Use This Space to post about your ideas for your Rethink/Revise project.

TORDA'S SPRING 2023 TEACHING SITE

Use This Space to post about your ideas for your Rethink/Revise project.

2/5/2021

It can be helpful to write out what you think you might do for this first major project of the semester, and it is useful for us to do it where everyone in the class can see. Sometimes an idea you have will inspire/remind someone of something from their past writing life. Additionally, it will help me help you--I can respond to everyone and everyone can see what I say to everyone else. Some bit of advice I give to one person can often be good advice for many (well, I hope good--that sounded arrogant; not all my advice is good).

Post: Use this space to talk through one more ideas for your Rethink/Revise. Don't feel like you've got to sound sure or if you have seven ideas. Don't overthink it. Post what you think you might revise and why--and what worries you about revising that thing.

Respond: to classmates with suggestions, reassurance, connections to your own project. As I read, I will offer suggestions and also get a sense of who will be in what small workshop group for the for the first part of the semester.

18 Comments

Matt McGuirk

2/5/2021 11:59:32 am

For this rethink/revise project, I am thinking of using a short story I wrote in my fiction workshop last semester. Here's the quick rundown: I wrote a framed narrative of the main character on the morning after he lost the presidential election, went back in time to when he lost his class presidency in high school, and then came back to the present to show how he powered through the recent defeat. When we workshopped it, I got a lot of constructive criticism from my peers, which helped me put together the final version for my final portfolio. While I was happy with the progress I made for the final version, I wasn't *happy* with the overall product. I knew there were holes in the story, and I felt the word limit requirement hindered my ability to really explore the characters a little more. For this project, I would make it a little longer so I have more characterization, as well as more detail within each frame.

Another idea I had was taking my final project from a screenwriting class I took and reworking that. I wrote the pilot episode of a fictional TV series I created that is focused on journalists in Washington, D.C. I did this in a COMM class though so I wasn't sure if that fit the requirements for this project.

Derek Krysko

2/7/2021 07:36:18 am

I would personally love to read your pilot for that TV series, as I think that could be a really interesting premise. It would be a great chance to refine your screenwriting skills if that is something you are truly interested in, and the students in this class could help provide some useful feedback for you to take into your next projects. If you are unhappy with the overall product of your creative writing piece, then that also sounds like a good option to revise, that way you can come up with something that you are satisfied with.

Emily Spagna

2/5/2021 12:09:35 pm

There are two pieces I'm considering. One, with the working title "Life Between Darkness" is on the shorter side, no where near finished and definitely needs a lot of work. It's about a young woman who has a seizure disorder moving away from her family and into a house of three male strangers. The story follows along as the characters learn to live with each other and understand each other and grow as a "family". The relationships in the story are what definitely need the most work, as i want it to be obvious that the main character is teaching the boys about life from the eyes of someone with a disability, and they are teaching her to open up and learn to enjoy life freely. The story is loosely based off my own life and friends because I find writing from my own point of view helpful for others, but I also like being able to dissociate from my life and write what i want to happen or how I wish things happened.

The other, called "Paper Rooms", is about children and teens who have been basically kidnapped by this evil government force. This is placed on an earth that has seen many chnages and eight world wars. Things have not yet fully healed from the last world war, but something the kids are not aware of is that there is magic in the world and most of them have abilities like mind reading and such. The reason theyre being held captive is because this government force is trying to create an army from their powers to take over the world. At first the force was experimenting on the kids, wiping their memories and testing serums on them to force their abilities out sooner, but this serum kills typical humans. They find out there's a book that has the power to turn kids and they find it. the story picks up after this book has been stolen and the captors change their approach and force the kids to write in an attempt to see if one of them can rewrite the book, they are still working on the serum and use it mostly for torture for information, which never actually works. What I have of this written currently jumps around a bit but the story line i would like it to follow is the kids realizing whats happening, planing an escape, being captured, some friends die, they escape again and are being hunted until they get to the world government who helps them. I dont know if any of this is making sense really, I could ramble about this book all day. It is by no means a short work, it's going to be a full length novel.
Both stories are written to be full length novels. i've spent almost 8 years writing "Paper Rooms" and 2 years writing "Life Between Darkness". There's a lot in both of them, and a lot that needs to be fixed. I'm personally leaning more towards working on Paper Rooms to make it a more consistent story from whats written and fill in the missing parts. It would still be a very rough draft and far from finished, but this would be the push i need to really get in and work on it and push the writing to an ending. But I would love to hear input from others about this.

