Writing 100: The Glass Castle

So far in the book, we have read about the narrator's unconventional childhood. Her parents are both neglectful of her well-being and caring about her growth and development. The life lessons they choose to teach her are often difficult ones, but she seems educated and capable as a very young child.

In American culture, parenting is depicted on TV and in movies as one thing: parents caring for children, teaching them life lessons, while facing stress to provide for them. Can you think of what looks like a typical parenting scenario on American culture? Does that depiction line up with how your own family functions? Or do you have more in common with the Walls family?

Write your blog post comparing these situations to your own.

Honors 110: Now You See it...

In the novel, the theme of leaving home and escape from the small town are strong throughout. Each of the stories deals with how the characters either leave or stay. We have many stories like this in our American culture. There are also stories about returning home.

How does your concept of home compare to the characters in the book? Did you seek to escape and remake your identity in choosing a college? Did you stay close to home? Do you dream of moving to a city, like LA? Use the text to formulate your comparison. Find evidence from the text to explain which character you sympathize with.

Southside Bethlehem and Steel Stacks from Catholic Cemetery

Spring 2015 Blog post #3: Paper 1 reflection

Writing is a deeply personal task that is usually linked with a writer's emotions. It is also a mechanical task that takes several steps or a skill you learn over time.

When I entered grad school in 2012 after almost 10 years out of school, I felt that writing my first paper for class was a major step. I was nervous about the outcome of the project. I wanted my professor to respect me for what I could do. I wrote about it in this blog post: http://cccwritingcenter.blogspot.com/2012/09/back-to-school-and-writing-again.html

For your blog post, please write a reflection on writing your first Writing 100 paper. What steps did you take to write it? What kinds of negative thoughts hindered your progress? What kinds of inner strength and motivation did you use to complete the task? Get detailed in your post, from the mechanical steps you took to your feelings along the way.

I wrote many papers in school and graduated!