Blog #4 by Hannah Ludwig

When I sat myself down to think of stories for my snap shots, I knew I wanted to write scenarios in my life that essentially made me who I am today. Of course, many events and people impacted my life greatly but when I thought of meaningful happenings, I wrote about the first things that popped into my head. My parents are a huge part of my life. Everyone models after his or her parents but I wanted to show how that was different for me. The not-so-great relationship I have with my parents made me more of an independent person and largely affected my reasoning for going so far for college (from New York city to Florida). I was inspired to write a poem as well because I believe poetry has always been one of my strong suits. Since we were free to write in whatever form fits, I decided I’d show choices I’ve made, in a general sense and possibly in specific situations, but writing The Road Best Taken. A variety of work draws a reader into a piece and although each snap shot should tell a story, I wrote every story in a different way. One of my stories is written in letterform. This is a way for the reader to get into my head and see how much the person I wrote it to means to me. Since I wanted to create a variety for the reader, I tried to avoid having every story about one particular thing or event. I wanted to give the reader the opportunity to see my life as more of a whole rather than only recent stories. There weren’t really any stories that I didn’t end up writing about but thought of, just because we were given so much freedom on how much to write and how many stories we could have.

Blog #4 - William McKenna

I came up with the ideas I used for my snapshots by sitting down and reflecting on some influential moments in my life.  I began to think back on years past and tried to remember moments that really impacted my life. Some moments had a huge impact on my life that was negative, while others had a very positive impact. I did not try and only write about one or the other, rather I used both positive and negative moments hoping that that would help the way my paper read as a whole. Variety is always a good thing I've been told. I knew the moments I choose would be a good fit for the snapshot assignment because all my stories that I told were ones of many that helped shape me into the person I am today. There definitely were some experiences and moments in my life that I considered using for this assignment but overall, they were too personal to be written about and shared with others. I decided what would work by thinking to myself what moments that influenced you greatly would translate into well written stories. Honestly, a keyboard and a lot of reflecting and thinking back on my life is all it took to write my snapshots.

Blog #4

Blog #4

I chose my snapshots when I was brainstorming about things in my life that I could write in much detail.  Things in my life that I remembered vividly, and things that had some significance.  When I was brainstorming there were a couple things that were running through my mind.  I had a good amount of stories that I could make into snap stories. The three that I chose were things that were important to my life and almost define me as a person.  My first snap story is about a championship baseball game that I hit a walk off home run in, to win the game.  That story I knew would be good for my snap story because there is countless points of detail that I made that were all described so vividly.  It was easy to express the senses in that story because there were so many distinct things going on at once.  My second snap story was about me and my friends going down to our friends shore house.  I chose this one because I knew I could write a lot of detail and show things rather than tell things, about the things I love.  I love going to Joe's beach house and being at the beach in general so I knew that would be easy.  Lastly, I wrote about move in day at college.  This was a no brainer because it is your first time living on your own and away from home.  There is so many sensory objectives going around you could probably write ten pages of writing.

Blog #4 - Cory Gallarelli

When considering which snapshots to write, there were so many memories to choose from. I had trouble choosing which ones I wanted to explore in my paper. My main thought I kept in my mind was to write about events that I have a specific memory of. If I could feel like I was there when I thought about my memories, then I knew they would be the best ones to write about. There are plenty of memories I have but they aren't that vivd. I mainly remember them for being good memories. I know the moments were great, but I couldn't necessarily say why. These are the memories I shied awash from because they wouldn't make for good snapshots, lacking the detail they deserve. The moments that I will always remember, the ones I can see a perfect picture of when I think of them, are the ones I sought after. My process simply involved me sitting down and thinking back to my favorite experiences. I weighed which ones I could properly describe. I wanted to give the reader the same feelings I had when I was living in those moments. It's a tough feat, but it's the whole point of the assignment. If I was able to properly achieve that, or at least if I could perfectly encapsulate the moments I was thinking of, I would add them to my paper. If not, I had to send them back to the depths of my mind. Upon the second viewing of my paper, I realized some of my original moments didn't fit all that well into my paper. Between looking through my paper when writing my second draft and reading my group's comments, I had to remove a snapshot that simply wasn't working. I noticed that I wasn't expressing the feeling that I wanted to in the moment I was trying to write about. As much as I a wish I could've kept it, some moments I couldn't properly capture in my writing, and others I plainly couldn't get the feelings I wanted to across to the reader. Wether it be my writing experience or the moment being vague, I simply couldn't do it. Some moments just work better as memories than a series of words.

