The main thing I noticed in my classmates' writing was how they viewed the article. I may have been too wrapped up in my own ideas of taxidermy to be open minded about Susan Orleans purpose. I don't like the images that were put in my head while reading, I love animals and it was shocking to me how weirdly obsessed these people were with stuffing dead animals.. After talking to my classmates and reading what they had to say about it, I realized maybe I was a little to caught up in the negative parts. Now I can see a little more of the things they are saying, but I still have my personal opinions on the side. I'm glad this is an interpretive essay so I won't have to hold back my true feelings, but for now I will put them off to the side. One thing I noticed about my writing was that I was trying to explain Orleans purpose the whole time while we are supposed to be giving our own personal interpretation of it. I had some of my own feelings in there but they were lost while trying to explain what Orlean wanted her readers to feel. Now I realize that for me, the choices Orlean used in her writing, did not work for me at all.
As far as my essay goes, I think this essay will be a little bit better than my last. I have more personal emotion attached with this topic than I did with "Standing By". "Lifelike" evoked more emotion out of me and made me feel disgusted yet really angry at the same time. I believe my overall tone is very negative. I don't understand why someone would take up taxidermy as a hobby or profession, as I told my classmates, Taxidermy reminds me of something a serial killer would do in his spare time, it's twisted and extremely weird that someone would want to kill something, yet rebuild it to look as if it was alive and never died in the first place. It's too weird for me to wrap my head around this but I have at least tried for discussion purposes. I think the main thing that makes my essay stand out is my purpose, a lot of my classmates were focusing more on Orleans purpose of trying to persuade everyone to love taxidermy that they forgot how they felt the first time reading it. For me, I can't forget that feeling and I believe that is what really will set my essay apart from my classmates.
I want you to use your emotion for your essay! That makes it sincere (even if it is negative emotion). What we're trying to learn go do in this class is to use those emotions through sophisticated writing. Part of that is focusing on Orlean's writerly choices rather than her topic. I could tell all Wisconsin people that I hate cheese, but it would only really be effective to make change if I told them at what moments the cheese really gets to me. (I hope that example makes sense.)
ReplyDelete