Category: Uncategorized (Page 8 of 24)

Final Essay: Exploring the Unique Usage of Braided Narratives 

by Elia O’Hara 5/7/24

In examining the rhetorical strategy of braided narratives utilized within four authors’ patient narratives, we can compare and contrast how each author uniquely utilizes this choice and how it raises their narrative to a more extensive discussion of patienthood. The four patient narratives that illuminate the powerful addition of a braided narrative are those of Jennifer Lunden’s American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body’s Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life, Abby Norman’s Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain, Jennifer Soriano’s Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing and lastly, Elizabeth Tova Bailey’s The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating. While these authors share a similar entry point from their rhetorical choice of a woven narrative, they diverge as each author uses this overarching framework to work through their experiences with illness. For example, Lunden, Norman, and Bailey provide in-depth analytical research and parallel narratives of other individuals and animals, while Soriano adds a historical commentary on postcolonial legacies. While we might expect a typical patient narrative to be primarily concerned with each experience of patienthood, these four authors assert a compelling strategy that expands their illness in a greater understanding of the power of narrative and lived experiences surrounding healthcare.

First, we can explore the woven narrative Jennifer Lunden utilizes in her book American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body’s Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life. While we only examined a few select chapters of Lunden’s book, she begins her very first chapter, “Bankruptcy,” with the story of Alice James, the sister of well-known Victorian-era writer Henry James. As Lunden begins to connect her journey with chronic fatigue syndrome, CFS, to Alice’s, she writes, “Ninety-nine years before I was born, Alice James collapsed. She was nineteen years old in 1868, two years younger than I would be when illness took me under.”(Lunden 5). Lunden can create this push and pull of the past through her choice of braided narrative as she connects her first encounter with chronic illness to Alice’s diagnosis of neurasthenia. Not only does this validate Alice’s experience from a hundred years prior, but it showcases how the stories of others can impact patients’ ability to cope and provide a sense of distance needed to work through illness. For example, Lunden clearly explains: “I didn’t know then that the book was treasure in my hands. It would become my company, my work, my healing”(Lunden 4). As the framework of this book was such an essential part of Lunden’s process of working through CFS, from a feeling of companionship to source material for further research, it illuminates how one diary can become a catalyst for a much deeper understanding of the American healthcare system. As Lunden says, “In Alice, I found my Victorian counterpart, my kindred spirit. And somehow, reading about her – bright, witty, proud, and stuck – I began coming unstuck. Why was Alice sick? Why was I?”(Lunden 4). Lunden’s rhetorical choice to incorporate Alice’s narrative alongside her own proves how unique connections found in shared experiences of patienthood offer new perspectives and entry points into the complexities of chronic illness.

Moving into another example of the rhetorical choice of a braided narrative, we can look at Abby Norman’s patient narrative Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain. Like Lunden, Norman employs impressive research and a woven narrative of another female figure influential to her illness. For instance, Norman discusses, “When I happened upon Gilda Radner’s memoir several years ago, in the midst of my own medical turmoil, I grew deeply concerned about her life”(Norman 20). In providing this framework early in her narrative, Norman’s choice to weave in Gilda Radner’s story sets up a significant theme of believing in women’s pain that draws us to a more extensive critique of women’s experience within the healthcare setting. Norman then expresses, “Radner’s story haunted me, not because she was some comedic legend whose life was cut short, or just because she died from cancer in her ovaries, but because she had died as a result of her doctors not believing her when she said she was unwell”(Norman 21). As Norman’s book delves into her struggle with endometriosis, making the connection to another woman in history whose pain was dismissed and whose experience was made trivial raises an essential question about the diseases themselves or their realities as women. Gilda’s harrowing story of progressively becoming sicker and being told it was all in her head, alongside Norman’s account of then assuming the role of a doctor to find answers herself, highlights the weight and responsibility women feel to advocate for themselves. Norman writes, “If I, or any other woman whose gynecological cancers or pathologies had gone undiagnosed, had just been sick in some other part of the body, in some other way, would it have been any different?”(Norman 23). Through Norman’s use of a braided narrative, she extends her experience with endometriosis far beyond one singular encounter. Moreover, she can raise women’s healthcare – especially reproductive healthcare – to expose the deeply troubling biases surrounding women’s pain. Unfortunately, with the addition of Gilda’s narrative, Norman subtly exposes how those biases and disbelief cost her life and could have the same result for countless other women without a structural shift in women’s healthcare. 

