Emily Evans, English 052 Final Portfolio

Dear Reader,

Now that the semester is rapidly drawing to a close, it's time to again step back and look at my body of work as a whole. For me, the second half of the semester was filled mostly with revisions, along with one new project, a video essay on O Brother Where Art Thou. Revising has been an interesting process- it's good to come back to projects I've already finished to see what can be improved. Most of my revisions so far have taken a long time, which I think was worth it as I am for the most part very pleased with my results. I still feel as though I've been approaching each project separately, with a completely clean slate, but I think that might be a good thing- it enables me to explore many different topics in which I'm interested. I've never really studied literature in this way before, and it's given me a completely different (and deeper) understanding of it.

I have enjoyed, throughout the semester, making connections between this class and several of my others, Intro to Fiction, Political Science 100, and Intro to Computer Programming, and it has continued to surprise me how many inter-disciplinary connections have popped up throughout the semester. The things I'm learning in each of those classes have on many occasions helped me in this class- most specifically the HTML coding for the playlist assignment! It's also been interesting for me to see how things learned in this seminar help me in those other classes. For instance, my fiction class maintains an online discussion board for every book we read, a more traditional version of the blogging on this class-wide Litcasting site, and for every program I turn in I must give a detailed written description of its functions, something that I think challenges some of the more mathematically-oriented people in my class!

One of the things I've loved most about this class is the frequent appearance of music. I'm somewhat obsessed with music- I have a huge iTunes library and am constantly attempting to find new bands or songs to add onto it. I'm also really good at memorizing song lyrics, for some reason, so I can almost always come up with a song or artist to fit a particular situation- I love pretty much every genre of music, which gives me a big range of choices! It's been interesting to me to consider the literary aspects of music, which is something I hadn't given too much thought to before. It makes sense to me, now that it's been pointed out clearly, that many songs are poetic- they represent deep emotions in eloquent, concise, and sometimes vague or even clichéd terms, just as a poem might. I've really enjoyed getting to think about music on a deeper level, especially in the collage assignment, and to use it to express other points about literature, especially in the podcast. In my video project I chose to talk about music in O Brother Where Art Thou, which seems a nice closure to the semester.

I've always loved literature, so I've tried to use each of these assignments to get to know deeper some particular story or book that speaks to me, or that I thoroughly enjoyed. The class blog has also been incredibly helpful- it's great to hear others' opinions on a variety of issues. It's broadened my opinion on what defines literature, which opens up whole new areas of literature I can explore. I chose to focus my poetry collage on a song's lyrics, something I probably wouldn't have considered a poem before taking this class. There have definitely been challenges along the way, but the result- broadened horizons-is worth it in the end. Classmate feedback has also been a definite help in many of my projects, most specifically my collage revisions.

At the midterm I wanted to improve my participation on the class blog and Litcasting website in general, and I think I did a fairly good job meeting that goal. I also tried to take Professor Anderson's advice and update my portfolio more frequently, especially to talk about the connections with my other classes in more detail. I'm sad that this class is over- I will miss having the chance to interact with literature, technology, and the opinions my classmates all at once. At the same time, though, I've learned a lot and know I can apply some of the things I've learned here in future classes. I especially want to try to keep finding connections between all the classes I'm taking- it's interesting and helps to bring what I'm learning alive.

Playlist

First Draft of My Playlist
I chose to base my playlist off of a Roald Dahl short story, The Umbrella Man. I actually chose to do a live performance of an abridged version of this story for a public speaking class in 9th grade. This experience helped me get a little more into the characters' minds, so I thought it would be perfect to approach the story again, four years later and from a different angle. I first thought I would make my playlist about the 12-year-old narrator of the story, but as it began to take shape, I realized it was going in a different direction. The first version was fairly good, but it needed work- there wasn't enough description or analysis on some of the songs, there were a few typos, and one song was part of the list that really didn't need to be there.


Second Draft of My Playlist
Though I did not perform any major overhauls, I did clean up the playlist a bit, taking away unnecessary plot summary and adding more in-depth analysis. I found it was hard, sometimes, to put into words what exactly about a song made it perfect for a particular moment in the story, but I worked at it and think I was able to make my major points come across clearly. I took out the song "Umbrella" because it seemed to serve no true or necessary purpose; this also made the transition from buildup to climax in the story go more smoothly. All in all, I felt that this was a great assignment; I learned a ton more about the story as a whole, as well as about Roald Dahl's writing style. As a child reading his books I had no idea of the intelligence and deeper meaning of his works- I just enjoyed the stories. It was great to realize that these stories are just as interesting and helpful to my life now as they were then.

