Shift #42 (3 hrs and 5 min) - Reviewing Outline Notes and Beginning Draft

Shift #42 - Reviewing Outline Notes and Beginning Draft

Tuesday, July 2, 2024 | 9:15 pm-12:20 am CST/10:15 pm-1:20 am EST (3 hrs and 5 min)

Details

Michelle Hurt, student/intern

Jennifer Gonzalez, practicum supervisor

This is a screenshot of the outline feedback from my mentor Judy. She got back to me write away and set me on a good path forward to begin my writing!

When I emailed my outline to Judy, my small group mentor, I honestly had no idea what kind of feedback she would give me (plus, she had 20+ interns in her small group cohort so her work was cut out for her!). Without any drafts to read, she gave me wonderful guidance, allowing me to look at different sections of my outline and see where I could home in and craft it accordingly. For example, I appreciated how she suggested I create a "roadmap" of sorts to introduce the reader to my topic but to also guide them to where I was going. Doing this will help the reader to gain new knowledge about the piracy trials collection. Judy also told me was to try and determine where the heart of the story lies (I should think about what are the most revealing quotations and the most striking incidents from the stories I read). I should also think about which elements of the story constitute the primary points and which constitute secondary or supporting points. Lastly, I need to ground piracy in historical circumstances amidst the stereotypes we know today. 

With this feedback, I started writing my draft - really, the introduction. I'm one of those writers that has to start with the intro. If I don't have a halfway decent intro, then I cannot continue to write the body of the article. Tonight, I went back and forth between the intro and creating a list from my previous list of resources so that I could be more focused as I worked further into my draft. I created a list of intern-written blog posts from previous years that were focused on the piracy trials collection to get a feel of how the tone of my own blog post should be. I found that a lot of the blog posts had a somewhat informal feel - it was the intern's chance to open a window into the collection from their own vantage point. Lastly, I noted some resources from several of the blog posts to add to my own list of resources. Thankfully, by the end of this long shift of researching and writing, I managed to write the first few paragraphs of my first blog post:

Pirate culture is prevalent in America. There are pirate-themed restaurants like Pirate’s Landing Seafood and Steak Restaurant in Elkin, Minnesota, Smalley’s Caribbean Barbeque and Pirate Bar in Stillwater, Minnesota, or Pirates Landing Restaurant and Bar in Port Isabel, Texas. There's a pirate-themed waterpark called Pirate's Cove only half hour drive from the Library of Congress's Jefferson Building! There are movies like 1985's classic The Goonies, 1991's Hook, and the film series Pirates of the Caribbean with its last installment in 2017, Dead Men Tell No Tales. There is even the famous opera Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan. Though today's modern day pirates do not resemble anything like the pirates of old like Stede Bonnet the famous "Gentleman Pirate", people still seem enamored by pirate lore.  

 

My own five-year-old son knows about pirates. How, you ask? I have no idea. We don't own any pirate movies or books and he wore a pirate costume only once when he was two years old for a Halloween outing. But somehow, somewhere, he heard about pirates and saw their appeal. The little knowledge he has of them piqued my own curiosity. I know nothing about the history of pirates other than the semi-fictional things pop culture has shown me. INSERT GOLDEN AGE OF PIRACY INFO HERE. 

 

The Law Library of Congress has a collection of digitized documents and books about piracy trials published before 1923. Though it is a smaller collection consisting of 56 printed materials and one story map, it is a treasure trove (no pun intended) of information. It gives readers a peek into the eighteenth century - of first- and second-hand accounts of seafaring escapades and court proceedings of various nations following acts of piracy committed by sailors and officers alike. Pirates from 300 years ago still captivate people today and they are celebrated for their feats. However, by definition, pirates are those who commit piracy on the high seas. These are men and women (like Ann Bonney and Mary Read convicted in 1720) who were lawbreakers and offenders, tried and convicted for their crimes. And where are crimes, there are victims.