New Semester, Same Old Textbook Sticker Shock

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fall term started Monday, and I'm already having anxiety issues.  I've been saving up to try and get out of my parents' house, but my books made a HUGE dent in my bank account.  My English prof says that we can use the old editions of the books for her class, so I just saved $120 right there, and I'm trying to focus on that, because if I think about the others I'll start crying.
So anyway, I've looked over my assignment package for the class, and that's why I'm posting today-- Project 1 is this blog!  We're supposed to have it done by next Thursday, but I have this morning free, and I thought I'd get it out of the way.  According to the assignment, the purpose is "To record and share your thinking as your research project progresses," which sounds easy . . . and makes me suspicious.  Where's the catch? 
 
This first entry is supposed to be me discussing my film and approach choices for my research project.  Since I haven't even had 24 hours to think about it yet, I can't say I'm committed to anything so far, but I do have a few ideas.  One thing I've noticed lately is that there are a lot of what I think of as teenagers-save-the-world-while-adults-do-nothing movies, and, now that I think about that, it's kind of strange.  Some of them are about dystopias (like The Hunger Games) and others are about hidden societies, like in the Harry Potter films.  Looking at the list of films and approaches, I guess I'm thinking of genre criticism, and the movie I'd like to use is Percy Jackson & the Olympians:  The Lightning Thief.  I'll check to see if that's okay.

One down, nineteen to go!

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Talking American Lit while Rhonda Takes the Summer Off

English toffee (the chewy kind) in cellophane wrapping. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There's no comp class for me, so I'm taking the summer off and turning my blog over to Dr. Toffee (not her real name; a classmate suggested it when he was eating a Heath bar-- English toffee, get it?) until school starts in the fall.  So, here she is, and I'll see you later.

Just like Rhonda, I have no composition classes on my summer schedule, but I am teaching a section of Masterpieces of American Literature, and I thought it might be fun to talk about that for a change of pace.  It's a general education course that's available at most colleges, which makes it worth discussing on its own.  The class begins next Monday, and at this point I'm fine-tuning my syllabus.  There's a few things that didn't work as well as I had hoped last summer, and I need to figure out good substitutions for them.  I am limited here since I cannot choose the textbook for the course -- I have to use The Norton Anthology.  I'm not really wild about the selections, and I'm not at all happy about the physical weight of the thing, even though it's now in two volumes.  What I do like, of course, is the introductory material, which makes the whole thing worth buying.
At any rate, what I've found over the years I've been teaching this course is that students really dislike some authors that they've encountered before, but they're willing to give unfamiliar authors a chance.  The one author most of them already know and enjoy (sort of) is, ironically, Edgar Allen Poe (ironic, since he's not exactly the hottest academic topic in American lit). 
And, many students are extremely leery of poetry in general.  All of this means that I (like every other teacher of the course) have my work cut out for me.

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The Moment of Truth

Виньетка: герои "Илиады" Гомера. С оригинала Г.В. Тишбейна (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today is my conference about revising my draft.  I barely finished it in time for class last Wednesday, but there were plenty of other people who didn't make it at all, so I felt better about it.  I'm still not happy with my thesis, but I thought I did a good job on the scenes I analyzed.  I also think that she's going to tell me that I need to find another source on groups of heroes working together, and I sure hope she can recommend one, because I've had real trouble finding any material on it.  Maybe I should look at books about The Iliad, which has lotsa heroes-  Achilles, Ajax, Odysseus (my Zemanta feed just kicked in with over a dozen recent articles and posts, all on The Iliad). 

The peer review I got was okay.  The paper I reviewed was only 4 pages long, and didn't make much sense to me -- I told the guy he should look at a scene I remembered from his movie (300), and I thought for a moment that he didn't see why.  Then he seemed to get it, so maybe I helped.  Hope so.

Fingers crossed for today.  I'm hoping I won't have too much revising to do.  I've got stuff due in all my classes.

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