watching this video, I realize how often they do pop up while I write. They are definitely a tool I have used before without even knowing it, but now I do know how to recognize participles, and I will be able to use them more to my advantage in the future.

I really like the use of participles because of how they make sentences flow better. Repeating the same kinds of phasing while writing can make your paper sound choppy and jarring. But switching it up with different sentence structure and participles will make all of it seem more interesting, and probably smoother to read.

Issues Paper - Getting my Feet Wet

Topic #1
SEARCH: church attendance young adults
-"Religion Among the Millennials
http://www.pewforum.org/2010/02/17/religion-among-the-millennials/
      -Although the "Millennial's" show less infester in church attendance and affiliation with any one faith, the religious ideas they have still closely resemble traditional beliefs. 

-"Survey: Reasons Why Young Adults Quit Church"
http://www.christianpost.com/news/survey-reasons-why-young-adults-quit-church-28813/
     -The teen years are seen as a time to test religion, but as life changes - college, jobs, more responsibility - young adults stop going for simply the reason of inconvenience 

-"The Real Reasons Young Adults Drop Out of Church"
http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/december/real-reasons-young-adults-drop-out-of-church.html?paging=off
   -In addition to life changes and/or just wanting a break, other reasons youth drop our of church come from disconnect with members, or members being judgmental, hypocritical, unfriendly and unwelcoming.


Topic #2
SEACH: why read the king james bible

-"King James Version - King James Bible Online"
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/King-James-Version/
      -It is simply the most popular. It is the original, and that hold value. It has a very poetic word choice.

-"Why I Read the Authorized King James Version of the Bible"
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/kjvdefns.htm
     -God is unchanging, therefore, we should not try to change his word.

-"Why Do We Support only The King James Bible For the English people?"
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/kjb_only.htm
       -Much all the other article from this website, other versions do not hold enough value.



I have chosen the first topic, because it seems to offer a wider verity of  opinions and reasonings, so it will be easier for me to create my own specific approach based about the evidence I find.

Thesis Proposal

"Response to Gov. Romney's Speech, 'Faith in America'"

Although this response paper was supposed to point-out and counter many of the fallacies Romney made in his speech, I felt that the author only managed to use up the same fallacies within their own work. They regarded how Romney's speech was tailored only to the religious in America, but made the same choice by appealing only to the non-religious in America. Either way, a portion of the population was cut out, and I think the response paper was greatly weakened by their polarized point of view. Their language was also off putting to a third-party audience, and in doing so, lead the reader to focus more on that point than the overall massage of the paper.

I do seen how this paper would be convincing to the intended audience, who might have also seen the one-sighted view of Romney's original speech. It would also work to affirm the opinions of those who did not like Romney's ideas on religion. I think he used a lot of Logos and Pathos to draw in the audience.

Style Academy - Phrases and Clauses Exercieses

Honestly, I keep forgetting that we have to physically hand in the Style Academy reviews, and I feel really bad for it, but I will 100% do it this next time...

It's as simple as that. 

I watched the video about Phrases and Clauses, and I am going to have to say, this is one of the less-helpful videos on this site. The information given was simple and understandable, but I think it was a little to simple. I feel like they could have fit more information into it, and a bit more of a writing exercise. Maybe the difference between clauses and phrases really is that simple.

Or, maybe the reason they focused on so little within the video, is because a lot of people still struggle with the concept. I was second guessing myself on some of the exercise sentences, though came out with the right answer in the end, and I think it will help me to think about clauses and phrases when rereading my papers. 

Still, I feel the whole video can be summed up in this one screen shot, and next time I will try to pick a more in-depth one (and remember to turn it in in class...)

Exercise:

Is it a Phrase or a Clause?

"on the front porch"

-phrase (prepositional phrase)

"after the dinner party"

-phrase 

"we ate peas and carrots"

-clause (independent)

"after running to the store"

-phrase 

Faith in America

MITT ROMNEY

Purpose: The purpose was to establish Romney's view on own religion should work in relation to the US, and to help others understand where he stands in regards to his personal religion.

Logos: I thought Romney did well to mention relevant topics in his speech, such as the threat we face from "Radical violent Islam" as well as centering it around his candidacy and how people might view it. He also used examples to appeal to those who accepted religion, but might not have sounded very logical to those who have nothing to connect with in religion. However, we also appealed to those who accepted the fundamental ideals of American, and related them back to religion.  He was also able to build his issue using quotes from reliable sources pertaining to religion.

Pathos: He was able to connect with his audience by using examples of how religion has played into our countries past. He connected the people as patriots, and pulled on their heart sting while relating to the presidents time in war, as well as his own parents past roles in the american legacy. I thought his word choice did very well to guild the reader to his conclusion, he was able to use wording that would not come across as bias or off-putting to any one audience. He connected well with those of religions beyond his own by mentioning pros of those religions, "I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit a,ing the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient tradition of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims."

Ethos: He established credibility by being willing to share some of his religious beliefs. Also, by refusing to make it completely about his personal church, he established his political credibility. He also establishes his credibility as a leader by mentioning his past position as Governor. He established an authoritative voice by noting his understanding of other religions, and in doing so also was able to identify with difference listeners. He also established credibility by relating his view points and candidacy to past leaders, who we all could recognize.

The REAL Reflection on the OP ED

If you want to read my OP ED paper, it is written out in one of the earlier posts!

I believe one of the strongest tactics I used in my Opinion Editorial paper was pathos. I tried hard to connect with the readers emotions to help them understand my point. I shared specific examples of situations that occur on social media in an attempt to show the reader things they have done before, and how it is really effecting them. As an example, I explained how we might try to connect with a celebrity for many sorts of reasons, but then went on to explain why those reasons may not be valid. I was able to guide the reader to my point by connecting them with something they already knew.  I used language to paint pictures and metaphors that hopefully made the audience think about social media in away they had not really put into words before.

The tactic I used the least was probably logos. Being an Opinion Editorial, I did incorporate any facts, but mostly observations and description that followed a logical thought process. I made sure to flush out my points, so the audience would not think I was jumping to any conclusions. At times, I feared I may have used too much generalization, but think the reasons fit well this the intended audience. I think the issue of the paper was very relevant and easy to understand. I also think I was able to go into many different aspects of the issue to give more evidence as to why social media can be, and is in fact, a problem. 

I think I also used ethos quite well in this paper, but that may be up for debate depending on how you think about it. I tried to establish my credibility on the subject by showing that I have had some not-so positive experience with social media. However, I tried to maintain an authoritative voice by stating that I was able to see the flaws in these experiences, and use them to learn. However, some may take my “on your side” kind of writing stance as discrediting, because I am not completely separate from the problem. They may think I was too influenced by the issue to write an effective argument.