College courses, English 1010 ... one assignment Keaton had (that I was aware of because he asked to brainstorm it with me, and it was during Covid when courses moved online and I was a little more in-tune with classes) was to write about HIS writing. There were several interesting examples (one gal wrote about her love of lists, another on limited communications during a river run). As we've featured the creative writing of several of the Westra/Norman clan, here's a peek at Keaton's final draft (originally written in MLA format but adjusted here) with some additional memorabilia at the end ...
Reviewing My Writing
My mother is heavily involved in reading and writing every single day. She reads nearly 200 books a year and writes reviews for each one. Voluntarily. For fun. She records her day-to-day happenings in a journal, sends out monthly email updates to extended family and writes frequent blog posts. My brothers and I did NOT inherit this same passion. I took this class (English 1010/Intro to Writing) because it was required. I’m writing this self-portrait, because it is required. As I reflected on my writing and gathered samples of my work to study, I realized that “required writing” has been a theme throughout my life. Writing was almost always an assignment aimed at a particular audience, not something I did for myself. Of course school required writing, but my mother also encouraged (well, forced) me to write a weekly journal entry or letters to my brother who had left home for two years. As mentioned above, my mother keeps a blog; on that blog I was able to find these journal entries, letters, and samples of my writing that she had saved. Aside from the obvious “assignment” issue, I noted trends in style, tone, punctuation and humor. These patterns running throughout my writing over the years is what I’ve been assigned to write about, so here goes …
I prefer writing in first person, using a casual/conversational tone often aimed at my anticipated audience, which was usually my mom, family and friends. Often I would use some unique words, terms or jargon that only family and friends would understand, like “Maga” (the name we call my grandma) and “Blackham-standard time”. My writing often comes across as if I was speaking to someone, telling them a story. While this is a traditional approach for a journal entry (Artifact 1) or a blog post (Artifact 3), essays and speeches are easier for me to write when I can just be myself. This presentation isn’t always acceptable for school assignments though. I had samples of my writing that were more formal, but I didn’t feel like including and analyzing them. My preference in writing style even affected which artifacts I chose to examine for this assignment. While one of my selections (Artifact 2) IS a school assignment, it is not a serious/formal one, as you will soon see.
One interesting thing I recognized in my writing was my unusual use of several forms of punctuation. Take parenthesis for example. I used parenthesis a lot. My use of parentheses goes along with the conversational tone I use. The things included within the parenthesis are quick explanations or asides, just like I would do if I was talking. I also appeared to really like exclamation points, especially in my younger years.. Writing some words in all caps is another thing I tended to use in my texts. In today’s digital age, all caps generally comes across as yelling. My usage was more for emphasis. I guess I could/should use italics, but I never have. I used ALL CAPS. I noticed that I would often include quotes in my writing, quoting myself much of the time, trying to capture the actual words I had spoken. Sometimes I would use quotation marks for emphasis, “air quotes” to make a point, and other times in the usual way, around titles in the text. In my younger years, I’d also use punctuation to make simple similes and such … this was in the olden days before emojis were a thing. My journal entries showcase some of these trends.
Artifact 1 - Journal Entries
I went ahead and labeled my youthful uses of punctuation, just in case anyone might have missed those exclamation points, especially in the final two samples. Beyond that, my journal entries fit into the other noted patterns: assigned writing, first person, casual/conversational tone. Humor is another thing I found in most of my writing. I feel like these journal entries show how I include humor when I write, but Artifact 2 does a better job of spotlighting that.
Artifact 2 - Poetry School Assignments
I’m not a writer of poetry, and that’s not even something my mom would make me do. This was a school assignment for my Language Arts class. Although I struggled at first, I ended up writing two different poems. I had just been through an allergy experience, and I used that recent situation for inspiration. Although it wasn’t funny at the time (okay, it actually was funny once I was a little drunk on Benadryl) humor is my go-to in life, and in writing. I like to make it fun for people reading, and I think it makes it more fun for me writing it too. Although humor is what is showcased best in this sample, it has a couple uses of my trending punctuation (an exclamation point and quotes) as well.
