Danielle Stoops

Untitled (so far)

Multi Genre #1
14 July 2009
Dr. Dobson

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Table of Contents

Letter to the Reader

1st Grade Writing Sample
Haiku
My Plan
My Growth
Radio Broadcast Audio
Radio Broadcast Transcript
Forum Q & A
Book Cover
Book Page One Sample

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 July 14, 2009

Dear Reader,

The following piece is a journey uncovering my reflections of evolving as a writer. I chose this

topic because of my desire to be a better writer and eventually complete a book, but I didn’t think

that was possible without dissecting my writing progression. The paper begins with a response

writing from first grade. I move past second grade through high school rather quickly using only a

couple haikus to symbolize continued growth; however, it’s important to note that additions to this

paper could go in that space. For now, I focused on reflecting on my evolution and progression

instead of analyzing when and where the progression happened. It isn’t until the end of my journey

that I realize writing is a process of discovery, trial and error and reflection. I attempt to demonstrate

a new understanding of my own progression only after reflecting on the work I've done in the past. I

hope you can see your own journey through this short piece.

Sincerely,

Danielle Stoops

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Inner Monologue | June 25th, 2009

Funny how I can't remember when or

how I started writing. I wonder what
it looked like in the beginning.

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Inner Monologue | June 30th, 2009

It's hard to believe I can even write

this journal after seeing where I
began. If I started out so simple, how
am I capable of writing papers now
that analyze 18th century British
Literature?

My Plan
I did yesterday.
I think today; I learn too.
I write tomorrow.

My Growth
I wrote yesterday.
I revise, rewrite today.
I grow tomorrow.

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Inner Monologue | July 2nd, 2009

Thinking back, I didn't realize I was

growing into the writer I am now.

221 - We Are Writers - Audio

7 July 2009 Broadcast

right click link below to activate

Broadcast - We Are Writers Ch. 221 - 7 July 2009

Sirius Radio Transcript

Channel 221, Portage, MI
8:30a, 2 July 2009
Host: Victoria Lange
Topic: Evolving as a writer
[Victoria]: Hello everyone. You are listening to Danielle Stoops on Sirius channel 221,
‘We Are Writers.’ I’ve got a great show for you today; it’s all about
how we’ve evolved as writers. What does it take to evolve, do we
eventually stop evolving, have we grown as much as we’d like to, are we
able judge our evolution immediately or does it take time to be able
reflect and respond, will we evolve if we don’t reflect? I hope to answer at
least a few of these questions today and call in if you think you have any
answers.
First, let’s begin by looking a piece of my writing from college. Now, let
me point out that I really thought I was a stellar writer. I was clear,
concise, at times witty, but it’s really amazing to go back and look at my
old work and see how far I’ve come and how underdeveloped I really was.
So, I’d like to share a little bit of that with you, but before I begin, I’d like
to encourage you to do this with your old pieces. As I mentioned just
moments ago, reflecting on our work is a part of the evolution process;
without it, it seems, we may not grow.
Let’s have a laugh at my expense. On to the piece. The paper is title “An
In-depth Look at Things Fall Apart as a Historical Novel.” It was written in
October 2003 for an African Literature course. I will read from within the
text, under the subtitle Historical Novel Defined. This is the closing
paragraph for this subtitle. “Both Stowe and Hawthorne encompass two
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separate ways to establish a historical novel. Achebe [the author] used a
mixture of both in his novel. This signifies that Achebe wrote a historical
novel himself. He has been criticized for his representation of historical
events. It was said that he should put more emphasis on actual events
that took place in that particular time period (Shannon 1). Fortunately for
Achebe, he was writing in accordance with the purpose of a historic
novel.” In the right hand margin, my professor wrote “great comparison
with texts.” There are five sentences in my closing paragraph; I don't
think that's enough. I also think it's a bit elementary. I use words like
'signify' and 'encompass' where they really don't belong and what this
says to me is that I highlighted my text, clicked on thesaurus and the first
word that popped up, I used. My sentence structure is underdeveloped. I
could go on and on.
Let's see what kind of grade I received. A 96! Listen to these comments
on the paper though, “your paper would be strengthened by a lengthier,
more thoughtful conclusion. Your paper, nonetheless, is strong, clear and
focused.” Now remember, I was positive I was a clear and concise writer.
But I didn't realize how ineffective my conclusions were. I don't remember
this remark particularly, but I do remember several others like is. So it's
become very clear to me that this is a problem. It's a good time to bring
up that when revising, there needs to be a little distance. I obviously
thought that my conclusion was sufficient, this was my final draft. My
professor, on the other hand, had a bit of distance from the piece showed
me otherwise. That's something that we should take in account if we want
to evolve as writers. Distance ourselves from the piece; have someone
else revise it; put it in a closet and go back six months later to revise it.
That goes back to one of my original questions: will we be able to evolve
immediately or will it take time to be able to reflect? There are two
answers to that. If we have someone revise for us, in this case a
professor, the evolution and growth can be immediate; however, if no one
else is seeing our work to give us feedback, we have to be removed from
it before we can see where we need to improve.
Now let's move on to another piece. I mentioned that was not the first
time I heard that my conclusions needed expansion. So let's move to a
piece from early 2007. This is from my graduate work in 18th century
British Literature. It was a story on Samuel Richardson's Pamela. This
paper presents some contradictions and shows some mockery of 18th
century literature. The great thing about this...I encourage all of you to
keep your work. I read to your from 2003, this one is from 2007. I have
papers much older than that and as we've established, it certainly helps
our evolution.
In my self-revision, we didn't have much time for peer revision; they tend
not to offer that in graduate classes as you'll notice. It's another thing that
we have to grow and learn to do and is another great reason to keep and
reflect on your old pieces. My conclusion paragraph in my self-revised
paper is four sentences long and my own margin note say “keep, but
definitely add to.” After the 2003 paper and all of the conclusion
comments I received prior to that and after to be honest, I made sure I
was looking at my conclusion closely. I was harshly examining them. Here,
my final draft that I turned in, I'm proud to say I received a 37/40, the
conclusion is a page long. The professor writes this in response “your
conclusion is very complete and effective. Your presentation is thorough.
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 Your additional work has integrated into your conclusion has helped your
thesis. Overall, great work.”
Without reflecting on the past, it's quite possible that I would have turned
in that final draft with a four sentence conclusion. I don't think it's
mechanical growth...perhaps it is..probably is...i retract that. It's certainly
not possible if I hadn't taken into account the revision notes from years
past. If this isn't reason enough for you to keep your old work, look at it,
see where you need to expand, pat yourself on the back for doing well in
certain areas. I don't think we can grow without it.
This concludes our segment on growth, evolution as writers. Keep your
work and reflect on it often. Share it with others and get honest feedback.
It's the only way we can grow as writers.
Have a great day and remember to write often and reflect even more.

