Ok, I have to admit, I NEVER thought I would be able to complete this course without some serious difficulty, writer's block, carple tunnel, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed this class even though it kept me up most nights typing and typing and changing things around. It was endless! I have to say I certainly learned so many things about writing and about myself that I would have never know without crossing Dr. Chandler's path. Thank you Dr. Chandler for being understanding, critical if need be, allowing me to feel involved and being able to not "poo poo" my ideas, but instead helping me through the things I needed to work on.
My plans as a writer? I will write and write and write all the time now, whether it be for work, school or merely for fun or to get my feelings out on paper. Its truly something I never knew I even had until I tried. Im excited about it and learned an awful lot about many different things.
Thank you...
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Blog 9 - Literary Journalism Prewriting
Lisa Rotella
Literary Journalism
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
May 7, 2006, just some of my extended family and my Aunt JoAnn not even one year ago my aunt was sitting in her wheelchair strickened with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Her body completely controlled by broken down neurons in the nerve cells located in the brain and spinal cord.
Her family surrounds her as we “Walk to D’Feet ALS” last May in her honor. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins all in this fight together. This situation was one that affected our whole family. Each member whether it be a close sister or distant cousin was affected by this horrific disease. We all walked tall and proud with our heads held high and our signs telling our tale. Uncle Bill pushed Aunt JoAnn as she was in the middle and her supporters surrounded her completely. We were just so thrilled that she was able to make it there as the night before was not a good one. She was slipping away slowly and we were her team trying to route her on. Seemed like an endless marathon that there was just no finish line to. Our team alone collected over $4500 for the association so are heads were high and This May we will be walking in her memory as ALS has since taken her life.
This disease is a life threatening neurodegenerative disease where you progressively lose nervous control of voluntary muscle systems by the destruction of motor neurons in the nerve cells.
At the young age of 65 Aunt JoAnn started some trouble with her hands as she was diagnosed at that point with arthritis. She was a seamstress and extremely talented with knitting and crocheting so arthritis seemed to be an acceptable condition given her circumstances.
There was not much time passed as my aunt was noticing some other strange occurrences. She had some swelling around her legs and ankles, as well as, muscle cramps and slurred speech. We all started to pick up on some things that were going on as she just did not seem her normal self. After all, she was the aunt you wanted to sit next to at all the showers and weddings. She was outgoing and fun and the life of the party. She smiled no matter what came her way and lived her life according to the Lord. She was incredible!
She was back and forth to the doctors for quite a while before she had some tell tale signs of ALS. She could no longer eat solid food as her tongue was enlarged and throat was slowly closing in on her. Her diet consisted of baby food and my uncle would puree her food as she was still able to taste. Her speech was getting progressively worsened by this disease and simple breathing became difficult at best.
According to the ALS Association New York Chapter the symptoms of ALS include muscle weekness, decrease in muscle coordination and mass, loss of tissue due to lack of nervous stimulation, possible paralysis, muscle cramps, voice impairment like hoarseness.
Literary Journalism
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
May 7, 2006, just some of my extended family and my Aunt JoAnn not even one year ago my aunt was sitting in her wheelchair strickened with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Her body completely controlled by broken down neurons in the nerve cells located in the brain and spinal cord.
Her family surrounds her as we “Walk to D’Feet ALS” last May in her honor. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins all in this fight together. This situation was one that affected our whole family. Each member whether it be a close sister or distant cousin was affected by this horrific disease. We all walked tall and proud with our heads held high and our signs telling our tale. Uncle Bill pushed Aunt JoAnn as she was in the middle and her supporters surrounded her completely. We were just so thrilled that she was able to make it there as the night before was not a good one. She was slipping away slowly and we were her team trying to route her on. Seemed like an endless marathon that there was just no finish line to. Our team alone collected over $4500 for the association so are heads were high and This May we will be walking in her memory as ALS has since taken her life.
