Framing Statement for Poetry Final

Jack Allsopp

Prof. Miller

4/28/18

Eng- 111

The poem I chose to talk about for my revision process was my poem now titled, “Feasting On the Grapes.” Now there a very big difference between my first and second draft of this poem. I major revision I knew I needed to focus on going into the poem was cleaning it up. What I mean by this is there was  couple different metaphors that didn’t quite work with well together. It made the poem sound all over the place without having a more concise and easy to follow format.

The first stanza is one that changed completely, I realized after getting some feedback from my professor and my peers that the purpose of the “dividing line” opening stanza, did not reach the reader with the meaning I had intended. So I played around with it and tried only doing some minor changes. Nothing felt right so I decided to completely change the opener. So I switched from talking about a dividing line to a pivotal moment, which I felt was easier to follow and conveyed the point I was still trying to make. I also decided to change the beginning of the second stanza as I felt it was not doing the justice I wanted it to do. With my new beginning, It really sets up better for the rest of the stanza and the poem as a whole.

Getting to the major changes though, I cut my fourth stanza in half because there was a need for a break in the lines as there was 2 different things going on in that stanza, but then I decided to take the top half of that new stanza and put it in as my third stanza. I did this because it felt much better from a chronological standpoint. It made the message I was trying to get across much easier to follow and I feel made my poem much stronger. Along with initially cutting the fourth stanza in half. I wanted a metaphor that could be followed through multiple stanzas. I had a grape and vine metaphor which I felt was the strongest one, so I expanded on it and changed my other metaphors to coincide with that one. This gave my poem much more flow to it and made it easier to grasp and draw meaning from. Plus I think the metaphor I used is really quite gripping and it a good analogy to what I am really trying to say. Lastly, since I changed so much, I needed a new title. “The Dividing Line” now made no sense so I needed something new to draw readers in. I chose, “Feasting On the Grapes,” because I feel like it encompasses the message that the poem is conveying and also it introduces my metaphor in a enticing and curious way.

Jack Allsopp

Prof. Miller

3/6/18

ENG-111

A look back

My story has gone through many different changes, from my first draft to my last draft it is almost a completely different story. I first started this story with more of a beginning in mind and I tried to make that the best it could be. The middle and ending of my first draft I wasn’t too content with. I felt like it was going no where and that a good ending was not going to be easy to write. At first my main character was going to return to the boat it was going to be a story of survival, but it kind of fell flat and wasn’t very exciting. My character also didn’t have much character development. So, moving into my second draft I scrapped the first middle and ending and was given the idea to do a count down style story in which Cameron would be aware of how much air he had left in his tank. This creating tension and a good way to keep the story exciting and the reader interested.

My story then started to have some exciting content. I had taken in and evaluated a lot of the advice I had been given in my peer group and applied it to my story. I was getting somewhere, and my story now had a good concrete beginning middle and end to it. But something was missing I felt. Moving into my third and final draft I again, evaluated the criticism and critiques given out during our conference. This made me realize that while my story was action packed and exciting, I really need to give my reader something to care about. In doing this I needed to give Cameron more character and I reason to live. This is where Jenny comes along. I decided to give Cameron a fiancé and have his wedding to her be the day after the events of the story. In doing so, I gave Cameron some much needed character development, and reason to live, which in turn gave the readers a reason to root for Cameron in his perilous adventure. This gave me story the elements it was missing, and made me feel more comfortable calling it a short story. Then after I finished that draft, I had some friends read it, all there reactions to the story made it clear to me that I made me the necessary changes to make my story even better.