Rebecca Monestime

2/6/2021 09:39:07 am

Hi Emily,
If it were up to me, I would recommend you to finish the first piece because it sounds so interesting plus you said it is unfinished so this would be a great opportunity to continue it. It is such a heart warming story already and I think it would become even better with some character development, dialogue, storyline, etc. I also like how your story puts light on people with disabilities and companionship which is really important to them. No matter how short or long a story is, it is straight to the point and will be very meaningful and heartfelt. I am looking forward to reading it!

CJ Hall

2/12/2021 07:42:57 am

I really like both of these concepts. My advice would be which one are you most wanting to write/edit more and which one do you want feedback on the most. I will enjoy reading either one and look forward to your choice!!

Paige Couture

2/5/2021 02:07:11 pm

For this assignment, I’m going to be rethinking/revising an essay I’ve written last semester in my writing about literature class. The assignment was a close reading of poem that we’ve read in class. A poem I have chosen was: “Marked” by Linda Pastan. It is a short poem about a young housewife and mother. The author uses a grading system as a metaphor to safely demonstrate anger towards her family, who are judging her harshly on how these chores are completed. I’m often told by professor’s that I need to work more on organizing and structuring my essays. With this project, there was one stanza in the poem that I’m now not happy with what I wrote. It was not even close to analyzing. With the knowledge that I have now about analyzing, I realize that I cannot just guess what is happening within the text. I would like to rewrite that whole section over, while submitting in my comments from that professor. That essay was written during midterms, so I feel like I have more knowledge about close reading that I have gained from that class since. My final essay was written more clearly, and I had improved in my rubric. I have always wanted to revise this piece, and I now have a chance to do so.

Another project I could revise is the first essay I’ve done for that same class. It was to write an essay about a children’s book: “Exclamation Mark” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. The book is not that long, maybe about 20 pages or so, front and back. There are not many words on the page, and it was more about making the illustrations into words. I was happy with the grade; I just was not pleased with what I could change about the essay with the knowledge that I have now about writing. This would be more of an editorial-type of project.

A last option I have is a class I have taken when I was pursuing my associate’s degree in early childhood, is a novel I was working on in a creative writing workshop. The assignment throughout the semester was to write a novel, based on a new idea. I have gotten really good feedback on it from the professor and students, I never had the chance to continue working on it because I have been writing other ideas. The novel is basically a murder mystery, about two twin sisters. One of the sisters is dead, and the other is trying to find her. In the beginning, she thinks she is still alive. It switches point of view between them. The dead sister is watching and helping her spiritually try to solve her case. It would be nice to get some new feedback or advise on it. I do have a hard time trying to be creative about crime scenes or what happened to the victim. I would also like more advice on making scenes more turn-paging. I always think of these really great ideas, but when it comes to writing them, I have a hard time trying to unfold these scenes to get to get to the actual idea or point.

Maddie Staples

2/6/2021 08:58:04 am

The piece that I would like to revise for this assignment is an essay that I wrote freshman year in my Writing About Literature class. It was a short analysis of "A Clean Well-Lighted Place." In general I dislike Ernest Hemingway, but I really liked this story. There are two different ways I am considering rethink my essay, one more ambitious than the other. The first would just be to revise my analysis, add some secondary sources, make the essay more "scholarly" using what I have learned over the past 7 semesters within the English major. The other would be more of a complete reworking of the essay. I work in a coffee shop, and part of the reason that I like this short story so much is because it changed the way that I thought about my job and the role that "a clean, well-lighted place" plays in people's lives. Something I think would be interesting would be to kind of apply my literary analysis to real life. I am not sure if this makes sense? Maybe as sort of a longer memoir essay? I think it might be more fun to do the latter, so I am leaning towards that, but I am not sure if it is too much of a revision.

