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Podcast Transcript

Bella: Heyyy it’s Bella

Angie: It’s Angie

Camille: and Camille

Bella: Today I'm going to be talking about my senior thesis and college essay and how they

impacted my life.

Angie: I'm going to be talking about my experience writing my diary and my e-portfolio senior

year.

Camille: And I am going to be talking about the two things I did my senior year which were my

senior thesis and my college essay. So basically we are going to talk about our past experiences

with literacy and language and how it has affected our present writing identity in college.

Bella: So Angie, what made you choose your diary as one of your literacy events?

Angie: I started writing my diary from the ages of 9 to 16 and I just always hated talking about

feely stuff and I just liked keeping things in my head. Also growing up we were always taught a

way to write and so it was kinda nice to grab this notebook and freely write about things I

wanted to write about and experiences.

Camille: it’s so much better like that

Angie: Yeah so that’s kinda what I did and it just allowed me to enjoy writing and especially

when writing was very crucial. So that is kinda why I started writing in my diary and I am happy

I did because it helped me through a lot.

Bella: And what was your other one?

Angie: My eportfolio.

Camille: Which you did your senior year right?

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Angie: Yeah just like you guys!

Bella: So me and Camille’s that we both chose were our senior thesis and our college essays. The

senior thesis was about a year-long process, it was multimodal.

Camille: SO LONG!

Bella: It was multimodal as well because we had to do several speeches throughout, and outlines,

and it ended up being a 10-page long paper.

Camille: Yeah and we had to have a first draft and I final draft too and after our final draft we

had to present

Bella: In front of the whole class

Camille: We had to turn our 10-page essay into 8 to 7 minute presentations

Bella: It was so scary and we were not allowed to have notes or anything

Camille: Yeah it was quite stressful but looking back I am glad I did it because for one it taught

us how to write a 10-page paper in APA format and in my SLS class over the summer we had to

write a paper in there as well and we had to do it in APA format

Bella: I had to do one in my sociology class as well

Camille: No one in the class knew how to do APA but only MLA. I never did MLA but it was

good to know that I knew how to do APA.

Bella: It’s a nice feeling knowing that you have a 10-page paper under your belt. It was a whole

year-long process and so it was nice knowing that we did that and taught us a lot about public

speaking as well.

Angie: Oh yeah! I had something similar ours was an Eportfolio and we had to do an essay on

how we grew socially, spiritually, and academically throughout my experience at my high

school. So mine was also very nice because I learned multimodal which helped me with this
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project specifically because we had to write our essay on an off-topic situation and then we had

to tie it back to a PowerPoint. We had to present it in front of staff members and we also had

different people in the room that impacted our lives throughout high school. This really allowed

me to feel more confident in my writing and in public speaking and receiving positive feedback

which helped me in the long run especially in college because I did not realize how much we

were going to be public speaking and writing essays and communicating with people in our class

and teachers.

Camille: So about the presentation, I knew we were gonna have to, but over the summer in both

my classes I had to write multiple essays and my final in my American history class we had to do

this presentation and I was very nervous about it.

Bella: Yeah my final was a five-page paper in sociology.

Bella: So, back to what Angie said again she had mentioned how she had to choose, what was

the word you used for it again?

Angie: A sponsor, which can be a teacher, parent, or any influential person in someone’s life. In

the article “Sponsor of Literacy” I got an even better understanding of a Sponsor. In Brant’s

words, “Sponsors, as we ordinarily think of them, are powerful figures who bankroll events or

smooth the way for initiates”(167). They truly have a huge role in our literacy learning.

Bella: Yeah, so, ours was a sponsor but our school called it a mentor, and we all had to choose

one for the senior thesis and I had chosen my math teacher, and Camille who did you choose?

Camille: I chose my coach for softball for this year-long project because we had to choose topics

and she kinda related to my topic I guess and she could help me with it.

Angie: What was your topic?

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Camille: Mine was, well we went to a Christian school, so did Angie, so our big project was

about finding God in something, for example finding God in natural disasters, finding God in

war, finding God in things that you normally couldn't see a God figure in.

Bella: Mine was a sciency topic, it was called Fibonacci, Camille?

Camille: I did stars

Bella: So ours are kinda both sciency

Camille: So, no one knows what Fibonacci is. I don't even remember what it is. So if you wanna

go ahead and explain it.

