NATHANIEL WASHINGTON
WRITING PORTFOLIO
FACEBOOK'S FACBOOK
Writing Theory | Analysis
This piece was originally an assignment for a Writing Theories course. We were asked to identify a community on social media and comment on how it reacts to and against the social medium in which it was constructed. I chose to write on Facebook's Facebook page, specifically a post I found at the time of the assignment. The post deals with Jarvis and the notion of creating a sort of intuitive and interactive interface that could serve as a personal assistant in the home--think Google Home or Amazon Echo at the next level (true Tony Stark genius). What was especially interesting to me was the notion of crowdsourcing which comes up. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook as well as the one whose post was the feature of this assignment, not only recognizes the capabilities of social media (that would be expected), but he's pushing them beyond their current bounds and, in a guise of friendly curiosity, extracting invaluable information by interacting with an all too eager community. After conducting this case study I've found that, aside from the advertising potential that social media sites like Facebook present, they are also highly effective modes of market research which guarantee that most all users' needs and wants are addressed.
THEORY OF WRITING 1.0
Writing Theory
"I've said in the past that my mouth dislikes words and this remains true . . ."
This is the opening line to a piece which was an assignment from my first writing theory class. The assignment was to construct a personal "Theory of Writing" which answers a deceptively simple question: What is Writing?
This assignment became more personal than one might've expected, but any writer knows that everything written is personal by the time it is "finished."
Over the course of this first writing theory class we encountered many thinkers and their respective ideologies pertaining to writing, one of the most interesting assignments was one which had us interview individuals across the University of Denver campus on what writing meant. That experience got me thinking about what writing is and I suppose the thoughts simmered over the course of the quarter and channeled into this.
WAITING IN GREEN APRONS
Writing Theory
This work is another from that first Writing Theory course. The assignment was to emulate Joan Didion's episodic-style of non-fiction storytelling over a series of episodes on a subject of our choosing. We were supposed to be "experts" on whatever it was we selected for the assignment. I choose Starbucks mainly because I'm a barista and spend a lot of time inside of cafés, but also because I thought there was a lot to be gleaned from the rather mundane actions that take place in the beverage-purchasing and beverage-producing processes, at least at the retail end.
In this piece I play with those processes which both involve quite a bit of waiting, and in the end feel that there may be a message deeper than a morning cup of joe. . .
WHY I WRITE (THEORY OF WRITING BETA)
Writing Theory
I choose to incorporate this piece because it shows a bit of the evolution of my writing theory over the course of a few weeks. It was a sort of rough-draft for the writing theory assignment (Theory of Writing 1.0). I believe the comparison of both of these two shows that my thoughts haven't really changed they've just solidified. This piece is a bit more poetic than the stricter Theory of Writing 1.0 and much more focused on my personal practice and beliefs surrounding writing. It includes more in the way of why I write (hence the title), but also expands more on why it is I prefer pad and pen over speech.