Story Lab: EmpoWord

This week I opted to do the story lab. I think my final addition to the story/portfolio will be the third section of my Asus and Ligh story. For the lab I read through the second chapter of EmpoWord. The resource was a great learning experience and seemed to be put together by a group of minds that are fluent in both writing and education. The chapter reads like it is designed to be in a textbook, but one that has a personal tone and is aimed at young authors. It defined some well-known terms like epiphany and dialogue, but also went into detail about things like the difference between narrative scope and narrative sequence. Out of all of the resources that I have found out about through this course, this online "textbook" is one that I know I will revisit. I thought that the exercises at the end of the sections could be useful, but were a bit inauthentic for me. Though, I suppose with how unsettling it is to be in a place where you are experiencing writers block, pieces of help to break it should be welcomed. It is not always the most comfortable thing to conceptualize being at a place where you "need" to use activities like the ones listed at the end of the sections. One section that I particularly took away some useful information from later on in the chapter were the example pieces. Particularly, the essay Visions. Reading such explanatory material and then seeing it used in a bit of well-written text is very effective in getting the lessons across. I thought that the deep subject of the narrative allowed for an automatic connection initially, but the lessons from the section like those on narrative sequence are used later in the essay to build on this reader-subject relationship.