While Jen Soriano’s patient narrative, Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing, does not invoke the braided narrative of another individual as Lunden’s and Norman’s do, she can weave postcolonial mythology as a rhetorical strategy. As she begins her chapter “Broken Water,” she states, “In Philippine folklore, one of the most fearsome monsters is the manananggal. A beautiful woman by day, the manananggal transforms into a flying predator by night”(Soriano 201). To Soriano, this parallel structure of weaving in the narrative of folklore surrounding the manananggal becomes a powerful and subversive method to work through gender identity and illness, all within the backdrop of postcolonial trauma. For example, Soriano candidly discusses her complex feelings toward having children and can utilize the braided narrative of folklore to express her conflictual feelings. Soriano frames the myth of the manananggal by saying, “Unborn children are her favorite meal. She likes to suck them fresh from the womb”(Soriano 210). Then, immediately following, she recounts, “ ‘When are you going to have kids?’ My coworker Violet asks me”(Soriano 201). Soriano’s decisive move in working through her own gender identity and postcolonial trauma can displace those negative connotations unto the manananggal and provide a sense of freedom to express her fears. Even more specifically, Soriano can use the manananggal to connect the Philippines’ colonial legacy to her experience of patienthood as she asserts, “…repeated exposure to the violations and violence of colonization may have led my ancestors to interpret everything around them as threats. This may be how they survived long enough to have children. I believe I inherited this hypervigilance to the point that this adaptive response became maladaptive in my environment of relative peace”(Soriano 212). Soriano’s choice of braided narrative might be less traditional than Lunden or Norman’s, but invoking folklore and systemic colonial legacies produces a similar result of extending her experience of patienthood to the more extensive discussion of the complex intersections that make up healthcare and gender.

Lastly, we can look at Elizabeth Tova Bailey’s The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating and her unique rhetorical choice of the braided narrative of a snail. A companion and a remarkable source of in-depth scientific research, the structure of her snail’s existence provides comfort and perspective as Bailey recounts her year of absence due to viral or bacterial infection. From the beginning of Bailey’s patient narrative, the parallels she employs in her snail’s life and hers signal to her readers that this rhetorical choice does more than describe the snail. For example, Bailey writes, “After being transported from the woods, the snail had emerged from its shell into this alien territory of my room…”(Bailey 20). However, she continues by saying, “The snail and I were both living in altered landscapes not of our choosing; I figured we shared a sense of loss and displacement”(Bailey 20). Bailey’s repeated back-and-forth narrative of her snail to herself asks the reader to appreciate her comparisons and how much a snail’s seemingly insignificant existence completely altered her perception of illness. For example, “How wonderful it would be if we humans with illness could simply go dormant while the scientific world went about its snail-paced research, and wake only when new, safe medical treatments were available”(Bailey 109). Through Bailey’s choice of incorporating a braided narrative, central themes in how she copes with the pain of time and absence from society are framed in a whole new light with the research and story of her snail. 

Through exploring the rhetorical technique of a braided narrative employed throughout the patient narratives of Lunden, Norman, Soriano, and Bailey, each offers a multitude of intriguing intersections. While research appears to string the four braided narratives together, they diverge into interesting niches such as the infamous Victorian-era writer Henry James’ sister Alice James and her mysterious illness, well-known actor Gene Wilder’s wife Gilda Radner’s tragic ordeal with ovarian cancer, traditional Philippine folklore, and a scientific dive into a snail’s existence. As Lunden states, “The stories we tell depend on the frameworks that guide our perceptions”(Lunden 284), and each author’s braided narrative does precisely this. The four authors expand and propel our perceptions surrounding patienthood and illness by invoking discussions of systemic gendered inequities, postcolonial reckonings, and much-needed naturalist mindsets. Furthermore, Lunden, Norman, Soriano, and Bailey extend their already powerful patient narratives with these braided narratives in meaningful ways to each individual’s journey and healing. 

Works Cited 

Abby Norman. Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain. New York, Bold Type Books, 2019, pp. 20–23.