Podcast

First Draft of My Podcast
The podcast assignment was the hardest for me this semester. I can usually do a fairly decent job of public speaking, but that's when I'm given a script or speech to follow; but for some reason I found it very hard to have a natural-sounding conversation with the microphone! I chose to focus my presentation on the Canadian band Stars, and the literary elements of their music. I found I had plenty of material to work from, and even found a great interview clip from the band's lead singer to help me in my argument. The first draft made most of these points, but was too broad in its goals. It tried to do too much, instead of focusing on a few crucial points. It also had some technical errors in volume level, etc. that needed to be fixed.


Second Draft of My Podcast
I had used three songs to demonstrate my point initially, but in my second draft, I chose to focus more on "Heart" and "Look Up", since they gave me more than enough material. I restructured some of the elements in the podcast- for example, I moved the interview clip toward the beginning. I tried to work on the natural-ness of my voice as well; I'm hoping that the practice I got in our group presentations helped me out with this! In general, though I enjoyed thinking about the literary elements of music and talking about it, I didn't really enjoy working with Audacity- maybe this is because I didn't like recording my own voice. It was definitely interesting to see how it worked, however- it just wasn't my favorite project we did this semester. It was also a bit of a challenge to make the necessary revisions to my podcast because I got sick and lost my voice for about two weeks towards the end of the semester, which greatly cut short my recording time! In the end, though, I'm glad we did the project. The next time I listen to the radio, a cd, a concert, or even a professor in one of my large lecture classes, I'll know that it's a lot harder than it looks to figure out ways to effectively express oneself verbally in front of a group- whether musically or not- something that may be made alternatively easier or more complicated by being able to re-record and edit!

Collages

I enjoyed the collage assignment very much. Although it took a little practice to get the hang of the Gimp program, once I learned to understand it better I really enjoyed working with it. It was a great assignment because of the very unique way it forced me to look at literature- having to represent elements of a character or a poem visually meant that I had to assign specific words to those elements, and truly think about deeper meanings. I therefore gained a better understanding of the works in general.


Character Collage
I based my character collage on Jacob Jankowski of Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants. This was a story I absolutely fell in love with, so I really enjoyed getting to create a visual representation of some of its most crucial elements. I think I made a good choice with the novel as well because one of the hallmarks of Gruen's writing style is her careful and detailed research; it enables her to paint a picture of the story's setting, so much so that it actually becomes almost its own character. I wanted to emphasize the contrasting emotions of 1920's circus life, especially the highs and lows of the everyday struggles to survive and the extreme contrast between those struggles and the cheery attitude of a circus performance. I tried to give everything a grey overtone, but still have some bright spots of color shine through- after all, Water for Elephants has at its core a love story.


Second Draft of Character Collage
The second (and final) draft of my character collage was pretty much a complete overhaul of my original draft. Though I kept most of the same elements (except for a new elephant picture), I completely changed the structure and framing. I let the rocking chair do the framing for me and fit all the important elements in and around it. This was easier said than done; it took me a lot longer than I would've thought! But in the end it was worth it because I'm really happy with how it turned out. It was much easier coming back a second time to make the revision- greater knowledge of Gimp definitely helped me out.


Poetry Collage
I decided to go out on a limb a little bit with my poetry collage and based it on a song- Death Cab for Cutie's "Your Heart Is an Empty Room". The song (and the band) have always seemed poetic to me, and I wanted to try to represent important themes visually. I realized soon after I started, of course, that this task would be harder than I first thought. I also realized that interpretations of any song are entirely individual, and that my idea could be at complete odds with someone else's. I decided to stick with my ideas though, and came out with something that I'm pretty happy with. I made this collage second, and it was definitely easier- by then, I had gotten the hang of finding pictures online, figuring out Gimp, and just coming up with ideas for how certain things could be translated into images.


Second Poetry Collage
My revision of my poetry collage was also a rearrangement of initial elements. I tried to make the images fit together better, especially in line with the lyrics of the song, and think it made the meaning clearer. It still wasn't perfect, though, and I needed one more revision to make it say what I wanted.


Third Poetry Collage
As Jordan pointed out, something was wrong with the edges of my second draft. I also worked to blend the highway and room better, while still keeping them separate in keeping with the meaning of the song. Again, this took a lot of time but in the end I think it was worth it! Having the fire come from the windows instead of taking up a random section of the image made a huge difference.

