Raeck, Allison. Adolescent Angst: A Comparison of Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield. March 2012. DeWitt,
Michigan.
This piece is an essay I wrote for an AP English Literature course during my senior year of high school. It evaluates the similarities and differences between the characters Huck Finn of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye. I decided to use the angle of teenage angst and inter-generational conflict to leverage my argument.
The structure and organization of this piece is a prime example of the traditional formatting I felt compelled to write within during my high school years. My introduction sentence includes a catchy hook that barely relates to the topic at hand, and the rest of my conclusion loosely summarizes the two books. The thesis is overly-structured, and follows the "observation-argument" structure that my teacher required all students to use; still, this thesis wasn't deep and didn't present an interesting angle on the topic, as I "observed" that the two characters were similar and "argued" that teenage angst can be seen in every generation and time period. Looking back, this isn't really an argument at all. It may have been a good idea to simply begin my introduction or conclusion with this broad idea, but it provides a very loose framework for the essay as a whole.
Each paragraph is very structured, with a rigid topic sentence, points A, B, and C, and a concluding sentence. At this time in my life, I felt confined by this structure in hopes of getting a good grade. Because the teachers I had in high school emphasized clean-cut organization in essays, I always made my points overly-obvious to ensure that they would understand my reasoning and give me an A grade. Overall, this strict structure and clean-cut thesis reflects my focus on grades at this time in my life, as I never really input any emotion or inquiry into the piece in fear that this would distract and lower my score.
Raeck, Allison. Dear Admissions Committee for the Sweetland Minor in Writing. 24 March 2014. Ann Arbor,
Michigan.
This is the letter I wrote as part of my application to the Minor in Writing. In this piece, I focus on the idea of “why I write,” inspired by Joan Didion’s piece of the same title that I had read in my Writing 300 course. This piece serves as an example of how I began to feel comfortable taking risks in my writing, even when it came to high-stakes essays such as application materials. Because I took Writing 300 before writing this letter and learned that essays didn’t need to be overly-structured, I felt free to take the letter in a non-conventional direction, adopting a somewhat conversational tone and treating the piece more like a letter, and less like a formal application essay.
Additionally, this artifact exemplifies my early application writing, which grew significantly throughout my writing development. Though I had written a couple of cover letters before this piece, application letter writing was a fairly new genre to me. Throughout the letter, I attempted to “sell myself” to the committee and promote my experience and passion for the field. However, in this piece, I limit the extent to which I share my qualifications, for fear of sounding “braggy.” Over time, I learned how to better perfect the art of pitching myself to potential programs or employers in a humble manner, without downplaying my accomplishments.
Still, there is room for growth in this piece. My “thesis” for the letter is pretty vague: “I write because I’ve always written.” Though I know I did not need a formal thesis for this, this artifact demonstrates how I’ve come a long way when it comes to developing a thesis and making a piece interesting. Though I was limited by the space constraints in this piece, this thesis is still much broader and more questionable than those I wrote later in my writing evolution.
Raeck, Allison. It’s a Man’s Post-Apocalyptic World: Exploring the Visual Presentation of Hypermasculinity
in the Opening Title and Promotional Posters of The Walking Dead. 24 April 2015. Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This piece is the final essay I wrote for my in-major Upper-Level Writing Course, Communications 365: Visual Culture and Visual Literacy, completed at the end of my junior year. The essay focused on the opening credits of The Walking Dead and argued that its various production elements implied that the horror genre is tailored toward a male audience.
I significantly revised this piece, as it originally began as a long blog post that I wrote for the course, which was later expanded into an essay, and eventually revised into my semester analysis. I was able to learn how to adapt the voice of my writing to cater to a specific audience, going from an audience of my classmates reading my blog to that of academic readers.
Overall, this is a quintessential example of the writing I have completed through the Communications department, as it includes a detailed literature review and analysis. I wrote in-depth about the specific visual details of the opening credits, and analyzed them in relation to my broader argument. Though this was an academic piece, I feel that it reflects my transition toward implementing creativity and inquiry in my writing. By the end of my junior year, I had written a good amount of academic papers for my Communications major, and got to the point where I wanted to add more of my personality in my writing (to an extent). When I started the paper, I initially thought I would argue about how the opening credits of The Walking Dead were filmed and edited in a specific manner in order to evoke fear. Later, however, I realized how shallow this argument was; of course a horror television show would want to evoke fear. So, I took a risk by adding a new layer to my argument, addressing how the horror genre at large targets a heterosexual male audience and reinforces society’s standard of hegemonic masculinity. It seemed like a stretch at first, but as I wrote I was able to take these seemingly unrelated concepts and develop a nuanced argument and analysis.
