WRT 150 Process Memo

            When brainstorming my literacy timeline, I was unsure on where to start altogether. I didn't know if I wanted to focus on a particular event or pick a theme to form my timeline around. I decided to create two different literacy timelines and see how detailed each was and how far I could get on each. Whichever timeline was the most detailed and seemed most promising, I would construct my narrative from. The timeline that made the most sense to me was the one on me becoming literate.

            The obvious point to began my timeline on becoming literate was early childhood when I first picked up a book and could read it. This event occurred about fourteen years ago. Naturally, it was difficult to remember every detail. Key events were easy to recollect, but in order to form an essay that made sense to the reader, I needed to dig deep into my memory and close the gaps where my memory faded.

            Not much stuck out to me about how I learned to read and write. The only thing I never really paid attention to was how early I learned to read compared to children of today. In my spare time, I enjoy volunteering at a local Daycare and pre-school center. I am sometimes left with the role of tutoring the latch-key children. I noticed that children of ages five through nine still lack the ability to read. I never thought of myself as being precocious as child, but compared to the children I encounter today, that seems to be the case.

            The theme I chose for my narrative was love. I developed this theme while constructing my timeline so that it would be an easy transition from my timeline to my narrative. I chose love as my theme because it is what seemed most fitting for my essay and it would make an entertaining Animoto slideshow. My narrative was very broad. I knew that I had developed a theme while constructing my timeline, but as I continued writing my essay, those points became harder to pick out. I did not know which parts of my narrative I wanted to highlight in my slideshow. When I realized I had to tell a story in fifteen slides, I knew which slides would work best.

            I would not call the pruning process difficult. In contrast, it was fairly simple to chose what parts of my essay could easily tell the entire story of the narrative. Creating the timeline helped me to realize that it is sometimes beneficial to create a blueprint of what I plan on constructing, instead of spontaneously writing a 1,000 word essay.

            While creating a timeline, I kept in mind that my timeline would eventually turn into a narrative that would then turn into a slideshow. Therefore, while creating my timeline, I wrapped the focus of my essay around my love for literacy. When writing my essay, I followed my timeline exactly. My timeline was in order, so my essay was in order. Organizing my thoughts into an essay was not difficult at all. Organizing my thoughts into a timeline was where I encountered the most difficulty. The only prewriting exercise I used was the one done during the first five minutes of class.

            After the peer review, I did not change much. There were a couple of grammatical errors my partner picked out. He also suggested that I switch some words around. The two people I read my essay to in class both liked my essay's content. While reading my essay to them, I corrected most of the grammatical errors I heard. Overall, the input from my partner was beneficial.

            By the time I made my final edits to my narrative, I already knew what parts I was going to incorporate in the slideshow. In a way, I did my project backwards, even though I followed the steps in order. While writing my timeline, I pictured what would make a good slideshow. By the time I was writing my narrative and creating the actual slideshow, everything fell into place. This altered how I would have normally wrote an essay in a more positive way. This essay was more precise and had less "filler" than some of my essays from the past. Part of this, I think, is because I knew that the "extra" was not needed since my real final draft would be a slideshow.

            My peer review partner actually chose seventeen of what he thought were my best sentences. I ended up using about eight of the sentences he chose in my slideshow. Surprisingly, he chose many of the sentences I wrote with the intention of adding them in the slideshow. Although I knew what I wanted my slides to say before I wrote my actual paper, I did not know there was a text limit to each slide. When I found out there was a 52-character limit, I had to shape my chosen sentences around the obstacle. I realized that I was also not going to be able to use all of the sentences I wanted to use originally.

            I used images differently for each slide. For some slides, I used images to add extra detail and for some slides I used images to continue my sentence. The images I used were all personal except for one. The one exception was of one of my favorite childhood books, that I did not have a picture of. I'm not sure if the pictures actually aided in telling my story or if they came off as random.

            The song I chose was an instrumental version of "All my Life" by R&B artists K-C and Jo-Jo. It is an older song, and one that bring me happiness. I interpret the song "All my Life" as a love song. The theme of my narrative was my love for literacy. I found the song very fitting.

            All three people who commented on my video gave me an A as a grade. If I could go back and change my slideshow, I probably would make it a bit longer. I also would add more pictures to make it even more personal.