Video Essay

First Draft of O Brother Where Art Thou Video
I chose to make my movie project about music in O Brother Where Art Thou. I had a slightly easier time recording my voice in this project than I did with the podcast- maybe because I had more practice, or maybe because there were accompanying images to help illustrate my point that made me feel less microphone-shy! This version isn't perfect- I think my biggest problem is voice volume level-but for the most part I'm very pleased with how the content turned out (especially with the limited time I had to work on it due to losing my voice).


Second Draft of Video
After reading Professor Dan's portfolio (and after he helped me turn up my computer's internal mic) I was able to go back over my video project and transcribe/re-record my narration in my movie project. My voice is much louder now, and I think the narration makes more sense- it definitely helped to see my words on paper. I was able to refine what I was saying, and take out a few extra "ums"!


Third Draft of Video
The second draft of this project was much improved on the first one, I think, but it still had several technical issues that I tried to resolve for the third draft. I re-recorded and changed the introduction, made some of the audio and video clips fade in and out more, and, most noticeably, allowed the clip sounds to play behind my voice in some of the segments. It sounds much better, is more interesting, and helps the movie to "flow", which is especially important considering the subject of my argument.


Fourth Draft of Video
I took a few more suggestions from Professor Dan and made some small changes in this version of my video. I added a little bit of music before I started talking in my introduction, and replaced my original baptism scene clip with a different one (it came later on in the movie and had better sound). It demonstrates my message in a much clearer way, I think, because it fits in with my narration- the viewer can see what I'm describing. All in all, I really enjoyed working on this project once I got over the frustration of not being able to hear my voice- it was different, but working with moving images was interesting and a good way to try and craft an essay. I think it will be helpful to remember this experience when crafting essays for other classes. Also, the Adobe Elements program was for some reason much easier and user-friendly for me to use than Audacity! It took me a long time to finish this project but I think the work was worthwhile. I plan to "publish" my video on YouTube now that it's done- maybe I'll get a few responses!

Blog Postings and Comments

As I said above, I think I have done a better job with my blog postings and comments this half of the semester. Here are all of the comments and postings I've made:

I made this comment in response to a question about poetic elements of music.

I wrote this blog posting on the subject of rappers as poets.

I made this comment because I thought the sparkly background on the Sparkle playlist was cool.

My playlist reflection can be found here.

Here I discussed genre and song choice in our playlist assignment.

My original podcast and reflection may be found here.

Here I commented on Kevin's podcast- I wanted to learn the html needed to make text bounce because I'd never seen it before!

I commented on Meredith's amazing Their Eyes Were Watching God collage.

I commented on Scott's great "The Filling Station" collage here.

I continued discussion on my group's live podcast about political satire here.

I wrote a blog posting about revising my podcast here.

I commented on Kevin's playlist revision here.

I wrote about free indirect discourse in No Country For Old Men here.

I commented on the character of Chigurh from No Country For Old Men here.

I wrote a blog posting on the lack of music in No Country For Old Men here.

I commented on Sarah's poetry collage here.

I talked about connections between The Odyssey and O Brother Where Art Thou here.

I threw out a rough idea of some scenes I wanted and a theme for my video project here.

I created a blog posting on music in O Brother Where Art Thou here.

I commented on discussion to my music blog post here.

I commented on Jordan's poetry collage revision .

I made a comment about Thomas's Red Dirt Road collage.

The various updates to my portfolio I've made throughout the second half of the semester that pertain to connections with my other classes can be found in the comments below at the bottom of the page.

Challenge?

I don't think I was given a specific "challenge" at the midterm, but I was given a suggestion- to make my portfolio a space where I explore the connections I notice between this class and some of the others that I'm currently taking. I decided to take that on as my challenge for the rest of the semester. Exploring these connections in more detail enabled me to enhance my learning in this class, my other classes, and in my studies and understanding of literature in general. The biggest problem I encountered was walking the line between making a legitimate connection and taking things too far, or trying to make a connection where none really existed. I tried to watch myself! I also tried to bring some of my more interesting and/or universal connections to the class by adding comments to the blog- most notably with my discussion of free indirect discourse in No Country For Old Men, which we eventually ended up discussing briefly in class after finishing the book.

All in all, I've really enjoyed this class, and learned a lot about some of my favorite things- as well as some new skills that I know will help me out in the future. I put a lot of work into my projects and the class in general and I think I got a good return on those efforts! I can't wait to use what I've learned in classes in the future.