Blog #4

The ideas for my snapshots came from my childhood. I knew that writing about things I really cared about and had real feelings for would make for a better paper that is easy to write. The ideas I had I knew I could write in great detail about, such as starting off with describing my house. Thinking about what my old house looked and felt like was actually refreshing for me, since I haven't really thought about it in a long time. Also I thought about the events that occurred in my life and the period of time I had the most emotions in and that was definitely my childhood.
Some of the feelings and emotions were joyful memories like my dogs, while others like moving or divorce were not so great. But either way I knew I could write in vivid detail because the snaphots don't always have to be enjoyable times in your life. I just wanted to write so the reader could really see how I felt, whether it was a high or low point in my life.
I filtered out things that weren't a vivd memory for me. I only wanted to include things that I specifically remembered and could describe well. Most of my snapshots were important times to me, not just situations that occur often or simple things like winning a basketball game or eating my first burrito. I wrote about times I will never have again such as playing baseball in my backyard with my old neighbors. It may seem simple, but since it was an everyday activity that consumed my childhood, and will never have the experience of again, I felt it was appropriate. As well as moving out of my childhood home, a situation I will never go through again, although in some ways was similar to leaving NY to come to college.

Blog #4 Emily Plower

Emily Plower

Choosing my snapshots was not an easy task. It was actually the most difficult part in a lot of aspects. With so many memories and experiences in the past 18 years it is tough to choose. When it came to decide about what to write, I choose moments that were relevant to my life and that showed the person that I was and currently am. The small moments I shared with snapshots were all memories that are very valuable. My snapshots are the moments that when people say “Tell me about yourself.” I want to tell them these stories. Anyone can say that they are adventure seekers, sensitive, and fun, but by telling a story or sharing a snapshot it gives a person a better idea of the real you. When a person reads my snapshots I want them to be able to form a picture in their mind about whom they are reading about and feel as though they have known me for years. When choosing what to write about I made sure they were moments that were very personal. I did not want to write about what was important to me or what I liked to do. I wanted to write about moments that I was with the ones I cared about and what we were doing that made it memorable or the exact moment I was doing an activity that I loved and noting every sensation. To me, those moments share a plethora more of information than simply describing myself in a few words. My snapshot of my fish story is perhaps my favorite that I wrote. It reveals my competitive side and the pride that I hold in whatever the task is that I am accomplishing. Snapshots may seem just like another story but really they are windows to the writers personality, thoughts and ethics. There were moments that I was hesitant to include in the snapshots paper because I worried they weren’t specific enough to an exact moment and myself. In fact I had an entire snapshot that I had wrote and decided to completely delete it after my second draft. I felt like it was too broad after hearing my peer’s opinions on it. Instead, I broke the snapshot down into two making it more descriptive and personal. Creating the snapshots made me into a more detailed writer, I learned that a simple trip to Disney or a tree in the front yard can become a detailed piece of writing with not only a great deal of description, but also giving personal details about the person who wrote it.

Blog #4 Process Memo - Allison Clarke-Hall

            When I began to brainstorm my snapshots essay I found that I was having an “idea block”. I found myself struggling to decide which moments I wanted to include and which I did not want to include. One thing I took into consideration when choosing moments was whether or not I could go into great detail about them. Some of the moments I wrote down were instances when I was very young and I could only remember bits and pieces about these specific memories.  

            I decided I definitely needed to include a memory about soccer. I have played soccer my entire life and it has always been very important to me. After I decided I would include a soccer snapshot I began to write down all of the accomplishments I have achieved in my soccer career. The moment I included was the moment my high school soccer team won our region championship in May 2011.  I thought about all of the thoughts and feelings I experienced during the minutes before the game was over and wrote them down.

            Another important moment in my life was when I rode my first roller coaster. I was eight years old when I rode the Incredible Hulk coaster and ever since then, I have been a roller coaster fanatic. Because I did not know the exact emotions I had during this day, I decided to write the snapshot in my dad’s point of view. In order to get all of the specific details of this moment I called my dad and asked him about the day. He told me he remembered it very well and gave me a lot of helpful details in order to perfectly capture the moment.