Exploration 3 from JD Davis

March is a very talented writer who uses characterization to improve his essay.  His characterization of the people in this essay help us to better understand the story.  For example, the way he characterizes the stranger from Pontiac motors helps us understand the way these big auto companies treated the people of the community.  He also characterizes the place or setting of this essay very well. He is very descriptive of his community and it helps us understand the conflict of the essay better.  I was most engaged with the writing in the beginning when he was describing what it was like to live where he lives. the way he described the people really set the tone for the whole essay and kept me engaged because I could visualize it. For example, "our baseball and football ground lay right underneath the shadow of another General Motors building".  This shows you that where the author grew up was a motor city and you couldn't get away from the automobile industry anywhere in town.  

Music can change my mood in an instant depending on the song.  The music that always changes my mood is any music from The Ohio State marching band.  Every time I hear the buckeye fight song it brings me back to happy memories of tail gating with my family at games.  It is almost nostalgic to me because it comes with so many happy memories. I hear those lyrics "drive drive on down that field" and I'm instantly in the shoe in my head.  I'm taken back to tail gates with my grandpa who loves this university and games with my dad.  Carmen Ohio plays and I'm thinking about singing along with the team as I sway back in fourth.  Whether its a Tuesday in summer or a fall Saturday when I hear that buckeye battle cry I'm happy. 

Ohio Stadium The Shoe

Exploration Three by Grant Davison

     Marsh uses characterization of people and places as a way to describe the scenery and changes to the story. This is a great way to move along the story. From sentence to sentence you can see him picking apart his own text and expanding ideas. throughout the essay he starts to show growth in the text. I think Marsh's writing is at its best when he talks about the town they lived in on page 141. He includes a lot of details about the town and the people. "The town had a hard time keeping the shaggy secret of its bigotry even in 1964. Pontiac had mushroomed as a result of massive migration during and after World War II" (Marsh 141). This had some great word use and also used some exposition. The way he describes it is very interesting.
      A song that changed my perspective was House of Gold by Twenty One Pilots. I felt it had a lot of meaning on caring about people and where you live. I have always liked twenty one pilots and most of their songs have great meanings. i believe this song does a great job talking about values and the way they think about life. It makes me think about my family for when I get older.

Music video of House of Gold

Exploration 3 by Josh Salyers

Dave Marsh uses characterization of people and place to show the grit and industrial atmosphere that his hometown in Michigan. He also uses characterization to show the traits of his father, relatives, and those around him. I believe that he uses this characterization very well, as i found it to be the best part of his writing. The way he describes the dusty film that envelops his whole city of Pontiac, and the industrial environment brought about by General Motors, really grabbed my attention. He says, "I recall nothing of his features or of the precise words he used or even of the tone of his speech. But the dust motes that hung in the air that day are still in my memory..." He opened his narrative in this certain piece of reading with a description of the persistence of the dust, and now he hints again that the dustiness of the town still resounds within him.

I remember the first time I heard Michael Jackson, or at least the first time I remembered it. He sang about love and peace and hope. "Man in the Mirror" spoke to me in this sense, and the song taught me that I can impact the world around me by having a positive attitude and loving and treating everyone with respect. I really enjoyed the overall message of what MJ was saying, and truly he inspired me and millions of others.

Possibly the greatest artist of all time, MJ inspired those around the world to love and to seek positive change in the world

Exploration Three by Joe Campanella

In Dave Marsh's essay, "Fortunate Son", he uses characterization to describe his hometown and the people of the community. Dave Marsh grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, an industrial town where mostly blue collar workers live. The author describes some of the people he grew up with as kids and what it was like to be a part of this unique community. He was forced out of his home due to corporate restructuring of the land. He characterizes the situation and the people responsible because of how it had a big impact on him negatively. But Dave Marsh also sheds some positive light in the essay. I like how he describes music and how it played an uplifting role in his life. He especially connected with Motown records and Smokey Robinson. In the essay he states "that these singers spoke for me as well as to me, and what they had felt and were able to cope with, the deep sorrow, remorse, anger, lust, and compassion that bubbled beneath the music". Dave Marsh explains that music helped him change his outlook on the world. The music gave him something to relate to and artists he could connect with.





