It Takes a Village Process Memo

Amanda Harbrueger

Mrs. Rinke

WRT 150

12 October 2012

It Takes a Village Process Memo

When I sat down in class to begin my timeline, the most logical place for me to begin was with my first word. My dad was the one who read to me as I was growing up so I thought an important place for me to begin my timeline was with the fact that my first word was, “dad” and that I said it on Father’s Day. Even though my mom was involved in my school work, my dad is really the reason why I love to read and write. He always made time to read to me or let me read to him. The books my dad used to teach me how to read are ones I’ll never forget. I still have them today. Those books were a very important part of my timeline. They represent part of my childhood.

As I thought about my literary history even the small details came easily to me because they were all good memories. I had a hard time putting every memory and detail into words because I had a lot of good memories and I wanted to document all of them. I never really thought about who helped me become literate but when I sat down and looked at the timeline of my literary history three different people really stood out to me. I did not even have space to mention my freshman English teacher in my literary narrative. However, he really made an impact on how I developed my reading and writing skills too. Throughout my timeline I realized my theme was the people who influenced me as I grew. My dad always motivated me and inspired me to do my best in school. When I lacked the motivation or inspiration I needed to do well he would pull out his old papers from high school and let me look at them. I remember wishing I could write as well as he did which pushed me to work harder and try to improve my skills. When I met Mrs. Grossman during my sophomore year of high school she reminded me a lot of how my dad used to teach me how to read and write. It was difficult to narrow my timeline down to one theme before beginning my essay. I wanted to include everyone and every experience that shaped me along the way. In the end, I decided to focus on the two people that influenced me because they were my inspiration and always provided encouragement which helped me grow and develop. The experience of creating my timeline made me realize how lucky I’ve been. I have parents that have always supported me with school and I also had amazing teachers that actually cared about their students.  

            When it was time to begin my essay I found it easy to narrow down my experiences and focus on one area. I chose to write about the two most important experiences and people that helped me to become literate. I had a difficult time telling my story at first. I had to re-read my essay a lot to make sure I was clear about what happened. Sometimes I think it is hard to write about personal experiences because I end up leaving out important details because I know what happened so I tend to assume my readers do too. I was careful not to leave anything out of this essay. I also thought it was difficult to tell my story in chronological order but in a way that was not repetitive or boring. I did not want to say, “first”, “next”, “last” as a way to transition throughout my essay. My draft was difficult to start because I had so much to say. I did not know where it would all fit so I just started writing. I figured I could always rearrange the order of my sentences later on as long as I got all of my thoughts onto paper.

My partner recognized a few spelling and grammar mistakes that I had. She also pointed out a few places where I could have added a few more details. Overall, I ended the peer-review feeling kind of disappointed. I wish my partner had been a little harsher. I think being critical during the editing stage is important. The peer review would have been a lot more helpful if my partner had felt comfortable being more critical of my paper.

 I did not think about how I was going to turn my paper into a video slideshow at all before I turned in my rough draft. I did not want to change anything I had written just for the purpose of the video. I figured I would worry about that when I went to make the video. During the peer review, my partner ran out of time while highlighting my fifteen best sentences. I did end up using nearly all of the ones she had time to highlight though. The hardest part of the entire project, including the timeline and the essay, was trying to meet the 52-character limit per slide. I had to dramatically shorten my sentences and add words so that my story still made sense and so I could still get my original point across. Every picture I used helped to compliment the text that came before it; whether it was adding to what I said or getting something across to my audience I could not say in words. My images were meant to solidify my thoughts on what I had said on my text slide. For example, I wrote on one text slide, “Mrs. Grossman made an impact on my life.” The next slide was a picture that had words that read, “Thank you for being such a wonderful teacher!” Although I never came out and said she was a great teacher in my video that is what I was trying to convey. I only used two personal pictures in my video. I could not find pictures of myself that related to what I was saying so I chose to use images from the internet. The song I chose helped to cement a theme in my slideshow because the song selection came from the heart. I have always loved that song and when I found it on Animoto I knew I had to use it. I love country music and it just so happened that the beach/country-side theme I chose went well with the song. The words do not necessarily tie into my literary history but I feel like the beat and the rhythm carry the pictures and text well. I think it helps the overall flow of the video. After watching my video again I wish I could have found more personal pictures to use but I am happy with the way my video turned out.