Derek Krysko

2/7/2021 07:40:53 am

Both of these ideas sound really interesting and would probably work well for this assignment. I like the idea of making the essay more scholarly, as I imagine that during your time at BSU you have had to work with plenty of scholarly articles and you will likely be adept at interpreting them and making connections to your own piece. I also think adding a personal spin to your existing piece would be great as well, and it would be a cool shift to the genre. You could write about how your experiences inform your understanding of the story, and how the story changes your opinions of reality.

Rebecca Monestime

2/6/2021 09:30:37 am

For the rethink/revise assignment, I plan on revising my paper I did for my ENGL 226 class semester. It is called " The Healing of BTS During the Coronavirus" and it is more of a personal journalistic essay. It is about how BTS a famous male k-pop group has helped me get through the difficult time we are in right now. I explained in the essay my feelings about the situation and how their music and content heals and comforts me. It needs a lot of revision and rethinking because I could have done better with my word choices, sentence structure, etc. It also feels a little bland and I want to add more color by adding new paragraphs, taking away some paragraphs, adding more dialogue, and just more feelings in general. I also want to change the title as well by making it shorter and straight to the point. I want it to be less journalistic and more personal to show the readers how BTS has truly healed me during COVID'S peak in 2020.
Another project I would like to revise is called "My Journey to BTS" essay from my nonfiction writing class I took last semester. In this paper, I wrote about my past with k-pop and how I discovered them through a pencil case. Now this essay is actually within a portfolio but I would like to revise it further. I know I am doing another BTS essay but I love that group so much and I love to write about them and this essay has so much more potential to be better. I read over it and there is much I want to leave in and take out, add and subtract, etc. There are some explanations about the boys in there as well but for the most part it is a memoir journalistic essay. I love teaching and showing others about BTS music and their huge impact in the American and international scale.
I am still trying to choose between the two but I am leaning more towards the first option.

Derek Krysko

2/7/2021 07:32:37 am

I have three projects that I am considered returning to for the "Rethink/Revise" assignment. The first piece I would not mind revisiting is a research paper I completed for my Native American Writing and Rhetoric class. The essay was an in-depth discussion about how Native American peoples are dehumanized by the usage of mascot imagery. High schools, colleges, and professional sports teams alike use Indigenous peoples as their mascots, which is simply insulting and only serves to cause serious societal issues. I am very proud of the paper I wrote, though if given the chance, I would love to add a second component to it. I focus purely on the negative aspects of this issue, but I could certainly try to add a counterargument, or at the very least find a different perspective to research and argue in order to create a more complete document.

The second piece I might use is a creative writing piece I created for a fiction workshop class my sophomore year. Though it was only two years ago, I feel I have grown considerably as a writer since then, and I would appreciate the chance to go back and improve upon a narrative that I enjoyed. I know it could absolutely use some refinement, and I may even be able to add some more contemporary elements to it. It loosely revolves around a character who is experiencing anxiety after the loss of his mother, and because he is struggling to settle in to his new environment. I could definitely add some new insights, and I would look to make use of the new techniques I have learned over the years from various different courses.

The last piece I might use would be the most daunting, simply due to its intense and heavy research focus. I wrote an essay about the dangers of social media in today's political landscape, and though it was a successful piece, I felt that I often got lost and did not provide as much coherence as I would have liked. The issue I would have with revising this piece is that so much has changed since it was written, and it may take a complete and comprehensive overhaul to effectively alter it, and it may be difficult to find relevant sources from that time.

Maddie Staples

2/7/2021 01:11:40 pm

Derek,

Those all sound like very interesting options! Looking back at your first discussion board post, you mentioned wanting to write in sports or similar media, in which case the first option might be best suited to your writing goals? Something like that could be turned into an op-ed or something similar if you ever got the chance. But if you're really passionate about the creative writing assignment, this could be the opportunity to work on it that you might not otherwise have.

Whatever you chose, I look forward to seeing where you take your work!

