Author: Kimberly Guzman

1 topic/idea that I think I will want to write about for my unit 1 assignment is how I barely felt challenged in my public high school. I think it would be a good subject to write about because I think it made me view the public school system differently and I feel like it’s important to be challenged when you’re going to school. Another topic/idea that I think I will want to write about is how my identity made me view school/education differently. I think it would be a good subject to write about because I feel like others would be able to relate to it and it’s a huge reason on why I have kept myself in school. A 3rd topic/idea that I think I will want to write about is how skipping a class/course made me view education differently. I think it would be a good subject to talk about because it has influenced my goals in life and I feel like others would relate to it or writing about it will influence others to view things differently.

• Annotations: (Maybe I Could Save Myself by Writing) ”Every fact can be turned into any number of stories.’’- I found this quote interesting and how he gave examples of what he meant. ”Before we go any further, I have to tell you that my memory cannot be trusted. It’s been 12 years since I graduated high school and 25 years since I started kindergarten.” – I like how honest he was. (The Fourth of July)”..and peaches with the fuzz still on them, individually wrapped to keep them from bruising.’’ -I like the specific details the author included.
• From what I have seen so far, one of the ”ingredients” of the education narrative genre is talking about their own experiences. All 3 examples from the genre of the ”education narrative” we have read, the authors have written at least one of one of their experiences. Another ”ingredient” I have seen is that they give background information about themselves. The authors tell us where they grew up and their ethnicity. I have seen them write specific details about their events. They really go into depth about what they have seen and heard during their experiences. They talk about how old they were or what season it was. The writers also talk about important topics such as racism in ”The Fourth of July” and in ”Maybe I Could Save Myself by Writing”, he talks about feeling lost till he found writing. In all three ”education narrative”, I’ve noticed they include facts.
• A place to get started with my own education narrative might be thinking about my own experiences but not just any. I would say an experience that had an effect on me because it might help touch on an important topic.
• My concerns about writing an education narrative of my own are going into depth about my experiences. I like how in the 3 examples we read they included in depth and specific details since it made the reading more interesting but I feel like since I have bad memory it will be very hard for me to do that in my own education narrative.

Notes: 1) ”You must look at a book the way a carpenter looks at a house someone else built, examining the details in order to see how it was made.”- this comparison made me understand better what reading like a writer is. 2) ”Throughout the rest of the essay I’d like to share some of their insights and suggestions; after all, who is better qualified to help you learn what you need to know about reading in college writing courses than students who recently took those courses themselves?”- I like how Bunn included the suggestions of college students, I think it helped him include suggestions he may not known of. 3)”. . . when I read fiction or creative nonfiction, I look for how the author inserts dialogue or character sketches within narration or environmental observation.”- I think this part of the article also helped me better understand what to read like a writer is.

Questions: 1) I think Mike Bunn means when he writes ”You are already an author”, that we are already writers and we have have experience writing since we were in school writing essays and short paragraphs.  Some of the things I write already are short paragraphs for school and for myself, I journal sometimes. I think writing text messages could be included too. That existing expertise will help in my college reading and writing career by helping me better understand why a writer includes a detail/ details in their writing. I think writing a text messages would help me with my writing career since sometimes you write a text message a certain way to create suspense and other emotions. I think journaling would help me with my writing career since it would help me better see what details I should include in my writing. Like details that only relate to my topic. Journaling could also help me include short stories in my writing before writing about my topic to get readers interested. 2) In Bunn’s article I noticed he included a short story in the beginning before he actually started writing about ”reading like a writer” and I would like to try doing that in my own writing. I think it really helped draw me in as a reader and made me want to read more. I would like to write interesting specific details like he did. Another thing I noticed that I would like to do in my writing is Bunn including comparisons and descriptions to better understand what he meant. Example are quotes number 1 and 3 of my notes. I was so lost in what he meant about ”reading like a writer” until I saw these examples, it all clicked once I read them. I don’t think I would be interested in the article without these examples.