This disease is a life threatening neurodegenerative disease where you progressively lose nervous control of voluntary muscle systems by the destruction of motor neurons in the nerve cells.
At the young age of 65 Aunt JoAnn started some trouble with her hands as she was diagnosed at that point with arthritis. She was a seamstress and extremely talented with knitting and crocheting so arthritis seemed to be an acceptable condition given her circumstances.
There was not much time passed as my aunt was noticing some other strange occurrences. She had some swelling around her legs and ankles, as well as, muscle cramps and slurred speech. We all started to pick up on some things that were going on as she just did not seem her normal self. After all, she was the aunt you wanted to sit next to at all the showers and weddings. She was outgoing and fun and the life of the party. She smiled no matter what came her way and lived her life according to the Lord. She was incredible!
She was back and forth to the doctors for quite a while before she had some tell tale signs of ALS. She could no longer eat solid food as her tongue was enlarged and throat was slowly closing in on her. Her diet consisted of baby food and my uncle would puree her food as she was still able to taste. Her speech was getting progressively worsened by this disease and simple breathing became difficult at best.
According to the ALS Association New York Chapter the symptoms of ALS include muscle weekness, decrease in muscle coordination and mass, loss of tissue due to lack of nervous stimulation, possible paralysis, muscle cramps, voice impairment like hoarseness.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Reflective Essay
Lisa Rotella
Reflection Essay
As I sit, whether here at home, on the train, at my son’s baseball practice with laptop or in class. My reflection will never be the same at any given time. It is so dependent on my subject at hand, my personal involvement with that subject and my own personal space and what I may be feeling at the time. I tend to have an ability to write no matter where I am however, sometimes I am stuck in a position of dead end where I feel I need to step away and come back. This explains why I have so many “versions” of the same piece over and over again. I need to branch all the way out like a large oak tree. I need to put all of my feelings on paper and really tell my story exactly the way it happened. I need to make sure that my feelings are there in my head and then put on paper so I can allow the reader an easy access to what I am feeling. Wait, should I be giving my audience easy access? I then reevaluate the situation and list all of my ideas and thoughts as a list. I take that list and go back to what I originally wrote and make sure that they are all of the things I need to include. The list should match up somewhat with the original writing I created. Printing both documents and looking over both, I try to create a scene for the paragraph in the story I am writing about. My goal now is to be able to tell the story AGAIN without actually telling the story. I want my reader to be able to put the pieces together like a puzzle. Think about which piece goes where and try to match up every angle. I think normally I spend way too much time on pieces, but I could never just write something for face value and not be able to ponder over it for extended periods of time. I would think that I would cheating my reader into giving him or her the value of what I am trying to reveal.
I have chosen to publish my personal essay which talks about my process of leaving my husband and how a close knit family can teach their children lessons and sometimes those lessons are the learning experiences of themselves. I have a close relationship with my feelings regarding this issue as it has taken me years and years before, during and after to learn by the way in which I lived. My concern is that I allow the reader to understand that mistakes are not mistakes if you learn something from them. I do not like to refer to my situation as a single mom a mistake or “life sentence” as my dad sometimes calls it. I like to think of it as a learning experience. I can tie it into what I have learned in this class as well. I believe writing about writing could even give you yet another avenue where you may or may not have gone before. It may give you more opportunities to explore yourself more and more and allow your audience to see much more of you by your expressive ways. I feel this class and my personal essay writing process is one that is hand in hand. I feel this class, my writings and my personal essay all give the feeling of learning experiences and how important it is to make small boo boo’s to improve yourself.