Elisabeth Tova Bailey. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating. Algonquin Books, 1 Jan. 2010.

Lunden, Jennifer.  American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body’s Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life. HarperCollins, 9 May 2023, pp. 4–284.

Soriano, Jen. Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing. HarperCollins, 22 Aug. 2023, pp. 201–212.

Our class workshop today was really helpful for me, and our group was engaged and willing to share some great ideas and constructive criticism. One big thing for me was how looking at my other group members’ profiles reminded me that I needed to add some things, such as a subhead, and for others, they remembered they needed a photo, etc. I have a solid list of items to work on for polishing up my profile, such as adding that subheadline, making sure I give enough context for what the research is, and adding the title of the book in the title or subheadline. I also had some helpful ideas on how to best end the piece, and I might try to find a better quote after adding in interview questions from Prof. McHugh I should be ready to be done.

Dear Sarah Bo., 

Looking first at your headline, I really like how you set up this interesting thought-provoking “below the surface” and then head into the specifics and it makes me interested to see the connection between nature and creative nonfiction. I also like how your anecdotal lede has us positioned as onlookers as we begin to identify who Ryan Brod is. Moving into the informative section of this profile, I wonder if it might help to have Brod be able to say some of his background through the quotes so that you could have the opportunity to have those direct quotes earlier in the piece. For instance, there could be an excellent place for that in the 4th and 5th paragraph – maybe instead of you telling us how unsatisfied he was without a creative outlet, which is a super interesting and, I think, essential context to the profile if he were to express in his own words that frustration it might be nice. You do a wonderful job of bringing in some of his personal experiences and influences that are really moving, and the quotes in this section are so great. One suggestion I might have for the end is there are some really profound quotes on life and creative expression, and one thing you could play around with is seeing if that might be a way to close out the piece rather than the more business side of his publication process which could do some work somewhere else in the profile. I really enjoyed reading this! 

Dear Sarah Be., 

I like how your headline and subheadline are working well together to expand on what this profile will cover, but one small suggestion I have is how I got caught up a bit in the wording of the headline, and maybe adding “A Young Professor’s Rise to Teaching” could help. The lede is super informative, I know exactly who the profile is about and what they do at UNE. That said, you could add a little more creative setup since you already have all the needed facts. I like how soon you added a direct quote from Quinlan, and we hear her tone and experience to start off. I really like the student quote you incorporated, and it does a good job of bringing the profile of her background to her classroom experiences. From the headline, I feel the focus or the so-what of the profile is how Prof. Quinlan has navigated being a young professor and getting that respect from students and UNE. You have some great quotes from her on the tensions of wanting to be liked by her students but still feeling that need for separation as the professor and expert, and I wonder if a student quote might have more impact if it came after you express Quinlan’s concern and it could be a nice response to it. I also like how you give her the last word in the profile, and maybe if you wanted to add more of a concluding framework that ties us back into the focus of her overcoming inexperience, that could be even more of an ending point. 

Dear Zak, 

I like your headline and how clear the focus of the profile is. I knew a bit of the “so-what” question right from the beginning, and in addition to Ledbetter’s teammates, there is another layer that goes above and beyond.  Moving into the background information and some context, I think there are a lot of helpful facts, such as who exactly you’re talking about, what they do, where, etc. It was also nice to hear directly from Ledbetter about his past experiences, which set us up to move to the present day. There are a couple of spots where the wording was a bit choppy, and reading those out loud as you continue to draft and edit might be helpful – I’m thinking of the 5th paragraph where it says, “However, during his recruitment it became more clear to him that he would have the chance to not only stay close to home but to be able to play football and continue his academic career as well at a high level.”  I wonder if something like “However, during his recruitment, it became clear to him that not only would have the chance to be close to home and play football but also advance his academic career at a higher level” might be clearer. I know that this is a working draft, and I think those quotes that reference the other side of the profile’s focus of his residential advisor position and presidential ambassador will be really helpful!