Angie: Yeah I don't know what that is.

Bella: Basically, it is a repetitive pattern found in nature, literally in so many different things.

Found in sea shells, found in galaxies, found in hurricanes, SHOUTOUT IAN!!!

It's found in the growth patterns of our DNA, it's found in so many things and it's so repetitive in

life.

Camille: Okay Angie so who is your sponsor for your project or essay in high school?

Angie: My sponsor was my guidance counselor and my small group leader, Mrs. Ramsey.

Referring back to the article “Sponsors of Literacy”, I liked when it said, “Sponsors help to

organize and administer stratified systems of opportunity and access, and they raise the literacy

stakes in struggles for competitive advantage” (178). This is very true because this is exactly

how Mrs. Ramsey impacted my life specifically. so she was my sponsor throughout because in

high school. It was so nice having someone on your high school campus who you know loves

and supports you and knows you on a deeper level. I went to her office all the time when I

needed someone to talk to, help with college applications, or simply just advice. I struggled a lot

senior year when finding what school I wanted to go to and freaking out not knowing if I was
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gonna get in anywhere. She was always my encouragement and I'm really appreciative of her and

I'm still in contact with her which is really nice to have.

Bella: That's how my mentor/sponsor is for me too.

Camille: Yeah, I loved my coach. She was so easy to talk to and really helped me with my

project.

Bella: Me too. I had her for 3 different math classes so I got really close to her over those years

Camille: it was nice to have that encouragement and during the project, she really hyped me up.

Bella: Yeah me too!

Angie: I feel like a lot of teachers kinda just give you homework and don’t really know what you

have after school so it's nice to know that teachers treat you as a human being rather than just

another student in your class.

Camille: That’s what I liked about going to a small school. I feel like it was easy to make

relationships with teachers.

Angie: I agree.

Camille: So all this to say about our sponsors and our mentors to connect it to the actual Brandt

article and he defines it as “Intuitively, sponsors seemed a fitting term for the figures who turned

up most typically in people's memories of literacy learning: older relatives, teachers, priests,

supervisors, military officers, editors, influential authors.”

Our teachers and whoever our mentors were during this time kinda helped shape us with our

writing, mainly because they forced us to do the paper which at the time I did not wanna do, but

looking back I'm kinda glad. I always thought it was so stupid that they were making us do that. I

thought it was terrible that they were making us do it our senior year with everything going on.
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Bella: Freshman year I really hated the school. I really did and I considered leaving the school

because I didn’t want to do this project.

Camille: Yeah I think a lot of people were like I am so glad I didn’t have to that

Bella: I was just going to go to the public school I was zoned for. My brother went there and he

really liked it and had a lot of friends there. I was so close.

Camille: Yeah but looking back. The fact that I know APA and the sources and I know how to

cite. Just that the fact that I had to do a 10-page

Bella: Yeah now I am like 3 pages. That is nothing I can do in one day.

Angie: Now we are prepared for college because I feel like not a lot of people got that

opportunity.

Camille: Knowing that I know how to do APA in my one class proved that which is crazy to me.

Camille: Alright going back to Angie and her first literacy event with the diary. What made you

start to write a diary? I remember when I was little I tried to write a diary and write my feelings

down and I did it one day and never did it again.

Bella: I have something similar to a diary but I am not consistent enough to call it a diary

Angie: I wish I still had mine in college but basically when I was 9 I think I read a book maybe

like a Judy Bloom book or something. I really wanted a diary and it started off with me just

writing “this morning I had pancakes for breakfast” or “I had fun at camp we played basketball”

or whatever to me using it as more of an outlet. Which was kinda nice because like I said before

I was always struggling with being able to talk about things, especially because I did not want

my problems to burden anyone else. So when I got more into the middle school stages I went to a

public school that was really bad that kinda helped me cope with things because I felt like I had
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no one. It was hard to relate to people and everyone was going through the same thing. Recently

I looked back and read about it and I could see my pain through the pages.

Camille: She actually showed all of us

Bella: Yeah she read us a few pages… they were brutal

Camille: It’s funny looking back at it and it is like OMG.