Reflection Essay
As I sit, whether here at home, on the train, at my son’s baseball practice with laptop or in class. My reflection will never be the same at any given time. It is so dependent on my subject at hand, my personal involvement with that subject and my own personal space and what I may be feeling at the time. I tend to have an ability to write no matter where I am however, sometimes I am stuck in a position of dead end where I feel I need to step away and come back. This explains why I have so many “versions” of the same piece over and over again. I need to branch all the way out like a large oak tree. I need to put all of my feelings on paper and really tell my story exactly the way it happened. I need to make sure that my feelings are there in my head and then put on paper so I can allow the reader an easy access to what I am feeling. Wait, should I be giving my audience easy access? I then reevaluate the situation and list all of my ideas and thoughts as a list. I take that list and go back to what I originally wrote and make sure that they are all of the things I need to include. The list should match up somewhat with the original writing I created. Printing both documents and looking over both, I try to create a scene for the paragraph in the story I am writing about. My goal now is to be able to tell the story AGAIN without actually telling the story. I want my reader to be able to put the pieces together like a puzzle. Think about which piece goes where and try to match up every angle. I think normally I spend way too much time on pieces, but I could never just write something for face value and not be able to ponder over it for extended periods of time. I would think that I would cheating my reader into giving him or her the value of what I am trying to reveal.
I have chosen to publish my personal essay which talks about my process of leaving my husband and how a close knit family can teach their children lessons and sometimes those lessons are the learning experiences of themselves. I have a close relationship with my feelings regarding this issue as it has taken me years and years before, during and after to learn by the way in which I lived. My concern is that I allow the reader to understand that mistakes are not mistakes if you learn something from them. I do not like to refer to my situation as a single mom a mistake or “life sentence” as my dad sometimes calls it. I like to think of it as a learning experience. I can tie it into what I have learned in this class as well. I believe writing about writing could even give you yet another avenue where you may or may not have gone before. It may give you more opportunities to explore yourself more and more and allow your audience to see much more of you by your expressive ways. I feel this class and my personal essay writing process is one that is hand in hand. I feel this class, my writings and my personal essay all give the feeling of learning experiences and how important it is to make small boo boo’s to improve yourself.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Blog 16 Reflective Essay
Which essay will I write my reflective essay about?..hhhmm tough one. I will focus on my personal essay but will somehow have to tie into my memoir peice as well. I feel my reflection could only be created to the best of my ability when I have something I have written about and feel strongly about. Organizing principle hhmm..i think i need to work on that.
Blog 15 composign process
My relationship with each peice is very different. My personal essay regarding my marriage and my memior was obviously the most involved as both essays were about me personally. I feel as though I had a strong attachment to my personal essay because that happened over so many years. When you live with something day in and day out, you become a creature of habit and you realize all that you have learned throught this process. I needed to compose my essays very carefully step by step. I needed to look at several paragraphs separately and then see how they worked together one by one. Writing is definately a process. I never knew how complex it can become!
Blog 14 Ordered List composing
I just sat down initially to tell my story. I didnt think much about anything but what the story was and the time frame it occured in, as well as, facts regarding the situation that I felt were way too important to leave out. I then realized that some facts that I thought were so important were not that important at all. That was a surprise for me. I realized after time that I needed to get this essay to a workable peice where I create scenes for my reader and he or she can understand the story and the plot without me telling it to them word for word. I realized it is actually more fun that way than just reading someones peice that is a typical story. My focus unfortunately didnt come to the end after pulling things in and out and working with it countless times!! I actually tried to just make scenes during the next couple of essays but found it was better for me to get the story line out there and then decide what facts are important and how I can tell my story without telling it. What a learning experience!
Blog 13
Lisa Rotella
Literary Journalism
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
May 7, 2006, just some of my extended family and my Aunt JoAnn not even one year ago my aunt was sitting in her wheelchair strickened with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Her body completely controlled by broken down neurons in the nerve cells located in the brain and spinal cord.
