Our assignment for this week was very challenging, but enjoyable. We were given McPhee's article entitled "The Frame" in pieces; our job was to try and piece the article back together in a way that we thought sounded right. This turned out to be quite difficult as there were pieces that seemed to be totally unrelated to the article. Professor Hunt even mentioned he might add in some pieces that don't belong, so automatically when reading through the sections the first time I became skeptical of certain ones.
It was challenging because I found that I just wanted to group everything together in a certain order; McPhee explains the lake; McPhee explains the observatory; McPhee introduces Skelton; Skelton talks about the monster, the end. I did this, and then realized that I didn't know where to fit in those random pieces that didn't really relate to the story, but had memories in them that did relate somehow to the article. I ended up leaving one of the "random" pieces out, and sticking another at the end.
When we got into our groups on Wednesday to discuss with each other how we chose to organize the article, it was really interesting to see how everyone came up with something different. You would think that when putting together an article, there would be a somewhat basic outline that everyone would follow. However, this was not the case at all; no one had the same order whatsoever.
When we discovered this, it made me realize just how unique John McPhee's writing is. He has the ability to get all this information and put it together in a way that doesn't neccesarily "flow", but still sounds right to the reader. By doing this, I find he creates a much more enjoyable read; the random tidbits he puts in intrigue the reader and also allow the reader to think beyond the article itself, to something deeper.
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