Critique on "Notes on a Kitchen Table"

Sara Angela Rodriguez

A415-002/Chambers

Student Critique/ Notes on a Kitchen Table

21 March 2013

I really enjoyed reading your piece I thought that it was a very unique and interesting idea to write your piece in note/ flowchart form. Though, I must admit that I was a little disappointed that we only saw two notes, not three, four, or more. The flowchart took me by surprise—a good surprise—when I read the title I expected the entire story to be told in a series of notes, not a flowchart; though the chart did add life to the piece. it made me realize that the narrator, Ally, was a very organized person that cared a lot about her boyfriend Danny; enough to the point that she would stay up making this chart for him and that she could map his actions out exactly. What I especially liked about your piece is how the writing was done in red. I usually write things in red whenever I’m mad at someone and always preface the note with a “this note is written in red, take that as you may” in order to express my unexpressed anger. I also like how Ally has crossed out different portions of her note. It allows us to see what she was thinking while writing the note and gives us an inside look at her way of reasoning. Once again, I really liked your piece though; I did have some issue with the organization of it. I think that the note written by Danny should be the last section presented in the piece. This way everything is in chronological order and we get the full meaning of his words. Also, I think that with the flowchart you should have some consistency in shapes. You use a lot of shapes when making the flow boxes but I don’t see any pattern to them. I think that by keeping them uniform you can make the piece look better and easier to read.

Critique of "Here Lies Love"

Sara Angela Rodriguez

A415-002/Chambers

Student Critique/ Here Lies Love

3/19/2013

I really enjoyed reading your story. The composition and the style of the language used were beautiful: the poetry, the color, and the geometry all worked together in this story to make the reader familiar with these two characters (Katherine and the narrator). I think that it was an excellent choice to tell your story in sections because from section to section there is a not only a change in topic but a change in voice (in a few sections there is a first person narrator telling the story and in the other—5, 4, and 1— there is what seems to be a third person omniscient narrator). Your story was amazing and I think that it was very well written, though, I did feel that at times I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening to the characters; I felt like they were either breaking up or that one of them was dying but I really couldn’t tell what was going on. I feel like this was a minor issue because the story was more about their appearances and interactions as opposed to the development of their relationship. Once again, I really enjoyed your story. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Critique of "My best friend is going to prison."

Sara Angela Rodriguez

A415-002/Chambers

Student Critique/ My best friend is going to prison.

3/19/2013

I really like the structure of this piece. I think that it was an excellent choice to use the different text formats and fonts to tell the story of this event. Out of the different styles that you used I could identify dictionary entries, reports, reviews, text messages, telephone conversations, and what I assume to be a mailed letter. I think that the use of all these forms of communication was brilliant. Though, I do wish that I could see more of the prison reviews. We only get one of the four and I’m interested to see the others, mainly because I want to see why this specific review was chosen to be put in this story. I also want to see the dictionary entry set apart from the statement about the guilt ridden face. I think that by putting it in the official dictionary type and making it directly connected to the term that it is defining (probable cause) the structure would work better and the story would be consistent in its style. Once again, I really enjoyed reading your piece, though there was one thing that threw me off a bit: the usage of time. The dates given to each section of text confused me a bit. I wasn’t sure why the dates were out of order. I assumed this was done to show the confusion and flood of emotions being experienced by the narrator but besides the final statement of “I Love You” and the constant screaming I found no other support for my theory. Next, I tried reading the different sections in chronological order and found that even though the story did not change it gave it a different meaning; it put everything in order and made it a more linear story than I really wanted. In my opinion I think that you should either eliminate the dates or put them in some sort of order. In my opinion this would make the piece work better. I hope that my comments help. Thanks for sharing your story.

Critique on "In Fair Asphodel"

Sara Angela Rodriguez

A415-002/Chambers

Student Critique/ In Fair Asphodel

3/15/2013

I really enjoyed reading your piece. the images and the poetry worked wonders to build up this world of magic and decay. The images you presented us with, though beautiful and shocking, were often times a bit confused. It was not the individual images that confused me, for the images were magnificent in isolate, but rather the way that they were all supposed to fit together (the sentence that reads “carbuncles of grass […] like razor blades” comes to mind). Also, I was thrown off a little by the girl and her relationship to the king. I’m not sure if he’s supposed to symbolize death or if he is supposed to be her killer. I think that there needs to be a little more to their story so that I can make a connection between the two. Besides those two things I really liked your story. I especially liked how it didn’t seem to be told in order. It seemed to me that you would give us information and then flashback to some other point or give us information in one paragraph that could only be understood if we reread another. I think that this was a good way to keep the reader active and to make the reader focus on the action of the story.  

