LEARNING LOG #9: 3/22/21 

--“The least helpful thing you can do when peer reviewing is correct grammar and 
typos.” 
● Don’t look for problems essentially. We tend to breeze through someone’s paper 
just to get along with it, but ask questions, deeply look and don’t be so easily 
satisfied. Also write positive comments along with the critique, you don’t want 
to be overly critical either. You want to be fresh with eyes that you can see 
things that can’t be easily seen by the writer themselves. It’s hard for writers to 
always express what they want to say, you want to make sure you know exactly 
what is going on. 
--“The best writing comes out of a communal e ort.” 
● You want to establish relationships with your revising person, the more you 
know them the more they’re going to want to put out better comments to help 
you out. Communal e orts are so beneficial because you need to show what 
exactly doesn’t make sense and help the writer make the best out of their 
writing. You may see things they may not always see, and it’s helpful to the 
writer who may not have ever considered such a thing. GO PAST THE OBVIOUS.  
Read the article. Respond to these two quotes in separate paragraphs. 
LEARNING LOG #8: 3/17/21 
-- Periods and Paragraph Breaks Are Preferred 
● we can anticipate how our markings lead to three possible outcomes: emphasis, 
de-emphasis, or confusion. 
● Two of the best ways to stop overlooking them? Notice them and use them.  
-- Semicolons and Colons Like to Link 
● Take two or more sentences; switch the period between them to a semicolon; 
now you’ve turned multiple sentences into one. That’s it. 
● “A semicolon is used when an author could’ve chosen to end their sentence, but 
chose not to. The author is you, and the sentence is your life.” 
-- Parenthesis and Em Dashes Love to Interrupt 
● You place them around unimportant parts of the sentence that could be 
completely removed without changing the overall meaning. 
● But instead of eating the period, the em dash will completely bail when they’re 
about to meet up. This means we only use one em dash instead of two when the 
interruption comes at the end. 
-- Commas save lives 
 ● They also do their job humbly, de-emphasizing the punctuation’s role in the 
sentence. We use them when we don’t want to call attention to the structure. 
● It happens when you add details about the items in the list, such as what state 
each city is in, and the extra commas require semicolons to beef up the 
separation between the main items, as this meme shows: 
LEARNING LOG #7: 3/15/21 
How is a story “underlying all understanding? List five specific ways. 
● A narrative text puts story first; it frames the reader’s experience of the text by 
forwarding, or emphasizing, story-telling strategies. 
● Stories also help readers understand why and under what conditions the story 
matters. 
● When we read pieces of writing as stories, we look for these qualities: an explicit 
timeline or course of events, a sense of situation and occasion, and the 
animation of a story-world.  
● A long story structure, such as a novel, has the room for highly elaborated 
characters; 
● He wants to make an argument about how we use stories: how they help us 
reason morally and develop a sense of the world. 
What “ah-hah” moment did you formulate about your upcoming memoir/draft from 
this essay?  
“He wants to make an argument about how we use stories: how they help us reason 
morally and develop a sense of the world.” I formulated a plan to make a memoir of my 
own understanding about the world and how to address the problems that are faced. 
LEARNING LOG #6: 3/10/21 
Record three ironic statements from the essay. What makes each statement ironic? 
● “Did you know that writing teachers disagree about what kinds of writing they 
should use or teach, even if they (sometimes? often?) act as if there is a 
consensus? Seems writing teachers may be regular people after all.” 
○ It’s ironic because writing teachers are thought to teach and agree with it 
completely based on how harshly and intently they grade essays. It’s 
interesting to know that they don't actually agree with it despite how 
much it’s taught. 
● “No amount of emphasis on the so-called academic or the rhetorical or 
argumentative will ever move us away from the story.” 
 ○ This was ironic because it seems like writing an academic or rhetorical 
essay is moving away from narrative writing, when actually it 
encompasses it as well. 
● “To explicitly make connections to one’s life in an argument piece does not 
make it a less valid or less objective argument.” 
○ You’d think that your opinion would be less valid if bias is involved, but it 
actually makes it more valid which is the irony. 
How is a story an argument? 
● A story is an argument because it discusses an event that occurred in life by the 
author’s own experience of it. They’re arguing their version of what they recall 
or saw based on what has already happened. It argues their side versus what 
someone else might make of the story or event. 
LEARNING LOG #5: 3/04/21 
How do each of these words in the acronym “Success” make you a better storyteller?  
● Keeping things simple is more appealing to the audience, it keeps you focused 
and from going o track. Comedy is appealing to the audience and brings out 
laughs, so being unexpected really brings attention to the storyteller and 
amusement. Concrete language really makes details stand out nicely and 
successfully by showing without telling. Adding studies or credibilities of recent 
events or over celebrities really bring out better stories from the storyteller and 
make it add more flavor of sorts. Emotional use of words isn’t something that 
shouldn’t be used often but it should be used sparingly to present equal 
relatable emotions to the audience. Think about how closely people listen to a 
story-based presentation. It helps to amuse the audience whether it’s fake or 
not. 
Write 1 or 2 sentences for each of part of the acronym:  
Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional,  
● Simple: Concise and to the point with the story that you want to tell. You don’t 
want to go o on a tangent or start doing something that doesn’t quite appeal to 
the audience. 
● Unexpected: Being unexpected can help you with irony and surprises. It keeps 
the audience’s attention close to you if you can be di erent and ironic about the 
situation, whether it actually happened or whether you craftily word it. 