Raeck, Allison. Lifeblood. 17 December 2015. Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This is the final draft of the fiction short story that I wrote for English 223: Creative Writing. It explores a genre I was very unfamiliar with (fiction) and attempts to focus on detailed characterization and descriptive language, telling the story of a depressed surgeon who encounters pressure from his mother to live a normal life regardless of past tragedy.
Though I had initially thought fiction writing would be fun and effortless, I quickly realized that this was not the case. I was shocked by how difficult it was to write fiction, and found myself at multiple roadblocks within this writing process. Though I had written fiction before college, it had been a long time since I had worked in the genre. When I struggled with coming up with unique ideas and storylines, I questioned whether college had taken away my creativity.
This piece also allowed me to understand the importance of feedback and revision. In the course, every student in the class read and critiqued my story. Though it was stressful and a little painful to hear so many criticisms about my work, I eventually learned that these suggestions were not meant to hurt me, but rather to build up my subsequent drafts. After reading through my peers’ suggestions and making significant changes to the piece, I came away with a final draft that I was proud of. I learned that, especially in the fiction genre, a writer must be willing to accept feedback, conduct significant research on their topic, and change their ideas throughout the revision process.
Raeck, Allison. Live Within It. March 2015. Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This is a photobook that I completed for Writing 200: New Media Writing, Composing With Images. I was prompted to shoot and edit photos that told a story, and to add a bit of supplemental text centered on any theme I wanted, so long as the overall piece was cohesive and unified. I chose to focus on the idea of one’s “era,” and how people tend not to notice the nuances and definition of the time in which they live. I used the German term sehnsucht to spearhead my written introduction for the photobook, as it means “an inconsolable longing for an unattainable place or time.” Though there were little literal writing in words in this piece, I realized the connections between written words in an essay and photos in a photobook.
Coming into this course, I wasn’t quite sure how photography related to writing. Over time, however, I realized that photography is, in a way, writing. When I went out to take photos for my photobook, I considered what scenes would work well with one another in order to tell a story or reflect my theme. The process of editing my images, deciding which ones to cut out, and logically organizing them directly connected back to the steps of writing an essay. Like paragraphs, each photo had to flow smoothly from one to the next. I wanted my first photo to serve as a sort of introduction, so I chose a shot of peoples’ legs walking as a way to begin the journey into the book. For the concluding image, I chose what I considered to be my best shot, which showcased a man on a bicycle to appropriately summarize the mood I wished to present and left the reader thinking. This assignment taught me that organizing images in a photobook is really no different from writing and editing a written essay because, in both mediums, the creator must always remember their audience and the mood or argument they wish to present.
Raeck, Allison. Media, Money and Morals: Looking at the Future of the Journalism Industry. 15 December
2014. Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This piece is the Remediation project I completed for my Minor in Writing Gateway course, which transposed my Repurposing project into the medium of an NPR-style audio piece. The podcast explores the economic future of the journalism industry through a variety of perspectives, including the effects of digitization, attracting Millennial audiences, and sacrificing quality content for quick stories to generate revenue.
In putting together this piece, I noticed the similarities between traditional essay writing (a genre I was familiar with) and the writing and editing of a multimodal audio piece (a completely new medium). Though I previously wouldn’t have considered a podcast to be a form of “writing,” I learned just how much writing went into it. By recording interviews with professors and random passerby students on the topic, I discovered that interview questions are a genre in themselves, as the way I framed a question often affected the tone of the response.
Additionally, this piece taught me how to shift my tone depending on the audience I am targeting and the medium through which I am presenting. My original piece, the Repurposing project for the Gateway, was a mock- New York Times Op-Ed on the same topic. I adapted the writing in this piece to better accommodate radio audiences; this is exemplified through my use of short, succinct sentences, catchy hook phrases in the introduction, and the inclusion of rhetorical questions to inspire inquiry in listeners. I learned that radio writing is different from any other genre, as the spoken word format inherently shapes the tone and audience experience.
Raeck, Allison. Over-telling It Like It Is: The Role of Adjectives in Joan Didion’s The Getty. 18 November
2012. Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This piece was the second of four major essays I wrote for my First Year Writing Requirement course, English 125, which focused on the topic of style in writing and the presentation of tone through genre. The prompt was to analyze the style of a particular piece of writing we had read in class, looking closely at specific rhetorical choices made by the author to achieve a certain tone or mood. I chose to look at the usage of adjectives in Joan Didion’s essay, The Getty.
