Austin Katz 4/11/13
STAC
COMMON CORE STANDARDS ASSIGNMENT
Prior
to the third quarter, I had a revelation.
My writing is mechanical, redundant, boring, lacks flow and
organization. This shocking eye opener
was tough. I was left with two choices,
quit or get better. I choose to try to
get better.
The
first thing I noticed about my writing was that I usually expand my sentences
with unnecessary words and my essays with unnecessary sentences. While thinking
about this, I sought out in the third quarter to write more minimally. It was
hard at first. I was always taught to expand and add. What I thought of as additional insight or
descriptive adjectives was just fluff and filler. Quality over quantity should be the
prevailing concept with word minimum or maximums as a guideline rather than a
rubric. But alas, this is high school
and this is a learning experience for me, and I am striving to be the best
writer that I can be. Short, sweet, to
the point, while still getting the point across to my audience, is what I
strive for.
Surprisingly,
blogging has helped in this writing endeavor.
At first glance, blogs appear to be a bit rambling, non grammatical, and
open ended. In actuality, they are fun
and educational. The issue with blogs,
for me, is that it is not easy to come up with something different to blog
about numerous times a week. It is not
so hard to write about things I like, such as food, all the time. “I am
finished with my homework and such, but before I make myself a victory peanut
butter and jelly sandwich (food of the g-ds) I have to blog. I can hear my
stomach grumbling so I will do this quickly
(I promise stomach). I finished my homework (we established that) I
practiced drums and I put finishing touches on my questions. That is pretty
much it....... bon appetite!!!” (Katz 1/29/13) After this blog I was told, not so gently, to move
along and blog about other topics. “This is a
waste of my time. I don't care about your sandwiches. I care about what you are
working on.”
I had
to stop writing about what I ordered, "Ok, what
kind of cookie do you really want?” she asked.
"Chocolate chip, no wait, white chocolate chip", I answered”, (Katz
1/19/13) based upon this forceful nudge.
I had to learn to expand my blogs.
Slowly
I stepped out of my comfort zone.
Writing about food led to writing about people I met or just saw on a
billboard. “Today I
will be taking about the theme good vs evil or villain or a saint. The above is
a billboard that I saw in the city a while back. I thought it was interesting,
so I took a picture. It got me thinking about how history is written and based
upon that, who we think of as good or bad. We all know that history is written
in the perspective of the victors. But what about our modern leaders?
How will they be portrayed and will they be portrayed differently by
different groups who have different perspectives?” (Katz
3/11/13)
Sometimes
I blogged about the weather and other times about colors of clouds or what I
thought of a television sitcom. I even
blogged about cartoons. “Adventure
Time as a silly cartoon about a boy and his magical talking dog who go on
adventures in the land of Ooo. What you are thinking is what I also thought at
first, so I started watching it. As I really got into the show, I started
noticing weird objects around Ooo.” (Katz 12/5/12)
It
is at this point I must make a confession.
As I have hinted in the prior paragraphs, I wrote blogs that I did not
publish. In trying to write about other
topics, I was so out of my comfort zone that publishing the “new me” was just
too difficult. I acknowledge that part
of me is afraid of getting laughed at or receiving negative criticism, but I
also had to come to the very grown up realization that I can’t learn if I don’t
try and personal growth comes from trying many different things. One blog that
I did not post was about the magic of snow.
“It is snowing like crazy outside.
The snowflakes are coming down like magical cotton candy at a summer
street fair. I am watching the snow
thinking about when I was younger. Snow
meant no school (which I still like) and friends sliding down the huge
“mountain” at the high school. I loved
that time with my friends. Everyone
always came to my house for hot chocolate and cookies and playing video
games. I don’t get to see those guys
anymore as we have all moved in different directions. It’s sad how things have to change.” I started to publish this blog but felt it
was too emotionally revealing so I wimped out.
I won’t make the same mistake this quarter. I promised myself that I
would start opening up this final quarter of the year, and I have. “I love to
write. Period end of story. Now I am happy. I can end right here, but no, I
have not said anything yet. I have not expressed my feeling of the first
warm breeze after a cold winter, or the first bite of fresh sushi, when I am
hungry or being a part of cheering fans, at a Yankee game. Without words to
describe critique or vent, I would have to resort to drawing or fighting.
And given my unique artistic ability, I would have to fight, as my art may be
interpreted as insulting.’ ( Katz
4/7/13) Sometimes
sharing takes a bit of time to get used to, but without writing, experimenting
and expressing, myself, I know I can never grow as a writer.
Getting
back to the “filler, I have thought of various ways to cope with this problem.
One obvious way is to cut out the filler and expand the meat. This is extremely
difficult, because most of the time it is difficult to tell filler from meat,
(just ask McDonalds, I further apologize for the food metaphors). For example, in the blog Its that
time again, I wrote” Time to dream about
bread and watching matzo crumble between your fingertips. If you find yourself
in a Seder follow this Jew's guide to Passover.... the more you suffer the
better.” (Katz 3/26/13) The blog went on
from here but it could have stopped right there. The filler was ok but not needed.
Another method is to stop in the middle of writing,
go back to a previous point and ask, what am I trying to say? This will lead to
erasing what I said and adding the new, slimmed down material in. This is also
difficult, however, because what if the new material that was added is bad and
what I erased was actually good. I learned this lesson in the writer’s
workshop. The assignment was writing
about an embarrassing moment. I started
to write about an embarrassing incident, I really did, but not one came to
mind. This was not the case of having a
moment I refused to share, or being in denial of something horrible. I truly had nothing. That got me thinking about the fact that I
was hungry and really wanted a burrito (back to “comfort food”). The end product was a 7 page paper entitled
An Embarrassing Day. It was the story of
me and in my quest for a burrito and how embarrassing things kept happening to
me, like my pants splitting and my books falling all over the floor and getting
mud splashed all over me from a speeding car.
