Joseph's+Stephani's+Assignment

Stephani's assignment here.


 * Reading** [|**Murray p. 72**] **: The Storm**

Murray seems like he’s out to impress upon the reader the grandiosity of the event of the storm. He says things like, “It seemed as though the countless hosts of heaven had been mustered with barrels, not buckets, of water…” (72). It makes it seem like something HUGE is happening, yet there’s no sense of danger from his writing. It’s just out to impress, not to strike fear in the reader. He seems pretty melodramatic, but then he kind of putters out at the end. After all of the brouhaha of talking about what a “terrible” (72) sit it was and all of the destruction it caused, they simply “unhitched the horses, and returned to town” (72) as if nothing had happened. His move from dramatic grandiosity to everyday this-then-that communicates that his sense of narrative is kind of nonexistent—he’s not interested in telling a story, but instead includes little anecdotes (which probably suit his purposes). There is no lasting impression or fallout from the storm; it just happens and is gone. Even all of the “[terrible destruction]” the storm causes bears no weight on the narrative. There is no sense of danger, no sense of suspense, and no sense of any lasting effects.


 * Compared to Whitman’s Storm/Steamship section I'm using for this (see my** **blog** **) :**

Whitman, IS trying to tell a story. He has characters that are in danger during the storm, and has a point to make about it. Whitman’s constructing a dramatic narrative for this section, rather than just describing. Murray might contribute a little bit to Whitman’s description of the storm, in terms of things that are actually happening. It’s the difference between reading a history textbook version of a war and reading a dramatic historical fiction recounting of an actual battle from that war. One gives a much more lasting impression than the other, but they have different purposes.


 * Introductory Paragraph to an essay:**

Whitman’s account of the storm differs greatly from Murray’s in terms of the writers’ agendas. Whitman is clearly out to construct a narrative and give readers a sense of grandiosity of emotion and //human// depth; Murray more wishes to give an account of the //natural// world and what kind of picture he can paint of something that he sees. An examination of Whitman and Murray’s style, tone, and narrative reveals that Whitman wants his readers to //feel// while Murray wants his readers to //see//.


 * FEEDBACK:**

I like the idea of bringing all together in an introductory paragraph. It takes the pressure off of writing a whole essay, but still makes you do some of the work and get an idea of what you would come up with if that were the actual assignment (in the beginning part).

I did find it a little frustrating to try to take "notes" and do "thinking" on paper for the beginning parts without having some kind of thesis in mind, but that could be because I'm so used to thinking in essay-mode that I don't need help. That said, I think constructing the assignment like this DOES help, because by the end of it I had a better idea of what I thought and what kind of argument I might want to construct.

One thing that I did have to do was take notes on the actual assignment. It was a bit hard to decipher what kinds of things I shoudl put in which paragraph, and which tings should actually be put into paragraphs. I also didnt know if I should answer ALL of the questions, SOME of the questions, or maybe none of the questions. It might also be helpful to put up-front what's going on--is the assignment trying to use whitman to read murray, or use murray to read whitman, or just to compare the two? Or maybe that's not part of the agenda at all, and I"m trying to read things into it.

It might have also been helpful to have some guidance in terms of what I was looking for in Murray and Whitman....like a couple of examples. Or maybe isolate a few bits of Murray (I obviously didn't read the entire book, and probably less of it than I should have) to use somewhere in Whitman. I decided on an angle of how Whitman is different (and less boring) than Murray, but I got the impression you were more interested in the similarities. Maybe I took it a different way than you wanted me to go, but there it is!

Also, there were some missing pieces of the assignment, I think. I'm not sure if these got lost in the formatting or something, but I wasn't sure what was going on. One sentence is unfinished: "Look at the similarities between" and you mention my "chosen object" but I wasn't sure when I was supposed to choose an object or what it was supposed to be.

Overall, I think it was a good assignment. My main suggestion would be to format it in some kind of section or bullet-point type thing. It was intimidating (and confusing, a little bit) to read huge blocks of questions as paragraphs.