Journal 4

Name: Erin Munchel

Journal Assignment #4

Descriptive Writing Assignment

Using Ann Hodgman’s essay as a model, write a detailed description of a recent meal that you ate. Your focus should be on describing as many aspects of your food as you can.

Important Elements: Concrete/Abstract Images

Multi-Sensory Images Simile, Metaphor, Analogy

Dominant Impression

Salad

Today for lunch I ate salad. Eating plain lettuce was like eating leaves, but I had salad dressing, like oil and thickening pepper. The lettuce can be pale green, dark green, or even purple. The dressing was ‘house; dressing, made from where I work. It looked like watered down iced tea mixed with grains of sand and colorful red, green, and black specs grated off the side of a crayon. Although it looked odd, it was delicious. The salad contained bright bed tomatoes, which I hate. They are mushy and full of seeds, almost like eating the inside of pumpkin carvings. However, the cucumbers I love. They are a soft but limber texture that is smooth to touch. They have a few seeds, but they dissolve in your mouth like pomegranate seeds. Some lettuce wilts like unwatered plants left at home while vacationing. Other lettuce is crisp, but easily chewed. Salad smells fresh, like walking through a garden. Eating the vegetables sounds like someone walking through a field of high crass, occasionally stepping on a corn stalk, a very crunchy reverberation. Salad is one of the most beautiful things to eat. It is colorful, and includes many different textures. Variations of green, red, orange, and purple are vividly shown inside my salad bowl.

Journal 3

Name: Erin Munchel

Journal Assignment #3

“No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch” – Ann Hodgman

(The Norton Sampler p.77)

Read the selection and write a one paragraph response to the following questions.

1. Cite three specific examples of Hodgman’s descriptive imagery that you find to be particularly effective.

‘The dull tang of soybean flour ‘’

‘’..but each can of the cycle was packed with smooth, round, oily nuggets”

“like meatloaf with ground up chicken bones’’

2. What do you think Hodgman’s purpose was in writing this essay? What overall message/meaning do you take from the essay?

I think the purpose is that even though the dog food was disgusting, she still ate all of the dog food and was not afraid to tell anyone about it. I think that this is saying that even if something is difficult, we shouldn’t give up in it. If we really are interested in something and want to know a clear answer, there is no way to find a conclusion except experiencing the task personally.

Journal 2

Journal 2 - Annie Dillard – “The Death of a Moth,” from Holy the

Firm

1. How are the moths in the essay’s opening different from the moth at the campsite? What do the different moths represent?

The moths at the campsite show that everything in nature, human beings included, can help one another, in life and death. The moth’s death, it is helping to provide light for the woman on in the mountains. The moths in the bathroom don’t provide anything important and are insignificant. The campsite moths have a passionate intensity, and died in a vivid way.

2. What lesson does the moth provide that Dillard takes back to her students?

Light can guide you, and fire can be the source of your passion. Everything you do in life, do it with passion and make it significant. Everything in life, nature and human, alive or dead, can be helpful and seen good in some way, if you have an open, optimistic mind set.

3. How many references are there to fire in the essay? What’s the larger significance of fire in the essay?

There are several references of fire throughout the essay. Flames, burning, candles, smoke, and the book titles, ‘The Day on Fire’. Fire gleams, and can brighten up the heaviest darkness. It could also say that many different things can cause light. It also shows her passion and perseverance.

4. Address how each of the following quotes connect to Dillard’s overall point.

a. “I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.”

-Jack London

This is more of an outlook on life, saying that you should take everything in your life and turn it into something you are passionate about.

b. “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

-William Butler Yeats

This is saying that learning isn’t just throwing information at yourself, it’s embracing what your learning about in order to further understand.

c. “A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.”

-Franz Kafka

This is saying that the more you read can open pathways inside your mind that you never knew possible; it also relates to the axe in the story.

Journal 1: Fall

Fall. I never thought about why we called the season fall. Maybe it was because the leaves fall to the ground, fashioning mounds of vivid compost. Maybe it was the fall of summer, before the chill winter stole the warmth of the earth. But maybe, it was the season when hearts fell. A love like fall, bright and colorful, captivating at the start, but soon turning to a dull, blank emptiness- which is exactly how I felt.

We met at Karen’s, the diner on the corner of Main and Frost Street. I was a waitress there, and had been ever since I can remember. I started when I was sixteen, about four years back. Everyone was in town for the summer, and the beach was filled to its maximum occupancy. I scrammed around looking for my notepad so I could write down orders. I saw it ahead of me on the floor, and a boy from across the room picked it up, and handed it to me. Our eyes met, and from then on I was drawn in. never had I seen eyes so blue, and a smile so bright.

We were inseparable. When I wasn’t working, we were on the beach, having long walks or picnics, talking about anything and everything. It was the first time in awhile I had actually felt happy. I knew when the summer would end, he would move back to the city and go to college, and I’d be left here, waiting on the same local customers at the diner. It was inevitable that he would leave, and maybe that’s what scared me the most.

When the days got shorter, and the nights grew longer, we would sit on the beach, watching the darkness rise along the coast. Our long talks ended, and we sat in silence-the only sounds that filled my ears were the waves crashing against the shore. Sitting there at the inlet, I thought to myself about asking him to stay for the fall with me for about five minutes. I finally got the courage to ask, but his answer had been no. I felt uneasy, and disappointed. He would leave tomorrow, and the last chance I had to convince him into staying was at the play that was held at the theater the next day.

We sat there next to each other, and I couldn’t even look at him. I guess I began to realize it was over, and the fall was unavoidable. We sat through the whole two hour play next to each other, emotionless. When the play finally ended, I just sat there, watching everyone shuffle out of their rows to the nearest exit. He stayed, sitting alongside of me. It was just me and him, two people in a theater that fit four hundred and fifty people. We were still. I just stared forward at the red drapes closing on the stage, wondering what I should say to him, but I couldn’t think of anything, my mind was blank. He would leave to go back to the city in nine short hours, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it accept just sit here. I felt like my heart had sunk into my stomach, and everything I knew just fell through when I needed it the most. Maybe that’s why they call it fall.