Cover Letter for "Milton Multimodal Project"
I actually really enjoyed this project because it allowed me to visually display one of my favorite parts of PL, while still writing a few words on why it’s so meaningful to me. I’ve drawn many versions of this project leading up to now, so getting to turn it into a final draft is very exciting for me. I wanted to write the process of my thinking in the main written component as well, because I feel like it gives important background that will allow the viewer/reader to understand my choices and my reasoning.
Milton Multimodal Project
My initial thought for this was that I definitely wanted to do something artistic because I feel like I need a creative outlet right now. When deciding which word or line I wanted to highlight, I thought about the times when we read aloud in class and focused on the punctuation and form. I remember specifically the time when Avsha was reading out loud, and we were asking to mark the moments when he paused or missed a punctuation mark or “messed up.” During this reading, I discovered my favorite part of Paradise Lost. The part is in Book III, lines 19-20: “Taught by the Heav’nly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to reascend,” but the section I want to focus on is mostly “down The dark descent, and up to reascend.” I believe this section shows what we--with the help of Alexander Pope--have deemed to be the “privilege of poetry”: poetry can play with the relationship between sound and linguistic meaning, or in Pope’s exact words “the sound must seem an echo to the sense.” The reason this section is my favorite is because I love that when you actually read these lines, your voice goes down-- or descends--as you read the first part, but it goes up-- or reascends--as you read the second. Hearing this for the first time, and the many times I have read it to myself alone in my room after, created an image so striking for me that I’ve already drawn it in my CPB. So when I heard that one of the options for this project was an artifact, I already had a sort of idea of what I wanted to do. I wanted to draw a sort of hill or valley that goes down and then back up, to illustrate both the meaning and the sound the reader's voice has when reading these lines out loud. I also wanted to focus on the common theme of light vs. darkness that happens throughout Paradise Lost in my drawing as well. I feel like there should be an obvious visual contrast between the “dark descent” and the “reascend” that will help strengthen the connection between meaning and form. I wanted to write the words from the end of 3.19-20 along the line of the drawing, so that the words visually go down and then back up to complement the way they audibly go down and back up. In addition to the color scheme and the visuals of the words, I wanted to introduce the other times words with the stem “-scend” appear in the text. I would incorporate some of these lines into the drawing by writing them smaller on the side they should go with. Lines with “descend” on the left and “ascend” on the right. Using these other lines will highlight the importance of the two main words in the line I’m focusing on. I feel like the combination between these three main things I’ll be doing in my artifact will enhance the importance and beauty of the connection between form and meaning in Paradise Lost, and will allow the reader to appreciate the privilege of poetry.
Cover Letter for "Awareness: A Scott and Greenblatt Connection"
Starting this paper was really difficult for me. I kept rewriting my first draft because I was struggling to find a main idea to put as my focus. Once I found what I wanted to write about, I had trouble figuring out how to best get my point across. I was really thankful for the peer review because Perrin and Emma gave me really good ideas for changes for my paper. Emma told me to focus more on the argument of autonomous agency in Greenblatt, and Perrin gave me ideas on how to improve my intro. Once I got this feedback, I felt super inspired to try writing again. I was sure that I needed to start completely over, but I ended up keeping a lot more of my original draft than I thought I would. The most difficult part of this process was the beginning, but now I’m proud of my final product.
Awareness: A Scott and Greenblatt Connection
There is no doubt that our identities are shaped through our experiences. But in order for these experiences to be meaningful enough to affect how we can attempt to understand who we are, it is essential for us to be aware. Awareness of our experiences is key to both criticizing and self-fashioning: what A.O. Scott and Stephen Greenblatt argue to be most important in their books Better Living Through Criticism and Renaissance Self Fashioning, respectively.
