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Well, here you are reading my writing portfolio. That places
you into one of three distinct categories of people:
This is a multimedia version of a presentation portfolio designed to showcase my abilities as a critical writer. Under the guidance of that demi-divine wordsmith Dr. John Pennington (at this time I would like to quote the great Robert Aspirin, who said "If you can't dazzle them with dexterity, baffle them with bull-dooky") I have been writing and revising innumerable critical essays. The theoretical result of this long process is that my writing skills have improved--but the only result I can testify to as a fact is that I have finely honed my already impressive ability to function in a state of complete and utter sleep deprivation. Someday--many bad movies, good comic books, and meaningful novels from now--I hope to be able to look at the writing contained in this portfolio and say, with the utmost objectivity, "You know, this doesn't make me want to vomit."
Where did I get the idea for the title of this portfolio? According to Serge, my friend and fellow B.I.G. elder brain, praxis is what results from a man (or woman) creating something with his or her own two hands. This act of individual and personal creation results in a strong bond between the creator and the created and satisfaction on the part of the creator: praxis. All semester I've been challenged to produce the finest writing of which I am capable, to put everything I have into each paper, a challenge I'd normally appreciate and accept gladly. But I've had to crank out so many papers, each with that hopefully high level of quality, that I've begun to feel like I've been turned into an assembly line: a praxis factory.
As I write this I'm grinning at my own sleep-dep inspired wit and Serge is rolling in his nonexistent grave.
To me literature is a thing of beauty. It was literature, in its forms many and varied, that first allowed me to transcend the seventh level of Gehena (i.e. my childhood and adolescence). Words are magic, powerful magic, that even a dolt like myself is allowed to play sorcerer's apprentice with. All my life I've struggled to be articulate and failed whenever it was most important. So, in an attempt to bypass the clumsiness of my own tongue, I long ago turned to writing. I hope that one day I'll be able to write that one story, just one, that will be able to lift someone up the way that Cormier, Barker, Claremont, Card, Heinlein, and Gaiman were able to lift me. I haven't reached that point yet, I haven't written that story, but I think that one day I'll actually get there. And when I do I hope to be able to pass that skill on to others.
To that end I've chosen to teach. I don't want to be the type of teacher that grinds students' gray matter to pulp over diagraming sentences or batter the "true" meaning of Huckleberry Finn into their heads. All I want to do is be the pathfinder that helps them find their way to the world of words. It's a worthy goal, I just hope I'm a worthy guide.
My writing process is a bit strange by some people's standards, especially in it's inconsistent nature. I enjoy creative writing immensely and have over the course of my short life spent more hours than I can count writing stories, creating worlds, and butchering the genre of poetry. Through all of junior and senior high-school, and the lion's share of college as well, I've spat out the factual papers demanded by my professors so that I could go on to the writing that meant something to me. As a result I've never really developed a special technique for tackling critical papers.
How I tackle critical writing, then, is largely dependent upon my mood. Do I feel contemplative? If the answer is "yes" I just sit back, relax, and let my mind wrap itself around the story. If I'm feeling anal retentive I start with an outline of the paper and go from there. If I'm overwhelmed with good ideas I try to map out the ideas so I can draw out the truly good ones. And if I have no clue what so ever as to where to begin or what I should write about I highlight every passage that seems profound and hope to God that I receive an epiphany from on high. Surprisingly, that last method actually works every once in a while.
My greatest strengths in writing stem from my enjoyment of creative writing. I generally can come up with excellent ideas, good "plot points" around which to base my paper. I don't find it particularly difficult to write in an engaging manner or to create strong metaphors that are accurate and don't go over like the literary equivalent of a bad pun. The ability which I treasure the most, however, is being able to believe in multiple and contradictory theories simultaneously without paradox induced paralysis of the frontal lobes. This skill has been honed through allowing countless characters (both real and unreal) to use my brain as a verbal battlefield with myself as the respectful arbiter.
This great strength is also my great weakness, however. Because I find myself able to take any side in an argument, I often find it difficult for me to choose a single point to take a stand on. This has led my esteemed writing professor to write "This is a bit vague" and "What's your focus here?" multiple times on most of my initial drafts. That last phrase appeared on one of my papers so many times that it caused my loving girlfriend to comment: "'What's your focus? What's your focus? What's your focus? What's your focus?' What is he? Your mother ?" For one brief moment I was genuinely touched by her loyalty and support--then she said "Of course he is right, you know." Oh, well. That is the one weakness which I've tried the hardest to overcome and I do believe I've made a great deal of progress in that area.
There are a couple of reasons why I chose to include this particular essay. The first is that it was one of the earlier essays assigned in the course, which allowed me a fair amount of time in which to perform revisions. From the very beginning I've liked the essay because I'm rather proud of the metaphors and symbolism that I was able to decode and use in the paper.
I've always felt that interpreting literature was one of my weaknesses, so when I was able to decipher the significance of light and dark I was very pleased with myself. I find especially interesting the specific example of Gretta walking along the beam of light in the hotel room.
This essay was chosen in part because I love the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I also chose it because I don't get the feeling that Poe is spinning like a dervish in his grave (a feeling that I've often had with many other pieces of interpretive critical writing that I've produced).
I think that my arguments for Madelaine/ Narrator/ House representing Freud's id/ego/superego model of the psyche are strong. But what I find most interesting is the argument that I was able to make for "Roderick as Poe" based on the physical similarities between Poe and the character he created.
I was drawn to this story probably because it triggered flashbacks to my days working at the J.C. Penny in Hastings, MI. Growing up in a small town I've always been very aware of how people judge people according to their appearance, and also how what people "see" isn't always what's there.
Because of that I was very attracted to Berger's thesis regarding nudes and I'm quite pleased with my application of that theory to Updike's story and its adolescent narrator.
The research I did for this paper inspired me to begin drafting a paper called "Cainism: the Necessary Primality of Male Society," an essay that will hopefully see the light of day at some point in the near future.
I will be the first to admit that one of the main reasons I chose to include this essay is that it fulfilled the research paper requirements for the portfolio. But even if there hadn't been those requirements I would have included it anyway, because this was the first paper in a long while that actually excited me, that filled my mind to capacity day in and day out. I am very pleased with the many parallels that I have been able to draw between Mark Rein*Hagen's "World of Darkness" and Generation X, the infamous "slacker generation" to I belong.
The role playing game is a genre of literature in which I am intensely interested but which gets little serious attention. I hope, however, that one day it will be able to transcend the negative stereotypes that trap it just as speculative science fiction has been able to.
Since this multimedia portfolio is a prototype of sorts I took a rather conservative approach to its design. Graphics are kept to a minimum, as are connections to the internet at large. The graphics that are included are intended to set mood as much as to add to the factual content (perhaps moreso in the Shadows of the 13th Generation in Vampire: the Masquerade essay).
There are some people that I would like to thank for their part in the creation of this portfolio:
So, fair reader, I leave you now to read these selected works of jonathon david hawkins. I beg you, be charitable: if you don't like what you read, your respectful silence will be message enough even for a thick-skulled dreamer like me. If you do like it, though, feel free to pat me on the back because, after a semester of being left to Dr. Pennington's tender mercies, my ego could use the boost.
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