After reading both of these articles, I find it hard not to go back in time to my own childhood. Both stories focus on the experiences that a child may go through. The settings that each story takes place is very intriguing and different. "An Encounter" was more interesting to me than "The Winter Circus". I was never much into riding the carousel myself as a child so it was hard to actually place myself into the story and become engaged. However, I do remember as a child the temptations to sneak around outside of school. I also think that "An Encounter" is much more child-geared and sensible because of the fact that we all know that when you tell a child "no", it makes the urge for that temptation irresistible. I like the fact that these children plan to go on a trip and when they are unable to complete their journey they run into a creepy guy. Every child fears older strange men. The fact that these children were completely alone in an open field and this guy just pops into the setting really caught my eye as the reader. I was immediately interested in where this story would go. As a child, I remember thinking any adult that was too personable while I was not with my parents was a threat and I wanted to evacuate the premise immediately.  "The Winter Circus" did not hold my attention as much because I did not have many real connections or background knowledge of the material. I did like the imagery used by the author while he explained the game that Luke played. It made me feel as though I was on the boardwalk or at a carnival playing the bottle top game where you have to put the ring around the top, but i

    This story greatly reflects the points that Pagnucci made in "Narrative Life". "A Native Hill" demonstrates that a personalized story can influence historical views and truly give meaning to the facts that are learned. If a person is learning about the history of American Indians, they could get a better understanding of how certain people of that time may have felt. When a person writes from their personal experience, they are more likely to use much more descriptively meaningful words that will bring the reader back to that time in a sense.
    The way that "A Native Hill" describes the scenery and uses emotionally descriptive words truly allows the reader to see and feel on a level close to what the writer may have. "I could recall the look of a hundred different kinds of daylihgt on all those places, the look of animals grazing over them, the postures and attitudes and movements of the men who worked in them, and the quality of the grass and the crops that had grown on them." This one sentence gives us many visuals of exactly what the scenery would have looked like if a mental or

    Pagnucci makes some very interesting points stating why it is significantly important to write stories based on your real life experiences. I, for one, have a bad memory. In order to keep track of my experiences and fully grasp onto some of my memories, I do things like scrapbook pictures with materials and write down in a calendar or planner what I did each day. More recently, I decided to write a story based upon my relationship with my significant other. Still in the works, I go back and re-read what I have written thus far. Each time, it takes me back to the events of our first date leading up to where I have left off in such a vivid way that I get the butterflies all over again.
    "Taking risks, conquering fears, defining friendships: we can preserve all of these when we record our stories." (Pagnucci 73) This particular quote caught my eye. It reminds me of a journal. It's expected that when a person has a journal, that they are opening up completely about things happening in their life, and that it is a private event between the writer and that journal. If a person publicly decides to share their feelings and emotional confessions, it is risky, scary, and definitive.
    I really enjoyed the part of this piece under "Celebrating Me" where Pagnucci discusses the dismissal of adding "I" into a paper. So often, I can recall teachers or professors specifically ruling out the use of "I". I never quite understood this rule, but thought that it was a true test on how to "fake" a paper. Without writing a paper using your own experiences, that paper seems to become invalid and someone else's. I agree with Pagnucci that there needs to be pieces of you in each writing. It only makes it more valid and reliable.