In Better Living Through Criticism, Scott argues that one must be a critic because our responses to art and aesthetic experiences are just as important as the art itself-- if not more important. Our responses give those experiences meaning. An aesthetic experience is “a series of discrete moments of contemplation and surrender” (Scott, 44). It is nearly impossible to entirely surrender to an experience if you are only slightly involved. To contemplate these experiences and commit to being Scott’s definition of a critic, awareness is key. It is necessary to appreciate the art you are responding to in order to succeed as a critic because “appreciation of beautiful things--poems, paintings, symphonies--leads to moral improvement” (Scott 49). If you are unaware of what you are experiencing and how you are responding, you’re simply just going through the motions and not being a critic at all. By looking closely at what Scott is saying and how he is saying it, the reader is practicing the art of criticism already. It’s almost impossible to understand Scott’s argument without being aware of how he’s making it, so by engaging with Scott’s argument, readers are internalizing it.
This internalization of the argument by engaging with it works for Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self Fashioning, as well. Greenblatt’s main idea is self-fashioning, which requires the reader to be aware of connections and relationships with other things such as an authority or an alien. But what Greenblatt stresses to be most important is the idea that autonomous agency is a dream. By quoting Clifford Geertz and saying that “there is no such thing as a human nature independent of culture” (Greenblatt, 3), Greenblatt is arguing that we, as humans, have no autonomous agency and our self-fashioning occurs only because of the systems that surround us in our culture. The mirage of “free choice is actually institutionally determined, a disenchanted acknowledgment of the impossibility of apocalyptic change” (Greenblatt, xvi). If we are unaware that autonomous agency is a mere dream rather than a potential reality, we surrender to the danger of a meaningless life influenced by our foolish attempts to gain control of the shaping of our own identities.
The similarities of Greenblatt’s and Scott’s arguments can be seen not only conceptually, but rhetorically, as well. Both authors walk the reader through examples that highlight their arguments. In Better Living Through Criticism, Scott discusses the feeling that art can give a person by referencing Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo” and Marina Abramović’s “The Artist is Present.” He says that “art can make you aware of yourself by drawing your attention to something else” (Scott, 75); this awareness can come from identifying yourself as the person being addressed in the art. In Renaissance Self Fashioning, Greenblatt recalls a Michel Foucault seminar he attended by chance and puts emphasis on the fact that it was one of his most “thrilling” self-fashioning experiences to date. He describes the goal in the formation of identity for us “to escape what we detest and embrace whatever brings us wonder, hope, and pleasure” (Greenblatt, xvii). Being able to practice these things goes hand in hand with being aware.
By engaging with these texts and being aware of what the two authors are attempting to do rhetorically and conceptually, we are submitting to their arguments. By questioning our agency and our autonomy and the meaning of our aesthetic experiences, we are being aware. What’s at stake when we are unaware is our ability to make meaning with art and to understand our own self-fashioning, which will in turn cause us to lose the capacity to appreciate aesthetic experiences, lose the understanding of self, and lose the opportunities to connect with others.
Cover Letter (Final Take)
When I first started this assignment, I was confused by the directions, but I went with one of the two options that I thought the formal writing assignment could be because I thought I had a 50/50 shot. I ended up with a rhetorical analysis about one of the BrainPicking pieces, which I later learned was supposed to be internal, not written. Of course it was frustrating to learn that the way I did the assignment wasn't they way it was intended to be done, but I still think doing the rhetorical analysis was helpful in my understanding of how Popova writes. I also learned that the cover letter was not supposed to describe the piece that I wrote, but rather describe how the process of writing it was for me. Once I figured out that the formal writing piece was supposed to describe the concept map, I decided to expand on my concept map a little bit to reinforce what was going on in my head. I reread my CPB notes and edited/expanded my map as I saw fit. Once I did this, the description came somewhat easily to me. After the simple peer review, I got some good feedback from Lauren about the layout of my concept map and how it was a bit hard to understand, so I decided to add some colors to it to guide the viewer to think in the same way that the way that my thinking was happening. Lauren also suggested I add some quotes to bring evidence from the text, which I did by looking through my CPB for quotes that I thought were relevant to the writing I did and adding a couple where I deemed appropriate. In the more in depth second round of peer review, Melissa and Catherine gave me advice to expand on my quotes, make a clearer into paragraph, and expand on society vs. community, so I did all three of those things. I think the most difficult part of this process was trying to not get frustrated with all of the confusion and knowing that I had to revise the majority of my work.
