ENG1141 Creative Writing, SP2020

My experience with dialogue writing actually went pretty smooth. For some reason I thought it would be a lot more complicated than expected but nonetheless it was pretty fun and easy. I also thought I had to be formal with it and keep it PG but after reading my cohorts’ dialogues and the play we read, I felt more comfortable writing it however I wanted to! This assignment was my favorite.

As I mentioned before in the previous journal, I am not fond of poetry whatsoever. I enjoy listening to others recite their poetry and spoken words, however, I cannot bring myself to actually write them. My experience in poetry writing was so-so this semester especially since I didn’t really take my time with it. I was too focused on handing my assignments in on time that I didn’t really get to enjoy and sulk in the moment. Despite how rushed I was, I believe I did a pretty decent job. I hope I get the chance to work on more poetry in the future!

I don’t really remember any poems I have read in the past nor do I really like poetry, although I do want to start to get into it. Maybe with more research on poetry and who are the most highly recommended poets, I will have an interest in poetry! However, like one of my classmates have already mentioned, songs can be forms of poetry as well. My two favorites “poems” are by my favorite artist Jhené Aiko. She has a song called “You Vs. Them” and the first verse will always be golden to me. She says, “It’s the wanting you, never getting you, keeps me wanting you..”. By this opening line, she stating the fact that she can’t have the guy when she wants him is what’s actually keeping her interested because she loves the chase. In W.A.Y.S, its a song I always listen to when I’m not in the greatest of moods. W.A.Y.S stands for “Why Aren’t You Smiling?”. Throughout the song, the artist is basically telling herself to keep going and to not let difficult times weigh you down.

I really liked StaceyAnn Chin’s Poem called “Letter to my Father”. The title alone caught my attention and before I began to read it, I already assumed it would be about her father abandoning her at a young age and never returning to spend time with her. I also thought it would be about her father abusing her while growing up and this was her letter goodbye to him. After reading, I learned that it was about her opening up as a girl who likes girls and how her father doesn’t approve of it so he turned himself away from her. I enjoyed the details she gave and how descriptive she was in her writing.

Hello, dear students!

Well, we’ve come to the end of the road–at least for this particular semester. I’ll be reminding you of deadlines and the like soon, but first, I want to say a few things to this class:

We’ve been through an experience this semester that has been challenging, frustrating, and, for many of us–if not all–depressing. All of those emotions (and any I haven’t mentioned) are totally valid. I’ve had conversations with many of you over the semester, and during each one I’ve tried to say (however awkwardly) how awesome you are and how impressed I am with you. Even if I haven’t spoken to you one-on-one, I still want you to know I think these things about each of you. Seriously.

I hope all of us will have a chance to catch our breath for a moment when this semester is finally closed and let ourselves feel strong in the knowledge that we’ve survived a moment of unparalleled time in recent history. It’s not over–not by a long shot–but we’ve weathered some serious shit thus far. (I hope I don’t get in trouble for using that term!)

I’m honored to have been able to facilitate your creative writing. Writing is obviously a passion of each person in this class. I’ve laughed, shouted, and smiled with pride as I’ve read your journals, posts, and major writing assignments.

I want each of you to continue writing. Writers share thoughts that define a time–any time–but this is a time I think history will want to study.

I also want each of you to keep in touch. I’ve loved running into my students in the halls of City Tech long after they’ve been in my class. I hope we’ll be in physical halls again soon, but until that happens, we’ll have to run into each other in virtual halls by other means. My personal email address is jessica.penner@gmail.com. I Twitter occasionally and Instagram. Email me if you want my handles. I also have a website: jessicadawnpenner.com. I’ll admit, it’s a work-in-progress, but you can see some of my writing there.

Okay, I’ll stop and get down to particulars:

Dialogues

I’ve read and evaluated all the dialogues. I’ve emailed the comments–brief, I know. Let me tell you I LOVED all of them. If you haven’t gotten the email, let me know and send it again. I might have missed them in my hurry to finish evaluating everything before all hell breaks loose with portfolios!