Her family surrounds her as we “Walk to D’Feet ALS” last May in her honor. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins all in this fight together. This situation was one that affected our whole family. Each member whether it be a close sister or distant cousin was affected by this horrific disease. We all walked tall and proud with our heads held high and our signs telling our tale. Uncle Bill pushed Aunt JoAnn as she was in the middle and her supporters surrounded her completely. We were just so thrilled that she was able to make it there as the night before was not a good one. She was slipping away slowly and we were her team trying to route her on. Seemed like an endless marathon that there was just no finish line to. Our team alone collected over $4500 for the association so are heads were high and This May we will be walking in her memory as ALS has since taken her life.
This disease is a life threatening neurodegenerative disease where you progressively lose nervous control of voluntary muscle systems by the destruction of motor neurons in the nerve cells.
At the young age of 65 Aunt JoAnn started some trouble with her hands as she was diagnosed at that point with arthritis. She was a seamstress and extremely talented with knitting and crocheting so arthritis seemed to be an acceptable condition given her circumstances.
There was not much time passed as my aunt was noticing some other strange occurrences. She had some swelling around her legs and ankles, as well as, muscle cramps and slurred speech. We all started to pick up on some things that were going on as she just did not seem her normal self. After all, she was the aunt you wanted to sit next to at all the showers and weddings. She was outgoing and fun and the life of the party. She smiled no matter what came her way and lived her life according to the Lord. She was incredible!
She was back and forth to the doctors for quite a while before she had some tell tale signs of ALS. She could no longer eat solid food as her tongue was enlarged and throat was slowly closing in on her. Her diet consisted of baby food and my uncle would puree her food as she was still able to taste. Her speech was getting progressively worsened by this disease and simple breathing became difficult at best.
According to the ALS Association New York Chapter the symptoms of ALS include muscle weekness, decrease in muscle coordination and mass, loss of tissue due to lack of nervous stimulation, possible paralysis, muscle cramps, voice impairment like hoarseness.
Literary Journalism
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
May 7, 2006, just some of my extended family and my Aunt JoAnn not even one year ago my aunt was sitting in her wheelchair strickened with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Her body completely controlled by broken down neurons in the nerve cells located in the brain and spinal cord.
Her family surrounds her as we “Walk to D’Feet ALS” last May in her honor. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins all in this fight together. This situation was one that affected our whole family. Each member whether it be a close sister or distant cousin was affected by this horrific disease. We all walked tall and proud with our heads held high and our signs telling our tale. Uncle Bill pushed Aunt JoAnn as she was in the middle and her supporters surrounded her completely. We were just so thrilled that she was able to make it there as the night before was not a good one. She was slipping away slowly and we were her team trying to route her on. Seemed like an endless marathon that there was just no finish line to. Our team alone collected over $4500 for the association so are heads were high and This May we will be walking in her memory as ALS has since taken her life.
This disease is a life threatening neurodegenerative disease where you progressively lose nervous control of voluntary muscle systems by the destruction of motor neurons in the nerve cells.
At the young age of 65 Aunt JoAnn started some trouble with her hands as she was diagnosed at that point with arthritis. She was a seamstress and extremely talented with knitting and crocheting so arthritis seemed to be an acceptable condition given her circumstances.
There was not much time passed as my aunt was noticing some other strange occurrences. She had some swelling around her legs and ankles, as well as, muscle cramps and slurred speech. We all started to pick up on some things that were going on as she just did not seem her normal self. After all, she was the aunt you wanted to sit next to at all the showers and weddings. She was outgoing and fun and the life of the party. She smiled no matter what came her way and lived her life according to the Lord. She was incredible!
She was back and forth to the doctors for quite a while before she had some tell tale signs of ALS. She could no longer eat solid food as her tongue was enlarged and throat was slowly closing in on her. Her diet consisted of baby food and my uncle would puree her food as she was still able to taste. Her speech was getting progressively worsened by this disease and simple breathing became difficult at best.
According to the ALS Association New York Chapter the symptoms of ALS include muscle weekness, decrease in muscle coordination and mass, loss of tissue due to lack of nervous stimulation, possible paralysis, muscle cramps, voice impairment like hoarseness.
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