Remixing a Remix (Final Take)
My concept map depicts the bigger ideas that are found in the summer reading and the difficult questions (without many answers) that come with these ideas. The three main ideas I found that connected to each other throughout the reading were art, identity, and improvement. I thought about how these three things factor into our lives on two different scales: individual and societal.
Art is a frequent topic that is discussed in the summer reading. But the big question I kept finding myself asking was: who defines art? The artist? The audience? Does this have to do with taste? And then there are all the other questions about taste being objective vs. subjective and trying to find subjective universality. I think about how a group of people looking at a piece of art all have the same experience because the thing that is being presented to them is the same, but I also think about how it affects everyone differently, creating an individual experience for each person.
Another overarching theme throughout the reading was identity. Not only self-identity, such as trying to figure out who you are and what values are important to you, but also our identity as a society. "Society" seems like such a taboo word to me now because it seems like everyone’s go-to word when talking about our world and our culture. But society also seems to be the only way to describe the group of people that make up our culture; the only other word that might fit would be "community." To me, the difference between the two is that society feels more large scale, and communities seem to be the smaller groups of people within our society. Once we figure out our roles as individuals and our role as a society or community, we must then think of how we can act as individuals in a cohesive environment. This also connects with the question of how can we make an artistic experience individual, but still universal? Doesn’t the beauty of something depend entirely on the eye of the beholder? Scott says in Better Living Through Criticism that “the aesthetic domain has splintered and shifted to such an extent that to speak of it as in any way universal seems preposterous.” If this is true, how can we ever truly find and define subjective universality?
Improvement seemed to touch on all the readings, as well. How can we improve ourselves through the art of criticism? How can we better ourselves through the art of asking questions? How can we continue to try to live up to the socially acceptable standards we have set before us? It seems that we are constantly trying to improve whether it be our society or our individual identity. For example, Berger brings up how our society has evolved from factory-like jobs to more creative/curiosity based jobs, but many of our schools have yet to catch up. He asks the looming question, “If schools were built on a factory model, were they actually designed to squelch questions?” If we are discouraging students from asking questions with our outdated school model, how will we expect them to be creative and succeed in life by finding creativity and curiosity based jobs?
Connecting the smaller thoughts to the three bigger ideas (art, identity, and improvement) in a visual way made it more clear how my thoughts were forming. When all my thoughts are scrambled in my brain, it's hard to see the bigger picture, but creating this map helps me see where my thoughts relate to each other.
Art is a frequent topic that is discussed in the summer reading. But the big question I kept finding myself asking was: who defines art? The artist? The audience? Does this have to do with taste? And then there are all the other questions about taste being objective vs. subjective and trying to find subjective universality. I think about how a group of people looking at a piece of art all have the same experience because the thing that is being presented to them is the same, but I also think about how it affects everyone differently, creating an individual experience for each person.
Another overarching theme throughout the reading was identity. Not only self-identity, such as trying to figure out who you are and what values are important to you, but also our identity as a society. "Society" seems like such a taboo word to me now because it seems like everyone’s go-to word when talking about our world and our culture. But society also seems to be the only way to describe the group of people that make up our culture; the only other word that might fit would be "community." To me, the difference between the two is that society feels more large scale, and communities seem to be the smaller groups of people within our society. Once we figure out our roles as individuals and our role as a society or community, we must then think of how we can act as individuals in a cohesive environment. This also connects with the question of how can we make an artistic experience individual, but still universal? Doesn’t the beauty of something depend entirely on the eye of the beholder? Scott says in Better Living Through Criticism that “the aesthetic domain has splintered and shifted to such an extent that to speak of it as in any way universal seems preposterous.” If this is true, how can we ever truly find and define subjective universality?
Improvement seemed to touch on all the readings, as well. How can we improve ourselves through the art of criticism? How can we better ourselves through the art of asking questions? How can we continue to try to live up to the socially acceptable standards we have set before us? It seems that we are constantly trying to improve whether it be our society or our individual identity. For example, Berger brings up how our society has evolved from factory-like jobs to more creative/curiosity based jobs, but many of our schools have yet to catch up. He asks the looming question, “If schools were built on a factory model, were they actually designed to squelch questions?” If we are discouraging students from asking questions with our outdated school model, how will we expect them to be creative and succeed in life by finding creativity and curiosity based jobs?
