Zoe Strepek

PCA233

Bryan Furuness

30 November 2020

Co-Curricular Reflection

Unfortunately, I feel I did not execute my co-curricular plan anywhere near as strongly as

I had hoped. I really only did the bare minimum of two co-curricular activities for this course. As

much as I would have liked to do more, it was difficult to get myself to do any activity that I did

not have to do. My workload this semester was pretty heavy and my motivation was pretty low,

so it was hard for me to do all the schoolwork I had to do, let alone any extra activities that

would benefit me. I did really enjoy the two co-curricular activities I went to though. The first

one I went to was with David Leavitt talking about his book ​Shelter in Place. ​I learned a lot

throughout the hour or so I sat and listened to him. He talked a lot about his story and kind of

dissecting it and going into further explanations of certain things. But he also talked a lot about

all of his earlier drafts and his revision process. He talked a lot about the things he struggled

with, relating it to things that a lot of young and new authors struggle with when they first start

writing. He focused a lot on how hard it is to write dialogue, even when you are a professional

author. He got a lot of advice and inspiration from other writers. He also talked about how much

his characters and the story itself changed from draft to draft. In some of the earliest drafts,

certain characters had pretty much no role or importance, compared to the final draft where they

end up being one of the most important characters. It was really interesting to see a lot of the

things we learned in our revision regimen, and just throughout our whole class, come to life with

a real author.
 The second event I went to was a TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called, The

Danger of A Single Story. This was not quite as clearly about writing, revising, and just being an

author. But instead, it focused so heavily on the importance of diversifying and creating multiple

stories. Not putting people, religions, cultures, ethnicities, or races in a box. If we can make

accessible stories from all different kinds of backgrounds and authors, we can continue to

diversify our understanding of other people. It is so important to be open minded and diverse in

our writing and as authors.

So like I said, I definitely fell quite short on my co-curricular plan, I really enjoyed both

of the events I went to and hopefully I can watch more in my free time over break. It was so

interesting watching things we have learned in our course get put into place in the real world,

with real professional authors. It was also interesting to see how storytelling can go so far

beyond just giving people enjoyment and relaxation. Storytelling, good and diverse storytelling,

can have an incredible impact on people’s lives and attitudes about things. It is important to keep

our stories to diverse, and to make sure as writers, we continue to expand on all the possibilities

that everyone, no matter what race, religion, or ethnicity, is capable of.