My Pieces

The content here holds some of my writing completed in the genre of personal narrative and essay. I have always found a liking and kinship to this genre, and through my education I gained knowledge on the power an essay can have for a reader and the different aspects of the author's process when composing one. There's always a balance of writing style and other rhetorical decisions that create the best author-audience relationship, and I constantly try to implement this balance in my articles.

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• Spider-Man 3: Respectably Flawed​​

  • This particular piece was two-pronged. First, it aimed to argue a position regarding the quality of the 2007 film, ​Spider-Man 3, with Tobey Maguire and directed by Sam Raimi. It then analyzed the method of argumentation that I took in presenting my opinion and the approaches of movie critics everywhere. In the essay, I discuss both the argument for the film being good and the film being bad, and then my opinion concludes with neither of those positions – I say it is respectable but flawed. It was extremely fun to write and analyze the way we argue. This entire class taught me different methods of argumentation from scholars, and how positioning your case with a certain method could either contradict your points or validate them.

• Born Into Addiction​

  • An essay on my personal experiences with the alcoholic culture that is present and visible in the state of Wisconsin, where I was raised. It is considered to be a commentary essay and it is one that I wrote in the Department of Writing & Rhetoric​'s program Essay as Cultural Commentary. The program sought to teach us about the methods of essay writing and the importance of the author-audience relationship. This piece tells the story of alcoholism and shows the impact of the substance in a sort of timeline format. I learned a lot about writing with a flow of consciousness and maintaining a consistent tone in this piece. The introduction set the pace and I used that to further the rest of the essay.

• What Keeps Us Together​

  • This commentary essay delved into the relationships that are built amongst family, specifically my own, and how one decision or interest can make all the difference in keeping one together. For my family, it became golf that kept us connected and talking due to the relationship between myself and my cousin. I discuss the family's interactions from my viewpoint over time, and what I hope continues to happen due to my decision to play golf. ​This experience showed me how to write around myself in a piece, to let my "I" character be incorporated only to further the story rather than getting in the way and providing unnecessary information.

• Defining the Essay: Balance and Genuity​

  • Although this is more of an investigative essay and analysis, it is one of my favorite things that I've written. The piece really dives deep into how a successful author might go about crafting his essay in tone, structure, word choice, and the use of their "I" character. My argument and conclusion after analysis is that every great essay has a balance of all of these elements, and most importantly, the author's voice must be genuine. Without genuity, the audience will not fully connect with the piece. ​The reader wants a consistent flow of consciousness and to feel personally addressed. Needless to say, the class of Essay as Cultural Commentary considerably improved my knowledge of how to be an impactful author and the key elements that must be present in order to connect genuinely with an audience. Genuity is everything – I believe that in life and I do believe that in writing.

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