Connecting the smaller thoughts to the three bigger ideas (art, identity, and improvement) in a visual way made it more clear how my thoughts were forming. When all my thoughts are scrambled in my brain, it's hard to see the bigger picture, but creating this map helps me see where my thoughts relate to each other.
Cover Letter (Take 3)
When I first started this assignment, I was confused by the directions, but I went with one of the two options that I thought the formal writing assignment could be because I thought I had a 50/50 shot. I ended up with a rhetorical analysis about one of the BrainPicking pieces, which I later learned was supposed to be internal, not written. Of course it was frustrating to learn that the way I did the assignment wasn't they way it was intended to be done, but I still think doing the rhetorical analysis was helpful in my understanding of how Popova writes. I also learned that the cover letter was not supposed to describe the piece that I wrote, but rather describe how the process of writing it was for me. Once I figured out that the formal writing piece was supposed to describe the concept map, I decided to expand on my concept map a little bit to reinforce what was going on in my head. I reread my CPB notes and edited/expanded my map as I saw fit. Once I did this, the description came somewhat easily to me. After the simple peer review, I got some good feedback from Lauren about the layout of my concept map and how it was a bit hard to understand, so I decided to add some colors to it to guide the viewer to think in the same way that my thinking was happening. Lauren also suggested I add some quotes to bring evidence from the text, which I did by looking through my CPB for quotes that I thought were relevant to my writing and adding a couple where I deemed appropriate. I think the most difficult part of this process was trying to not get frustrated with all of the confusion and knowing that I had to revise the majority of my work.
Remixing a Remix (Take 3)
My concept map depicts the bigger ideas that are found in the summer reading and the difficult questions (without many answers) that come with these ideas. Art is a frequent topic that is discussed in the summer reading. But the big question I kept finding myself asking was: who defines art? The artist? The audience? Does this have to do with taste? And then there are all the other questions about taste being objective vs. subjective and trying to find subjective universality.
Another overarching theme throughout the reading was identity. Not only self-identity, such as trying to figure out who you are and what values are important to you, but also our identity as a society. "Society" seems like such a taboo word now, but that seems to be the only way to describe the group of people that make up our culture; the only other word that might fit would be "community." Once we figure out our roles as individuals and our role as a society or community, we must then think of how we can act as individuals in a cohesive environment. This also connected with the question of how can we make an artistic experience individual, but still universal? Doesn’t the beauty of something depend entirely on the eye of the beholder? Scott says in Better Living Through Criticism that “the aesthetic domain has splintered and shifted to such an extent that to speak of it as in any way universal seems preposterous.”
Improvement seemed to touch on all the readings, as well. How can we improve ourselves through the art of criticism? How can we better ourselves through the art of asking questions? How can we continue to try to live up to the socially acceptable standards we have set before us? It seems that we are constantly trying to improve whether it be our society or our individual identity. For example, Berger brings up how our society has evolved from factory-like jobs to more creative/curiosity based jobs, but many of our schools have yet to catch up. He asks the looming question, “If schools were built on a factory model, were they actually designed to squelch questions?”
Connecting the smaller thoughts to the three bigger ideas (art, identity, and improvement) in a visual way made it more clear how my thoughts were forming. When all my thoughts are scrambled in my brain, it's hard to see the bigger picture, but creating this map helped me see where my thoughts relate to each other.
Another overarching theme throughout the reading was identity. Not only self-identity, such as trying to figure out who you are and what values are important to you, but also our identity as a society. "Society" seems like such a taboo word now, but that seems to be the only way to describe the group of people that make up our culture; the only other word that might fit would be "community." Once we figure out our roles as individuals and our role as a society or community, we must then think of how we can act as individuals in a cohesive environment. This also connected with the question of how can we make an artistic experience individual, but still universal? Doesn’t the beauty of something depend entirely on the eye of the beholder? Scott says in Better Living Through Criticism that “the aesthetic domain has splintered and shifted to such an extent that to speak of it as in any way universal seems preposterous.”
