Our Eighth Group Meeting

After the long break in time since our last group meeting, it was great to meet once again and revisit both the writing pieces we have been working on as well as the ideas about writing that we have been discussing together throughout the semester. After heading to our old meeting spot in the library, we first updated each other on our current projects and our plans for the surprisingly fast approaching last few weeks of school and the end of our time in Cultivating Your Voice II. Then, with the knowledge that we would have another meeting the following class to keep working on our pieces together and thus enough time, we proceeded to focus in on Aaron’s and my most recent writing pieces for this meeting.

Before reading together, we decided to employ a meeting design that we have enjoyed and greatly profited from in past meetings: having the author write specific and focused questions relating to their piece before anyone has begun to read and analyze what they can do better. While it was a difficult process to narrow down what I wanted to focus in on as well as figure out how to articulate my specific concerns, I think both Aaron and I benefited greatly from the writing of these questions as it forced us to realize where we felt weaknesses in our pieces. Not to mention the feedback received following the group reading was extremely useful and well directed as a result. Thus, this meeting served to help us jump right back into our group members’ work after the pause in meetings. I think we all look forward to delving into Matt’s and Nicole’s pieces next class!

Allison

Our last group meeting focues on "Movies of the Reader's Mind," allowing the writer to understand exactly what is going on when the reader is reading their piece. This exercise was extremely helpful for me as there are times where I can be unclear in my work and my group members are not sure where I am coming from. Forcing my peers to tell me what is going on in the story so far allowed me to compare their interpretations with my own intentions. By doing this, I was able to pinpoint any vague areas, giving me the opportunity to strengthen my writing. My group members were very helpful in providing suggestions on how I could clear any misunderstandings with my work.

I was also given some great advice on how I could continue my piece from where I left off. My group supported how I implemented an aspect of my relationship with my mom and connected it to a moment in my trip. They suggested continuing the idea, but expand it to different members of my family, making it more personal and easier for them to see myself in my piece. I am always able to find new ways to strengthen my voice, an area that I have been constantly working on throughout this class.

-Aaron

The Sixth Group Meeting

In our sixth group meeting we explored the technique of Criterion-Based Feedback. Since the past couple of group meetings have involved crafting a question, we have become fairly proficient in the art, and found this feedback method particularly easy. While it was definitely helpful to have the handout in front of me listing the many aspects of writing, I found that the majority of this list already exists in my mind. What was useful  about this exercise was that it allowed me to create a more narrow and focused question. Since I recently began an experimental piece of fiction, I decided to craft my question about the meaning of my piece. Although my piece is not finished, I still received valuable feedback from my group, as they suggested that I define my character more vividly in the beginning in order to enhance the readers perception of the story. We spent a large portion of the group meeting focusing on my own piece, since it was a first draft and I really needed input from my fellow classmates. I think that this particular group exercise would be very helpful to use at the beginning of the semester, since the responses it elicits are more narrow and allow for more thorough revisions. 

-Nicole

Fifth Group Meeting

(posted by Maida on the group's behalf)

For our fifth group meeting we headed to the Maclab so we could print out what we had worked on during the previous rotation. Unfortunately we had some printer problems, so we lost a little time getting things ready. Fortunately we still managed to get through all the assigned work. First we read the thing about voice and made sure we didn't have any questions about it for one another. Next we read each of our pieces out loud to one another. We picked out 5-star quotes from each of our papers (I didn't think mine had any but we managed). We came to the conclusion that all of the quotes had a few things in common:
They were well written and descriptive, they reflected recognizable traits of the authors (i.e. we could "hear" the author saying these things), and they were all quotes that group members could
identify with. Overall I thought it was a successfull and productive period, and reaffirmed at least my belief in the "sayback" method.
-Matt

Fourth Group Meeting

This meeting we all headed back to our original meeting spot, the comfy seats of the library, with a refreshed attitude after our long weekend away from school. In our opening discussion, the one in which we reflected upon the “Summary and Sayback” techniques introduced last group meeting, we all agreed that Sayback seemed the most useful to our writing process since the last meeting in that Sayback encouraged collaboration between the writer and the “critic” or reader. That is, rather than a one-sided discussion in which the reader gave feedback and the writer listened passively, we felt that the Sayback method of providing a writer with feedback really inspired the reader and writer to work together to improve the piece of writing at hand. Following this discussion, we moved to the second major activity on our agenda: crafting questions to guide the feedback on the new pieces of writing we brought to the meeting to discuss. We passed out our pieces to each other, silently read them, and then reflected upon the question posed by the writer. After everyone had finished reading all of the new writing, we discussed each piece individually, using the question posed by the writer as the basis of our discussion. I think all of us benefited greatly from crafting these questions before giving feedback in that the questions really focused the feedback each reader presented to the writer and kept the discussions about each of our pieces to improvement oriented critique. Further, it was especially nice to craft these questions for each other because it meant that each of us got to hear about what we most wanted to better understand versus what was convenient or easy to discuss. This being our fourth meeting together, I think we are really beginning to better understand each others’ writing styles and approaches to material and this meeting was another productive and inspiring period of reflection and discussion about writing.

Allison

Third Group Meeting

Our third group meeting brought us outside where we were able to enjoy the wonderful afternoon sun. While sitting on the benches outside the theater, we first read the summary and sayback exercises. After reading, we made sure that everyone had a clear understanding of each method. This led to a discussion on how these methods would be helpful for the revision process and led us to see both the similarities and differences between the two. While the summary method allows the writer to hear the reader's interpretation of their piece's main message, we ultimately thought sayback was more useful. There is a more evident conversation between the reader and the writer through sayback, allowing the reader to help the writer think of new words and thoughts for their piece. As all of us have experienced before, there are some ideas that the writer is trying to get down that may not be clear to the reader. We were able to use the sayback method to describe what the goals and strategies for our pieces were and the ways that we could make them more effective for the reader. Overall, we all enjoyed working with the two methods while sitting outside. We also concluded that each of us would read our individual topics instead of a group read.

Aaron

Second Group Meeting

For our second group meeting we retreated to the library once again, only to find all of the comfy chairs occupied. We managed to grab a table in the library though, which was probably more conducive to our task of the day. First, we read the Points of Gravity exercise, and then the accompanying essay ( I forget the name of it, but it was the one arguing that Ebonics should be taught in school). The topic of the essay arouse a brief discussion, as we all strongly disagreed with the argument presented in the essay. The majority of the points of gravity we established were based on the arguments that we most strongly disagreed with. The activity inadvertently showed us that it is difficult to critique the work of an author when their piece evokes such strong feelings. We then moved on to our own revised work, and tried the activity with them. Our whole group found Aaron's object story very interesting, so we ended up spending a good amount of time talking about the Point's of Gravity in his story, and discussing how he could emphasize these points in his next draft. Overall, our group meeting was productive and fun! Next time I hope to discuss a potential group read.

Nicole

First Group Meeting!

Report on our first meeting: For our first group meeting we headed to the peace and quiet of the library. On the comfy chairs we read each of our "object" pieces out loud, and exchanged objects and pictures of objects. The stories behind some of the objects were both interesting and funny. The range of objects and their significances was pretty large, which was cool. Next we took a few minutes to fill out our metaphor/goals/support sheets. We exchanged them and copied everybody's information down like we were supposed to. Some examples of things I thought I could do to help my group members: Ask Aaron about his reading to make sure he was reading a lot, read Allison's dialogues out loud to help her with the dialogues she wants to write this semester, and memorize Nicole's entire schedule to keep her on task. Overall our first meeting was a success and I think we all hope to continue having equally good meetings each rotation.

Matt