Throughout my writing, many of my own stylistic choices hint at my overall writing mindset during my freshman year of college. Because I had not done particularly well on my first paper for this course, I attempted to over-structure this piece in hopes of receiving a good grade. Each paragraph is highly focused, and no ideas seem to flow fluidly from one to the next. Thus, the piece is very rigid. I think I felt confined by the “conventional” limits of writing according to a strict outline, rather than just writing what logically makes sense. This reveals how, during my freshman year, I wrote to receive a good grade, even if that meant sacrificing individuality and personal style to fit my writing within an imaginary box.
Additionally, the incredibly broad scope of my conclusion in this piece reflects desperate attempts to address the “so what” of my argument, as my instructor had suggested. Looking back, I see how, at this point in my writing development, I didn’t really know what the “so what” was. I addressed “society” in general in hopes of getting at a broader argument, but didn’t realize that I may have been taking the overarching theme of the piece a little too far. This overly-deep conclusion is a perfect example of what I thought constituted a “proper” conclusion at the beginning of my writing evolution.
Raeck, Allison. Perfect Imperfection: The Unpredictable Nature of Finding Harmony in a Group Dynamic
(Directed Self-Placement Essay). August 2012.
This is the Directed Self-Placement essay I wrote before beginning my freshman year at the University of Michigan to determine which English course I would take. It is based on the John Lehrer’s article, “Groupthink,” which questioned the productivity and effectiveness of brainstorming in group dynamics. I was prompted to take a stance either agreeing or questioning Lehrer’s argument, and to significantly support my argument. I decided to agree with Lehrer, and argued that traditional brainstorming methods hindered personal innovation and led individuals to agree with one another’s proposals rather than coming up with ideas on their own.
It is evident that I spent a lot of time evaluating the text and finding a specific angle to argue. I put a lot of effort into presenting what I considered to be a professional, “collegiate” tone, but made the conscious decision to avoid sounding too formal. For example, I began the paper with a paragraph drawing from my own experiences, explaining how I had been taught to brainstorm using “idea webs” throughout all of my educational experience.
Considering that I wrote this piece straight out of high school, I’m actually quite impressed. I was able to form my argument through a relatively loose structure, avoiding the standard, five-paragraph format. At the start of the piece, I established credibility with the audience, as I explained that I was someone who had experienced the negative sides of traditional brainstorming methods. My thesis is not overly-obvious, which may be both an asset and a hindrance in this piece; gradually building up to my main point helps the essay flow much more smoothly, yet it may not have been obvious what side I was actually taking until about a page into the piece. Overall, this essay reveals that, coming into college, I did not feel the need to fit within a stricy essay structure, but also that I may have lacked some clarity in my argumentation.
Raeck, Allison. “Rules of Writing: A Manifesto.” Web blog post. Sweetland Minor in Writing Blog. 6 October
2014. Web.
One of the first blog posts I wrote for my Minor in Writing Gateway course, this piece is poetic list I wrote under the prompt of a personal writing manifesto. It presents my “rules” of writing, emphasizing that there really aren’t any rules at all. This is part of the larger thread of blog posts that I wrote for my Gateway course, which explored the deeper underlying question of why I write in preparation for my first reflection essay for that course.
Before the Gateway course, I hadn’t published any significant blog posts, and rarely dabbled with the genre. This serves as a good example of low-stakes, creative writing. One of the main advantages that the blog genre provided me was the ability to take risks, as blog posts tend to be written in tones that are personal, inquisitive, and reflective. I really had fun with this post at the time, and it allowed me to express my views on writing in a poetic format.
Still, though this piece was a fairly short poem, I put a significant amount of thought into every word I chose. It was interesting to learn that, though blog posts tend to be shorter than traditional essays, this only places more focus on each sentence of the post. Therefore, I made sure that every word was necessary and accurately presented the tone and feeling I hoped to portray.
In general, this piece is a good example of my first experiences with creative writing through the Minor in Writing. Through the format of a poem, I had the opportunity to include a strong emotional appeal; according to the positive responses I received as comments, other writers felt emotional reactions, as they could relate to the sentiments I proposed in the piece.
