what did everyone do there final projects on??? i wish we would have posted them on here so that we could read each others!! i am so curious as to how everyone spun theres around!! i know we had so much fun wirting ours!!! 

This semester in English 112 has been full of many surprises for me. I have learned a lot about myself as a writer and I have learned a lot about writing in general. Oh oh, where to begin…

I learned so many things from our first project with ELIC. First I learned the importance of actually reading the last chapter of the book, who knew that a whole book could be changed in the last like five pages? Well I did not, and I learned that the hard way!! I also learned the helpfulness of peer editing and teachers office hours- boy if I had not gone to those office hours I would have definitely received an F on that first paper. Granite I did not go until the day before the paper was due, but better late than never. This book actually taught me a lot about myself also. I never that a book that was not a mystery would ever interest me. This book definitely sparked my attention! Great way to start the class!!

Aww, The Powerbook, my favorite!! This book by far was my favorite book we read and the writing assignment for this book was one of my most favorite papers that I have ever written. I enjoyed looking up all of the evidence and fitting into my paper like a puzzle! This essay taught me the most about writing. For years my English teachers have been trying to get through to me how to write a paper because who knew the importance of an intro or a conclusion, and a thesis?? What is that, the first sentence?? It was not until I went for help on this essay that I knew how to produce a good thesis statement, supporting evidence, and topic sentences. It was like a light bulb went off in my head and I finally understood them!  I also loved this book, definitely one of the best books I have ever read!!  I loved how all of the different frames connected together like a mystery/puzzle!

The last book we read I enjoyed also (gosh I just liked all of the books that we read)!  I love the spin offs of the fairytales that I grew up reading!!!  It was funny because it was not until half way through reading one of them when I realized that they were fairytales.  These stories taught me a lot about figurative language and looking at elements of a story and trying to decide what the author is really trying to communicate to the reader, for example the transformations, were they really beasts, or just men that appeared as a beast? The project was fun for this book because it was neat getting to work with someone else and hear their ideas and input and see how they can have the same thought as you but word it totally different!  This was a great experience for me!!

I enjoyed the presentations when we got to teach the class and show them the thoughts we had about a particular book or part of a book.  I especially enjoyed doing my project from The Bloody Chamber, because I was able to tie it to something recent like a new movie so it was the story made more sense to me and hopefully helped the class understand the stories better.

I loved blogging!!  This was actually my first experience with blogging, I did not even know what a blog was until this class.  I thought it was something that was only on Myspace!!!  Blogging was awesome because it was interactive between my classmates and teacher.  We were able to respond to each other without it being awkward.  I know I would not be able to walk up to someone in my class that I did not know very well and just comment on something that they wrote.  It was cool because in today’s world everything is transferring to the Internet so it was cool figuring out how to work it so I can in the future.

I enjoyed this class it taught me so much as a writer!! Especially studying risk and how it can have such a major role in a story!!  This class left me with so many questions about the books, like why they ended the way they did. Why did Foer not have the key lead to something that would have brought Oskar closer to his grandfather? Why did The Powerbook end the way it did?  What happened to the characters in the future??  

for pb i am trying to find more evidence to tie the frames together, any suggestions or pages to look at and compare? there is no limits on which stories because i think i have almost tied half of them together.

thanks guys any help is greatly appreciated!!

I just got back from listening to the Pulitzer prize wining poet Natasha Trethewey (not quite sure how to spell it). It was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I can say I have listened to one live! BUT, it was a very interesting experience, you know how some people are like actresses and actors should stick to acting after they give a speech because it was a little scary.  Well, she is definitely a better writer than a speaker. I liked her poems, and I understand that poets read their poems the way that they want them to be read, but she was so very monotone. She read every poem without ever changing pitch. I was just shocked I guess, these powerful words with no emotion behind them. There was so much imagery in her poems that I expected big pitch changes to go along with them.

I was also confused by another thing, she kept saying how she felt at home coming here, but when then she started talking about how her home in Mississippi was so important and that was her home. I don not know, I was just a little confused. Oh, and also I think she only lived there for a few years, how did it mean so much to her?

