Peer Reviews

Peer Review opening illo for UA/AU - Canada (Photo credit: albyantoniazzi)

Yesterday we had the peer review workshop for the critical analysis paper, and my reaction was mixed.  My reviewer (who said he had seen The Hunger Games) seemed to be in a big hurry to finish, and the comments he made weren't all that helpful, at least not from what I can see.  Along with answering the questions on the sheet we were given, we also had to answer three questions from the author of the paper.  My questions were 1.  do you understand the thesis?  2.  Is there enough stuff about the myth crit model or did I forget something?  3.  Does the analysis make sense?  I think that part of the problem is the way I wrote the questions.  He gave yes-and-no answers, and I don't think he gave them any thought.  Oh well.

On the other hand, the paper I reviewed taught me a lot.  It was not by the guy who was reviewing mine, which was a good thing, since if I had gotten his review after working so hard on mine, I'd be really pissed at him.  Anyway, I think I learned as much from the things in the paper that were bad as I did from the good stuff, mostly because I did some of the bad things, too, but I didn't notice them in my paper until I saw someone else do it. 

Next week is the conference about revising my paper.

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Politics, Power . . . and Harry Potter?

Harry Potter and the
Goblet of Fire
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My draft has hit a bad spot, so I thought I'd get a jump on this week's postings, especially since there's a checkpoint this Friday.  We're reading "literary analyses" this week, and I picked an essay by Philip Nel, called "Fantasy, Mystery, and Ambiguity."  Don't be put off by the title -- it's actually about Harry Potter, or at least the first four books. 

Nel makes a point that reminded me of a whole bunch of things at once.  He writes, "As the series develops, it grows increasingly interested in questions of power:  who has it, who has the right to exercise it over another, who has the moral authority to wield it, and how it should be exercised" (750).  He goes on to talk about the political aspects of the books, and that made me think of my project.  I'm not looking at politics in The Hunger Games, but it's a HUGE part of the book, if not the film.  All the characters are living in a fascist dictatorship, where the people in the Capitol are wealthy and privileged, while the majority of the population (the Districts) lives on the brink of starvation and is forced to abide by the ideology of their distant rulers because the Districts have been made the scapegoats for a civil war that happened over seventy years earlier.  Sounds kind of like Nazi Germany, doesn't it?  And Harry Potter's world is headed in that direction in the first four books, too, what with Voldemort's supporters attacking Muggle-born wizards (I was really amazed when I realized that there are a lot of points in common between the last Harry Potter book, The Hunger Games, and the Nazis).

Since the tv was on while I was reading, I heard probably four or five political commercials before I finished the article, and I saw a connection there, too.  Which was scary.

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The Broody Mr. Bond? Step Aside, Daniel Craig!

I'm supposed to read an argument from the Norton Field Guide to Writing this week, and I looked at all of them, but they all seemed too depressing, so I went to another chapter (on evaluations) and read a 2008 New York Times movie review by A. O. Scott.  The film he's reviewing is Quantum of Solace.  By a TOTAL coincidence (really!) today is the 50th anniversary of James Bond on film, too, so I figure this is what I'm supposed to do. 

My dad is a HUGE James Bond fan, has all the movies (and the books), which means I've grown up seeing them, so this looked interesting.  But the first thing I noticed, probably because I'm working on my draft, was the way Scott wrote his review -- he's basically following the same pattern I was told to use for my paper.  He begins by explaining his "critical paradigm," which, it turns out, is a checklist of all the things you expect to see in a Bond film, then he evaluates (I won't be doing that, just analyzing) how well the film does at meeting each item's audience expectations. 

Well, according to him, it has hits and misses on things like action and gadgets, but he comes to a halt with the checklist when he reaches the category of "babes."  This is because in this film, Bond is just not interested.  Scott writes, "what gets in the way is emotion.  007's grief and rage [. . .] are forces more powerful than either duty or libido" (738).  I saw the film, and I think he's right, but then he goes on to say, "Mr. Brosnan was the first actor to allow a glimmer of complicated emotion to peek through Bond's cool, rakish facade," and this was where I came to a halt. 

