Basar

What conclusions about reading, writing, and risk can you draw from your reading/writing experiences in this class? What questions do your writing and our texts leave you with?

I don’t really know how I feel about the blog experience. I honestly don’t know how much I really got out of writing in it. I almost feel like I did my entries just to get the points to be completely honest. I wish I had sought to take more risks and really use this blog as a tool. I do think that the blog idea does provoke a lot of really opportunities for taking risks by, one, getting your thoughts out for the world to read, and two, receiving positive, or possibly critical feedback from classmates. I really benefited from you making classmates comment on our blogs, especially the feedback on the Powerbook essay post. The comments from my friends on that post really helped me rework my thesis for that paper.

Some of the blogs I thought were relevant, but didn’t compel me to think much. I think that instead of trying to fit a blog into the theme of the book, an even more beneficial blog assignment would be to simply just journal. I think that a lot of people need a way to express themselves in a way they are too afraid to in person. Having the freedom to simply “write” or compose poetry every once and a while may help kids reveal things in themselves, and will help you, as a teacher, know your students better. I know I would have loved to be able to take more risks in my blog by speaking of my faith more.

Moving away from the topic of blogging and looking at the texts from the class, I really liked the novels we read this year with the exception of The Powerbook. I just didn’t enjoy it. I thought the writing was confusing and the text made me feel uncomfortable. However, I can see why we would use in a “risk-themed” English class.

I loved Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It was very quick-paced and interesting read. I really loved the plot line. One interesting thing between all three books was the use of inner-stories. Each book we read was one novel with many stories making it up. Maybe that plays a part in the risk factor?

I also really liked The Bloody Chamber. It really caught my attention because of how the author took common stories and transformed them to go against the stereotypes of the world. Not every fairy tale had a “happily ever after” and not one story had the women in her typical role. I like how she empowered different roles.

Getting to write on these novels also taught me a lot about the risks that we must take sometimes as writers. As I wrote in my ELIC rewrite writer’s memo, I learned a lot and grew a lot in my writing by taking a risk that fell back in my face. I caused me to reevaluate my thought process and develop in a way I never had before. I also learned that writing with strong opinions and evidence is taking a risk in itself. Anything that may cause people to disagree with you is putting yourself out there for criticism.

Thank you for being a good critic. In the past, I have had teachers who praised my writing and automatically gave me good grades. I feel that I am pretty book at bs-ing my way through a paper, but walking into your class wasn’t so easy. Thanks for challenging me and not just giving me an A. I learned how to deserve and work for even an A-.

I guess the only question I am really leaving with is how to improve as a writer. I feel that I have grown a lot this semester in my development as a writer and I would love feedback and pointers. I do not fear honesty, so please let me know (to the best of your memory ☺ ) how I can improve.

Thanks for a great few months. Sorry I was often tired in your class. I wasn’t able to sleep a lot this semester. I also apologize for the times our class was inconsiderate. You didn’t deserve to be treated the way you were sometimes. Have a great summer. Good luck with your graduate program!

-Jen Mott

I didn’t really understand this story until I read some other people’s bogs to close the gaps on the pieces I couldn’t understand. What I think the plot tells us is that The Erl-King is this man who lives out in the woods and he captures young girls and takes their virginity. They are then turned into birds and kept in a cage, singing, trying to get out and go back to life before the Erl-King. The narrator is a girl who is his next captive, however, she figures out this schemes. She ends up killing him, waiting for the young girls in the cage to come back to life for revenge on him.
The fiddle I think represents the Erl-King. When an instrument needs to be re-strung or tuned, it is because it is decaying from what it used to be. Same with the Erl-King. He is losing some of his suave that he used to use to seduce girls. Now it is apparent to the narrator of who the Erl-King is and who he used to be and it becomes the death of him.

As I watch I am just going to write my thoughts because I don’t know how formal this has to be…

The acting is so good! You can really tell that they all have a passion for drama, even is they don’t plan to pursue acting for a career. Erin was great!

The setting of Rome has transformed into the modern city. Maybe in an office…Not quite sure. Caesar is a wealthy business man, maybe a CEO.

