Learning Synthesis

When it came time for us to have the option of writing a mid-term writing synthesis, I didn’t even think of writing one because I felt I didn’t know enough at that point to write anything worthwhile. But as I sit here and think of the entire semester and where we began and where we are now, I am realizing just how much I learned over the months. Now that we have come to the end it has all tied together for me. For my final synthesis, I chose to discuss the following topics as I feel they relate to one another and both cover major topics I have learned in this course:
• the order in which information is presented can affect how we read it
• How McPhee’s work allowed me to understand something more, or deeper, about what journalism can do, or can be

The whole idea of how important a piece of writing is organized never really occurred to me before we did the assignment for “Pieces of the Frame” in class. Before I was actually forced to try and piece the article together, I never realized how crucial the structure was when making the story make sense. I know it sounds obvious that the structure of an article is crucial to its message, but when reading a typical article, the message is usually explained blatantly in the opening paragraphs and then the rest of the article is information backing up that statement. Even if the article was given to the reader in pieces, they would still be able to piece it back together, because the structure has already been laid out to the reader.
So, when we did the assignment in class on “Pieces of the Frame,” I figured it would be fairly easy to piece it back together, though there was some wariness in the back of my mind as I had read numerous other pieces by McPhee at this point and new he had the ability to be very random. And alas, my wary mind was proven right; McPhee had stuck in random information about a random family, the killing of a snake, and the locked up poor cub. I sat there and new that each piece must have some relation to the story because, from my experience reading previous articles, I knew McPhee liked to add in his personal stories to his work. I came to the conclusion that the snake and the bear can both be related to the Loch Ness Monster in the piece so I included them, and left the family out. We came to find out, however, that there was a piece of the article missing that would have made more sense as to why the family was included. Regardless, I found that this assignment taught me crucial aspects of not only McPhee’s work, but journalism in general.
The assignment really made me realize how important it is to read through everything and absorb it. Because we had to read through the pieces on their own, we were forced to engage in the reading, and by doing this we had the ability to take something from McPhee’s words and learn from it; we got the actual meaning behind his stories. Because McPhee incorporated pieces of his personal experiences in the piece, I had to sit and think as to why these stories would be relevant to the message he was bringing forth about writing a piece about the Loch Ness Monster. By doing this, I actually got some juices flowing and came up with theories as to what McPhee is trying to get across. At first glance, these random little tidbits about snakes or whatever else it may be seem to contribute little to the story; yet, when they are dissected, as we did in “Pieces of the Frame,” they begin to make sense and thus become very relevant to the story.
Now that I have dissected “Pieces of the Frame,” I have learned that this is an important learning technique when engaging in any sort of reading. I could read the piece in its entirety without digging, but it would be rare for me to actually get all there is to get from the piece because I haven’t engaged in it. By just merely reading the words, I now know that I would most certainly miss a lot of pieces that would make the writing that much more informative, enjoyable and understandable. Before this course, I never really read many journalism articles, and especially nothing like McPhee’s work. I have come to truly enjoy his writing because it is so educational and enjoyable to read; his work constantly allows you to think further and come up with your own theory and opinion, as he usually stays neutral in his work, simply providing the information in a unique way.
As previously mentioned, before this course I never really read many journalism articles. Thinking back, I would have thought a journalism article to be like an interview, where the journalist sits down and talks to the interviewee, gets the information, and spits it back out exactly how they heard it; the type of thing you would see in a magazine, where a person interviews a celebrity or something. So when I first read “In Virgin Forest,” I was actually kind of confused as to how the article was considered journalism. My idea of what journalism entails has obviously changed since that first week and I believe having John McPhee as the example to educate me on the subject is probably the best way I could have learned.
I’m not sure if I am just biased, but in my eyes John McPhee’s work is exceptional. The next article I read after “In Virgin Forest” was “The Encircled River I” and I loved it. Had the subject been covered by anyone else I probably would have lost interest less than halfway through. Yet, the way McPhee writes kept me locked in; now, the only thing I wish was that I had the opportunity to learn from the “Pieces of the Frame” assignment earlier so I could have taken more from the article. When I first read the article, I mentioned in my journal that I enjoyed how “casual” McPhee seems. He does not come off as a scientist or environmentalist, but he is very knowledgeable in what he is talking about. In my journal I wrote “ It is evident that people tend to stray away from anything to do with environmental issues because it’s too depressing; or they are not educated, or some other reason. But with McPhee, he intrigues the reader, educates them and gets his point across without sounding scary, depressing or scientific”; I still believe this is true after reading many other articles by him. Though he tends to use big words and sometimes takes on difficult subjects, the article is always going to be entertaining and enlightening to some degree.
When I learned how McPhee goes about researching and writing his journals, I was very impressed; it just made me like him that much more. The fact that he goes out and gets hands-on-experience with whatever it is he is writing about made me realize just how normal he is. When reading his work, he seems like he could be this brilliant mastermind who knows everything about everything. So it was really inspiring to know that he is seemingly as average as the rest of us, even having difficulty sitting down and writing his articles. The thing that sets him apart is his determination to get the full story from the insider’s perspective; he does not simply sit down and interview, he lives his interviewee’s life and walks a mile in their shoes before writing anything.
By understanding how McPhee does this, a whole new light has been shed on journalism for me. By showing just how casual, yet informative it is, I find McPhee (and others who may write like he does) creates an important way of distributing important stories and issues; especially concerning the environment. When someone reads “The Encircled River” for example, they could easily get the vibe that McPhee is an average man, just like anyone else; a man who enjoys fishing and being outdoors. The reader also sees that this man knows the importance of the environment and what it needs to be sustained. Thus creating a great example; if this average man, who likes to fish and camp with friends is concerned for the forest in Alaska and the culture that resides there, why can’t anyone else? I like that the reader can feel they relate to John McPhee as a person and not some scientist or someone they would never have anything in common with. Before taking this course, when thinking of journalism I thought of someone writing about a specific person and their life. But now, after experiencing McPhee’s writing, I think of how any given subject can be explored and depicted through an array of imagery and thought provoking ideas. Now, because of reading McPhee’s work, I know the importance of paying attention to the details throughout a piece of writing; I know that everything within the writing contributes greatly to the piece in some way or another. I just need to have the patience and open mind to capture it fully.

Journal Entry #8

It has been a while!

I had no idea we were supposed to write in our journals on Easter weekend, so I missed out on that one. But anyway, moving on to McPhee!

I am very excited that we have started focusing on McPhee's environmental pieces, as that is what really interests me (one of my majors being Environmental Studies). Throughout the entire course, I tended to stick to reading articles that had topics concerning the environment, but now the whole class is focusing on those too, so that's exciting.

I'm also enjoying the idea that everyone is going to be reading the same articles for next class. In previous classes when everyone would share a tidbit about what they were reading, it just made me want to read all of them, but alas, time does not permit me to do that. So now, we all have an opportunity to understand the article in its full text and then discuss it together like we did with "Pieces of the Frame" and "In Virgin Forest". I haven't had a chance to look at the articles yet, but I look forward to Wednesday's class to discuss them. I enjoy listening to what others have to say because they usually bring up ideas that I didn't think about while reading the piece myself.