Cuasal Chain

    Today in class we talked about the importance of the Causal Chain and how it works. To summarize the causal chain I would have to say it is the things that happen during a narration that causes something else to happen.  It's important that your causal chain is structured so it's not a rambling of random events that don't really make sense to the end reader.  A good causal chain can be easily recognized once you know about them.
      Much like the tipping of a domino chain, you tip the first domino which tips the second domino and so on down the line.  A good causal chain will bring the reader to why something happened.  The last domino fell on it's side because the first domino was set in motion tipping the rest over until the last fell as well.  You can look up and down the chain of events and see how each event effected the next event.

Peer Review

Today in class we had our first peer review.  Peer review was cool because it gave us a chance to get a set of fresh eyes on our work.   I was able to see where what I put down on paper didn't really make sense to others reading my story.  I liked hearing and seeing how my peers thoughts flowed on paper as well. I was able to refine my story to make it more readable to others.  I did however also go and see the English Tutor, to get some more knowledgable feed back as well.  Peer review is nice in helping to see the flow and understanability of my story, but having someone who majors in English look at it too was really invaluable.

Rhetorical Tools

     Today in class we discussed Mary Zambreno's article "Why Do Some Stories Keep Returning?". This introduced me to some Rhetorical Tools. The tools she mentioned in the article were Piece meal, Window of Opportunity, Open-endedness, and Mutability or Plasticity.  Although I have read a few stories in my time and have seen these terms used over and over I really never knew what they were called. So today we will talk about these terms and flesh them out a little bit to make them understandable to you the reader of my blog.
      Mutability (or Plasticity) is the ways in which the material can be reshaped for new audiences. Thank goodness this happens because I don't think I would like to read some of these older versions  written in very old english of King Arthur,  "yet som men say in many partys of Inglonde that Kynge Arthure ys nat ded" -Malory.  Really?  When I read that I feel like I am practicing "Hooked on Phonics".  But mainly mutability is how it can be related to todays people updated enough to make the readers feel the story and relate.  Peace meal is taking bits and pieces of information gathered and putting them together with a thread  to make  a story.  Much like Joseph's coat of many colors.  All sorts of of fragmented bits of fabric to create the coat.  Now widows of opportunity are the part in the story that has been left out normally because it's not related directly to the charecter but you may wonder "what about so and so" that is a window of opportunity to tell another story.  Maybe it's been written about so and so maybe not, maybe you will write about him.  Finally we have the open endedness of a story.  Sure Luke killed his father Darth Vader and we saw the head Sith drop down to his supposed demise. But didn't we see Luke fall to his supposed demise much the same way and was saved.  There are always two Sith, a master and a pupil, so who is to say the Jedi have nothing else to worry about.  The story can continue and although I am not sure I think there are other stories after Darth Vader's death allready written.  I hope I have helped explain these terms to others that haven't taken this course and are following my pittiful blog.

Narrative elements.

The narrative elements of a story are Character, plot, Conflict, climax, and resolution.  When telling a story we tell a story about something or someone.  The individuals that move through our story are called characters.  Characters influence the story helping to move the plot along.  Plot is normally some sort of conflict that arises and has to be resolved by our charecters.  The climax is the strongest part of the story where the conflict builds to an emotional peak. Resolution is where the conflict is finally resolved by our characters.

In the previous blog I talked about the story of the "Three little pigs".  Our setting in this story varies from telling to telling we assume mostly it is contryside since the pigs are leaving home. We initially have the 4 characters the three little pigs and thier mother sending them of to do the "Best" they can do.  Our three little fellows decide to create a dwelling for them selves.  The first little pig builds his home of straw because its the easiest thing to do, the second decides to put forth a little more effort at builds his home of sticks.  The third little pig remembering mothers advice does the best he can do and builds a home of bricks.  So far the plot of the story was the three little pigs setting out to make thier fortune and building a dwelling to call thier own.  Enter the character of the big bad wolf who likes to eat little pigs.  Our plot now changes and a conflict is introduced.  The conflict doesn't end very well for the first two pigs who are gobbled up.  We have now lost two characters and are approaching our climax as teh third little pig struggles with the conflict of staying alive against the big bad wolf.  The wolf can't blow this sturdy built brick home and decides to outsmart the pig by climing down the chimney.  The pig outsmarts the wolf and captures him in the pot over the fire in the fireplace and we have our resolution. You can see how narrative elements play an important part of telling any story.

The importance of narrative in reaching an audience.

Narratives have been around since the beginning of time.  Narratives are a story either relayed as spoken, written, music, or visual representations.  The importance of a narrative in reaching an audience is that it must some how connect to your receiving parties or be ratable.  Narrative uses theme, setting , characters, and plot to relay a story. Normally during a narrative we also have a problem which occurs for our characters, response by the characters to the problem, action taken to resolve the problem, and outcome of the resolved problem.

For example in the story "The three little pigs" we have one little pig who built his house of straw. Enter the big bad wolf who wants to enter the little pig's home and is refused.  The big bad wolf then blows down the little pigs home and eats him.  Same ultimate end happens to the second little pig who built his house of sticks.  The third little pig built his house of bricks so all the huffing and puffing from the big bad wolf proves useless.  The big bad wolf then decides to crawl down the chimney to get to the last little pig.  Fortunately for our hero he builds a fire and puts a big stew pot on to capture and cook the big bad wolf.   Thus ending our story.  As you can see the problem in the story was the big bad wolf trying to eat the pigs(our characters). Our action taken on the problem was actually taken before the problem arose. Two brothers failed because of improper planning and effort building their homes but the 3rd survived due to his previous hard work building a stronger home then his brothers and his quick thinking when the wolf tried to enter his home.  Our outcome was that the 3rd little pig has 2 less Christmas and birthday gifts every year but still enjoys his life.  This simple story can relate to just about any age the importance of proper planning and preparing ahead of time and not going for the easy way out of tasks.

English Class First day.

First assignment create a blog. Done.  First day of school, so far so good.