Bella: Her mom started crying

Camille: Her mom found this diary recently

Angie: That is how I came up with this idea. She found the diary and called me crying and

thought I needed therapy

Camille: Then she also said that she thinks she might need therapy now after reading it. She was

so sad. It was pretty funny. Angie went really into detail. Her writing skills back then were

thought for thought. She did not miss any thoughts.

Angie: Yeah maybe we will listen to it later in the podcast. I'll read a little part of it but yeah I

don't know especially through those times you are trying to figure yourself out, especially with

relationships with other people. It was nice to write about it and also reflect on it. That helped me

like writing a lot better because it wasn't structured.

Bella: It is nice when you do not have someone saying “write this” or “it’s due then” You are

just writing for you

Camille: Actually our English teacher my junior year

Bella: I had him senior year as well, she only had him junior year

Camille: I had him junior year and we would go into class and everyone knew he wasn't really

like a good teacher, it was like an easy class like you did absolutely nothing in it but he would

make us just like “alright you have like 30 minutes to write about whatever you want” or he’d
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give us a little tiny topic but he could be like you could go anywhere you want with it, and I

found that so much easier to write about, I could really write for 30 minutes.

Bella: I feel bad for him though cause I know what he was trying to do and that is so helpful for

some people but people just took advantage of him don't you agree?

Camille: Yeah

Bella: They’d be like “oh he doesn't care”

Camille: He was old, he retired.

Angie: We had blog posts we had to do, 8 a semester, and each of us had our own websites

Camille: Oh that's cool

Angie: And we had to write about a topic so if someone was doing like, people wrote about

fashion, like the teacher's fashion and what they were wearing. People switched it around but

again it was cool we also got an opportunity to freely write.

Bella: So for me and Camille's second mode we both chose our college essay, I personally chose

it because I feel like it affected me in so many different ways, for one it taught me how to write

very creatively. I've been painting for a very long time, since I was really little and so a lot of my

paper, I guess you could call it, kind of written in a very artistic style. Honestly for me it was

kind of fun to write and a nice outlet for me.

Camille: I’m gonna have to say I did not have a good college essay writing experience. I did the

prompt where you overcame something in your life and how it's gonna benefit me now into

college and I knew what I wanted to write about but I just could not start it. I even had a friend

come over I was like “can you please come help me start my essay” and she was like trying to

help me and then back to the sponsor thing, my senior year guidance counselor, she told us, you

guys can like send us your essay, I had her on my google doc to where she could edit it. I think
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that was a huge help. She would be like “you could add this” or “structure this sentence

differently” “don’t use this word so many times” I also had my mom help me which was nice. I

just felt really unconfident and super stressed about my college essay. I was scared like “is a

college advisor gonna think this is a good essay, I don’t know, It was so hard for me to start it.

Angie: It was also scary, like you don't know if they are gonna judge you too. They're learning

something so personal about you and you’re like “are they gonna think im crazy”. What if they

dont like me because of this, this and this.

Camille: I wrote something very personal that happened in my life. I didn't want it to sound like

a sob story.

Bella: Yeah you don't want to make them pity you, I think that's where a lot of people go wrong

with it.

Camille: It also took me so long, and with everything on top of it, applying to colleges at the

time.

Bella: Yeah my experience was also, I know I said I enjoyed writing the paper. Once I got into

the flow of it it honestly didn’t take me too too long but it still was a really stressful process. For

me my dad was a huge help to me, he's a really good writer and he helped me and encouraged

me through a lot of it. I'm really grateful to him for that, but I think where the paper was kind of

nice for me to write was where I, like I said about how I've been painting for a while, I included

that into it. Because I have been doing that it has allowed me to pay more attention to small

details and that's how I related it back to the beauty in things so the topic was very, I know a lot

about it I guess you could say.

Camille: I guess you could say your dad, my mom, my friends, my guidance counselor, we could

all say that, those were our sponsors of literacy. They really helped my confidence increase.
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Bella: Honestly the most important thing for me that they did for me is confidence, Like a

confidence boost.

Camille: Even after writing my college essay, I still didn't know what to expect in college but

now that we are presently in college and doing lots of writing in our classes I feel more

comfortable for sure.

Angie: Yeah I agree with you guys, I'm very proud of my writing. I actually had a teacher that

my mom found and we used to have zoom meetings and one of the sessions we had she asked

me what I wanted to write about and I came up with topics we ended up not writing about any of

the topics and we kinda wrote about… After I started writing in my diary, I started leaning

towards running and I used to be a crazy running girl who used to run 45-plus miles a week…

Camille: She still is.