 ● Concrete: Your words need to be solid and showing through your actions. By 
writing this can be through the way you work with certain words or phrases in 
order to be concrete and showing, a sense of genuinity must be shown. 
● Emotional: You want to be able to relate to your audience or draw their 
sympathy but not too much or it will be unappealing over all. You should want 
to derive a greater quick emotional touch to your story to add sincerity but not 
focus so much on it either. 
LEARNING LOG #4: 3/02/21 
What are three ideas that you take from the video “Writing as Decision-Making”? 
Record your answers. 
● Order your ideas 
● Take your ideas individually to show a larger message from your ideas 
● You may have to write and rewrite until you’re satisfied with the results 
To help you with narrative writing, copy a technique from each section of Clint 
Johnson’s article: 
● The Power of Scene: “If you have ever written a story, either from memory or 
imagination, you have tools to take this employee’s memory of Jobs and bring it 
to life as a scene.” 
● The Power of Experience: “Can e ective storytelling strengthen our ability to 
communicate logic? When people make claims about what is good or bad, 
e ective or ine ective, or true or false, we automatically compare the claim to 
our lived experience.” 
● The Power of Sensory Detail: “To describe something using the senses not only 
gives an additional texture of reality to the subject, but it can help memory.” 
● The Power of Voice: “Could you find quotes that work similarly, allowing you to 
draw a reader’s focus to your opponents’ statements, their voices, without using 
your own voice?” 
● The Power of Conflict: “Is it possible to understand a social issue as a story, 
with di erent parties serving as characters with their own motivations? What is 
at stake with the issue as in a story?” 
LEARNING LOG #3: 2/25/21 
Record two “ah-hah” statements that will help you write successful memoirs. 
“I would argue, however, that one thing is clear: the minute we start to retell a story from 
our past we are constructing it from our point of view, so there’s no need to get too worried 
about getting every detail correct. It’s impossible.” 
 ● I appreciate the type of writing that is truthful but it is hard to be completely 
accurate when writing first person experiences. Especially when you only have 
your point of view to go o of when writing. However I like knowing that it isn’t 
possible and it’s alright to get a few details wrong. 
“Even though the facts of the story didn’t play out that way, the story clearly represents the 
emotional truth of how these families, both the author’s and the fictional, dealt with death.” 
● Emotional truth seems real enough to go o of even if the context isn’t real, you 
can make a fictional story real by showing the emotional truth of whatever was 
felt during a real life event. 
How is “truth” complicated? 
● The truth is complicated because no one may know what the exact truth of 
someone’s personal experience is because we all experience di erent emotions 
and feelings over one subject. What’s interesting is you don’t have to be truthful 
to every little detail because you really don’t know what the exact truth of even 
your own situations are. 
LEARNING LOG #2: 2/23/2021 
Find two quotes that answer this question: Why is storytelling so vital to our lives? 
Copy the quotes. 
“We narrate our experience in order to connect with others and validate our own 
experience and self-worth.”
“ ey are a form of action, of entering and living in the world.”
Explain this quote: “If telling stories makes us human, reading stories seems to put 
us in touch with our humanity.”  
● This quote is essentially saying that if telling stories makes experiences real to 
others and is part of human nature, then being the one to hear those stories 
makes us in sync with our humanity because of the fact that we hear an 
experience of another person. 
LEARNING LOG #1: 
Record two “golden quotes”: 2/18/2021 
“In the present age, to be literate means to be able to communicate through texts in ways 
that help you meet your needs and the needs of others.”  
● Deep, takes writing to a whole new level besides doing it to get an A on an 
assignment. I’ve learned that we’ll all need to write in one way or another, for 
example I had to start doing it when I joined yearbook. 
“Personal literacies are the reading and writing practices individuals engage in during 
activities of their own choice and for personal satisfaction or to meet personal goals. 
Examples might include documenting your daily food intake with a smartphone app, 
keeping a journal, creating a weight-training plan and tracking your performance, or 
writing and playing music.”  
● I didn’t consider my journaling or taking of notes for my own personal 
satisfaction to be considered personal literacies and I kind of like it. I think it’s 
interesting to see all the things you can do with writing. 
Create a timeline mapping your reading or writing history. Include memorable 
moments from birth to now that have shaped you as a reader or a writer. (Include at 
least ten events). 
● Writing books and coloring them when I was around six, took Dr. Suess as 
inspiration. 
● Made a small book out of paper and crayons about being made out of clay with 
my friend Jordan 
● Started a story called “Mylithrian” (Yes, I was proud of making up that word) 3rd 
grade 
● I did roleplays and created stories with my younger sisters about bunnies and 
wolves. More storytelling than writing. 
● Writing shorts love stories throughout 6th-8th grade with my friends 
● Started a show called “Miraculous Ladybug” writing fanfictions based on those 
shows.  
● Started another story called “Rogue” based on reincarnation and more love 
stories! 
● I started running more and what kept me running and skipping down the block 
was usually my place to think of ideas for more stories. 
● After fanfictions, I had a friend introduce me to text-based role playing in 
highschool. Where you would write as if you were writing a book and play as a 
character, while the person responds with their lines. We created plots and 
stories and complex characters. So far my most exciting experience with 
writing. 
● Right now, I usually read books more than write, however I do roleplay still 
when I have time to sit down with my friends or my sister and it truly is a 
project that I love to participate in.