Poetry of witness blog post #3

I chose to look at the poem "immigrants in our own land". Also, I will be using this poem for essay #2.  The poem is about the life of a new inmate at a prison.  The speaker is an inmate himself.  He is describing the life within the jail with an optimistic tone that he expects to diminish.  He mostly describes the emotional and mental conditions within the prison with less effort in describing the physical prison itself.  I think the message is to inform the reader of these emotional and mental conditions of being in prison and how they change over time while in prison.  I try to put myself in the shoes of a prison inmate.  It most definitely would not be easy to stay optimistic while in prison.  This is what appealed to me most about this poem. The author served his sentence and left prison fully rehabilitated and ready to help others.  I'm always inspired by hearing of people that persevere through tough and challenging times.  Here is the link to Jimmy Santiago Baca's wikipedia page.  A very inspiring individual.

Summary vs Analysis

Summarizing is when you tell what the original writing contains.  Summarizing is generally needed in order to analyze the writing.  It can sometimes be easy to over summarize.  We want to look at the writing styles, information sources and other critical information within the writing during analysis.  This information is used to draw conclusions about the author and his or her motives in writing the material.  During analysis we can find symbols and hidden meanings behind the main plot of a story.  Once we’ve found some backup information for a conclusion we’ve drawn we can make an argument about the writing.  In analysis, we can detemine what kind of paper it is. Pursuasive paper, commentary, love novel, etc.  This will affect the ways in which we analyse the writing.  If its a pursuasive paper, we can study what kind of pursuation is being used.  If it's a love story, we can find and learn from the ways the writer is able to draw us in emotionally.

Here's a link decribing a good writer.

Blog post #1 "good readers and good writers"

In this short article Nabokov states that a good reader is more of a re-reader.  By saying this, he is suggesting that the effort it takes to actually read and understand the material takes away from the enjoyment of the story or topic of the writing.  He compares it to a painting.  You don't have to do anything but enjoy a painting, where reading takes work before you can enjoy.  I also liked the list of things that makes a good reader.  He said to pick at least 4 of the 10 things.  I don't really consider myself a good reader, or a good writer for that matter.  I guess thats why I'm in this class.  I'll probably refer to this list of things that makes one a good reader a number of times in the future.  I tend to lose interest when I read and I hope this list will help me in that area.

image from http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/vladimir-nabokov-writing-in-bed.jpg

Here is a link to some quotes by Vladimir Nabokov