I probably wouldn’t have been able to find my poems if my mom hadn’t memorialized them on the family blog. A blog is a good way to keep track of not only personal histories, memorabilia/memories and of course, writing samples. Generally it’s my mom who writes the blog posts, but after I was the only one in our family to go on a trip to Disneyland with my cousins/aunts/uncles and Maga, she asked me to write up a recap of the trip. While this was a request (assignment), I was more than willing to do it. I sat at the computer and wrote, and wrote and wrote. This vacation has a special place in my memories, and I’m glad I have this recorded. Looking over the blog post, I was able to notice the patterns of punctuation, humor and tone in this more recent writing. I’ve included a small sampling below.
Artifact 3 - Blog Post/Vacation Memories
- Clay was hoping to leave by about 7:30 and what that means to us Blackhams is 10:00 basically (yes, 10:00 is bright and early). Maga wanted to drive and wouldn't back down on the possibility of her grandson taking over (until later, muahaha).
- And so began our journey of 14 hours on I-15 with frequent steps on the brake, and history lessons on the legends of Gordy, how Maga's life was growing up in California, and my pa when he had hair (which I believe to be a myth).
- So, the first day we headed into Disneyland and immediately went to Indiana Jones. I was really excited because I've never been on in even though I've been to Disneyland at least two other times before. Aidan and Amare are excited because it's INDIANA JONES!
- Everyone was pretty sore from walking all about the day before and Liv and I had the idea that we can use Joyce's wheelchair for Maga (that she so kindly laid out for us for this specific reason. Maga has been struggling with hip pain). Maga refused saying she can walk just fine. Yeah, sure Maga. We said we'll bring it just in case *wink wink.*
- Turns out, you get into Disneyland a lot faster with a wheelchair so it was awesome! Blew by the line to get in, and everyone waiting in their normal people lines are like, "awww look at that! Grandson pushing Grandma so cute." And me and Maga are like, "muahahahahahaha suckas!"
- I first went with Clay's family to Smuggler's Run, the new Star Wars Millennium Falcon ride and I (a Star Wars nerd) geeked out at about everything I saw (video here).
- A GIANT corn dog later, Clay, the kids and I went on Pirate's for our last ride and then we get pictures, souvenirs, last moments and head home to sleep before the long drive back the following day.
- Maga thought our hotel was absolutely treacherous, and she was right. But it was just for one night (bless Joyce's heart).
Writing for the blog post (Keaton Goes to Cali), and gathering artifacts from it for this assignment, I like the addition of pictures and even video (note the video link included in the bullet list above) along with written text. It is said “A picture is worth a thousand words” and as much as my mom likes reading and writing, she loves pictures too! One of my favorite pictures of all time was taken on this Disneyland trip.
It was interesting to gather these “textual artifacts” from my personal history. To look them over, analyze and try to find patterns. To reflect on my memories of how I felt when I was writing, of where I was writing (all three of these took place on the computer in the front family room), examine my writing process (I’d just sit in front of the computer and do it in one go) and how I feel looking back on them now. I also interviewed my mother, gathering her memories and observations (as she was always close by, to provide inspiration... or enforcement). I think my writing has evolved and improved from my journal entries written over four years ago, but I still saw some of the same patterns in the blog post which was written more recently (a few months ago), and they even appear in THIS essay written today!
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A couple years later, Cooper would take an English 1010 class (concurrent, while he was a senior). He received a very similar assignment (personal literacy narrative - link to his HERE).
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As Keaton and I had brainstormed and located visuals (or "artifacts" as required by his assignment), not all of them made it into the final draft. Here are a few more picture peeks into the writing life of a young Keaton Blackham.
Back before the kids all got their own laptops, the front room computer was the main place to work. If there happened to be a kitty on the chair, the children would NOT make him move but would instead squat or kneel to work at the computer (Mom would move him!)
I loved when the schools had the kids write up "journal" pages ...
original artwork and handwriting is a treasure!
Keaton and I remembered him being part of a special writing class at Columbia.
They "published" a book featuring the kids from the school district.
... and another featured on the family blog.
The boys loved to write little "books". When Keaton created this one, I needed a little help from him to interpret exactly what he meant (he knew!). I included the "translation" to the side ;)