Today’s class workday was very helpful for me in organizing the group for the final portion of the podcast project. We all looked over the final edit and posted it to my YouTube channel since I already have my UNE account with videos for various courses. After making sure everyone had the link, I posted it to my eportfolio page for the project and made that visible. As for the profile, I spent some time over the week going through the notes from my interview with Ahmida and the audio recording I have. So, during class, I tried to pull those together and make sure I felt I had the full context of the interview and some major themes to help find my focus for the profile. I have worked through my quotes from a fellow student and poli sci mentee of Ahmida, and now that I have a working full draft of the interview additions, I spent my time in class working on making this a cohesive story. I also had some time to look into another story from Boston College’s The Heights for blog project #9, which is due this weekend. 

For this journal, I will provide a quick status report on where I am in the profile project. I had asked Prof. Ahmida if he would be interested in having an interview/photo and profile written about him for my journalism class pretty soon after the project was laid out so I already have some background information from that quick meeting and have a more formal interview scheduled for Tuesday 4/2. My early workshop draft has been ready since Tuesday of this week, so I will continue to add to that. I was also able to sit down with one of his research assistants and a student who has taken many of his courses, Bella Caprio, and she was able to provide insights on how his research recognition has impacted UNE. Looking forward to the next two weeks or so before the workshop, I will add Bella’s content to my rough draft/outline, conduct the interview with Prof. Ahmida early next week, and spend the rest of that week finding the angle of the story and drafting a full workshop draft. If time permits, I would also like to add some comments from a few colleagues, and I think Prof. Susan McHugh would be willing to add some comments and expertise on research that would add great context.

Murder Trial Comes to a Close with 40-Year Sentence  

Biddeford, ME – Almost three years to the day after the brutal murder of Rhonda Pattelena in York, Maine, on March 26, 2021, Jeffrey Buchannan of Massachusetts was sentenced to 40 years in prison. 

Pattelena, age 35 at the time of her death, was beaten over the head repeatedly with a rock by 

Buchannan, her long-term partner and father of their then two-year-old son, at Short Sands Beach in York. 

The horrific murder was captured by Pattelena’s Snapchat video, surveillance footage from nearby buildings, as well as multiple eye-witness accounts from individuals near the beach. 

For the three years following Pattelena’s death, Buchannan, now age 36, claimed numerous mental health ailments such as schizophrenia, paranoia, and delusions, yet no official diagnosis was ever made. 

Wednesday’s trial marked the final chapter of this emotionally charged domestic violence case, with Superior Court Justice Richard Mulhern presiding over the court at the York Judicial Center in Biddeford to hear the final arguments of the State and Buchannan before delivering the ultimate sentence. 

The court was filled with members of Pattelena’s family and friends, many wearing shirts in 

support that read “Justice for Rhonda” as her mother, sister, and lifelong friends delivered statements, pleading with the court to give the maximum sentence that had been capped at 43 years. 

Reliving the trauma of her sister’s death, Jessica Pattelena stated, “He pretended he wanted to marry my sister and took her to her favorite spot and waited until her back was turned to commit this heinous act.”

Lauri Pattelana, mother of the deceased, also addressed the court, “Her ability to live, breath, watch and raise her boys…were taken at the hands of a pure evil monster.” 

Before Justice Mulhern recessed to survey the footage one last time, Buchannan spoke candidly to the court, saying, “I am ashamed, terrified, and disappointed in what I did…I can’t and won’t forgive myself” and asked the court to consider a 30-year sentence. 

Justice Mulhern provided his summary and assessment of this cruel act and stated, “The 

defendant executed her, and she never saw it coming,” before declaring the final 40-year sentence upon Buchannan. 

Chapter 5 in our course textbook covers interviewing techniques, beginning with a few key takeaways from long-time journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Barbra Walsh on interviewing. Echoing what we started to touch on in class, Walsh talks about how important it is not to dissuade the person you are interviewing by beginning with the most hard-hitting controversial question and instead making them feel heard and given a chance to provide their side of the story and then nearing the end to bring in those crucial questions. I also thought it was helpful to highlight the reality of how fast those interview moments can change and potentially kill a story and all the work you’ve done. Being active and observant seems like such a crucial skill in addition to the actual preparation and writing. Another essential element that this chapter on interviewing methods laid out was the importance of being a great listener – so often, we are consumed with whether or not we have the right question or if we will get enough information that we aren’t as present as we should be in the conversation at hand. Lastly, I found the section on follow-up questions to connect nicely with the important theme of being nonjudgemental, listening, and still maintaining control over the conversation, as you do have to produce something at the end of it all.