An artist that means a lot to me would be Kendrick Lamar. He talks about social issues and injustices that need to change in this country. He is a hip-hop artist from Compton, California. He makes it known in his music that without his hard-work and motivation, he would still be in the projects. In spite of hip-hop today, Kendrick still uses depth and meaning behind his lyrics as well as catchy beats and hooks. This is the biggest separation between Lamar and mainstream rap. His music helps you gain an interesting perspective of his background and experiences.

 

Exploration 3 from Phillip Wolf

Part One:
March uses very thorough characterization throughout the essay. I believe that he does this to show how familiar he was with his surroundings in Pontiac, and how the lifestyle in the town was constant for most people that he lived around. It helped the reader understand how he truly felt when he was forced out of his childhood home that he had become so accustomed to. It also brought to light the type of people that others in the town were, and did well to give us a glimpse into his parents personalities. I thought that his writing was at its best and most engaging when he spoke about his feelings after they had been told that they had to move. He says "My dreams always pictured us as holdouts, living in a little house surrounded by asphalt and automobiles." I liked this quote because it truly told the reader how reluctant he was to leave the place he was raised.

Part Two:
 One artist whose music has had an impact on me is Chance the Rapper. I became a big fan of his because he writes music the way he wants to, not how people imagine a rapper should write music. He writes many slow songs, songs about religion, songs about his experiences with drugs and violence in Chicago, and songs about love. He doesn't write music for the public's enjoyment but for himself and his family. This resonates with me because I like to believe that everyone should do what makes them happy, not what they think will make others happy.

This is a photo of Chance, his brother, and his grandmother. One of my favorite songs by Chance features a verse about his grandmother and her effect on him and who he has become.

Exploration Three - Tia Domer

     In Dave Marsh's essay, he uses characterization of people and places to give the readers a good visual of the character or place. He also tries to get the reader to become attached to the places and people as he was. In doing this, Marsh creates a more compelling story and keeps the reader engaged. He describes the industrial growth of his town, and how it impacts his life. I particularly like the part where he describes the dust that is coming from the factory. Its not a major plot line, but it is extremely descriptive and you get a good sense of what it was like to deal with that everyday. "Rust-red dust collected on our windowsills. It piled up no matter how often the place was dusted or cleaned. Fifteen minutes after my mother was through with a room, that dust seemed thick enough for a finger to trace pointless, ashy patterns in it"(135). Marsh also writes really well anytime he talks about music.

     One song that really made an impact on me when I was younger is called "Waiting Outside the Lines" by Greyson Chance. I originally heard about it from a friend. I moved around a lot when I was a kid, and this song was there for me. It gave me a connection to my old friends, and gave me hope. I had some deep connection to it, and it just made sense. The lyrics of this song resonated with me. I still enjoy the song today, even if it is a bit of a little kids song. The lyrics are well written and powerful and make you consider things other than just following the crowd and that its okay to do your own thing

One of the scenes from the music video

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Exploration 3 - Lauren Cobb

The author uses characterization in an unusual way. Many authors prefer to reveal the personality of motivations of their characters through dialogue. However, Dave Marsh uses very little dialogue to describe. his characters. Instead, he describes their actions to give us insight into their motivations and personalities. The business man, for example, appears unsympathetic when telling the author's father their neighborhood is being destroyed. This is indicated by his bluntness and lack of verbal apologies. The author's father appears to be very stoic. He is a man of few words and accepts their fate with out protest.

A song that touched me is "Over You" by Miranda Lambert. The reason this song spoke to me is because it is a song of loss. It is not explicitly stated who was lost in the song, but it is implied that it was someone very close to the speaker who may have been family. The song is full of emotion and it really touched me the first time I heard it. I later learned that Miranda sang the song for her husband, Blake Shelton. The song is about his younger brother's death and it was too emotional for him to perform so Lambert sang it for him.