Sunday, April 11, 2010

Reflecting on Our First Assignment

Take a few minutes and reflect on what it was like to write your blog post about The Laramie Project. Describe your writing process and tell the rest of us about how your piece changed from your initial ideas to your final draft. How did your research shape the argument you made about the film? What observations or feedback did your peers give you about your draft that helped you revise? Ultimately, what did you learn about research, writing for a more public audience, or The Laramie Project by working on this assignment?

12 comments:

  1. The process in writing the blog post about the Laramie Project was interesting because I thought that I knew what I wanted to write about right after watching the movie, but as a researched and began to write my topic changed and became more specified. I first tried to write about how hate crimes occured in a place like Laramie and honestly had no idea to go about doing that. As I researched I figured out that maybe focusing on a hate crime and why they happened was a good idea. It was then easy to use Laramie as an example and how it fit into those categories.

    The peer edit helped as they told me to be more specific in some areas about facts I had written about. They also let me know that they felt the paper was on topic and in the direction to the point I was trying to make.

    I felt like writing for a broad audience was actually easier than a more specified one. My topic was kind of for anyone that would be wondering why that hate crime occured there. I like writing and backing it up with research because often times when writing from opinion it drives the audience to question the credibility of your writing. Also, when using facts that people disagree with it's not like they are disagreeing or antagonizign my facts but facts of more credible people. Research writing is something I am glad to be learning more about and how to utilize sources to create an argument.

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  2. After seeing Dennis Shepard's courtroom speech I knew I wanted to write about capital punishment. The issue is very controversial and before writing this paper I was still unsure of where I stood on the issue. Through my research I came to believe that the death penalty is wrong, although I also see how sometimes it can be very difficult to see a killer live a full life. I was able to relate back to "The Laramie Project" because I now understand how difficult the decision to grant life to a murderer can be. My first draft of this paper was somewhat unorganized but through peer review I was able to steer my argument in the right direction. I chose to form my paper by arguing the five points that I found most important in dissuading people against the death penalty.

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  3. My first reactions to the film were shock and anger that there was that much hatred in the world, that someone could be beaten and left for dead simply based on their sexual orientation. This changed into the basis of my paper, which was gay hate crimes. I argued that legislation is not yet strong enough and that we need more education and acceptance in general of homosexuality. As far as my research goes, I looked up instances of other gay hate crimes and legislation that has happend up to this point. My peers mostly noted that I needed more examples in my paper to make it stronger and more descriptive. Through this project, I learned that something as simple as a movie can lead to research and investigation into a whole range of topics and questions. It was interesting to go from watching a film in class to writing a whole paper on a topic where the movie was just one form of evidence.

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  4. I did not know about the Laramie incident before coming to class, so it was a shock to learn about this terrible crime. After seeing the film, and beginning the writing process, there were many groups and topics that interested me. I was curious in what drove the religious right to the actions and justifications regarding the crime. I was also interested in the effect this had on the gay community, of Laramie, and the whole country. As I began researching, I found cases of similar crimes that were going on in other parts of the country, for example in Sacramento, California. This reminded me of what the residents were saying about this not being a crime that was not something that could only happen in Laramie. This led me to be interested in how this crime was not just a significant story of Laramie, but simply exemplary of a problem this whole nation must tackle. Upon doing peer review, I got advice on how to organize more effectively, and which points of my piece were more in line with my argument than others. I also got advice on how to tie points of my claims together. This was helpful in making a more well rounded argument. After revising, and doing additional research I learned how important sources can be in the shape the argument will make. I also learned about homosexual hate crimes, and laws surrounding it on a broader level.

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  5. I started out writing this piece by comparing and contrasting the two prominent local religious figures of Laramie as portrayed in the film, the Catholic priest and the Baptist minister. Although I knew that I wanted to do something on religious views towards homosexuals, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to actually say in my paper. Coming into class with a rough draft and listening to what everyone else was doing, as well as awesome feedback from my peer group, helped me to actually form my thesis and start identifying more sources that would support it. They also gave me ideas on how I could create more pathos, ethos, and gave me a few ideas to include as more extremist examples, such as Fred Phelps.

    I decided to try and connect with a Catholic/Christian audience, which was a little difficult for me because I am not myself religious at all. My family is; I made a point to mention that, but I didn’t actually claim to be a person of faith at all… However, I didn’t say that I WASN’T religious, to avoid alienating my audience. It was an interesting write-up, and sometimes I did wish I picked a different audience because writing in that style made me a little uncomfortable, but I felt like it was something that needed to be said.

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  6. I knew I wanted to incorporate The Matthew Shepard Foundation into my piece but I didn’t know where exactly it would fit in. once I decided to use Dennis Shepard’s speech I realized that the best audience to write for would be parents. Although I am not a parent, I tried to play off of what how my parents have always told me how much they care for my brothers and I. My pier review helped me out especially with my audience. Both Theron and Logie understood who my paper was directed towards, but they reminded me to keep incorporating parents into the piece.

