Ranch Girl

For class, we read Maile Meloy's "Ranch Girl." The short story is told in the 2nd person voice (using "You" as opposed to "I" or "he, she.")

How does this choice on the writer's part affect your experience as a reader?
What happens when a story is told in the 2nd person?
Have you experienced a story before that works in the same way?

Please remember to use the comments as a place to converse with your classmates, and not simply post a reaction.

The House on Loon Lake

In class, we talked about how our initial expectations of the podcast ended up making us feel dissapointed. A mystery on the level of Scooby-Doo or the Hardy Boys was set up: but in the end, "The House on Loon Lake" was a story about a family and abandonment.

Thinking about other stories you've encountered (in movies, tv, books, etc.), share an experience where the initial promise of the story (or the initial expectation you had) ended up being different from the end product? How did you get that initial expectation? What rhetoric was used by the maker to create a certain mood or tone? How did you feel, as a reader or a viewer, when that happened?

The Use of Secondary Sources

When we're talking about PSAs, it's important to focus only on the primary source. But as you look to expand your paper and develop it into an analytical research project, you'll have to use secondary sources.

Secondary sources, according to Writing Analytically, have a number of uses, some of which include:

1) To provide context
2) To deepen understanding
3) To provide contrasts
4) To invite comparisons
5) To broaden the scope of your research beyond the primary source

As an example, we looked at the music video for Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks" (the primary source). Imagining that we were doing the Method on this video, we analyzed the images and tried to come up with some ideas about what the choices made in the video are trying to represent.

Looking at the lyrics to the song (a secondary source), we were able to better understand what the songwriter may have meant, and to use that as a reflective surface to re-evaluate our own judgement about the video.

As is often the case when secondary sources are introduced, our first impressions or ideas may have turned out to be quite different from our new reading/viewing/listening of our primary source.

As we complete our Annotated Bibliography project (the first step in the introduction of secondary sources into our papers), think and reflect on your experience finding sources for your PSA.

Was it challenging, and why?
Did you expect to take your research in the direction it went? What happened?
Do you see a value in the introduction of secondary source? If so, what? If not, why?
Any other comments/questions are welcomed.

Remember: like our secondary sources, we want to have a conversation in the comments, not just post for the sake of posting.

Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks

Robert's got a quick hand
He'll look around the room, he won't tell you his plan
He's got a rolled cigarette
Hanging out of his mouth, he's a cowboy kid
He found a six-shooter gun
In his dad's closet with in a box of fun things
I don't even know what
But he's coming for you, yeah he's coming for you

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
All the other kids with the the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet

Daddy works a long day
He'll be coming home late and he's coming home late
And he's bringing me a surprise
'Cause dinner's in the kitchen and it's packed in ice
I've waited for a long time
Yeah the slight of my hand is now a quick pull-trigger
I reason with my cigarette
And say, "your hair's on fire, you must've lost your wits, yeah"

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
All the other kids with the the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet

Run run run run
Ru-ru-ru-run run run
Ru-ru-ru-run run run run
Ru-ru-ru-run run run ru-run run

(Repeat Chorus X2)

John Updike's "A&P"

We listened to a reading of John Updike's short story "A&P." What did you find most interesting or strange about the story? How is the way the story is told (in the first person by Sammy, in the present tense) working to affect your experience as a listener/reader? What were you initial assumptions about the story, and did they change at all after our discussion in class?
(Remember: write in the comments of this post, and try to have a conversation rather than individually posting your responses.)

The Arcade Fire "The Suburbs"

"The Suburbs"

In the suburbs I
I learned to drive
And you told me we'd never survive
Grab your mother's keys we're leavin'

You always seemed so sure
That one day we'd be fighting
A suburban war
Your part of town against mine
I saw you standing on the opposite shore

But by the time the first bombs fell
We were already bored
We were already, already bored

Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling again

Kids wanna be so hard
But in my dreams we're still screamin' and runnin' through the yard
And all of the walls that they built in the seventies finally fall
And all of the houses they built in the seventies finally fall
Meant nothin' at all
Meant nothin' at all
It meant nothin

Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling and into the night

So can you understand?
Why I want a daughter while I'm still young
I wanna hold her hand
And show her some beauty
Before all this damage is done

But if it's too much to ask, it's too much to ask
Then send me a son

Under the overpass
In the parking lot we're still waiting
It's already passed
So move your feet from hot pavement and into the grass
Cause it's already passed
It's already, already passed!

Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling again

I'm movin' past the feeling
I'm movin' past the feeling

In my dreams we're still screamin'
We're still screamin'
We're still screamin'

The Arcade Fire "The Suburbs"

"The first half of Spike Jonze's video for Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" is simple enough: a gang of teenagers biking around the suburbs, goofing off, shooting BB guns, roughhousing, enjoying each other's company. As with Where the Wild Things Are, Jonze is great at capturing the motion of being young. But what seems like a sweet and nostalgic ride around the cul de sac gets darker as the video progresses: The kids are shooting BB guns at heavily armed soldiers and cops, Homeland Security–looking types who are making their presence felt in the burbs (and who are also played by Arcade Fire's own Win Butler and Régine Chassagne). If at first the law seems part of the scenery, halfway through they get more active making sketchy, scary nighttime stops and throwing the teens up against hurricane fences to search them. The kid with the girlfriend gets arrested, and after that experience, a severe haircut, and a bad house party, he ends up beating his other friend senseless inside a fast-food restaurant. The suburbs, they've got a dark side."

(http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/11/spize_jonze_directs_the_aracad.html)