[Critique Group 1] Not sure if I already sent this. Crittique for Deanna

[tuchyner5 at aol.com]

I love this piece.  



I hated the professor for his hubris andlack of a third dimension. 



He was narcississtic . 



His writing was probably mediocre. 



I believe that suffering is necessary forgrowth in life, 



but being unkind and using that as anexcuse for creating artists  is trite,ineffective and shallow.  



Your minimalistic writing in those shortepisodes describing the student’s experiences and development  is my favorite part of the piece. Goodwriting. 




 


By DeAnna Quietwater Noriega



"Iwas ringing up this guy's books in the bookstore and you wouldn't believe whathe said," exclaimed Angie, shoving her granny glasses up on her snub nose.She flipped back a wayward strand of hair the color of sandalwood. Widelyspaced blue eyes and a pair of faded dungarees gave her the look of a Wisconsinfarmer's daughter—not the fine arts major from California that she was. 



 



"So,tell!" coaxed Dee, a petite, dark haired girl with the high cheekbones ofher Chippewa ancestors. 



 



"Well,he was talking about you and Tansy. He’s in your psych class and wascomplaining about you bringing her."



 



"Whywould he do that?” Dee said. At her feet lay alarge, black Labrador. The dog's golden ambereyes were fixed on the girl, following her every move. 



 



"Well,he said to his friend that if you kept bringing that huge dog to class, he wasgoing to start bringing his horse. Then his friend said you had to have herthere because she’s your guide dog. The guy said, ‘No she wasn't’ because he’dseen you running down a hall with her coming along behind you on a leash."



 



"Iwonder when that was." Dee mused. "Isometimes answer the dorm phone without bothering to put her harness on. Iguess I might have run a few steps after a friend inside a building withouttelling Tansy to guide me. It's not like I need her help in a familiar settinglike I do out on a street. Look, I've got to run,” Deesaid, lightly sliding slender fingers over the face of a braille watch. “I'vegot English Comp in ten minutes." 



 



"Who'veyou got?" 



 



"Anderson." Dee sighed. 



That word sigh says a lot in a minimum ofspace. 



 



Tansymoved to press close to her girl and growled softly. 



 



Angiegiggled. "Sounds like Tansy doesn't like him any more than you do!" 



 



"Idon't dislike him," said Dee. “It's theother way around. He seems to hate my writing. I get an upset stomach everytime I know he’s returning an assignment. He can be so sarcastic!" Shedropped her hand to the handle attached to Tansy's harness, straightened hershoulders, and stepped away in a swirl of long skirts and dark chestnut hairthat nearly reached to the backs of her knees.



I’m  not sure I believe that you don’t like him. You feel ill when he is around, yourdog doesn’t like him, and you hate how he makes you feel.  To me, that sounds like you don’t like him.



 



Afew minutes later, Tansy wove confidently through the crowd of college freshmento a desk in the front row. She dove under the attached seat, curling herselfinto a compact ball. Dee let her backpackslide to the floor and started to sit on the seat her dog had located for her.Too her embarrassment she discovered it was already occupied. She attempted tohaul Tansy out from under someone’s feet. 



 



"Girl,when I said chair I meant an empty one! Sorry! I think my guide dog wants to improvemy social life by making sure I meet more of my classmates. I'm Dee and this devious female in the dog suit isTansy," she said. 



Clever recovery.



 



Theyoung man occupying the chair, moved to the next desk.



 



"Ah,no problem, I'm Dave Cross."



 



"DaveCross? Aren't you in my biology class too? I heard you tell my friend Angieyou’re premed,” said Dee. "I was going toask you if you’d be my lab partner. If you could do the dissections andmicroscope work, I could take all of the notes and keep the lab books up todate."



 



"Thatsounds great. I've already started working on becoming a doctor by havinghandwriting so lousy sometimes even I can't read it."



