Dear Reader,

Thank you for letting me share my engagement with literature over the first semester of my college career with you. Although it is impossible for me to convey the entire extent of my learning and growth in one single portfolio, the intent of writing this is to at least give you a glimpse of my amazing experience in the Computers and English Studies course:

I quickly enrolled in the First Year Seminar Computers and English Studies taught by the brilliant literary analyst and technological wizard Daniel Anderson because I couldn’t wait to be part of a course that would both engage me in the study of English and develop my computer skills. However, I would soon realize that this class was so much more than that. This seminar has exceeded all my expectations, and I have learned more in one brief semester than in several other traditional English classes. After having taken this course, there is no doubt in my mind that technology is the best way to enhance the study of literature.

I have grown tremendously in the ways that I think about English. Sure, reading comprehension and verbal skills are incredibly important. However, as this course has shown me, the horizons of the study of English are so much greater. Through creating a playlist, I was able to transmit through music (arguably the most ancient form of literature) some of the physical and emotional experiences that Neil Armstrong encountered up to and during the Apollo 11 mission. The lyrics in the songs act like verses in a poem and serve to capture Armstrong’s life experience. Finding songs that both portrayed the real-life and mental occurrences in their sound and lyrics proved to be a challenge but the final product is certainly worthwhile. I especially enjoyed creating the One Giant Leap for Mankind Playlist because it was a lot more fun than work; however, at the same time, it certainly wasn’t a trivial assignment by any means because it honed my ability to portray a character through analyzing music and profoundly increased my appreciation of music as another form of literature – a topic that is delved into even deeper in the podcast.

In my Podcast, I discussed how Jimmy Buffett can be considered a literary figure by talking about how his songs, like works of literature, reflect their social and historical contexts, tell us something about humans and their desires (such as for escape), and address common motifs like work, family, and change. I learned a multitude of new skills about how to compose a literary assignment in the audio format. Although the end result of the podcast project is a ‘simple’ mp3 file, the mechanics behind its production are much more complex. In addition to the technical aspects of this project, learning how to discuss what makes an artist literary through the use of songs and interviews was also engaging. I really enjoyed learning more about Jimmy Buffett and showing how he can be considered a literary figure by listening to and analyzing some of his most popular songs and interview clips. The Podcast assignment taught me a lot about how to work with a new media format and effective ways to express ideas through audio, while at the same time helped develop my ability to analyze music as another form of literature. Through the Jimmy Buffett podcast, the vast ocean of literature has expanded for me and hopefully my listeners by revealing how literature doesn’t have to only include the works of famous author’s like Jane Austen and William Shakespeare, but can include the works of anyone such as your favorite musical artists.

How do images tell stories?, Is it possible to relate a character's identity by combining visual elements?, and Can pictures express the meaning of a poem? are all questions that I deliberated while I was working on the collage assignment. Making the character collage gave me a chance to reflect on a character's identity and then subsequently express this identity in the visual medium. The poetry collage increased my ability to equate concrete and even abstract ideas and themes from a poem with pictures and then combine the pictures into one meaningful image. The final assignment of the course, the film composition, changed the study of literatures once again by taking parts of what we had learned about combining multiple pictures to the next level with motion pictures.

The film composition was the capstone of the course. Producing “Terminator: The Anton Chigurh Chronicles” involved bringing together many of the skills I learned and developed throughout the Computers and English Studies Course. For example, the techniques I garnered during the creation of the Podcast, in particular, such as cutting and transitioning audio files, where expanded upon to include cutting and transitioning scenes of movies which contain both audio and video components. One thing that I discovered about myself through this course is that I find multimedia projects, particularly those with film, to be much more engaging than those made up of only audio or images. For this reason, the film composition was my favorite assignment of the semester because it brought together much of what we had learned from the previous assignments and allowed us to take those skills to the next level through the process of creating our own film compositions.

The technological aspect of the Computers and English Studies Seminar has been one of the highlights of the course for me. It has been a pleasure working on the computer to advance my studies in English and comparative literature. For instance, I found myself constantly striving for excellence in the layout and design of the playlist, and likewise enjoyed spending hours revising and editing the html code to make it perfect. However, learning how to enhance the appearance of the playlist at times required special knowledge of html scripts. For example, in order to create the sparkling stars background for my playlist, I consulted Professor Anderson for his expertise in implementing tables into the html source code which is a useful strategy for adding backgrounds to a webpage. Additionally, when I wanted to learn how to add other special features to my projects like an image with a hyperlink function, I would conduct a quick Google search to find the technical information I needed. With the precision that technology provides comes the desire for perfection. Consequently, I found that I always wanted to improve my work. However, precision is not always a ‘piece of cake.’