Lynne Campbell

2/7/2021 12:12:23 pm

I look forward to working on this project because I have been wanting to revisit a short story I wrote for my advanced fiction writing workshop that a took a few semesters ago. I have been proud of all of the stories that I wrote for that class, but my story "A Shift in Narrative" is something that I wanted to revise and continue writing. When my professor reviewed it for my class he said he could see me fleshing it out into a novel. I was over the moon and it's inspired me to want to revise it. Since the pandemic, I haven't been working on it as much as I have wanted to, is I am very excited to be able to accomplish revisions in a classroom setting.
"A Shift in Narrative" is a fantasy story about a young woman named River who is bored by her mundane everyday life of working in a dusty old museum. She goes through her days anxiously giving tours and being ignored by her coworkers. River feels much more at home within the world of her favorite book called The Afflicted Kingdom. Which is a story of about a girl named Ember who is the only key to stopping the sickness ravaging her home. The two things River wants most is for someone to talk about The Afflicted Kingdom with her and for the opportunity to go somewhere else. River will soon get her wish and discover how to navigate a strange new world that she gets throw into.

Paige Couture

2/7/2021 03:44:58 pm

Hi Lynne,

Revisiting a previous story sounds like a good idea! It sounds like you have spent a lot of time with developing the plot. I agree, I do think that you have more than enough information to make it into an actual novel! It sounds really interesting. Something that I would read. Do you mind me asking what type of illness it is that is ravaging her home? Is it something like the pandemic that we're all going through? I'm thinking about doing the same for my revision project, working on a story that I've started working on in a creative writing class when I was going for my associate's degree. I never had the time or opportunity to go back to it. I'm looking forward to seeing how yours turns out!

Brittany Ann Oppenheimer

2/9/2021 10:59:26 am

I have been debating back and forth with what I want to do with this project. Even still, I can only think of one idea at the moment I feel really passionate about, though I'm not sure if this is something I can do for class.

What I want to do it create an essay based around the game Danganronpa and write about what the creators could do or fix for the next game whenever it comes out. It's sort of like a critique or review revolving around the game and my hopes for would it could be like in the future. I could write about what I don't like about the first three games, what I feel the game should of done (or concluded differently) in the end while trying to think about how the Danganrompa game can be improved as a whole.

Or, if this doesn't work, I could always back peddle to a discussion about the anatomy of dragons? I think talking about pit bulls would also be a good discussion too.

Emily Spagna

2/9/2021 08:56:51 pm

The project is supposed to be rewriting something we have already written. It doesn't sound like these are things you already have written.

Brittany Ann Oppenheimer

2/10/2021 11:24:44 am

Sorry, I got confused I guess. I thought we were writing something for class to rethink and revise later down the line. If that's the case, I can submit a fiction piece titled The Art of Sacrifice that I have written in a class last semester. It's suppose to be anime inspired piece and I enjoyed making this project a lot. So, I guess I will do that instead.

CJ Hall

2/12/2021 06:28:32 am

I’m choosing between three older projects. One from Semester 1, one from Semester 2, and another from Fall of Junior year. They are different in subject matter and form, but all are personal works that I still feel connected to.

The first was a letter to my grandmother that I wrote in 102. Some of the thoughts I had then have since changed and would allow me to restructure the piece and extend it from 5 to 10 pages.

The second was my poetry portfolio from my first workshop at BSU. Some pieces I’m still happy with (but need tweaking) and others were so obviously filler and superficial. I think changing the lineup and adding in newer material could make this a more finished piece.

Lastly was a research paper I did in the BSU archives and for Writing Our Heritages. It revolves around something that occurred on campus in 1991 and my personal #metoo story. I think I could improve this paper with a more focused layout and more journalistic research around the campus in the 90’s/seeing if I contact the author if he will speak to me on or off the record. My hang up is whether or not the archives are open to students right now. The paper currently sits at 10 pages.

Michael Wood

3/8/2021 06:32:06 pm

I/m thinking about revising an old story I wrote for Dr. Machart's fiction workshop class. I really enjoyed the concept and I think it would be great to revisit as it has the most potential to be greater. The idea centers around an avatar from a social media video game that is personified and can be directed by a user in the real world. The game is similar to those with the ability to explore a virtual space and interact with other players in a similar fashion to Avakin Life or Nebula Realms. Since I have been playing those more frequently, I decided to think about the project again and I think now would be a good opportunity to expand on the story and actually receive feedback from peers.

Use This Space to post about your ideas for your Rethink/Revise project.

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