Another version

I like this version of “Just Walk On By” way better than the original. I think it was written much better and also delivered a more precise message. It seemed to be very effective. I like how he started out with a better description of himself. It added to the image that I got in my head when I was reading and I could get a feel for how a simple thing like clothing could make someone look a lot bigger or terrifying than they truly are. Just his presence actually disturbed people and made them huddle in fear. I feel like the description of himself makes the reader really jump into what he is thinking as he is walking down the sidewalk. I’m also glad that he edited out a few stories such as the one about him being a journalist and getting the security called on him by mistake. It was a pretty good account of how his life truly is, but I felt like some of them became a little repetitive, so that revision worked well in my opinion. But he also added a new story that I felt added to the piece. The story of how he played scatter the pigeons was amusing and I’m glad that he could look at it from another perspective such as turning people’s misguided fears into a game. I feel like Staples has to put on an act every time he walks out of his front door, but that is where our society has taken us. Once again, this just shows how stereotypes are so common even in the modern day. It actually scares me that people can have these false assumptions and live in fear based off discrimination and things that they have probably only seen on the news or in movies.

Since I couldn’t find the second article anywhere on the website or the databases, I’ll just blog on the first piece by Staples. This article was actually very interesting and kept my attention. I found it very straight forward and to the point. I wouldn’t say I found what he was saying shocking at all because I do see people on the streets that cross in fear of others or who see someone of a different race and automatically stereotype. I think we all do this to some extent but not to an extreme that Staples was speaking of. It was really sad that he talked of a women running in fear from him in the middle of the night. I also felt that he wrote in a way that everyone can relate to. I think many of us have experienced discrimination or seen it happening. All the stories that he spoke of showed how society today can brand a certain race as “violent” or “bad.” This doesn’t just happen with race either. Modern society today discriminates against not only race, but gender, age, religion and culture and it’s not right. I know a lot of people who put themselves above others who are different and it really gets to me that they aren’t open enough to change or uniqueness. The story that struck me most was when he spoke of being a young journalist in Chicago and actually getting the security called on him because the women at the front desk was frightened and didn’t know that he worked there, and all he was doing was bringing in a report for the magazine he was working with. People need to stop jumping to conclusions so quickly and making false assumptions about people that they don’t even know. It rude and unfair and I think this article presented perfectly the types of discrimination and stereotypes that society today can put into our heads.

Revision

I really liked the piece by Nancy Sommers because it relates so much to what we have been doing in our own class, especially recently. Throughout this semester we have been writing papers and creating our own works that will be shown in a portfolio due the beginning of December. After writing these papers we have conferences and are told to start the revision process, but I don’t think many of us knew the correct way to start or even where to begin and Sommers states this in her article. Many students don’t know what to do and aren’t really taught it in class.
In high school I was always told to correct grammar and fix structure, but I feel like revision needs to be much more than that and it is. I was never told the right way to revise and I think many others are in the same boat. When I was told to fix a paper, I just did what I thought would help my paper. But after being in GWRTC and learning about revision and getting help in conferences, I realized that there is more to it then structure and little errors, it’s actually trying to figure out what can make your paper better and make more sense.
I have learned that sometimes you need to do a little more research or even reorganize certain ideas so they flow better. Maybe you may need to even rewrite different aspects or add another paragraph to get your point across better.
I think Sommers understood that students weren’t getting the whole point to the revision process and started wondering where revision really came from and what happens from paper to paper, draft to draft. Like she says, you can’t just change words around. It’s much bigger than that. You need to focus on what you can do to reach improvement and overall satisfaction.