Inner Monologue | July 6th, 2009

There has to be some secret. By my
age, people have written books.
Am I missing an essential writing
piece?

Writer's Workshop Forum (www.writersworkshop.com)

General Questions (www.writersworkshop.com/generalforum)
how do we evolve? (www.writersworkshop.com/generalforum/threadview)

writergirl 07-06-2009 05:52 PM

I'm sure growth is a combination of many things, but i'm interested in hearing what each of you think has
helped you evolve as a writer. Sirius had a show on this the other day. Can I do it overnight?

Kas 07-06-2009 006:31 PM

Reading, reviewing, discussing and thinking.

Rumpole 07-06-2009 006:50 PM

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Writing and reading (though not always in that order) and by examining what others have written.

TWErvin 07-06-2009 07:10 PM

Writing--editing--polishing--submitting, participating in a crit group, reading (magazines such as Locus

and The Bulleting) and blogs about writing, novels, short stories, nonfiction. I'm sure this seems like a lot,
but that's what works.

Ferb 07-06-2009 07:15 PM

I don't think we can evolve any other way than what has been mentioned already. It's basically a
combination of reading, writing, sharing, and reviewing. Reviewing is what helps me most.

architectus 07-06-2009 07:24 PM

I agree with the others. Unless you're able to put a lot of time into reading others' works, writing more
yourself and revising your old work, you'll never grow as a writer.

afinemess 07-06-2009 07:24 PM

Life experiances, reading, daydreaming, and writing even if it is not worth the while. Those things have
helped me evolve thus far.

UnknownBearing 07-06-2009 08:31 PM

i hate using words that dont fit. Evolving is great, but GROW would be better. Anyway 1) writing 2)
reading 3) reviewing 4) daydreaming, and 5) talking about it. 4 is probably the most important for me. The
more I think about what I want to write or daydream about what I could writer, the better I get.

crime.prose 07-06-2009 08:54 PM

Trial and error.

I make mistakes, I learn from them. I make more mistakes, I learn from them too. And so on.

Experience bring knowledge of what works and, equally important, what doesn't.
To evolve and learn you have to reflect on that experience.

It's a cyclic process of doing, evaluating and/or getting feedback, reflecting upon lessons learnt, do again

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this time incorporating what's been learnt, repeat.

We are never done growing unless we choose to stop this process. And believe me, the progress one makes
can be reversed if one doesn't continue to practice.

cybrxkhan 07-06-2009 08:57 PM

First was the daydreaming and fantasizing - my writing could not have even existed without it.

Then the actual writing itself, as mentioned above, is extremely important.

And finally of course reading other books, that's important too.

Forkfoot 07-06-2009 11:38 PM

Probably a good idea to go completely bat-**** crazy every now and then, too.

Inner Monologue | July 9th, 2009

So, maybe it isn't a secret. Maybe

I'm doing everything I can do to grow
as a writer. It just takes time and
experience. I'll keep writing. Eventually,
I’ll evolve into the writer I want to be.

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