Essay Packet 2

In Savich's, "Crumbling Expectations," I was sort of confused at the beginning. When he started into his creative essay, he just went right into it without much description as to what he was going to talk about. He started off at one point in his life, using memories from his childhood, that led into why he was writing the essay at that point in time. He had a way of converying what he was trying to say about his father and his family without using much detail to do it. I found it interesting how he used the memories to link something that's happening now. I also liked how he related the fact that books and certain kinds of them made him the writer he is.

In Prevallet, I liked how each individual story was short and to the point. He was able to use enough detail in one paragraph to give the initial imagery that was needed for the essay. My favorite one was "Grammar." I liked this one because it made me feel close to the writer because we were getting a person look into his mind, a look that made him seem just like us, even though he has published writings. In "Grammar," I liked how he put what made him worry about writing and it reminded me of exactly how I feel when I'm writing a new story or essay. I also liked "Dream," because the way he worded the language is exactly how I feel when I awaken from a dream or deepsleep. The way the darkness consumes you after you've just had a dream about being at an amusement park, where you wake up and realize, "It was just a dream..."

As I read D'Agata's portion inside Essay Packet 1, I found it interesting how the idea of real life was incorporated into the essays. Real factual events were brought up into the essay giving it the tone that was being portrayed to start out with. Broken sentences were used throughout the essay, and I thought it was interesting how even though they were fragmented, they still came together to make the essay make complete sense and still bring out what was meant to be said. For example in "Notes Toward the Making of A Human Being," this was how it was mentioned, "after which the student body then returned with its vote overwhelmingly in favor of A.'s request to keep a gun in his room...hard bodies...which in turn has resulted in an equally large gush of self-congratulatory writing..." just intrigued me on how the idea could be continued and there not have to be complete sentences to capture that image. I liked how at the end, there was a list of "Things To Do," and the fact that there was 93 things to do on that list.

In Dillard's essay's, I liked how she made it sound as though she was living in that moment in time that her essay's were being written, and how easy she makes it look to write such amazing stories. She used such vivid descriptions about her adventures, it was almost unbelievable. I liked how I was able to picture myself looking at the blue sky as she talked about it and I also liked how I was able to feel the grass beneath my feet without actually being there to experience it myself.Overall, I liked Essay Packet 1 because it gave me a broader sense of what these essay's actually need to contain to look and sound like an essay.