I enjoyed the workshop but believe I singlehandedly convinced the graduate
student not to go into teaching. He did
leave me with one criticism which was that I should name the paper “Search For
the Burrito”.
After
the writing workshop, I decided to go back to really old school and not only
outline but do a map of an essay before I write anything. I would then ask
myself a series of difficult, very teacher-like questions such as, what is my
purpose, what is the point of saying this or that , or not saying something
else. The map would provide the skeleton of the essay, where the meat can sit
later. Filler then becomes the skin to hold the essay together. Interestingly, Twitter was helpful in this
regard.
Twitter
was a new medium that I forced myself to start.
I was already blogging so did not want to do this as well, as I was not
sure what the point was. Despite my
hesitation I went forward. In my twitter
narratives, it has to be just the meat, no filler (unlike KFC). In contrast to blogs, and certainly essays,
Tweets are very short, and to the point.
Tweets, therefore, are extremely difficult to write because the twitter
narrative is line-by-line tweets of a story you write as you go along. Tweets
are both good and bad in that respect. I
usually do not know what my tweet ideas will be until they pop into my head before,
during or after I tweet them, thus making it hard to tell what is fluffy and
what is not fluffy. For example, in the story I have been tweeting, the
excitement of seeing what will pop into my head and come next overpowers my
other thoughts of editing my words “Like a
vacuum space sucked him out of the ship and into the emptiness of space
.No he felt the walls and
pinched himself. It definitely was not. In a flash a window opened..” (Katz Tweet) I know I can’t wait to see what
happens next!
The
assignment that is the most fun for me is my writing of the Inside the Starving
Artist (ITSA) articles. Started by my
brother Alex, ITSA is a really fun way of expressing an alternate ego voice
created by me. Each quarter I am challenged to go to Chez Cheese and talk about
anything from Chagall to Hitchcock. The
ITSA articles are meant to be funny, informative and provide incite about
me. Although I usually like the end product,
the construction is very difficult at times.
Fluff and filler become one as fiction and reality are blurred. For example, in my last ITSA, I was riding on
a train to Mt. Rushmore as Mr. Thornhill
from North by Northwest. Last
quarter I gave a review of Chagall’s paintings and prior to that I was having
lunch and looking at the inside/outside world of two STAC students, Michelle
and Sarah. ITSA allows me (thankfully) to use my voice, but I am often
concerned I use it to the point where the article becomes boring or without
purpose or meaning.
I
have also been working on my script, whose title has changed so many
times that it is now just called script.
I would say that this project is essays, blogs, twitters and ITSA’s all
rolled into one large…something, Scripts are really difficult, and
underappreciated. Actors go on stage and
do their thing. Either you love or hate
their performance, but no one argues that a bad script leads to a bad
show. It all starts from the written
word. I find that I first have to have
an idea of a plot, then the characters, setting, time period, location, and
actors to play the parts. After that I start to write the script. I then reread the masterpiece I have written,
only to promptly delete it all and start again.
I could have a script bigger than Game of Thrones by now, but
sadly, it seems to me more like Cat in the Hat. I am really working on this!
I
want to end this retrospection, critique, and reflection, on a curious
note. In my last blog I ended with the
immortal words, “the pen is mightier than the sword” (which few know was taken
from Edward Bulwer-lytton’s play from the 1800’s, , Richelieu; Or the
Conspiracy) . In looking into who has reviewed my blogs, I saw I had
“hits” from Russia and Germany. This
would mean that I single handedly united
foreign countries through my blogs, so the answer is yes, the pen is mightier
than the sword. Maybe I should send my
blogs to North Korea, but maybe it would just make them hungry.
Works
Cited
“ Cookies with Studying” Katz, Austin. "Life the
Universe and Everything, With Austin Katz." Life the Universe
and Everything, With Austin Katz. N.p., 19 Jan. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.
<http://lifetheuniverseandeverythingwith.blogspot.com/>.
“Dealing With being Jewish” Katz, Austin. "Life the
Universe and Everything, With Austin Katz." Life the Universe
and Everything, With Austin Katz. N.p., 3 March. 2013. Web. 12 Apr.
2013. <http://lifetheuniverseandeverythingwith.blogspot.com/>.
Finished Katz, Austin. "Life the Universe and
Everything, With Austin Katz." Life the Universe and Everything, With Austin Katz.
N.p., 29 Jan. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. <http://lifetheuniverseandeverythingwith.blogspot.com/>.
“Good vs Evil” Katz, Austin. "Life the Universe and
Everything, With Austin Katz." Life the Universe and Everything,
With Austin Katz. N.p., 11 March. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. <http://lifetheuniverseandeverythingwith.blogspot.com/>.
“ My First New Post” Katz, Austin. "Life the Universe
and Everything, With Austin Katz." Life the Universe and
Everything, With Austin Katz. N.p.5 7 Dec. 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. http://lifetheuniverseandeverythingwith.blogspot.com/.
“Writing” Katz, Austin. "Life the Universe and
Everything, With Austin Katz." Life the Universe and Everything, With Austin Katz.
N.p., 7 Jan. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. <http://lifetheuniverseandeverythingwith.blogspot.com/>.
No comments:
Post a Comment