I like a lot of what you said and I think you got a good point across about what Beth was saying and you did a good job answering the questions that Andy presented. Also, when I know that you most likely had some of the feelings that Beth had and you mention that when you say, "Before my own father died I felt more distanced from him he wasn’t the same image of my father I had when I was younger". But even though this could just be something that may be to personal for you to want to talk about I feel like even though you compared your feelings to Beth you could go more into depth about the differences and the similarities of how you felt with how Beth felt. The question does ask you to compared both of these things and I think you do address this but for someone who has experienced this I thought maybe you could bring up something that you thought she might have felt that you felt. As for the beauty in the work and the insight, I feel that you also bring something up that is very smart about the norms changing, which is something that I didn't really think that much about when she said he was a "stay-at-home dad". Besides this, the one thing that I thought could have made your blog better was just going more into depth IF you feel comfortable with that about your experience because that would have brought out a lot more beauty in this assignment.
I found your piece at the end relating your contrasting thoughts about a family member insightful. Perhaps the difference in feeling was the relationship difference between Beth and Erik, and you and your father? You knew your father your whole life (I'm assuming, correct me if I'm wrong), whereas Beth met her husband later in life when she had already had many life experiences.
In addition, your second paragraph dealing with the divide in what you perceive as cultural norms and what others like Beth might see was also a interesting insight. I thought so because once again, the two perspectives are coming from different backgrounds. Beth saw Erik as a notable difference in his role as a stay at home dad, probably because she was seeing it from a view influenced by her situation as a working mother. You on the other hand are seeing it from the perspective of a young man. Since you don't have kids yet or have to work fulltime, maybe there's more to a familial relationship with the community than you, or I for that matter, could have experienced yet?
Emily said...
You touch on a very distinct aspect of remembrance after someone close to you has died: idolization. To idolize someone after death seems to be common, as I did that with Dad, and I think is part of the healing process. It acts as a component necessary for acception (or really, the ability to cope with death). It would be interesting to explore this process further.
You mentioned Beth grew closer to Erik while he was sick, but more importantly, this happened because she cared for him during his illness. I doubt the relationship actually gets closer, but rather there is this protective, nurturing, almost self-sacrificial element that occurs while caring for someone. We saw this with our parents. However, there is a difference between caring for someone when their life is ending, and the recognition between the image of them before and now. You saw dad as a different person when he was sick, as did I, but I wonder what mom thought as she was his primary care-giver. You should ask her.
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chris,I think you answered the question Andy posed thoughtfully, fully and in a very organized manner. I think this was pro aswell as a con. I think your post can be more interesting when you find an insight you are either knowledgable about or curious about and persue it to the best you can. I very much enjoyed the second to last paragraph and the last one I thought it was the most insightful and you could have definitly expanded on it. I think that you should try to think deeply on the topic itself rather than precisely following a rubric. The rubric helps when ur struggling no doubt, but if you want to improve your own insights and make it more interesting for myslef think deeply and try to find a passionate idea you have. when u love the idea the reader loves reading about it. hope my comment helps
Lucas,
Your thoughts were clear and concise. I admire you for your deep insights and the clarity in how you presented your ideas. Something I often have a problem with, I have deep insights but my poor writing skills will make it hard for me to convey my point. Throughout the entirety of your work I was able to grasp (I thought) exactly what you wanted to say and where you were going. When I first saw your work I was bummed out on having to read it, but while I was reading it I enjoyed following along with your ideas. In fact, I liked it so much that during reading I was trying to think about what I should write about for ways to improve because everything seemed so on point.
I did of course find it anyway though. I thought that to make your piece stronger you should organize it accordingly I felt in the final paragraph it had some great ideas but they weren’t relative enough to be in the same paragraph. The problem I think we both have is that we can spill all our ideas onto paper (or a screen) and with a couple read-overs we can make it work fine but in doing so we won’t have what we want in exactly the right place. So next time you might want to try look over your work and find the main idea of each paragraph and if what you’re saying supports it. Other than that it was fantastic and I can say I am not unhappy with reading over your home works to come.
