Hw-25 Comments on Short Stories

Part 1:
christian said...

Chris,

I enjoyed your story because I felt it represented the stereotypical cool person as the lame person compared to the father who was the "real cool" person.

Throughout your story you build the apparent "real cool" person as someone who doesn't have enough time for himself, but makes time for the more important personal things in life. The stereotypical cool guy was only showed as a flashy guy but did not show much appreciation towards the kids.

At the very end you completed your story to question what is really cool, the guy with the motorcycle? Or the one who cares and spends most of his time with his kids.

christian said...

Hi Yurelis,
Your story I felt represented criteria of how teenagers become cool. I feel this way because in your story, you explained how the new girl gained her friends by being the supposed "bad ass" with teachers disrespecting them and then having new things that are popular, such as the Blackberry phone.

In the end though, the materialistic criteria of becoming the cool teenager is shutdown because the new girl does not gain new friends.

I look forward to your future blogs about your interpretation of cool and how you explain it.

Hi Kiana,

Your story reminded me of how our class talked about conformity. In your story you wrote about how the teen tried to be cool in many different ways, but still could not get in on the "in-crowd." In our society, we also try be unique in our own special way, but it always ends up as something someone else has, but just a little different. In your story, your character struggles with this.

I look forward to reading future blogs about the criteria and constant conformity of "cool" that you expressed in this blog.

christian said...



What up C-Sinnot,

haha, I really enjoyed the humor and almost everyday scenarios in your short story. The characters, the materials and the situations that happen all in this short story get straight to the point of the "stereotypical cool guy" the doosh-bag.
"Hey man you know what else is foul?" Tom looked confused. "Sticking your nose in other peoples business." Such a doosh-bag statement.

I look forward to more humorous blogs that also explain your interpretation of "cool."




Hey Chloe,

I think you have a very interesting and real-like story that throws out a theme of honesty that is represented in a cool manner.

What I took from your story was a person who represented their "coolness" through avoiding others and not giving a damn about others that surrounded her. Almost like saying, better then everyone. I also think your use of materialistic attributes such as the faux leather, chunky boots and black eyeliner built your character as the kind of person "who knows their cool, but you should already know that."

I can't wait for more interesting and honest interpretation of cool you are going to express in the future.

Part 2:

In the Short stories that I have read and commented on, most of them have the appear-cool being shutdown by real-cool. It's a pattern that comes up a lot in each story and even mine because I think in our society we shoot for the more settle and underdog type of people as the "chill or cool people" of our society. To those of the appear-cool personalities, most of us I think we cannot relate too so we end up siding more with the "real-cools."

Popular elements of cool that arise in these short stories are the materialistic things that makes someone cool. For example in Chris and Chloe's story, they both describe their appear-cool characters with some sort of wealth and the leather jacket (bad ass) look. As for the "real-cool" people, the underdog's, there's more honesty and commitment to them which makes them the cool.