No, Mr. Scott.  It was Timothy Dalton who did that, in Licence to Kill.   This is the film where Bond is out to avenge his friend Felix, remember?  Even before that in the film, Felix's new bride makes a comment about how Bond should get married, and the look on Dalton's face is not a typical Bond look (which would be a smile and shake of the head, I guess).  Instead, he somehow manages to convey that there is a TRAGIC EVENT in his past -- presumably his own wedding, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service -- that means he will never get married . . . again (don't ask me how he does this; look at it for yourself!).  If that ain't a complicated emotion, what is?  
Pierce Brosnan? Pah!  Don't make me laugh. 

BTW, my vote for best Bond is Connery, Dalton second, and Craig third.  Roger Moore makes me cringe, and Brosnan (I've liked him in other things) just doesn't grab me as Bond.

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Prewriting the Critical Analysis Paper

Rue pointing at the trackerjacker
nest.

I'm supposed to write about the prewriting for my paper on the scene from The Hunger Games.  As I understand it, I need to prewrite two sections:  the explanation of my critical approach (myth criticism), and the analysis of the scene (the one where Rue dies).  I started with the explanation, because I thought that would be the tougher part, and I was right.  When I got to the analysis, I had to keep going back to the explanation because I remembered something I left out.

When I prewrite, I usually just brainstorm, but sometimes I'll start writing a paragraph or two because I have an idea how to handle it, which means that it looks pretty strange.  This is what works for me, though, so I'm going to keep on doing it that way.  The things I came up with for the explanation were:  Road of Trials, death of the mentor (yes, Rue is a mentor, if only for a short time, and this is one of the things that came to me when I was working on the analysis), hero archetypes, the goddess Artemis, Atalanta, virgins in Greek mythology, tricks in mythology, monsters (I think Cato is a monster in a way, kind of like the Minotaur).  There was more that I got rid of.

With the analysis, I had the following, plus a couple paragraphs in the middle that I'm leaving out here:  explain plan to destroy food, Katniss as hero, Katniss as Artemis/Atalanta, Rue as mentor (signals with mockingjays), shooting the apples (Atalanta?), attack/instant retribution, Rue dies - last words, song, flowers, salute (I really want to mention the explanation of this from the book, but I guess I can't), grieving.

I'll bet a lot of that doesn't make sense to anybody but me, but that's what I've got for now, and I may have a thesis already.  On to the draft.

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Homeless Students? What About Homeless Professors?

(A note from "Dr. Toffee":  Keep in mind that Rhonda is a fictional character.  The conversation she overheard and describes in this posting is a composite of stories I have heard from faculty at several different schools, and, as far as I know, this has never happened at the school where I currently teach.  However, given the way things are all over the academic world, this could happen at almost any college or university that employs adjuncts. 
And, as everybody who has ever held office hours in a shared space knows, there is no privacy for personal conversations, but people keep having them, even when students are in the room.)

I've gotten behind again.  Last week I read an article by Eleanor Bader, "Homeless on Campus," about how colleges and universities don't have enough services to help homeless students.  She spoke to a professor who had allowed students to sleep in her office so they didn't have to drop out.  This was an eye opener for me, but it paled next to a conversation I overheard last month.

I went to my math instructor's office hours to get help with my homework, and I was surprised to find that he doesn't actually have an office.  He's in a "faculty workroom" during his office hours, and there were a couple of other teachers in there at the same time.  I asked him why he didn't have an office, and he told me that he was an adjunct.  I had never heard this word before, and it must have shown on my face, because he explained that he is part-time, only teaching 3 courses a semester (I later found out that that's full time for professors at a lot of schools that expect the professors to write stuff as well as teach).  While we were talking about my stuff, another teacher came in and started talking to a teacher who was working on a computer, and that's where it got interesting.  I was working through the homework assignment, but eventually I just kept my head down and listened.  It seems that another teacher had just been in an accident near campus, which is bad enough, but it turns out that it was a disaster, because he has been living in his car!    
I guess I made a noise or something, because everyone in the room turned and looked at me.  My teacher looked at the talkers and said, "ahem," so they moved over to the other side of the (small) room and tried to keep their voices down.  The first teacher said she hadn't known that he was homeless, and the one who was telling about the accident said that he lost his apartment over the summer because his car broke down and after he got it fixed there was no money for the rent.  He had been showering at the fitness center on campus and so on to keep going. 
I really don't understand how this could happen.  I didn't want to ask my teacher, but I still wonder about it. 

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