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  7. When having to write about a subject that I was unsure of, I started to like this blog post because it gave me something that I really had to look into and that was difficult to find the reactions of something that happened ten years ago. So writing this I wanted it to make a little different than what everyone else had and make it a personal letter to the people who were actually in the town where this huge event happened. When I first started writing the blog it was just to inform and a paper where I can add details of what other people did for the Matthew Shepard case rather than the input from the perspective of the town where he was attending college. Also the research that I found tied in with the film because it gave me a sense of what the people were like and that helped with me wanted to see how the town is now after this ten year event. Finally, having my peers review my piece did help because it showed that we needed more detail to present my main claim which in turn helped me with the research and trying to find those little details.

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  8. After viewing The Laramie Project, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to write about. However, reflecting on the movie and the scenes that captivated me the most I decided to write on the specific subject of the defenses, especially the psychological, that were being used to justify McKinney’s actions. This subject was easy to research, given that psychological and criminological defenses really interest me. What surprised me the most were the amount of sources that came up for McKinney’s case. There were hundreds of things used to try to justify his actions. Many surprising and new facts and evidence came up through this research that was not given in the film. McKinney’s troubling childhood was the most interesting and compelling find for my research. Because the film never showed or gave any indication that McKinney had a rough childhood, this new information came as a shock. Throughout the process of writing the final draft, I also incorporated that action needs to be taken not only against hate crimes, but also to those who exhibit a harmful pattern, such as alcohol or drug abuse, that some use as “excusable” behavior toward harmful actions. In having to research further into The Laramie Project, it was interesting to learn that this research brings up new and compelling evidence for writing a paper.

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  9. My initial idea for my blog post was to compare how Matthew Shepard and Harvey Milk changed the world with their legacies and how their murders affected the gay rights movement in a similar way. However, after the peer reviews I changed the way I approached the blog post a lot. I changed my paper to talk about how the films were a rebirth of there subjects themselves and even if the figures themselves are far in the past, the films are able to capture their stories and apply what their stories teach to the present day. My peers told me to write my paper somewhere along the lines of the two murders being twenty years apart and being completely different people, but they died for the same cause. They helped me with the direction of my paper a lot because I really did not know what I wanted to write my paper about. Even after the peer reviews it took me a little time in order to formulate my final idea. However, once I figured it out I went with it and really enjoyed blogging about the two characters, especially because Milk has been one of my favorite films since I saw it and I really liked The Laramie Project.

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  10. At the end of the film I was very moved and somewhat angered by the reaction of the residents of Laramie, Wyoming. This motivated me to write something about the reaction of Laramie's residents. At first, I wanted to know why this horrendous hate crime had just occured and why it was not being considered as terrible as in the rest of the country. After speaking with professor Bateman, I was able to specify my topic to asking the question of whether of not the residents of Laramie, Wyoming actually cared. Most of my research came directly from the film's many quotations and from Amy Tigner's Western Pastoral. These two documents, although they interpreted the data like me, they also brought out the main points of this tragedy. Out of these sources I learned how to better incorporate my audience by asking them questions periodically.

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  11. For my paper, I started with a part of the film and narrowed down to a main point. I started with Fred Phelps and how children were holding hate filled signs. Then I thought violence comes from hate which in return comes from morality which I believe comes from parenting. I think that I kept the same thoughts from the film after my research. I believe that Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson had hate and thus killed Matthew Shepard. I do believe this to be a hate crime. I did my peer review over the internet with Sara and with Professor Bateman. Both feedback was extremely helpful and I tired to use all of the feedback I got to make my paper stronger. Overall, I learned that the library database is really helpful and that sources can always be found there. In later assignments I hope to find more sources and incorporate more sources into my paper. I am glad we did this paper on the Laramie Project because I found it extremely interesting and there were so many things to talk about when it comes to that movie.

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  12. For my blog post about The Laramie Project, I never changed my ideas or my argument, however I did choose to approach the argument in a different way. In quoting Jonas Slonaker, I believe that my argument was made clear, but also it was difficult to consider my audience carefully in order to have an impact. There were several instances in which I tried to make sure and address both sides of the issue so that people would be more likely to do the same, rather than keeping a closed mind. Research definitely proved to be a key component for my argument, because it was necessary to research the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in my post. This definitely provided ethos, brought to my attention by my peers, which made my argument much stronger. I learned that even when an argument is based mostly on the individual’s opinions, there are several facts behind why each argument is plausible and those facts help support a stronger thesis. Writing for a public audience can be nerve-wracking, however I found that it made me more aware that it is important to make a strong argument while maintaining credibility and considering both sides.

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