Exploration Two - Katie Wells

                Katie Wells

          Hello, my name is Katie Wells, and my two fun facts from class were having an internship with Meteorologist Jym Ganahl from NBC4,  and hopefully being a meteorologist in storm chasing as a career. I was born in San Diego, California and moved back to the small town of Mount Gilead when I was six months old. I graduated from Mount Gilead High School with a senior class of only 80 students and 300 total in the whole school. Coming from a small school and town means that I definitely know everyone. If not personally knowing someone, I will by their name. I was active in sports playing volleyball, basketball, and softball. Volleyball being my favorite and most passionate sport, I still try to play it as often as I can. I would love to coach that sport someday in the future. I was also a member of Student Council, Key Club, and Yearbook. I now work at TjMaxx which is also one of my favorite sports, so trying to save the money I earn can be a challenge. Family and friends are the most important priority of my life. I would not have accomplished a lot of things in life if it was not for having them by my side.

          The author that I chose is Frances E.W. Harper and the most interesting thing that I found while researching is that Frances even after her final years of living when she was older, still was very active in the Women's Suffrage movement and the Women's Christian Temperance Union in the 1900's. That just goes to show how much she believed and fought for women to have the same rights as men did. Co-founding the National Association of Colored Woman alongside Harriet Tubman, really shows how powerful of a woman she really was. Here is a link to Frances E.W. Harper: http://www.biography.com/people/frances-ew-harper-40710#writer-and-activist      

          My reactions and response to one of the poems that I read today and the one that was my favorite was Songs for the People. My reaction to it was a sense of sadness at the start because the line, "Songs to stir like a battle-cry wherever they are sung". After further reading it, my response was a sense of peace because I looked at it as the poet describing writing music for everyday people to relate too, to soothe all its sorrow, in the last line. I noticed in this poem that music must be very important to the person who wrote it; that maybe music got them through the heartaches of life. The beginning paragraph and ending paragraph is what stood out the most to me. It was a poem that got you thinking about what music means to you in your life and that music is written for many different purposes. A question I have about this poem is if there was a war going on when this poem was made because the sense of sadness or heartache.
          A literacy event from my own life where I was directly involved as the writer and the piece of writing that impacted my life, happened this summer as my closest guy friend was stationed in the Air Force for Basic Training in Texas for eight weeks. The second letter he wrote to me was a very emotional letter for him, which I was surprised because the first one was the total opposite. Zach went on to describe an experience that he had at basic that changed his views and gave him more faith religiously when he was missing home. This letter I know took a lot of courage to write for someone who doesn't describe feelings very well. It made me realize that even though someone may seem super tough on the outside, doesn't mean it is truly the case on the inside. This letter when he got home made us closer than ever, so I'm very greatful that he can share the serious things with me even if it's written in a letter from a thousand of miles away.