Brutus is of second influence to Caesar, like in the original story. A WOMAN plays Playus ( or whatever her name is) who is dominate and forceful over Brutus. This is interesting because I notice this a lot in this play. Women have really influencial and powerful roles. In the day of Shakespere, women were rarely of importance.

As for the set up of the stage, it is very plain. There are no props…even the costumes are not very elaborate. The back drop is simply a blue wall with the word “Rome” written in red. I guess I expected a little more visual appeal, but perhaps Matt was trying to make the audience focus only on the acting and the hidden undertones of the script.

This is cool because Matt is taking a typical story and twisting it to provoke a new message and new thoughts. He is challenging typical gender roles. This is similar to what we are doing with our fairy tales.

Cashus is played as a girl and she plans to seduce Caesar in the plot to kill him. This is crazy to see how women are being portrayed as forceful and scheming instead of dainty and helpless.

One thing that is hard is that I can’t really understand what they are saying a lot. The acoustics of the room aren’t really that great so I don’t really know what’s going on. This is also because I can’t remember that much from when I read Caesar junior year.

Later Brutus takes more authority later in the play and starts to take charge of the ploys to kill Caesar…maybe because earlier he was empowered by Cashus, a women.

Erin also played Poshia who was Brutus’s wife. She is so bold and she doesn’t stand for being “just a wife,” being stepped over and taken advantage of. She stands up to Brutus, again, something I feel that would have been uncommon in the time the original was written.

It is really interesting the way this play was preformed and written. It wasn’t really what I was expecting. Its simple preformence and creative undertones challenged me to think outside of the norm of what I already knew of Caesar….not that I knew very much to begin with. I struggle to truly understand all the characters and their motives, but in general, I think I got a descent understanding of the plot. it would have been cool if in the program, each character had the actor’s picture and a bio of who the character is in the original Shakespere play. Maybe then I would have understood that better. Overall, it was cute, but it would have been more fun if I would have gone with a friend.

I really loved the Courtship of Mr. Lyon and I think that I want to do that for my paper. I think it would be cool to collaborate with a partner, but I’m afraid about getting the work done…I can barely get work done as it is by myself! I am just such a busy person and I am off campus about 40 hrs a week…BUT! I have some cool ideas, for instance, come up with a plot and story sequence and then we go back and forth writing pages until the paper is done…then we can go through together and change stuff. I think it could be fun, like piking up where the partner left off! Just an idea, let me know if its not legit

I don’t know what I would want to write about yet…maybe it could be a change of setting, like in a lion’s actually habitat. I like the idea of a transformation..or maybe even taking the point of view of an insignificant figure. I really have no good ideas, but I’m excited to bounce thoughts off of a partner tomorrow! But for blog grade sake, a new message could be being immersed in new surroundings or way of life, like this girl adapting to the jungle and the way for life there. maybe she could turn into a lion! It would be like how we have to adapt to new surroundings and eventually change who we are to be part of that place or to be more connected to someone…whether we originally wanted to immersed in this place or not. just a thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byaMd_PNyIY

I forget how to post videos, but I thought this was really cool because I love fairytales and i love disney movies, but its just crazy to think how gender and racial biased they are! Like a typical fairytale, the girl is looked to as helpless and beautiful, always in need of her dashing prince charming. The man is the hero. In almost any disney movie the “important” characters are white, and if they aren’t, like in Pocahontas, the “non-white” characters roles are full of styreotypes. It is sad that this is what kids are watching. I know that I grew up with a bookshelf of beloved disney movies, but it is crazy to see how much that affected my perception of gender roles, sexuality, and racial characteristics. Watch and see what I mean…

“By showing the risk involved in Lancelot’s search for Guinevere, In correlation with the surrounding stories and novel as a whole, we also see the risk complements the overall theme of The Powerbook: our continuous search for meaning and identity in life.”
That is my thesis (is it good? specific enough?) and this is the outline of my paper:

1.Intro and thesis

2. Placement of SEARCH and significance of virtual road before

3. SEARCH: how lancelot risks a lot for love (a couple paragraphs drawing from chunks of texts that show the risk and effort he took in pursuit of guenivere

4. Significance of great and ruinous lovers

5. How Ali relates to Lanelot in his desires and motives

6. conclusion

I just want to know if there are any other good things I could draw in to deepen the essay for make it better fit my thesis. Let me know if the line up is good or if i should take away/add a point. Thanks for your help!!!