Improvement seemed to touch on all the readings, as well. How can we improve ourselves through the art of criticism? How can we better ourselves through the art of asking questions? How can we continue to try to live up to the socially acceptable standards we have set before us? It seems that we are constantly trying to improve whether it be our society or our individual identity. For example, Berger brings up how our society has evolved from factory-like jobs to more creative/curiosity based jobs, but many of our schools have yet to catch up. He asks the looming question, “If schools were built on a factory model, were they actually designed to squelch questions?”
Connecting the smaller thoughts to the three bigger ideas (art, identity, and improvement) in a visual way made it more clear how my thoughts were forming. When all my thoughts are scrambled in my brain, it's hard to see the bigger picture, but creating this map helped me see where my thoughts relate to each other.
Cover Letter (Take 2)
When I first started this assignment, I was confused by the directions, but I went with one of the two options that I thought the formal writing assignment could be because I thought I had a 50/50 shot. I ended up with a rhetorical analysis about one of the BrainPicking pieces, which I later learned was supposed to be internal, not written. Of course it was frustrating to learn that the way I did the assignment wasn't they way it was intended to be done, but I still think doing the rhetorical analysis was helpful in my understanding of how Popova writes. I also learned that the cover letter was not supposed to describe the piece that I wrote, but rather describe how the process of writing it was for me. Once I figured out that the formal writing piece was supposed to describe the concept map, I decided to expand on my concept map a little bit to reinforce what was going on in my head. I reread my CPB notes and edited/expanded my map as I saw fit. Once I did this, the description came somewhat easily to me. I think the most difficult part of this process was trying to not get frustrated with all of the confusion and knowing that I had to revise the majority of my work.
Remixing a Remix (Take 2)
My concept map depicts the bigger ideas that are found in the summer reading and the difficult questions (without many answers) that come with these ideas. Art is a frequent topic that is discussed in the summer reading. But the big question I kept finding myself asking was: who defines art? The artist? The audience? Does this have to do with taste? And then there are all the other questions about taste being objective vs. subjective and trying to find objective universality.
Another overarching theme throughout the reading was identity. Not only self-identity, such as trying to figure out who you are and what values are important to you, but also our identity as a society. "Society" seems like such a taboo word now, but that seems to be the only way to describe the group of people that make up our culture; the only other word that might fit would be "community." Once we figure out our roles as individuals and our role as a society or community, we must then think of how we can act as individuals in a cohesive environment. This also connected with the question of how can we make an artistic experience individual, but still universal?
Improvement seemed to touch on all the readings, as well. How can we improve ourselves through the art of criticism? How can we better ourselves through the art of asking questions? How can we continue to try to live up to the socially acceptable standards we have set before us? It seems that we are constantly trying to improve whether it be our society or our individual identity.
Connecting the smaller thoughts to the three bigger ideas (art, identity, and improvement) in a visual way made it more clear how my thoughts were forming. When all my thoughts are scrambled in my brain, it's hard to see the bigger picture, but creating this map helps me see where my thoughts relate to each other.
Another overarching theme throughout the reading was identity. Not only self-identity, such as trying to figure out who you are and what values are important to you, but also our identity as a society. "Society" seems like such a taboo word now, but that seems to be the only way to describe the group of people that make up our culture; the only other word that might fit would be "community." Once we figure out our roles as individuals and our role as a society or community, we must then think of how we can act as individuals in a cohesive environment. This also connected with the question of how can we make an artistic experience individual, but still universal?
Improvement seemed to touch on all the readings, as well. How can we improve ourselves through the art of criticism? How can we better ourselves through the art of asking questions? How can we continue to try to live up to the socially acceptable standards we have set before us? It seems that we are constantly trying to improve whether it be our society or our individual identity.
Connecting the smaller thoughts to the three bigger ideas (art, identity, and improvement) in a visual way made it more clear how my thoughts were forming. When all my thoughts are scrambled in my brain, it's hard to see the bigger picture, but creating this map helps me see where my thoughts relate to each other.
