Journal Prompts, Week 5

Hey Guys,

Here are your journal prompts for this week; hopefully they will tie in with the work that you're already doing on your profile. I'll be looking back over all your entries this weekend, so make sure that everything is up to date. Have a great week, all!

E

Monday, 2/25
Write a short anecdote or story that, in a couple paragraphs, illustrates something about someone without overtly saying what it is. This can be about your profile subject, or anyone else. For example, you could show how someone loves hunting by describing the joyous way that they do it.

Monday 2/27
In any of the profile's we've read (or watched) what is your favorite quote? Why? What does it say about the subject?

Monday 2/29
Write a vivid description of someone in our class. Note the way that they walk, dress, talk, etc. Combine all these elements into one paragraph that paints a brief, accurate picture of one of our classmates.

Journals Prompts, Week 5

Hey guys,

Just a reminder of your journal prompts for this week. Post three journals this week, each about a different community that you are thinking about writing your profile on. For each post, make a list of possible interview subjects within that community.

Ex.
Community: Missoula
Mayor?
Person that owns a business
Homeless person
Someone who's lived here a long time
Person of color living in Missoula
Professor
ETC.

Try to get at least 5-10 subjects for each community, and get all of your entries posted by Friday afternoon so I can get back to you. Have a great week!

E

Journal Prompts, Week 4

Hey guys,

Hope that your drafting is going smoothly, and that you're really getting into your writing. The personal essay is just that, personal, so I hope that you're taking the time to do some solid reflection and really consider what you want to be writing about. Here are your journal prompts for this week. They mostly pertain to the writing process, in hopes of helping you guys make your essays into something that you can be really proud of. Enjoy the week!

Monday, February 11
One of the easiest, best ways to hook a reader is to bring them into the action with a solid lead. A lead is a opening paragraph that starts the reader right in the middle of the action, and often "shines a light" into your story be hinting at the point or main conflict of the piece. Write a descriptive, interesting first paragraph that starts the reader out immediately in the present. It can be for your personal essay, or just something that you choose to make up.

Wednesday, February 13
What piece of writing are you most proud of?

Friday, February 15
Description and detail are the best ways to move action in the personal essay. As a genre, it generally focuses on SHOWING not TELLING. Rewrite this paragraph with details from your life, or ones that you make up, so that it shows instead of tells:

When we were kids we were always getting into trouble. We would do something that our parents didn't like, and, though we sometimes got away with it, they would sometimes get mad at us and reprimand us. We weren't intentionally disobedient. Just, sometimes, things would come up and we would get all excited and then we'd be getting chewed out. Sometimes the things we did even destroyed parts of the house. It was crazy.

Sample Sketch

What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

Last summer, I got the opportunity of a lifetime. I was selected to spend 5 weeks in the heart of the summer teaching whitewater kayaking for the Chewonki Foundation, in Maine. This wasn’t just any trip, though. It was called Northeast Rivers, and we drove around in a giant van the boys dubbed “Poon Jesticle” (they were 15) and paddled all of the best rivers in the Northeast—the Ottawa, Lachines, Rouge, and Rapid. Even now, the names of these rivers fill me with joy at all of the good times we had.

There are a lot of things that I learned this summer, having been given the opportunity to spend five weeks paddling with boys. The things that I learned ranged from the obscene (curse words that I never knew existed), to the obscure (conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Notorious BIG), to the profound (a reminder how much joy and difficulty teenage years inevitably bring). Of all the things that I learned from the boys, though, the one that I most hope to take and incorporate in my life and in my paddling was the low-key, egoless fun that the boys brought to the river every single day. In a paddling world that feels increasingly driven by photos of ever-higher waterfalls or bigger blunts on giant waves, it was truly a relief to spend time with great paddlers who were often content to put on goggles and float around staring at “weird fish” underwater.

The boys’ search for fun bordered on the ridiculous. At any given time during our sessions at Smooth Ledge, on the Rapid River in Maine, there might be three kayakers, a boogie boarder, and a large inflatable dinosaur named “Tao” piloted by three boys in the eddy waiting for their chance to ride. They were particularly fond of what they called “multi-dimensional freestyle” (a term they took off the back of one of the Pyranha boats), which, to them, meant cramming the maximum number of boats onto a feature and then passing paddles back and forth, flipping each other over, and trying to shake hands. At one point, one of the boys asked Dan and I if he thought other kayakers would laugh at him if he wore a full-size swim mask out onto the wave, and then before we could answer, simply said, “Never mind, I don’t care.” He looked ridiculous in the eddy on release day until he hit an air loop with the swim mask on.

One time on the Ottawa River, we were starting at a jumble of difficult whitewater called Coliseum. Some really good paddlers on the side of the river were also staring at it, and couldn’t decide if they want to go or not. After all of my boys styled their lines—absolutely tearing this rapid apart—the older couple decided to try it. I wanted to tell them that paddling like a 15 year old is not necessarily easy, but they had already peeled out into the current.

And so, in conclusion, what I learned on my summer vacation is that paddling is fun—and so is boogie boarding, and swimming, and riding dinosaurs through whitewater. Swimming through whitewater is also tolerable if you can laugh about it afterwards. It was Alex Lowe that said “The best climber in the world is the one having the most fun.” By that standard, I had the opportunity to paddle with the best in the world, and I hope to take at least some measure of that spirit of joy with me.

Journal Prompts, Week 3

Hey Guys,

Congratulations on all of the great work that you're doing. I've been cruising everybody's blogs, and there is a ton of good material that we can put to use on the personal essay next week. Remember, this week finish your journal entries for the whole week by Wednesday, so that we can begin combing through them for promising topics.

By Wednesday, please write three posts. You guys can choose which prompts appeal to you most:

Write about a moral dilemma you faced growing up.

How do you know you are cool?

Write about a time your parents lied to you.

Describe a decision that you made that had disastrous consequences.

Describe your favorite outfit of all time.

What do you think are your family's values?