{"id":4512,"date":"2024-07-16T20:44:36","date_gmt":"2024-07-16T20:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/?p=4512"},"modified":"2024-07-25T21:43:30","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T21:43:30","slug":"personal-narrative-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/07\/personal-narrative-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday night storytelling: Cherubs reflect with personal narratives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five personal narrative club members approached the front of the stage for the first round of Sunday club presentations, anxiously looking at their phone screens and making last-minute edits to their stories. Even though the writers were all given the same prompt, listeners found themselves captivated by the unique styles and perspectives of each storyteller.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the club, members began writing from broad prompts, such as the story of their name, their first crush or a quirky habit. The word count was around 250 words, pushing them to be concise and efficient.<\/span><\/p>\n

Benjamin Fogler of Needham, Massachusetts, an avid member of the club, presented his short stories every week. His work often had a comedic spin that drew lively applause from the showcase audience.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the stories we do here are pretty serious, so it was fun to let loose a little bit. It was nice that everyone was supportive, too. It\u2019s a good feeling when people are able to laugh,\u201d Fogler said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Other writers made stories that had more of an introspective tone. Zoey Sternoff of Brooklyn, New York, read her piece during the second week.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI felt super nervous at first. I was shaking with the mic in my hand,\u201d Sternoff said. \u201cBut after being vulnerable like that, I feel like everyone knows me a lot better here and I am thankful I had that opportunity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Students were asked to focus on the details and use the skills they learned in instructor John Kupetz\u2019s “Descriptive Writing” class.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But with such general prompts, some found it hard to figure out a specific component to zoom in on. Vidyuth Sridhar of Fremont, California, said he came up with his own writing process for the club.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI did a lot of trial and error. I cycled through a lot of stories that I could write about, and I constantly kept writing and deleting and figuring out other angles,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Sridhar said his primary takeaway from the club extended beyond the writing conventions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the biggest thing I learned was about how to present my pieces,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a great experience practicing delivery, even though I was nervous.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cherubs told their own stories at personal narrative club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":4886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[307],"class_list":["post-4512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":307,"user_id":130,"is_guest":0,"slug":"phoebejosephson","display_name":"Phoebe Josephson","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8a0ba8da9c114ab422c642ff8d7b4011e205ce03c1011074c1cf69b36a4f2ed2?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Josephson","first_name":"Phoebe","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4512"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6643,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512\/revisions\/6643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4512"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}