Cover Letter
In Maria Popova’s BrainPicking pieces, she discusses topics that are crucial for understanding the way we think in our world. Many include ideas about wonder, art, truth, or language and how each of these things are implemented in our lives. The piece that resonated with me the most was “Descartes on Wonderment,” so I rhetorically analyzed how Popova uses block quotes and images to tell the story. I get into more detail about how she does this and why it is her chosen technique for her writing in my writing piece, “Remix of Popova: A Rhetorical Analysis,” which can be found under the Formal Writing tab of the sub-pages of AP Lit.
Remix of Popova: A Rhetorical Analysis
In Maria Popova’s BrainPickings piece “Descartes on Wonderment,” she uses blocks of text from the author that the piece is focused on, presents images that are relevant to the topic, while guiding the reader through the piece with few words of her own. This is the style she uses for most, if not all, of her BrainPickings.
In the beginning of her pieces, she usually introduces a main author. For this particular BrainPicking it was René Descartes, a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician. She limits her personal word use, and provides Descartes’ writing to persuade the reader of an idea instead. For example, the first time she introduces one of his quotes, she simply says, “Descartes writes.” Popova rarely inserts her own opinion; she lets the work of other thinkers do the talking. In an effort to clarify that it is a different person’s thoughts that are being used, Popova switches fonts. The one she uses when quoting is lighter and thinner than the one she uses for herself. This helps the reader separate what Popova is writing and what she is quoting
The pictures that are weaved into the BrainPickings are crucial for readers because they not only provide a break from all the words, but they provide another way to interpret what is being said. There is usually a photo of the author (or rather a photo of a painting of the author), but Popova also uses pictures from artists that tell the story through art rather than writing. The first one she chooses for “Descartes on Wonderment” is an “illustration from Kenny’s Window, Maurice Sendak’s first book — a philosophical reflection on living with wonderment.” It shows an illustration of a boy peeking out of the window of his house to wave at a flying horse near the moon. His reaction to this can only be described in one word: wonder. The reaction that Popova is trying to get out of the reader as well. She wants her audience to wonder more, but do so carefully because wonderment “can grow perilous in its extreme end.” She calls this “excessive wonderment.”
Lastly, Popova does not overflow the piece with her own writing, but there is just enough to guide the reader through. She gives examples of past thinkers who thought similarly to the main one in the passage, and quotes them where she deems necessary. These quotes might seem random, but the whole purpose of using them is to help the reader understand more thinking that surrounds the topic, which Popova achieves. “Descartes on Wonderment” is one of her shorter pieces, but that does not make it any less impactful.
In the beginning of her pieces, she usually introduces a main author. For this particular BrainPicking it was René Descartes, a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician. She limits her personal word use, and provides Descartes’ writing to persuade the reader of an idea instead. For example, the first time she introduces one of his quotes, she simply says, “Descartes writes.” Popova rarely inserts her own opinion; she lets the work of other thinkers do the talking. In an effort to clarify that it is a different person’s thoughts that are being used, Popova switches fonts. The one she uses when quoting is lighter and thinner than the one she uses for herself. This helps the reader separate what Popova is writing and what she is quoting
The pictures that are weaved into the BrainPickings are crucial for readers because they not only provide a break from all the words, but they provide another way to interpret what is being said. There is usually a photo of the author (or rather a photo of a painting of the author), but Popova also uses pictures from artists that tell the story through art rather than writing. The first one she chooses for “Descartes on Wonderment” is an “illustration from Kenny’s Window, Maurice Sendak’s first book — a philosophical reflection on living with wonderment.” It shows an illustration of a boy peeking out of the window of his house to wave at a flying horse near the moon. His reaction to this can only be described in one word: wonder. The reaction that Popova is trying to get out of the reader as well. She wants her audience to wonder more, but do so carefully because wonderment “can grow perilous in its extreme end.” She calls this “excessive wonderment.”
Lastly, Popova does not overflow the piece with her own writing, but there is just enough to guide the reader through. She gives examples of past thinkers who thought similarly to the main one in the passage, and quotes them where she deems necessary. These quotes might seem random, but the whole purpose of using them is to help the reader understand more thinking that surrounds the topic, which Popova achieves. “Descartes on Wonderment” is one of her shorter pieces, but that does not make it any less impactful.