10.3 Monopoly and the middle class

Feedback. You started class by writing feedback to 3-4 classmates in your group.  Before getting to work, we had a conversation about the kinds of feedback that might be useful.  After some general discussion, we set up the following prompts for feedback

1. state or "sayback" what the essay is about

2.  identify the emotional high point(s)

3. any suggestions for organization

• focus + what needs to come first to set up what the essay is about
• story arc
• emotional arc

4. anything else you might like to say.

You got a good start on this, and we had some follow-up talk about giving comments.  Finish writing to your group members for homework.

List of topics you would never write about

Next you wrote a list of topics you would never write about.  As you continued to work on your lists - we put together another list => this one characterized the REASONS you would never write about the topics on your list.  These reasons included:

• open old/unresolved wounds
• potential to end relationships 
• have to explain yourself
• conflict with who you are
• being seen as weak
• information harmful to others
• betray a promise
• people will think you are bad
• embarassing
• have life consequences
• change the way people think about you
• too painful
• shameful
• personal - afraid to share
• be judged
• aren't sure what you think = haven't yet processed the material
• not fun to write

After looking at this list for a while - and talking about it - we classified the different kinds of reasons and came up with the following classification for the reasons we might not want to write about a particular experience.

• outward projection of self (not a representation of how we want others perceive us)
• inward perceptions (don't want to explore these particular features of self)
• still processing  (not ready to come to the kind of closure provided by writing)
• involves a relationship
• ownership (writer doesn't feel s/.he owns the story)
• culturally controversial
• not interesting

We noted that materials in the first 3 cateorgies are in some ways exactly the kinds of writing subjects we would (in some ways) like to read about - and that even though we are not willing are ready to write about these materials, we have been moved by and grateful to writers who take the risks to put the issues in these categories out there.   Points four and five are more about boundary issues - and raise problems associated with our relationships not just to others - but to our own experience.  Like the first 3, they involve both risks, and they add an additional need to examine/reflect on our motives or the ethics of the writing.

So what is the point of thinking about what you would never write about?  To identify your conflicts?  To find high stakes material?  To think about what kind of writing you DO want to put out there?  To share?  To reach out to some reader who might be in the same place as you?  Yes to all of those.  And to anything else the exercise might have brought up for you.

Marvin Gardens.

4 kinds of segments.  Playing monopoly (illustration of the dynamics/ethics of the game).  The state of a real world urban center built on the ethics/dynamics of monopoly (illustration of real-world consequences of "playing monopoly in Atlantic City and engaging the reader in a search for Marvin Gardens - a real place, that seems to be missing from AC ). The history of Atlantic City (posing connections between a system for play and the building of cities). Reflections (several sections toward the end that connect & explain the relationships among the game play, AC's current condition, and Marvin Gardens.

These segments are arranged in terms of multiple relationships listed in Root's essay, and they are not in an entirely systematic order. As you worked on "reading" this essay in class - you noticed how the way the essay was built was also the way it built its meaning.  The title sets up the overall focus = prompts the reader's attention to the central metaphor for the middle class (Marvin Gardens), the first section sets up the game play = an economic system; and the second places us in a world where that game has been played = the ruined Atlantic City of 1975.  The parallels & the juxtapositions cause the reader to make connections in language and ideas the lead her/him to the last paragraph = where McPhee presents his "thesis" = that a stable economic system needs a middle class.

One more thing. Why do you think he presented this message so indirectly?  Where was it published?  Who are the readers for that publication?  Would they be inclined to agree or disagree with a direct presentation of these ideas?  What do you think?

For next week - we will be doing some more in-depth study of how segmentation works to create part of the story for the reader.  

Read: Cofer, p.54, Silent Dancing (in your book); and

 "The Patch" by John McPhee, published in The New Yorker, February 8, 2010.  

The essay is available through the Kean databases.  Go to the Periodical list, type in The New Yorker, go to the magazine and search the February 8, 2010 issue for

John McPhee, Personal History, “The Patch,” The New Yorker, February 8, 2010, p. 32.

Blog 5: Brainstorming for Long draft essay 2 => write into your ideas AND develop some scenes (for the idea you plan to go with), and/or a map for the presentation.

Finish your comments to classmate's essays.  

I will be giving you comments on your Long draft essay 1 in conferences.  You get full credit for your blog if you posted an appropriate word count/approximation of the essay by the due date. 

In class we will continue to talk about segmenting - and you will do some work to develop ideas for your second essay.