Questions about thoughts about the poems: I was not really sure what the ant farm and the body were supposed to mean or represent. It was a very interesting way of putting something, but it definitely confused me. Also, what does she mean by the line ‘a stone on my tongue’? Although I like her language and imagery sometimes I had a hard time understanding the message she was trying to communicate.

I am glad that I went, it was definitely something new and a chance that I may not have again. She kind of inspired me with the language she used in her poems, it makes me want to write like that. Her imagery just really stuck out to me. She made a comment about her parents, one being black, and the other white found a way for them to be able to be wed, and let them live their lives and have her. It was just nice to hear that she was just like any other person who had to overcome hardships in her life. Having an interracial family is hard and challenging. To have achieved something so great and dealing with other hardships is very inspiring. I thought it was interesting how she said her name meant Christmas child, but I am pretty sure that the speaker that presented her said that she was born on Easter?? I was a little lost there. She was just very different than I expected and I think a lot of it was really in the way that she read her poems. I am not sure why I keep coming back to it, but I just could not get over the way she spoke, and she looked down a lot and frequently. I kind of expected her to also have her poems known by heart since she did write them.

First off I would like to say great job to Erin and the rest of the cast and crew for putting on such a great play! They did a very good job, and Shakespeare is no cakewalk. The play was very good, but I am not very familiar with Caesar. The play was set in Rome, but a more modern day Rome, and I think in a business-like setting. The cast was small so the actors had multiple roles. Since I am not familiar with Caesar, I had a few different things running through my head…

            I was very shocked to find out that the females were playing the roles of men, it was hard to tell if they were actually playing the role of a woman or a man because the names were so different. I was also surprised that the female characters in the play played a role in the act of killing someone, usually that is a mans role by himself. A woman plays one of the lead roles, Brutus’ friend, but I think she is supposed to play the role of a man. They use a lot of gender role-playing. Women play many of the male characters. The director, Matt Salter, deciding to use women to play the roles of men tied the original play and Shakespeare’s works in general. Shakespeare uses a lot of gender role switching, like in The Twelfth Night; a female plays the role of her brother. So I thought this was very important to use in recreating a Shakespeare play.

            I also found this role-playing between men and women interesting because of the last two books we have read in class. The Powerbook takes women and makes them the main characters and ties in a whole other set of values and morals and actions that are not the norm for most women. The Bloody Chamber also does this, they make women very important and the lead characters, but they have man-like qualities and characteristics. The play definitely made me think more about the importance of the gender and the se of the character and how that contributes and changes the plot structure.

            Even though this play was not one I am familiar with, it is very obvious that it is one of Shakespeare’s many works. Besides the language there are similar themes and character roles. For example, this has Caesar, who is the ruler or the king, like in Hamlet and Macbeth. Then there is Brutus, who is like the reoccurring character that is confused and is told what to do and eventually goes off the deep end (killing Caesar), Hamlet and Macbeth again. There are the towns people who never understand the murder that has taken place.

            Overall, I really enjoyed this play, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had already studied Caesar, but I have not. The characters really did do a great job recreating Shakespeare, especially the lines and trying to put emotion and stress where it needed to be! GREATJOB CAST AND CREW!!!!

I think that the significance of the fiddle was to lure creatures and girls into the forest and seduce them. Once the fiddle is broken, there are no more songs and no more singing birds. i dont quite understand the mother you have murdered me part, any thoughts?

personification -will be taken care of through the wolves because they will have humanistic characteristics, the forest will also have humanistic characteristics

pun-i will have to make up as i write

dead metaphor- holding the reins of power

I chose Raunzel because i love her long hair!!

SIMILE’S
-Her father is like a thief
-Rapunzels hair is spun like gold

SYMBOLISM
-Rapunzels hair is symbolic for a ladder
-Enchantress is symbolic for the evil in the world
-Rapunzel is symbolic for the vegetables that her father stole
-Rapunzels voice is symbolic for cupids arrow, it is how she gets the prince to fall for her.
-scratched eyes are symbolic for pain and depression
-her cut braids are symbolic for no hope.