Final Portfolios

Please save the PDF files exactly as I show in the Final Portfolio Assignment document.

This helps me grade more efficiently, and is something that’ll help your overall grade, because if you do not follow these instructions, I will take 10% off your Final Portfolio grade.

There are many other details to the Final Portfolio. If you haven’t already please look at this document I’ve prepared and posted on OpenLab.

REMEMBER THE DUE DATE: MAY 20, 2020!

I’ve been generous on deadlines this semester because of the situation we’ve all been through, but this deadline is real, folks, because I have to turn in grades soon after this date. I don’t have time to locate you and your portfolio.

If you don’t turn in a Final Portfolio by 11:59 PM on May 20, 2020, you’ll lose 250 points (this is worth 30% of your overall grade).

Even if your Final Portfolio isn’t complete or as finished as you’d like, know that this is the agony of any writer–student or otherwise–we never feel it’s perfect, so submit what you’ve got by May 20!

If you have questions or concerns, contact me and we can talk during the class office hours (Wednesday, 11:30 AM – 1 PM). I can work in other times, but you’ll have to email me in advance.

Final Grades

Grades must be posted by all City Tech faculty by May 28, so your grade for this class will be up soon after this date. I have 60+ students’ portfolios to grade, then I have to calculate grades, etc., so there’s a lot that has to happen between the last day of class and that date. I post all grades at once, so please don’t expect your grade to be up any sooner than this.

Creative Writing Collection

I wanted to have a reading on the last day of class, but since that won’t be possible, I’m thinking we should have an anthology of your writing. I want you to email me one or two favorite pieces (of any genre) and include a little paragraph about yourself by May 31. Put in the subject line Creative Writing Collection so I can locate it easily in my gmail account. Send it in a Word or Google Doc format. I’ll create a little booklet and then email it to y’all–probably will take some time.

Please contact me if you have any questions either on Wednesday or after.

One more time…

Stay safe & well!

Hello, dear students!

We’re almost finished with this, ah, shall we say, daunting semester! Just a few more things to work on before we’re through…

REMEMBER THE DUE DATE: MAY 20, 2020!

I’ve been generous on deadlines this semester because of the situation we’ve all been through, but this deadline is real, folks, because I have to turn in grades soon after this date. 

If you don’t turn in a Final Portfolio by 11:59 PM on May 20, 2020, you’ll lose 250 points (this is worth 30% of your overall grade). 

Even if your Final Portfolio isn’t complete or as finished as you’d like, know that this is the agony of any writer–student or otherwise–we never feel it’s perfect, so submit what you’ve got by May 20!

If you have questions or concerns, contact me and we can talk during the class office hours (Monday and Wednesday, 11:30 AM – 1 PM). I can work in other times, but you’ll have to email me in advance.

Stay safe & well!

My experience writing the dialogue was harder than the poems, I had to keep referencing Topdog/Underdog for the layout of a dialogue. I also used inspiration from Lisha and Anthony from my cohort, using the horror element from Lisha’s works and referencing games from Anthony. I used the tone of the game GTFO that I’ve been playing recently. I had to keep thinking of ways that would flush out each individual giving them personality in their dialogues but also try to stay true to the tone of the game at the same time. Also compared to my poems, the writing is completely fictional as compared to the rest of what I have written for everything and relied completely on creativity which felt more difficult. Although not entirely too difficult basing it off of the games tonal slogan “Work Together or Die Together”.

My experience with writing poems was a bit more difficult. I know and have known that I am generally terrible at writing poems. The only way I know how to write poems is through rhymes. However looking through Staceyann Chin’s poems gave me a better inspiration or format of how to write one. Although around the time I was still dealing with events pertaining COVID 19 so mostly all the work that I wrote including the poems and future works are related to COVID. Thus all the work I written were probably in a way, toned in a lazy-ish, unenergetic and trying to connect my emotions in words to readers.

