Kalea Delgado Ms. Lehmann English 1-3 20 September 2018 Summary of “Rituals of Memory” Kimberly Blaeser’s essay, “Rituals of Memory,” argues that we always come back to our roots. Blaeser begins with a metaphor that shows readers her opinion about how relationships to family and community work. She uses her memories of the Legionnaires as evidence for her claim. Next, Blaeser mentions her life at a Catholic School and her Native American ways at home. She uses these two completely different heritages to show that she always returns to her heritage and ways of life. Blaeser ends the story by saying that stories, memories, and dreams define who we are.
Kalea Delgado Ms. Lehmann English 1-3 19 September 2018 Summary of “Once Upon A Time” Nadine Gordimer, author of the short story, “Once Upon A Time,” tries to warn readers that what you try to protect could be the thing you hurt. In the beginning of the short story, the author wakes up to startling creaking noises in the house and tries to put herself to sleep with a story. In her story a mom, dad, and son live in an upper-class suburb during segregation, surrounded by nearby riots just out of town. Over the course of the story, the crime in the suburbs escalates and the family increases their security by building a tall wall and putting razor wire on top. The last thing that happens in the story is that their young boy is mutilated trying to play in the razor wire installed for his protection.
Kalea Delgado Ms. Lehmann English 1-3 19 September 2018 Summary of “Night Calls” In the short story, “Night Calls”, Lisa Fugard tries to speak to readers about a father/daughter relationship and how they care for one another. In the beginning, the father and daughter have a distant relationship because of the passing of his wife. The father loses all hope and sends his daughter to boarding school. Her father almost leaves, but then he is put in charge of a rare heron. The heron gives the father hope and brings him and his daughter together. Next, a hyena breaks into the heron’s pen and the heron gets loose. The father looks for it every night, but one day the daughter finds it dead. She buries it so her dad won’t find out. Finally, she makes the bird’s calls to make her father happy again.
Summary Reflection
1. List one thing you’ve learned from writing this paper that you can apply to other writing assignments. What will that look like?
I learned how to write a complete and full summary. This will help me write better summaries in the future.
2. Identify a specific revision you were asked to make and explain why (this can be at any stage of the writing process). How did you revise? What did you learn?
A lot of my revisions were just changing out words to different ones. I changed the words that had to be corrected. I learned that sometimes using more descriptive phrases help my summaries look better.
3. What are the conventions of a summary and how did you meet those in this assignment?
First, you have to have the author, title, genre, and big idea. Second, you have to have the main points in chronological order and you shouldn’t have any opinions. In the first sentence of my summaries, I put the author, title, genre, and big idea. Next in the second sentence, I put the main points in chronological order and didn’t put any minor details in to my summaries. Then, I made sure that I didn’t have any opinions.
4. Given more time to work on this assignment, how would you improve it?
I would change some of my words and sentences so it would make more sense with the rest of the summary. I would also change my final sentence and re-word the big idea differently.
5. What is one thing you’re proud of in these papers?
I am proud that I got it turned in on time and that I didn’t have any errors other than having to change some of my words. I thought I did great with the summaries and learning how to write them.