 



ProfessorAnderson strode across the front of the room to the far wall. As he talked, hissteps kept tempo with the rapid fire of his speech. 



That’s something that would be moreapparent to a blind person.



 



"Youwrite like grade school children! These essays are what I would expectfrom naive prepubescents, not college students." He tossed all but onepaper onto his desk as he swept past. Pausing in front of Dee,he ripped her paper dramatically in half and threw it contemptuously in thewastebasket. 



 



"Withyour disability and minority heritage, I expected better of you, young lady!Where are your passion, your anger and pain? You are obviously sublimatingbecause no one with your problems could possibly be so full of sunny,optimistic tripe. I want you to forget all of that attention to sentencestructure, punctuation, and elements of style bunk and give me truth. ThisPollyanna sweetness and light is crap."



 I find his protestations of how someoneis supposed  to be based on their ethnicand visual background to be offensive. How did you feel about it?



Anderson strode toward the door, spun back to resumehis diatribe. He was forced to skid to an abrupt halt by a black bulk sprawleddirectly in his path. The dog hadn't been there moments before when he hadstomped past the little blind girl with her tape recorder. He liked dogs. Guidedogs were supposed to be gentle and friendly. Didn't Labradorshave big, sad brown eyes? This dog stared up at him with the feral, yellow eyesof a wolf. The expression in them didn't look the least bit gentle or friendly.



 Apparently Tammy also took offense.



"Wherewas I? Oh yes, for your next assignment I want you to read chapter two of mybook and write about a painful experience. Make me feel your anguish. Class isdismissed." He turned his back to exit the room. A pretty blonde freshmancut him off, skipping ahead to block his exit.



"Sir,how long does our essay have to be?" she chirped. 



 



Beforehe could snarl at the empty-headed little bimbo, something slammed into theback of his right knee. He staggered to avoid landing unceremoniously on hisbackside. The damned dog shouldered by him with her little blind waif in tow.That buffoon who headed the music department had dubbed her the wood nymph.With her long, flowing chestnut hair and childlike face, she did resemble one.It was witches, not wood nymphs, who were supposed to keep familiars. Aftertwenty years of teaching freshman English classes, he usually enjoyedchallenging the one or two students who showed promise. But there was somethinguncanny about how the dog glared back at him each time he tried to push thatlittle girl she guided to reach her potential. 



 I find this parragraph a littleconfusing in terms of who are the various subjects of  its contents from sentence to sentence orfrom phrase to phrase. 



On the other hand, it is potentially oneof the best parragraphs..  



As the two of them sped off down the hall, Dee was torn between wanting to laugh and feeling sheshould have apologized. Instead, she murmured to her companion, "That'sone way to remove a writer's block!"




 


 



***



 



ProfessorJohn Anderson scanned the pages of the print-out on his desk. Frowning inconcentration, he read:



 



Resolution



By Delia Stillwater



 



The Vow



   "I won't ever let anyone make mecry again," said the little girl with welts on her back and legs. She hadbeen so excited when Isabel came over, bringing her new jump rope to play. Ithad bright red plastic handles with silver jingle bells on its ends. When thegirl's baby brother wanted it and she tried to give him her own jump ropeinstead, he threw himself down—hitting his lip on the bottom step. His screamsof anger turned to ones of real pain. Daddy came out on the porch. She startedto cry too, because she knew the blame would fall on her. Crying never made himstop. It made it harder to talk and explain. Daddy grabbed Isabel's jump ropefrom her hand and used it for the spanking. He yelled that he would teach herto be mean to the baby. That didn't make sense. Shouldn't he have said that hewould teach her not to be mean? Isabel ran home. Now she would never want to comeover to play again. It wasn't fair! 



 



   The next time her daddy got angry, hespanked her with a piece of wood until it broke, but she didn't cry. She heldher breath until the pain and yelling went away. When she woke up, mama washolding her and crying. Didn't she understand that tears didn't help?