Chapter 17 on profiles and obituaries covered a lot of ground, from tips and experience of long-time journalist Alan Richman, writer at GQ, to the essential elements of both profiles and obituaries, important methods such as GOAL, structures, and guidelines. The information surrounding turning points and the GOAL was very informative and helped give me an idea of the larger scope of a profile. As I am beginning to think about my profile story and how much information I want to gather, it was helpful to have some ideas surrounding what patterns I might look for or decisive moments and pay attention to what aspect of the future I can bring to the story. The GOAL method mentioned on page 325 was also a great graphic that helped me visualize what information I might want to gather through my interviewing questions, such as the goals of the past, present, and future, potential obstacles and what they achieved, and relevant background history that can add some context and grounding to the story. I also liked how this chapter made sure to mention numerous times, specifically on pages 331-2, how important maintaining focus is and with profiles also to make sure that there is an awareness of why this story is important now. Focus, angle, and impact are all recurring topics from our class workshop from our feature story, and the profiles feel like they need the same, if not more, craft surrounding this. One aspect of the obituary section that came through as incredibly essential, as in most journalism, was the dedication to background research and the accuracy of facts. That work informs the success and credibility of the whole piece and allows a person’s life to be portrayed accurately and with respect.

Brady:
I really like the tone you are bringing to your headline and subheadline—it feels professional, yet you use creative word choices like “headfirst dive” and “interviewing spree” to keep the reader engaged and hooked on the story. Moving into your lede, I like how you keep it open by not providing all the details, such as which departments or what faculty, but allude to the fact that you will get into the specifics, and that gives me just enough information to keep reading and find out. There are a couple of places, like in the second paragraph, where the wording might feel a bit choppy, but as you continue to draft and maybe read aloud for some pauses or breaking points, I think it will have a great impact. I like your quote from a newly hired research librarian, Conner, as it brings a nice, timely aspect to your article that backs up your claim in the subheading that there have been a lot of new hires in the last year. I know you are still drafting and editing, but I definitely think having a direct quote from Prof. Woodworth would help give you some credibility and then allow you to expand on her words rather than just trying to relay them. One last point you might think about as you continue is what angle you are bringing – maybe it’s a glimpse into only the hiring process, or maybe you could bring in more of what Woodworth sets up for in why so many positions are open or needed.

Nate:
I am definitely intrigued by your headline, and it does have a very jarring element to it. Maybe you could add just a bit more of that perspective/context to your subheadline – I’m thinking of something that could let us know that it isn’t really a debt issue you are raising; it is more of a financial burden on students compared to what they think is doable. You do a great job of formatting your story – it reads smoothly across the page, and the information is separated really well. I also thought the nut graph-type paragraphs that disclosed how UNE is a private institution and how that makes a significant difference compared to federally funded universities was a great point in adding context. I like your three student quotes — I think they give a good idea of the mood and realities from a student’s perspective. You also balanced that well with getting a bookstore employee’s side. If you do have a direct quote from that encounter, that might be nice to incorporate and allow you to expand on that rather than try to reiterate what they said. One last minor question I have is if you were to ask someone who works in the bookstore who is not a student about what they have noticed in the past decade or so, how many students actually use the bookstore at all? That might give you great stats to bolster your impactful statement at the end, where you question if UNE should even have a physical bookstore.

Gage:
This is a very interesting story, and I especially like how your headline opens up the question and leaves us wanting to know more about the specifics. Then, moving into your subhead, it leads us to a more narrow-angle about student satisfaction toward the campus center. In your lede, you also allow for more specifics, such as the size and functionality, which connects us back to the headline. There might be a few spots in the lede that could sound repetitive, but as you keep drafting and reading some parts aloud, you might find some areas for concision. I really like how you provide some of that necessary information following the lede with the times of day that are super busy and also direct experience from someone who has had years of working out there and is now a part of the staff for the football team. You have a good flow from this more informative section into your transition to the angle of impacting fitness goals and overall well-being. I also like how you can weave in some possible solutions. One thing I might want to know as a reader is what current students think and maybe even their ideas for potential solutions – adding a couple of quotes like that could help a lot.