Critique on "How to Make Friends"

Sara Angela Rodriguez

A415-002/Chambers

Student Critique/ How to Make Friends

3/15/2013

I really liked your piece. You have put together a good concept in place. When I first received the piece and skimmed through it I thought that it was going to be an instruction manual or guide to making friends; this idea I came to after seeing the list of ‘tools needed’ and the diagram depicting the proper way to hug. But, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed when it turned out to be a very informal piece that seemed to me more like tips to making friends. I wished that all the ‘tools’ that were listed at the beginning of the piece were applied throughout. I wish we could see how patience, kindness, respect, etc. could be used to make friends. I also wanted to see more technical language (like the kind seen at the bottom of page four when you have to “[…] apply a thin layer of Forgiveness […] if the friendship cracks”) and more diagrams like the one seen at the top of page three. Another thing I saw in your piece that I thought could use some improving was the different sections. I wish that you would have chosen one topic, either one of the sections or just a more concentrated topic, in order to explain. What I mean is: I felt that the variety in sections in this piece was too much. You should choose one topic and elaborate upon that, for example the hugging section, and explain that more as opposed to hopping from one topic to another. I think that by concentrating your writing on one topic, using formal language, using diagrams, and detailing the steps to friend making your piece would be better. But, I must say that I really loved how you put it together. All the above comments are based off of the assumption that this was a ‘serious’ friendship manual that the narrator was dictating. These comments are all invalid if the short message sent in the email (the one about being unfamiliar with making friends) was actually part of the piece and stemming from the same narrative voice. If the email was intended to be part of the piece then this was masterfully done!

Sara Rodriguez-Fiction piece 6: Ways to Make Your Food Taste Better

Sara Angela Rodriguez

A415-002/Chambers

Fiction Piece #6

3/15/2013

This piece was inspired by the different answer, advice, and tip columns that are out on the web. A piece like this would usually show up on blog, which only makes me feel that it is appropriate to post it here. It is an attempt to replicate, in a way, Steve Martin’s piece (“Disgruntled Lexicographer”) in the way that it begins as a regular tip guide and slowly merges into a discourse.

Ways to Make Your Food Taste Better

1.     Add peanut butter to a bowl of ramen. You can also add soy sauce and hot sauce for a delicious and inexpensive meal.

2.     You can make breakfast popsicles using yogurt as a base and adding granola and various fruits to taste.

3.     Make a nice on the go snack by making yogurt dots! Put dots of yogurt onto a cookie pan, freeze, and enjoy.

4.     Put mashed potatoes on your sandwich. It adds flavor and texture to your food.

5.     Make green grapes taste like sour patch kids, sprinkle them with green jello-powder. Call them glitter grapes. It makes them fabulous.

6.     Add a new taste to an old classic, grill your PB&J. This makes your sandwich taste better and makes you feel accomplished (congratulations, you used the stove; you can say you actually cooked).

7.     When making a fruit salad, use a waffle cone instead of a bowl and put yogurt on top of your fruit. Can’t eat yogurt? Too bad. I guess you miss out. It tastes better with yogurt.

8.     Don’t like sour grapes? You want them sweet? Well sprinkle sugar on them and freeze. If you can’t handle the cold then that sounds like a personal problem.

9.     Want something sweet and salty? Eat watermelon sprinkled in salt.

10.                        Want something sweet, salty, and spicy? Eat watermelon sprinkled with salt and add Crystal for flavor and shine.

11.                        Want something sweet, salty, and spicy that’s not watermelon? Experiment. Grab some salt, grab some sugar, grab some pepper, and have fun! Watermelon, as far as I know, is the only fruit worth eating.

12.                        Tomato soup too plain? Add cheerios. They’ll make you happy.

13.                        Coffee not sweet enough? Boil milk and brown sugar. Add coffee.

14.                        Coffee too sweet? Add milk.

15.                        Out of milk? Add water.

16.                        Out of water? Then how do you have coffee???

17.                         Stop complaining about foods. If you don’t like it, don’t order it. If you want substitutes, might as well not order it either.

18.                        If you really want to make your food taste better I suggest you go to an actual cooking website instead of sitting here reading through yahoo answers.

19.                        Yahoo answers can’t answer all questions.

20.                        Only morons would depend so much on some stupid website like this!

21.                        Why don’t you go to a bookstore and buy a cook book?

22.                        What about taking a cooking class?

23.                        Call your relative and ask them for help in the kitchen!

24.                        The point is, stop sitting in front of your computer. Go into your kitchen.

25.                        If you want to cook, then cook. Don’t Pintrest cooking recipes or Google cooking tips or any of that other bull shit if you’re not really going to do it!

26.                        Go, go cook!

27.                        Are you still here?

28.                        You are?

29.                        Then you fail.

30.                        If you are still reading, then it is obvious that you don’t want to cook. You just want to look up interesting cooking facts to share with friend so you can look like a cooking guru. Good job. You are the idiot that sad there and read through a list of insults for the past ten minutes.  

YOU