Bella: She ran during the hurricane.

Angie: It was kinda scary there were a lot of cops, but anyways I used to take my stress and

things I was going through and just run and I quickly realized that wasn't good cause freshmen

year of high school I broke my back and I wasn't able to run anymore and all those feelings I

used to just run out got to me and I was in a really really depressed state. I learned that it's

important to talk about things, and I'm still not good at it at all, and I do need time to think about

things before I can talk about things but I learned that it's important to run to people you love and

people who accept you and know you rather than run away from all your issues. So, it was nice

because I taught myself that through my college essay and through writing. I'm very thankful we

got that prompt and got to reflect on something deep and I didnt have to make it all sad but I got

to write about it.

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Camille: It's crazy to look back and think how stressful it was to write that essay at the time but

look how we are now. Like we are okay and made it to college.

Bella: It is! I think about that often.

Camille: At the time I didn't feel like I was gonna get in anywhere.

Bella: Me and Camille were so stressed about that.

Camile: I'm pretty sure I cried a lot.

Angie & Bella: Yeah me too!

Camille: People who say that the junior year of high school is harder than senior year are crazy.

Angie: LIES!

Bella: Yeah there's no way, especially with my sport being a fall sport it fell in the beginning of

school when you start applying to all the colleges. I was exhausted. Terrible time.

Angie: On top of doing your applications you have homework on top of that so it's hard to

manage it.

Bella: I think teachers forget that you have all this other stuff to do.

Angie: My guidance counselor, which was my sponsor that I was talking about earlier, used to

pull me out of class so I could work on my college essay because I just could not do it and

freaked out about it.

Camille: Basically, after all we said I can say I feel a lot more confident about writing in college.

Bella: I am definitely glad that we have to go through that because the senior thesis was a pain in

my ass but it brought me to where I am now as a writer.

Camille: I agree I just feel a lot more comfortable about it, and a lot more comfortable than I did

in high school so looking back I’m glad my two literacy events happened.

Bella: Especially in APA.

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Camille: Yeah APA for sure.

Angie: : Not only did it help with our writing but also helped us reflect because there's not much

time we get to reflect on our past experiences so it was nice to know what we learned throughout

high school about ourselves and how our teachers allowed us to do that.

Camille: I think it's cool that we all basically had a multimodal project in highschool.

Bella: Yeah I didnt think about that until we started the podcast, I was like “omg camille this is

multimodal isn't it?”

Camille: Angie had a multimodal thing too so it's cool that like we are doing it our freshmen year

and felt pretty prepared about it. And I like that we got to do a podcast.

Bella: I'm so glad that we had the opportunity to do this because it's nice being able to have a

conversation with people about this stuff instead of sitting down grinding out a paper.

Camille: So basically to end this podcast Angie is gonna read a little part from her diary that may

seem very depressing but we can laugh about it now.

Angie: I will admit it's funny now. This is the part my mom read that made her cry:

Dear diary,

It's been a week of school now and it's better I guess. I kinda just stopped caring and talking to

people. I'm just focused on getting good grades and running as fast as I can and training. I

actually lost four pounds in five days. I asked Coach Crate if that was a bad thing and he said no

because I'm losing fat so yay! I hope I have a six-pack by next year, that'd be so cool!

The end.

Bella: As you can see she wrote down every thought that came to her head.

Camille: Honestly it's probably helping her out now.

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Angie: I don't struggle with those issues anymore and honestly all of these experiences have

impacted me as a writer. My diary has allowed me to go more in-depth with my emotions while

writing which has really helped when it comes to writing in detail My eportfolio allowed me to

reflect on my past experiences and see how much I have improved not only as a writer but in

other aspects of my life. Having a sponsor allowed me to gain confidence in myself in order to

become a better student and accomplish many things knowing someone was for me and not

against me.

Camille: We're gonna end the podcast here.

Bella: I hope you enjoyed

Camille: Thank you!

All: BYE!!!!
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Works Cited

Brandt, D. (n.d.). Deborah Brandt sponsors of literacy - dtext.org. dtext. Retrieved November

16, 2022, from https://dtext.org/f14/505/106-readings/brant-sponsors-literacy-1998.pdf