New Year, New Semester, New Research Project

 Copyright 2001, New Line Cinema
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For once, I'm getting a jump on my homework-- English 102 doesn't start until tomorrow, but yesterday I checked to see if the instructor (a Dr. Toffee; I don't know her) had anything on Blackboard.  She did.  I read the syllabus and the assignment sheets, and this blog is Project 1.  Since it is now set up and working, I guess I've made a good start. 

According to the assignment sheet for Project 1 (I put a copy in the pages block to the left of this posting so you can see it), this first post of the semester is supposed to be discussing my "initial thoughts on [my] film and approach."  What that is referring to is the topic for our research project (I also put up a copy of the topic sheet in the pages block).  I have some initial thoughts, but they'll probably change when I have more details about what's involved.  So far, I've selected a film, The Fellowship of the Ring, and my critical approach/model is myth criticism (I've sort of got an idea there, but I'll save that for a later post, mainly because I don't know much about myth criticism yet and I don't want to look like an idiot).  I thought about using The Avengers, but (thanks to my family) I'm so much more familiar with LOTR that it should make it easier to analyze.  I hope. 

And, I just realized that I'm way over the 100 words I needed to write.  It's not a problem, at least I don't think it is, but I'll check tomorrow.

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It's Finally Finished

English: A map of the fictional nation of Panem from Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games." (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The final revision of my critical analysis paper on The Hunger Games is done, or at least as done as it will ever be, and I turned it in.  I feel like I've been let out of prison!  I don't have to think about the movie anymore, and I can get on with the rest of my work.  I'm glad that the paper was due now; all the major projects for my other classes are due in the last two weeks of the semester, and having this one out of the way means a lot in terms of time.  All I have to do for English 101 is the application letter/résumé and a portfolio, which ought to be a breeze.  Oh, and there's still a test on the textbook readings and a final exam, but I'm not going to worry about them now.

One thing I have noticed is that what Dr. Toffee calls my "writing process" has changed.  I always thought of revising as being mostly correcting errors, but now I get it.  In fact, right now, I realize that I'm not following the prompt for this week.  I'm supposed to be writing about "The experience of developing and writing" the critical analysis essay, and I really should revise this post to fit that.  But I'm not gonna!

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Write, Rewrite, Repeat as Necessary

Peer Review (Photo credit: AJC1)

My memoir is finally finished, unless I come up with something to add to it before class today.  After the peer review last week, I decided to do a fresh draft; the story just wasn't cooperating with the point I was trying to make.  It seems to me that the problem was that I really wanted to say something about sisters.  I have two, Rebecca and she who shall remain nameless.  The nameless one is the focus of the story, but I came to the conclusion that I should put Reb in as a contrast to her.  The new draft was better, but it was over the maximum length, so that had to be fixed, and so on.

I never spent so much time on so short a paper in my life.

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Picking a Thesis the Hard Way

Childhood Secrets (Photo credit:
 Lisa M Photography)

I'm a few days behind in posting this (I already had a peer review on my draft), but I was having problems with my thesis the whole time I was writing the draft.  I couldn't decide whether I wanted to just look at my own rocky relationship with my sister (who shall remain nameless) or take a wider view of the situation.  For the first, the thesis was something like "I learned, too early, not to trust the people closest to me."  The second one was "Kids like to ruin other kids' happy childhoods. 

After the peer review, I wound up somewhere in between the two.

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I Crash and Burn, But Get Saved in the End

The Scent of Crash and Burn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, it's kind of obvious that I am having trouble keeping up with my workload.  I really should have cut back my hours at the store, but I need the money.  At the same time, I can't afford to waste the money I spent on the course, so I went to see Dr. Toffee about my problems -- she asked us to come see her if we were thinking of dropping.  And then she did something amazing.

She GAVE me a thesis for my research paper.  Of course, she brainstormed with me for a while and asked all kinds of questions about what I saw in Avatar (incidentally, my research proposal was a mess.  I didn't re-read the instructions before I wrote it, so it didn't make much sense), before she came up with three (!) different possible claims I could make about it.  She recommended that I take the easiest one, which was "Quaritch is an ableist villain," because the draft is due on 7/9.  I can do it, I think.

I didn't know that a teacher could do that, so I was kind of shocked.  She said that I was already thinking that anyway and all she did was put it into words, and I guess that's true, but I'm feeling sort of guilty about it.  That doesn't mean I'm not going to use it, though.  So now all I have to do is write a bunch more journal entries before midnight tonight (the checkpoint deadline), and then I'll get started on the draft.  I have the weekend off at work since I have to work the 4th of July sale (doesn't that just suck?), so the timing is good.

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Summertime, and the writing is just as hard as ever

Image by Enokson via Flickr

My first assignment this term is to write two profiles of the same person, who is one of my classmates. I interviewed Mary during our first class session (incidentally, I have to take a moment to whine.  The summer term is only eight weeks, the class meets twice a week, which means that each class is 2 hours and forty-five minutes long -- yeah, it's a week's work every day.  Even with a break in the middle, it's too long for me.).  Anyway, we went through the questions Dr. Toffee gave us, and I couldn't think of anything else to ask.  This is my problem:  I had no idea what kind of "angle" to take on either profile, and according to the assignment sheet, I have to have an angle.  Things got worse, too, since Mary couldn't handle the long class periods.  (this is funny--my Zemanta feed is giving me all kinds of pictures of the Virgin Mary; none of them look much like her, since she's kind of goth.)  She dropped after the first class.  So now I've written my profiles (I focused on how she wanted to work with children; yeah, I couldn't see it either), and I don't really know if they're anything like she really is.  I wanted to email her to ask a few more questions, but she said she doesn't believe in email -- as if it's some kind of supernatural concept or something.
We did a peer review workshop on the profiles, and my reviewer didn't give me much help, but in a way,  that made me realize that I wasn't sticking to a point the way I should.  I'm afraid my essays came out sort of negative.  But, she'll never know, so I guess it's okay.
My point here is that if I'd just been more alert during the first class I would have gotten more out of her, and I'd definitely have better profiles.  Why is it that these things never occur to you when they could do you some good?

Well, the article below is an interesting profile, even if mine aren't.

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