1. Search
2. Risk playing out in the sub-story: page 77-”The window was barred with iron…” Shows narrator’s desprite desire to get to her, no matter the cost or barriers.
Page 78- “Many times has your lord, my King…” Shows his faithfulness in rescuing her, even if it means fighting the King, her husband.
Page 78- “That you were married to someone else meant nothing to me.” Risk in adultery and persecution in pursuit of true love.
Page 79- “I saved you from the fire, but the fire I could not put out was burning at our feet.” The love the narrator pursues and is experiencing with the lover is harmful and dangerous.
Page 81- “Death will shatter me, but in love’s service I have been shattered many times.” Risk to be hurt to love.
Page 81- “There was a day I remember…” Battling danger, weariness, and the lover’s captors the narrator traveled to set her free.

I think that like the narrator of the sub-story, the writer of the story is also looking for love and risking a lot for it. He is constantly searching for something/someone, like Lancelot is searching for Guenivere. Relating to the next chapter I think that it shows how Lancelot and Guenivere’s love is a story that shouldn’t have happened.
I’m still thinking of how it relates to me as a reader.

3. In the sub-story, Search, I agree that as the writer is searching for something or someone, Lancelot too is searching for Guenivere, a risk that could result in ruin and unfulfilment.

I don’t know, I’m really bad at the preliminary stuff…I think we should throw some ideas around in groups tomorrow?? that would be good.

I think that we can make strong connections between the Powerbook and ELIC. In general, both characters, Oskar and Ali are looking for someone or something. All these things that they find on the search, whether throughout the boroughs of New York or across the internet, come up as useless; not the “buried treasure” they would have hoped (PB, 73). However, both Oskar and Ali are looking for “meaning inside the data” and as Ali says, “looking for you, looking for me, trying to see through the disguise” (PB, 74). While they are trying to look for a certain someone, they both disguise part of the journey to find themselves and their identity.
Another cool connection I made was just how alone both Oskar and Ali feel. They both feel as though nobody can relate to their struggles; that there is no one who will even listen…

It will be interesting to see if that someone comes along in the PB to fill that role… we shall see :]

I’m not sure how I feel about this book…I actually am really uncomfortable reading it so far. I mean, I guess where not in high school anymore, so it technically is “appropriate” but I just don’t like the sexual imagery.

I guess my main question is, What is Ali’s identity, male or female?

And another question is, are there other characters involved in this novel? I feel like Ali and the princess are one set of characters and then the couple in Paris are another set of characters…I guess I’m just really confused by the book in general.

I just am confused by the plot of the story and I’m 45 pages in- I feel like I should understand what’s going on…I think it is set in the future, and it know it takes place in france/Antioch? What in the world is going on with Antioch? Are they talking about history or is that where Ali lives in the timeframe of the book…

So far..I just am not really enjoying this book, sorry…however, its going by fast so thats nice.

I LOVED THIS BOOK! It was so beautiful! I wish I would have been in class on tuesday so I could have discussed the end with everyone! I love how the key didn’t really have anything to do with Oskar’s dad! The led to him finally realizing his brokenness and accepting the lift of his burdens. It led to the realization that there was nothing he could do to change the situation and helped him in overcoming guilt. I also loved how Mr. Black learned what it meant to live!
It was really sad, but I love being sad from books and movies so its ok :]

So…about this paper…I love my topic but I’m having a lot of trouble putting my thoughts down on paper. Its really frustrating because I know what I want to get across it just won’t come. I’m really taking a risk because its not really writing on a narrative strategy but more a narrative theme that helps me make sense of the text. Hopefully that will fly. I’ll keep my fingers crossed…and meet with Kirstyn to make sure its ok :]