Getting a jump on the new semester

Cover via Amazon

For me, spring semester starts tomorrow, but I just checked and my English 102 class is already set up on Blackboard.  I read the syllabus and the first assignment, which is to set up a blog and do 20 posts by the end of term.  The first post has to be about the topic for my research project, which has to be a film.  I looked at the list of films, and the one that jumped out at me was The Four Feathers (all the rest are newer movies), probably because Rebbie (Rebecca, my older sister, who had a big Heath Ledger crush) made me watch it with her when she first got the DVD.  It was pretty intense for me, since I must have been about eight or nine years old at the time.  I've seen it since then -- and I have a better understanding of what's going on in it than I did as a kid -- so I think I'm going to go with it.

I also have to have a "critical approach," which I'm not quite sure I understand yet, and the one it was listed under is something called shame theory.  This makes sense to me.  If you haven't seen the film, it might not make sense to you.  The feathers in the title are symbols of cowardice that people give to men who have acted cowardly in some major way.  The hero of the story is a British army officer who resigns when his unit (or whatever it's called) is ordered into action.  He does this because he is afraid, and then he spends the rest of the film doing incredibly brave things in order to give the feathers back and redeem himself.  Basically, now that I think about it, it's all about shame.

I'm not sure how this is going to work, but I guess I'll find out more tomorrow morning (assuming we don't have a blizzard or get frozen by a polar vortex again).

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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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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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The "Drumline" Summer Camp: Journal Entry One!

Image via WikipediaI know the semester doesn't begin until tomorrow, but I checked my Eng 101 website, and our first project is already posted. It's a reading journal, and we're supposed to do 2 entries each week, one on our choice of the essays in our textbook and another on a prompt supplied by the instructor. So, here goes with my first entry, a reaction to an essay in chapter 61 (Profiles) in The Norton Field Guide to Writing.



I read an essay by Samuel G. Freedman, titled "Camp Leads a Drumbeat for a Marching Band's Style," which is a profile of Florida A & M's Marching 100 summer camp for high school kids. But you wouldn't know that from the opening. Freedman focuses on a student named Ben Brock in the introduction before moving on to talk about the camp.  However, the thing that really had an impact on me was when he referred to a former camper, Ralph Jean-Paul, as "Mr. Jean-Paul" (Freedman did the same thing with Ben Brock when he quoted him later in the profile, but the textbook typoed it as "Mr. Rock").  I liked that he didn't automatically use their first names, because I think that's treating them as though they are less worthy of respect than the adults in the essay.  It also made me think of them reading the profile and seeing themselves called Mr. in the New York Times.  That must have been a rush.

Oh, and yes, I do know that the picture above is NOT the Marching 100.  I live in Illinois, so I used a picture of the Marching Illini.  Ha!  

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