I thought the short story assignments were fairly easy. I already had some ideas, like any story, it needs a beginning, middle and end. All I needed to do was to fill in the gaps. Starting from Short Story #2 involved a bit of what was happening in Journal 6, as is what most of the work assignments have been based on about actually. It wasn’t hard basing these on true events albeit just not including some details deemed not necessary. I did not exaggerate any details, though it might’ve been better if I had to dramatize the story a bit more to make it a lot less a memoir and more a fictional story. But as I learned from the quote “the best lies have an element of truth to them”.

As I wrote in the side note of my previous Journal Assignment, I wanted to wait and see so I could write more in depth for my experience of the pandemic, but instead ended up just backlogging everything I had for this class as events played out. Events that I will now share.

My initial experience of the pandemic upon the household was actually pretty boring. Talking with my parents, daily to stave off the boredom, staying inside the house and almost never leaving, watching the news for updates. A lot of my friends and family though work essential jobs. A lot of them are NYPD, some as doctors and those in my cohort might have heard me mention a few of them are National Guard. Things started to take a turn for my mental health as I saw on the news that officers in the NYPD are testing positive for the Coronavirus, and National Guard being deployed in various hotspots. Doctors working constantly to combat the virus. One of my friends in the National Guard ended up testing positive as well and was admitted with a severe case of COVID 19. He would tell me in later events after recovering but, essentially, he would have a constant 104 degree fever and fluid were filling up his lungs preventing him from breathing. Hallucinations from the constant high fever. A change in his taste buds, where even the slightest bit of salt in food would taste like its been drenched in salt. And then there was the constant raging headaches that wouldn’t end. He told me it’s the worst thing he’s ever been sick with and to this day still has a nasty cough even a month after recovering. He’s going back for another test later this week. My dad who works for the USPS as a mail carrier, is also considered an essential job. They are still working during this pandemic. He came back home one day and was acting very suspicious. He avoided everybody, he was wearing a mask at home, and he would eat dinner only after everybody had finished eating theirs. He eventually ended up moving and sleeping in my sister’s now abandoned room since she had moved to San Francisco about 2 years ago. My mom and me were getting scared and asking him what happened and if he was sick or anything. He would reply “No problem” and playing it off. Then not too much longer he came back from home extremely early with a fever.  I would end up applying for Unemployment for my mom and for COVID sick leave for my dad at the frustrating USPS site. I would consistently ask how my dad was feeling and symptoms. I would report said symptoms to my cousins who were doctors working in this pandemic. They told me to get him self isolated (which he already was) and to keep reporting symptoms. After a while they told me he MOST (almost to the point of being sure) likely had a mild case of COVID and to up our precautions around my dad and if he had trouble breathing throughout the entire day. I texted my sister and I would hear her crying over her daily conversations on speaker in their phone conversations. My dad had trouble breathing throughout the night trying to sleep and would recover in the day. Since my sister’s room is only a thin wall between us, I could hear his struggles as I tried to sleep every night. I started to get heavily depressed and extremely lethargic. I could only play games to keep my mind off of anything and tried to keep a optimistic outlook especially on my face. Reports of mass graves being dug on Hart Island didn’t exactly improve this too. When he would try to speak to me or my mom, his voice was almost completely gone. He would talk in this extremely raspy voice that didn’t even resemble close to what he normally sounds. He looked extremely weak and would lay in bed the whole day. While this was going on, he one day got up and asked me to find him a testing site in Brooklyn, to which I did. Depression kept sinking deeper and deeper. I never did find out if my dad had went or not. However one day he seemed almost energetic, he spoke to my mom and I had noticed his voice even the tiniest bit, was better. I told him this and he was croaked “Really?”. Everyday seemed to be slightly better for him and eventually he fully recovered. He wanted to go back to work and to bring back income, but my mother ended up begging/crying for him to rest at least for another week. So he did and rested still in self isolation in my sisters room. His first day back to work was last Tuesday. And since then, hes back to the same old self he was before. I don’t personally know anybody that has passed away from the virus however, I’d take boring over the hell I’ve been through for the past 4 weeks. That’s what my experience of my household has been for the pandemic.