 



She Couldn't



   "I'd love to dance," saidthe teenaged girl through her gritted teeth. "Could I catch a ride homewith you and Beth after the party? Danny seems to have forgotten he was my datein his eagerness to make that new girl Jean feel welcome. If I let him take mehome I will have to kill him!" She tossed her head and stepped out ontothe dance floor with Marty. She couldn't cry. She wouldn't give Jean thesatisfaction. She didn't want her friends to pity her. 



 



She Wouldn't



   "Why can't you understand? Ineed to go to college for at least one year. I have to be myself and find outwho that is before I step from being my parents' oldest daughter to being yourwife." Chadwas ten years older. He had a good job. He owned a home, and her parents wereso thrilled she had found a man to take care of her. All of her friends wereenvious of the half karat diamond he had given her. She was a senior in highschool and had won a scholarship. Was she asking too much? Why couldn't hebelieve she would come back to him after she had proved to herself that shecould make it on her own? 



 



"You hadbetter take back this ring if you can't trust me out of your sight," shesaid, slipping it from her finger. Entering her parents' quiet house, sheclosed the door. She took deep calming breaths. She wouldn't allow herself tocry.



I am thinking this story needs to end when thecollege student walks away, but worry that the professor comes across as asingle dimension jjerk without the office scene. 



She Could



"How can you think I would be so shallow asto pretend to be his friend because he has a car and can drive me, whenever Ineed a ride? I thought we were friends!" said the college girl to herroommate, before she fled the dormitory room. For twelve years, she hadn'tcried—no matter how much they’d hurt her. It had never been safe to cry. If youshed tears, they had won. They had made you give in to the struggle and theyhurt you more because you were weak. She knelt on the cool grass, pressing herface into the glossy, black fur of her dog and let the tears flow. For thefirst time since she had been a child, she wasn't afraid to let someone elseknow she was hurt. She wasn't alone against the world. She was safe within theshelter of her dog's love. It was finally alright to cry. 



 



           Professor Anderson laid the manuscript back down on his desk. He studied hisstudent. She sat stroking the silky head of the dog resting on her knee. Herlong dark hair screened her face from him. The black Labrador'sgaze was fixed on the downturned face of the girl. The dog's eyes shone with agolden glow of devotion. 



 



           "Miss Stillwater, this piece is very different from what you usuallywrite. It is almost minimalist in its lack of description. It doesn't have thevivid texture and color of your other work."



 



           Dee lifted her head to face the man who neverseemed pleased, no matter what she wrote.   



 



          "You asked for truth. I don't think there was much color in that girl'slife. She was like a spindly weed struggling to find some sunlight andnourishment in a vacant lot. I'm not her anymore. If I choose to glory in thebright, beautiful things all around me, rather than pick at old wounds to watchthem bleed; then that is what is true for me. I won’t keep exploring the pastwhen there are so many tomorrows to anticipate. I have always loved the poeticbeauty of Steinbeck, rather than the stark realism of Hemmingway. Maybe I willnever achieve the elegance of the one, but I don't intend to be a mediocreimitator of the other. If it means failing your course, I will write the waythat seems real to me."



 



Dee rose. Her hand dropped to the handle of Tansy'sharness as the dog swiftly fell into position at her left side. The two whirledout of Professor Anderson’s stuffy little office. 



 



John Anderson watched them flee. He was onlymildly irritated. The stupid child had missed the point entirely. Only byforcing her to stretch and struggle would she reach her potential and find hervoice as a writer. Even the ones possessing a grain of talent were tooegotistical to see that he was trying to bring out the best in them when hedemanded more effort. If he wasn’t going to write the next great American novel,then he was going to keep prodding and pruning in the hopes that one of hisstudents would write it. 




 


At the beginning of thisparragraph,you use the word,’flee.’ I think you were describing Anderson’s faulty perspective  Actually, Stillwater was not running away. She wasleavig in triumph for claiming herself.





 


 

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