Reflecting on Revision

Reflecting on Revision

What I found most intriguing in Ms. Brown’s interpretive essay was her individual perspective or approach to David Sedaris’s story and more specifically his purpose. Going into this assignment, I was not that excited about reading an interpretive essay about a story I have already read many times over and have written about myself, but her unique writing style made her essay very fun to read.  

Ms. Brown and I both express similar ideas in our own essays, but our style of writing is very different. Simply put, she wrote her essay very well. I like her spin on what she feels David Sedaris’s purpose is. Moreover, like me, she wrote about how people have a tendency to sometimes be judgmental.

Ms. Brown wrote this in her essay: Sedaris’ comedic anthropological approach to tackling situations that pertain to judgments passed on others not only touched on physical appearance, but of political ideology as well. He showed that it is as if there is a code within our DNA that makes humans aggressive towards others, but in a passive sort of way. Using an airport as the main location of the article was perfect in capturing the interactions of people and how airline passengers react to certain situations. It is no surprise that in a port that resembles a bee hive of people from all different backgrounds, there is conflict and criticism of others. Sedaris was able to bring up the question of whether it is the situations that drive us or ourselves mixed in with one another; as if our own vulnerability in a place that has people opposite of us is what creates the chaos we find ourselves in.

I love her choice of words in describing what was at stake for David Sedaris. She used the words comedic, anthropological, and DNA. I think these are all good choice words to use. I also like how she referred to the airport as being a bee hive of people. That’s a really good way of describing what an airport can be like and keeps me as the reader entertained and wanting to read more.

Ms. Brown touched a little bit on how David Sedaris noticed the aggression of some of the people around him.  I could have shed a little bit of light on that. There are a few people in this story that exhibit some aggressive behavior. For example, there is the man who said he should have punched the airline employee or there is the man with the mustache who suggested that maybe the government should be overthrown by force. She used the first as an example in her essay. I actually think bringing that up was a good idea because there is a pattern of aggressive behavior throughout the story.

 In all, I really enjoyed reading Ms. Browns paper. Reading her paper has encouraged me to make mine even better. I want mine to be as entertaining as hers. I do believe I wrote my essay well, but there is always room for improvement.

My methodology in writing my paper was simple. I did what I usually do and put together an outline. I really think that’s the best place to start when writing a paper. You start with an idea and give examples to support the idea in the main body of the essay. The objective of this essay was to write my interpretation of David Sedaris’s story Standing By.   I think I did a good job of interpreting his story and used many examples. What I need to do to improve my essay is to be less detached. It is in fact, an interpretive essay, my interpretive essay and therefore I should be less detached. I think this is really important because if I give my readers a sense of who I am as a person and tell the readers what it is that is at stake for me, my readers will be more inclined to want to read my paper.

One thing I’d like to add to my essay is my interpretation of what David Sedaris meant by the airport being a forum for our true hateful selves. He said this: We’re forever blaming the airline industry for turning us into monsters; it’s the fault of the ticket agents, the baggage handlers, the slowpokes at the newsstands and the fast food restaurants. But what if this is who we truly are, and the airport’s just a forum that allows us to be our real selves, not just hateful but gloriously so?

I already elaborated a little bit on what I thought this meant in my essay, but I want to add one more thought. I want to expand on that idea and talk about how social media networks may be similar to this airport setting. Additionally, social media networks, like Facebook may be another forum to show the world who we truly are.

Many of my acquaintances and friends on Facebook were very forward in expressing their political views around election time; some, more aggressively than others. This I think is a good example of how people feel more comfortable being themselves in different settings. Social media networks and the airport are the open doors to showing our true hateful selves.