Playlists:

Playlist Reflections: Working with music was an interesting way to open up the semester. I felt that it was a limited medium, since we relied on the unaltered structure of songs created by other musicians to interpret our own feelings in regards to fiction. I found this to be a bit ambiguous, but it was still fun to learn and use the technology. I attacked Kafka's Metamorphosis with some of my favorite music, which I found easy to relate. The story itself has many interpretations, and is one of the least concrete in modern popular fiction. I am sad that we didn't study this in class, on a university level, since it was in our textbook. It's been years since I've had a group discussion of the story, but it remains one of my favorites.

Collages:

Collage Reflections: I enjoyed the collages, and GIMP proved to be pretty intuitive after a while. I enjoyed this assignment moreso than the playlist, because I felt that it really allowed us to create our own renderings rather than to rely on media that was already composed and produced. It felt less cliche than the playlist project. The feedback also greatly help with the revisions. For the Hemingway collage, I worked with the theme of Man vs. Nature, without as much emphasis on the vs, That conflict dominates Old Man and the Sea, and I felt that I could do an accurate job of representing it by paralleling images of the Old Fisherman with Hemingway himself. I used the Marlin to symobolize nature, and other touches includes the night sky, the sea as a home, and the glaring sun. All of these are daily aspects of a fisherman's life. My poem collage revolves around and intriguing Kafka story, An Imperial Message, and it represents futility and an existentialist perspective of hopes and dreams. The tiny people have many obstacles to overcome, which they never will, as symbolized by the story itself.

Yellow Wallpaper Posts:

Yellow Wallpaper Reflections: I felt that we beat this story to death. Although the portrayal of insanity due to overbearing male influence was interesting, I'm not sure it took the scrutiny that we devoted to it in class. I felt that many of us understood it fairly quickly as well. The wiki assignment was helpful since it enabled us to learn to modify and improve digital public texts, which will undoubtedly become a more popular medium in years to come.

Video Reflections: This assignment served as an effective cultivation of the skills we had learned this semester. I like that the subject was open-ended, and took advantage of it to publish something I wrote in my spare time. The entire process was very liberating and introspective, and I felt very proud and creative when I finished. I wanted to share it with my friends, but I still have not. I felt that this was ultimately the most expressive medium we worked with all semester, and it still boggles my mind that a movie is now as easy to make as a powerpoint presentation.

Final Podcast Reflections: It was great to hear everyone recount which elements and themes they thought we most important from the collection of stories we examined throughout the semester. I thought everyone who participated communicated clearly and effectively, and now we have a great audio summary of the entire semester. Our themes of seclusion, death, and male domination sprouted a wide variety of perspectives and hopefully helped the class remember, if not further analyze, Story of an Hour and A Rose for Emily.