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REPURPOSING PROJECT

TURNING CHILDHOOD MEMORIES INTO AN ARTICLE ON GRATITUDE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

ORIGINAL SOURCE

REPURPOSING PROJECT

 
This is the original document I used to base my Repurposing Project off of.  It was written in my previous semester (Winter of 2014) in my class, HF240.  
 
Each week, we had to spend 10 minutes on Sunday writing reflective passages. These passages were supposed to be from our pasts, ideally our childhood; we were supposed to write about points in time that we were grateful for or were in awe.
 
By writing these reflections, the goal was to create a more grateful mindset by the end of the semester.  It was important to reflect back on these memories because they represent who we are today.  In writing these reflections, we learned a lot about ourselves including what is important to us in our lives.
 
We also learned the importance of free writing.  These passages were not to be prepared for.  We were simply supposed to sit down and write about the first memory we thought of.  The purpose of this was to see that there was a reason this memory came so readily to mind; by examining why we wrote about it, we gained a lot from this self reflection.

PROJECT PROPOSAL

REPURPOSING PROJECT

 
This is the original document created to explain my goals in this assignment.  It was through this planning process that I discovered what I wanted to write about.
 
Since gratitude became my source of inspiration from my original source, I decided that my reason for repurposing this paper was to explain to people the importance of being a grateful spirit. Also, I decided that this was recommended as a type of educational tool since a lot of people were unaware of the importance of being grateful on a daily basis, versus on certain occasions where gratitude is talked about.  
 
In this proposal, I decided to make my intended audience students my age. This is because learning to be grateful as soon as possible gives the best results.  Being grateful has numerous health benefits, so by starting these habits at an early age, it can help promote a life full of happiness and good health.
 
By the end of the proposal, I had decided that the type of repurposing I wanted to do was changing these initial passages I wrote into an online magazine article.  This was inlfuenced by my audience - individuals who generally read information via the web, and also by the styllistic nature of a magazine article.

DRAFT 1

REPURPOSING PROJECT

 
In my initial draft, I struggled with obtaining the type of magazine article that I had originially envisioned.  I had wanted something that was light-hearted and let my personality shine through.  This last part was undoubtedly influenced by my most recent blog posts written in the minor.  I was starting to really explore my developing voice; I wanted this to be reflected in the article produced.
 
There were good and bad parts to this initial draft.
 
The good part was that it helped me lay out a framework for the type of information I wanted to include in my article. 
 
The bad part was that it left me completely confused since I was unhappy with the venue I had chosen, The New Yorker.  I felt that the writing style did not match up with what I envisioned for my piece.
 
Eventually, after meeting with my professor, I decided to scrap this draft and start over by changing the magazine I was writing for.  I switched from The New Yorker to the New York Times and found a great article that achieved the playful tone I was looking for all along.

SOURCE OF INSPIRATION

REPURPOSING PROJECT

 
This is the article from the New York Times that I based my style off of when re-writing my paper.  The author's sense of humor and narrative storytelling accurately capture the type of feel I was going for in my Repurposing Project.
 
If you are looking for a hilarious read, I highly suggest perusing this piece.  She combines her sense of humor with an informative message.  I spent the entire time laughing!

DRAFT 2

REPURPOSING PROJECT

 
The second draft started to show where I was going with the piece.  My goal through this re-write was to change the reader's perception on gratitude as a way of measuring whether my paper was successful or not.
 
I must admit that I got a little carried away with the sarcastic nature that was in the New York Times article I mimicked in style.  This was one of the things I changed for my final draft.  It definitely was fun being very sassy in my writing, but I realized that I needed to tone it down a bit so that the reader did not take it the wrong way.  Also, I wanted to make sure that these comments did not take away from the main point of my paper.
 
A styllistic decision I highly emphasized in my re-write was the choice of bolding each new topic as a sort of segue.  This was done in the New York Times article; I really liked it so I incorporated it in my own.
 
I struggled with detailed explanations and transitions in this draft.  A few of my examples seemed a little brief  choppy, so I made a point of focusing on these in further edits.
 
Overall, my last thought about this draft and question I posed was whether I had successfully shown my audience the story, versus simply just telling it.  Painting a picture for the reader was the overall goal.

FINAL

REPURPOSING PROJECT

 
I am so happy with how my final turned out!  Comparing this paper to my initial draft shows just how hard I worked on my revisions for this paper.  
 
I love the final design.  I wanted a simple picture at the beginning of the article since this was how it was done in the New York Times.  I also set the header up like the one that was on the article I referenced.  No other pictures were used in the other piece so I decided to mimic this formatting and keep the rest of the final paper clean and simplistic.
 
One of my favorite parts of this edit was the part about John D. Rockefeller.  In my previous draft, I lacked the storytelling aspect that I was hoping to achieve.  In this revision, I made a point of showing the reader who this man was and why being grateful was so impactful on his relationships, and most importantly, his health.  By using this real-world experience of a successful man, my hope was to show other students that gratitude can be impactful in anyone's life.
 
 
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