"Lydia's Story"

1. In my opinion, Jan Brideau's main point is that with some hope and determination, you are able to get through anything, even in the worst of times. For example, whether you just broke up with someone, someone close to you has passed away, or even a natural disaster has taken away everything you know and love as the story tells, you are able to get through it and persevere. This is indicated in the last sentence of the story, "But Lydia's story that stays with me most, probably because it represents the essence of hope and determination in the face of terrible adversity".

2.The primary point of view in "Lydia's Story" would be a third person point of view. As a reader, it made me feel like I was actually there watching Lydia as she experiences these difficulties. It made   me experience some of the same anxiety as the water rose and it made me feel empowered as she made her way out of the house and was saved.

3. Jan Brideau makes her narrative come alive by being very descriptive and using very descriptive words. The story had a great deal of descriptive words such as illuminated, slender, cackle, soft-spoken, tender, windowless, soaking, poured, swept up, bulky, heavy, rocking, spurted, waded, cramped, and enormity. These descriptive words help paint a picture for a reader, one sentence that painted an image in my mind was a sentence about the VFW hall, "The hall had no windows; only fluorescent lighting illuminated the large space".

4. According to the book, "Health Affairs is a journal of health policy thought and research". This brings me to believe that the audience would most likely be medical professionals, psychologists, scientists, or just random people who find health policy thought and research interesting. With this in mind, Brideau uses a perfect formal and informative tone for the audience. For example, Brideau writes " Lydia was soft-spoken but eager to have her tooth examined", Beideau could have wrote something lazy and not descriptive such as "Lydia wanted her tooth examined" but instead she formally describes the situation making her look professional and respectable.

Chapter 2 Textbook Work

Lists of writings done in the last week:

• Blog Posts for English 101
• Short Autobiography for English 101
• Texts
• Emails
• Short Essay for  General Psychology

Example 1: One type of writing that I did in the last week was texting.  The audiences of the texts were my friends and family, people who I feel comfortable with. Since I felt comfortable with these people, my tone was more laid back and in a way sort of informal. My primary goal was to communicate with my friends and family and see how they were doing, just for fun, which I did.

Example 2: In  my English 101 class, we made short autobiographies which we traded with a partner to say out loud. The audience of our autobiography was our professor and the whole class, so I tried to be semi-formal so it didn't seem like I was super obnoxious. When it comes to literary genres, it is still classified as an autobiography. My purpose here was to tell the class what characteristics about myself that I found interesting and "cool" which in my opinion, I completed successfully.

Example 3: My last example is my short essay that I wrote for my General Psychology class. The topic was about Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) and if certain dog breeds should be outlawed through them. My stance was a strong no, that dogs should not be outlawed through BSL. Since my audience was my professor and I wanted to have my opinion taken seriously, I used a serious tone.

In-Class Lab Writers, Authors, and Genres 9/29

Jacob agrees that everyone is an author, Amy disagrees.

Noah incorporated in his blog post that musicians, theater, etc…. are also authors.

Emily states that everyone has the potential to be a writer but not everyone can be an author

Writers:                                                                               Authors:

Anyone can be a writer	Not everyone can be an author
Informal	Formal
Write for fun	Write for a living
Writers might be published	Are most always published
Expresses themselves	Writes literary work I.E. novels.

Type of Writing:                                                                            Why you Enjoy/Despise it:

Time essays	Too much pressure + stressful (Despise)
Persuasive Essays	So I can change someone’s opinion (Enjoy)
Creative Writing	You get to express your wildest ideas and imagination (Enjoy)
Research Paper	You end up with a huge essay (Enjoy)
Biographical	You get to know a lot about a certain person (Enjoy)

Party-Prep directions:

1.       Go to desk and get invitations out of drawer

2.       Write Party info on invitations, put in envelope

3.       Put invitations in the mail box, put up the flag

4.       Look at the list of house duties you need to do, do that list.

5.       Grab my shopping list from the counter, go to store and get those items: Pizza, cake, salad, streamers, balloons, party hats

6.       When you get home, help me decorate and clean the house: Put up streamers, blow up balloons, vacuum, mow lawn, clean bathroom and kitchen, set up food

"Is Everyone an Author?"

"Is Everyone an Author?" This question had me thinking long and hard before, as well as after, reading the introduction of the book. Before considering the reading, I probably would have said no, that not everyone is an author. I thought that a person achieves the title of an author by getting their work printed by a major publisher, or having their article published in a magazine. In addition, even if someone wasn't published, they could be an author if they poured all of their heart and soul into every piece they crafted. Also, it was not until after I read the introduction that I considered some of the alternative forms of writing, (such as blogging and emails) as being "published."

 For example, in the reading, Tamim Ansary’s email about his home country after 9/11 (not intended for publication) ended up getting published by multiple newspapers, and circulated to tons of people. Everyone has a voice that enables them to communicate their opinions, imagination, and wildest thoughts through multiple forms of writing such as a simple email or a blog, which could lead to amazing things (like they did for Tamim). This changed my stance and view on it all. I now believe that everyone has the potential to be an author.

Collaborative Writing on Writing 9/24

Emily likes to write personal pieces, poems and fictional short stories.

Jacob enjoys to write fictional stories and research papers.

Amy takes delight in writing papers that are in the first person as well as persuasive essays.

Noah revels in writing first person essays.

     Tones and formality alter depending on the audience which whom we write to. For instance, if it was a political audience we would switch our tone to be more serious. Children books, we have to make the tone be more understandable with youth. It also relies on the genre of your story, for example, in horror stories you want your tone to be slightly aggressive/dark. In contrast, a romance novel has a tone that is more seductive. Your writing persona changes depends on many things, whether it being your audience, genre, time period.