John Maguire's "The Secret to Good Writing: It's About Objects, Not Ideas" goes along very well with this primary source reading.

Maguire talks passionately about writing, with much knowledge on it that Prown also has. In this supplemental reading, Maguire takes a different approach to the issue of poor writing skills. Rather than dismissing the lack of good writing due to less intelligence or no interest, Maguire examines what students are lacking. With self reflection, Maguire demonstrates that even he, an experienced english professor, lacks in certain skills. He admits that he needs to give concrete examples, and so do other students. Maguire discusses the simplest way to achieve good writing: concrete nouns.

Maguire notices and speaks on the fact that too many students create essays of 'abstractitis', or when a writer uses abstract ideas instead of concrete examples. He basically says that students don't know the exact words they want or what their ideas truly are, but that this can be avoided if every word is put to questioning before being used.

I cannot say that Maguire fully supports this excerpt. Though in many cases, Maguire approves of the same topics as Jules Prown in the Prownian analysis, Maguire has a very distinctions. Perchance, Maguire feels the same way as Prown and didn't want to get ahead of his point and his students. Could Maguire have also wanted his students to give interpretations after physical descriptions? It is possible, however, Maguire made no note of interpretational writing because abstract ideas make for a paper of 'mush' with no solidity. This is the only contrasting point between the two readings, but nevertheless, Maguire does support the first part of the Prownian analysis. Maguire, John. “The Secret to Good Writing: It's About Objects, Not Ideas.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 2 Oct. 2012, www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-secret-to-good-writing-its-about-objects-not-ideas/263113/.

Instead of blatantly saying what an image represents, we use descriptions to show what the image may be interpreted as. The purpose of the description is to show an object's functionality for the describer and allows for others to experience it the same way. John Maguire emphasizes on the importance on physical description as well by stating that students are to use concrete words which are "something you can drop on your foot." Both teachers want 'wordless' descriptions to initiate the process of object examination so that the descriptions describe objects vividly on their physical realm.

Being more aware of one's way of thinking, interests, pet peeves, previous experiences, and beliefs will give the writer the ability to express, intellectually and sensationally, subjective and objective descriptions in multiple dimensions. Again we see that the deeper we examine and more personal we become when describing an object, the greater description we can create- reaching beyond the physical world and our vision. This is a contrasting point compared to John Maguire's "The Secret to Good Writing: It's About Objects, Not Ideas" because Maguire focuses solely on students' concrete and physical writing- nothing further.

When we delve into the bibliography for the object, we need not have a plethora of references, but an amount that will cover some range of research. When doing this bibliography, it's understandable to wonder what other interpreters and historians saw within the object so long as we remember that we are to give our own interpretation as the final conclusion and the most supported claim. Of course, as Maguire and Prown insist, objects are not described entirely as an interpretation, but also as a physical object itself. It is important to also note here that John Maguire does not go as far about physical descriptions of objects to say the final outcome will be a persuasive argument on your interpretation after the description. Prown states that our claim should be stated in a persuasive argument manner, asserting the strongest points we can make about this object.

Its's funny that Amy Webel said this, as it coincides with what John Maguire said in "The Secret to Good Writing: It's About Objects, Not Ideas". Maguire discusses how students that are taught to think abstractly have difficulty in writing concretely. Many times, their writing is so abstract that it seems like a cloud of redundancy with no definite meaning. Maguire mentions George Orwell, who advises thinking of physical objects from the start, as opposed to starting off with abstract terms. It is quite interesting that these different teachers in different time periods still feel about concrete descriptions. By visualizing an object, we can describe objects during Prownian analysis and stick to the meaning we intended on.

This approval of a selection is very similar to how Dr. Wharton would use her authority as our professor to approve or reject a supplemental reading that is off the list. Prown is, deductively, a teacher of material culture, at the least. We can see that there are similarities between our modern day English professor and Prown, who seemed very knowledgable about english, writing, abstract and physical descriptions, and material culture- much like Dr. Wharton. Their judgment is through experience and is used to determine what resources are credible and useful over the assigned topics.

Haltman states that the collected essays include more than 150 years of American history through material culture and its descriptions. He asserts that there is no specific order or purpose for these essays other than the sheer fact that they follow the methodology that was described in his introduction. Initially, I could only envision American baskets, due to the second reading in this unit. However, I found a short video that may help others, as it helped me, to get a broader understanding with the various visuals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNPXRoOCa98

Michael Baxandall explains a common point involving a writer's description: we can only describe as far as we examine the object. If one doesn't look at a subject closely enough, the explanation will be minimal and immature. This point also corresponds with the idea that our descriptions are solely from our individual interpretation, thus we will only be able to describe something as far as we can personally empathize with it.

This part of the reading confused me a little by Prown's meaning of "persistent object metaphors expressive of belief." What I do see, however, is the list seems to include expressional opposites, many of which evoke passionate feelings that relate to the root of human's psychological drives and motives. These descriptives go beyond a physical explanation to connect deeper feelings. It goes without saying that an object requires an immense amount of significance to withhold any of the listed feelings. The polarities listed seem to mimic a lot of the feelings that the root chakra controls, which can be read more on http://www.chopra.com/articles/the-root-chakra-muladhara#sm.0001qs4r4vcibergxco1camay0spl.

Haltman implements this rhetorical question into the introduction with the purpose of instilling the thought into the readers' minds for the following essays: what are the most fruitful things to ask about an object? These essays share the process that is discussed within this excerpt and focus on an object's "historical significance and its production." Haltman encourages his readers to create significant questions for observing and interpreting objects. It is also worthy to note that, in a way, by asking this question, Haltman is initiating the open-minded and thoughtful process involved in Prownian analyses.

The Prownian analysis is used to examine things with detail descriptions, logical hypotheses on the functionality of the object, and get a broader vision on the relativity to other concepts. Ultimately, this analysis should leave the writer with a detailed description that entails the uses and persons the object was for.

Source: https://gregcotter.wordpress.com/prownian-analysis-2/