Raeck, Allison. A Symbol of Wonder, a Symbol of Change: The Evolution and Justification of the Modern-Day
Zoo. 22 April 2013. Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This piece is the final research paper that I wrote for English 225: Academic Argumentation. Over the duration of this course, I studied the ethical implications of zoos and completed a 20-page research paper on the topic.
Various drafts of this piece reveal how I learned the importance of revision and adapting to research findings when writing. Coming into the project, I had initially wanted to write about circuses, and how animals should be removed due to numerous ethical violations in the use of animals for entertainment. However, after beginning my research, I found that there wasn’t much to argue when it came to the use of animals in the circus, and that it seemed to lack a significant counterargument. Instead, though unexpected, the ethics of zoos arose throughout my research, which turned out to be a much more nuanced, complicated topic. I took away the idea that writing will not always go the way I initially plan, and that I needed to adapt my stance and scope to my research findings in order to present an accurate, interesting argument.
At the same time, there are various elements of my writing style in this piece that reveal my insecurity and attempts to appear credible at this point in my writing development. I tried to mask the fact that I was just a college freshman with little former knowledge of the topic with a variety of big words and long sentences. Because I conducted a great amount of research for this paper and consulted many sources with incredibly scholarly tones, I attempted to mimic the formal voices of the books I read on the topic. Especially when presenting background information at the beginning of the essay, it is clear that I was trying very hard to come across as an expert on the topic, regardless of the fact that I knew next to nothing about it a few months prior. At this point in my life, I wrote in a stuffy tone to overcompensate for my underlying insecurity that I was unqualified for the University of Michigan.
Raeck, Allison. Various Journal Entries. 2004-2012. DeWitt, Michigan.
This is a collection of the journals I kept throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school. They range in topic, from random ideas to what I did each day to things that made me mad to what I wanted to do with my life. These artifacts helped me get a sense of the role writing has always played in my life, as I continually wrote nearly every day. Because I wrote for myself, my tone in these entries is extremely honest and reflects my thoughts and feelings in a stream-of-consciousness format, rather than a strict, organized structure.
Analyzing these journal entries helped me see where I started as a writer. The fact that I voluntarily chose to write every day in the fourth grade reflects how I’ve always had a general inclination toward writing, which may have contributed to the “good writer” label that I had throughout high school.
It is also interesting to consider my tone in these pieces in comparison to formal, academic papers to observe the way in which I “code switched” throughout my English courses. In my journals, my writing is very fluid and almost rant-like, as I wrote about topics I was inherently interested in and passionate about. These stand in stark contrast to the papers I had to write for my English courses at the same time, which were often on a topic I wasn’t very interested in and seemed forced. Still, sometimes academic subjects and personal writing overlapped. There is one entry in particular that perfectly exemplifies this; when I read The Outsiders during my freshman year of high school, I really enjoyed the book and the themes it presented. In response, I wrote a lengthy journal entry on my thoughts about the book, and how I personally interpreted its metaphors and underlying meanings. Written in first-person point of view in an extremely low-stakes medium, I wrote exactly what I was thinking. However, when I went to compose an essay on this same book for my English class at the time, I recall that the essay was in the five-paragraph format, and that I tried to use big words to impress the teacher. Looking back at these journal entries, the divide between my personal voice and academic voice becomes increasingly clear, as I found it impossible to merge the two at the time.
Raeck, Allison. Why I've Always Written, Why I Write, and Why I Will Write: A Self-Reflection. 12
December 2013. Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This piece was my first major essay for Writing 300: Seminar in Peer Tutoring, which served as the Upper-Level Writing course outside my major. The prompt for this piece was to simply explore the topic of why I write. Initially, I was surprised by the vagueness of the prompt, and wasn’t quite sure how to handle this newfound freedom. I eventually decided to write about how I had always been passionate about writing growing up, but found my essays trapped within strict structures throughout high school.
Overall, this essay reveals the broader lesson I took away from my Writing 300 course, which was that everyone is a writer, regardless of the structure or language they choose. For the first time, I was motivated to ask why students feel forced to write according to strict norms, such as the five-paragraph format and the formal voice of “Standard Written English.” This completely turned my writing perspective upside-down and changed the way I would write throughout the rest of my college years.
In this piece, my chose to write through third-person point-of-view reflects my new willingness to take risks through writing at that time. It seemed utterly counter-intuitive to write a personal reflection through an outside point-of-view, but this risk ended up paying off, as it differentiated the piece from traditional self-reflections and painted a creative narrative structure.