Tag Archives: Letters

Weekly Writing #5

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Love Letters

Reading many of the My Dear Bessie letters was a very engaging activity this past week. To my surprise, as well, it was quite a thought provoking one. For the most part, I found Chris Barker and Bessie Moore’s conversational letter writing styles to be entertaining and sweet. I loved how thorough their responses were, addressing every detail the other mentioned in their letter. Chris’ letters, as well, were especially beautiful. His were almost poetic. One of my favorite lines from him reads, “[My love for you] is a fever that I have. It is irrational, nonsensical.” Comparing his love to a fever was striking. It even left me smiling slightly. Reading the letters, though entertaining, made me feel guilty almost. They begin to write very explicitly about the other and I couldn’t help but feel I was intruding. These were very personal letters, so I felt strange being allowed to read through and analyze them. It made me wonder, do archivists(or anyone who’s profession involves letter analyzing) ever feel guilty about reading through real people’s private letters? After reading My Dear Bessie letters, I began to really understand Martha Washington’s motivation for burning her letters from George Washington, wanting to keep their relationship private.

Weekly Writing #3

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This week, our lessons were centered around US Japanese internment during World War II. I had remembered learning about the subject in middle school, but this week showed me how little I was being taught. Reading through the Miss Breed letters, especially, put the situation into perspective. It hurt, learning what these children were going through. Their letters brought about another, deeper layer to the lesson. Rather than just learning what was happening to them, we got to feel what they were experiencing. 

Weekly Writing #2

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The introduction to our World War II presentation project was an experience I very much enjoyed. Learning and hearing from our Special Collections and Archives Librarian, Susan Falciani, made me excited to work on this project. Additionally, being able to look through and handle actual physically written letters from Muhlenberg alumni was something I didn’t expect to love so much. The experience was just so unique and exciting. Researching WWII alumni through Muhlenberg’s archived newspapers and yearbooks was also incredibly interesting. It’s a different kind of research that made me feel proud whenever I successfully found information. I genuinely look forward to completing this presentation!

Weekly Writing #1

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Epistolary Explorations

To me, ‘epistolary explorations’ is the study, the history, and the composition of letter writing. The phrase ‘letter writing’ is a simple one. One would have to say, “The study of letter writing,” or “The history of letter writing,” and so on. Epistolary explorations is a general term that captures all aspects of the topic. When its meaning is understood, specific characteristics are not needed in conversation. 

The idea of learning about different points of history through the reading of letters is an exciting one. It’s similar to using historical documents as sources for a historical essay. The process is more intimate and engaging, unlike reading from a textbook.

While the reading and writing for this course is exciting, it is quite unnerving. Reading and interpreting higher levels of material in high school was difficult, so college level reading stands as a worrisome idea to me. It may be irrational to worry about material that I haven’t even seen yet. Still, I hope I will be able to reach the expected level of ability in this course.

My Writing Process

In regards to my writing process, I’m most proud of my ability to keep a mental outline of my work. Though I don’t always physically write down said outline, I’m able to remember key points I most want within the writing piece. This process forces me to have set goals or objectives to reach when writing, say, the beginning. It allows for (hopefully) smoother flow of language and clearer arguments.

Throughout this semester, I hope to improve my writing and grow as a writer by widening my vocabulary and strengthening my patience. Often, I find myself using words like ‘I’ or ‘me’ or ‘the’ over and over again. I’ll try to think of different ways to phrase my words, but with some difficulty. Additionally, I’m not one to enjoy taking the time to create a well organized display of an outline, then go on to write a draft, read, edit, write another draft, read, edit, another, and so on and so forth. I admittedly will have my first draft as my final draft, with a proof read or two to check for spelling mistakes. This is mainly with school assignments, not with more important things(like my college application essays). It saves me time but prevents quality results I’m truly proud of.