Working with audio in the podcast component of the course proved to be very challenging. I would like to improve on my techniques for recording and editing sound files in programs like Audacity. Producing the Jimmy Buffett podcast helped me appreciate the value of expressing literary ideas through the audio medium and I would like to continue to increase my skills in these areas – both literally and technologically speaking. The primary difficulty I had working with the audio format was maintaining a high level of sound quality. For example, when I would try to equalize the volume levels for certain interview clips the Audacity program would crash unexpectedly. However, after revising and reediting the podcast several times (and a lot of trial and error) I was finally able to create a podcast with a consistent level of clarity and crispness.

As you begin your exploration of my portfolio, please keep in mind the extent to which technology facilitates and improves the study of literature. If it were not for the invention of computers, it would never have been possible to share my engagement with literature with you, let alone across the World Wide Web. Through my playlist, podcast, collages, and film composition, one can see that it is becoming increasingly possible for anyone to share their ideas about literature in an entertaining way that the whole world can learn from and enjoy. Thus, as Professor Anderson shows in his courses, technology is a catalyst for education whether it is history, science, or indeed literature.

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Playlist:

The Playlist Assignment was a Blast (no pun intended)! Creating the Neil Armstrong - One Giant Leap for Mankind Playlist was incredibly fun while at the same time scholarly. I really enjoyed searching for songs, finding videos, and selecting parts of the lyrics all of which contributed to my goal for the playlist, to transmit through music the physical and emotional experiences that Neil encountered up to and during the Apollo 11 mission.

To start off, I would like to take you through the steps I used to create the playlist. First, I brainstormed possible characters from novels that I had read senior year of high school to build a playlist around, however, I was not satisfied with any of my options so I decided to take a different path (after consulting with my really cool professor, Daniel Anderson, of course) and make a playlist around a historical figure. To make a long story short, I decided to make my playlist on Neil Armstrong because for one, he is one of my favorite historical figures, and also, the Apollo 11 mission which he was an instrumental part of has many interesting components which I thought would be exciting to build a playlist around.

I then refreshed myself on the history of both Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 mission. Next, I scoured the internet for songs that I thought conveyed the physical and emotional experiences that Neil may have gone through during the mission. For instance, Elton John’s “Rocket Man” masterfully interprets and relays how Neil may have felt during the mission through a melancholy tone and lyrics that convey the feelings of loneliness and separation from earth and loved ones. Then I found YouTube Videos for each song that if possible had a space theme to them.

The next step, which was to analyze the songs, was more difficult than I had anticipated. Although I could sense that the songs I had found fit perfectly with the emotional and or physical experiences I was trying to portray through them, it was often difficult to explain in words the way the song made me feel. Another part of the assignment that was also helpful for analyzing the songs was to select parts of the lyrics that were significant to the message that was being conveyed. Case in point, I selected the lyrics from "I'm Here (Another Planet)" by Juno Reactor and The Creatures - All was surreal / On this planet / I felt so regal / It was so romantic - to convey how unreal and fantastic it would be to walk on the lunar surface in gravity only one-sixth as powerful as earth's.

Finally, after I found all the material I wanted, I began to start formatting the playlist on the Litcast website. I wanted to make my playlist aesthetically appealing so I spent a lot of time playing around with the html code to make it look the way I wanted. For example, I had to create a table and cells in order to have the background with twinkling stars that I wanted. As you can see, there were many steps involved in creating this playlist, however, the end result is certainly worth it!

Learning more about the Apollo 11 mission's history was another aspect of this project that I found fascinating and educational. Although I was aware of the basic aspects of the mission, I was unfamiliar with aspects like the Lunar Receiving Lab where the astronauts were tested extensively for any signs of exotic infection before being released.

Ultimately, I am very excited to share my playlist with you. I hope you find it a memorable multimedia experience.

Neil Armstrong - One Giant Leap for Mankind Playlist (Original)

The second revision of my playlist adds more substance to the analysis of sounds and lyrics for certain songs that were lacking a strong sense of depth with regards to these areas. Another improvement was that the Rocky Theme Song video was restored. Other changes include grammar fixes and some additional minor structural touches.

Neil Armstrong - One Giant Leap for Mankind Playlist (Revised)

In the final version of the Neil Armstrong - One Giant Leap for Mankind Playlist I continued to enhance the depth of analysis with regards to the sounds and lyrics and how these connect with the emotional and physical experiences Neil felt while on the Apollo 11 mission. In addition to more deeply analyzing songs like Elton John's "Rocket Man" I also removed a picture that is no longer available online and corrected a few more grammatical errors.

Neil Armstrong - One Giant Leap for Mankind Playlist (Final)

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Podcasts:

After brainstorming various artists and topics, I decided that I would take a trip to Margaritaville and create a podcast about how Jimmy Buffett can be considered a literary figure by discussing how his songs, like works of literature, reflect their social and historical contexts, tell us something about humans and their desires (such as for escape), and address common motifs like work, family, and change. In (very) short, to accomplish this I compiled clips from Jimmy Buffet interviews that dated back as early as the 1970s, listened to and cut the most important segments of Jimmy Buffett’s top songs, and then I weaved these interview clips and song samples together with narration in order to point out and highlight key literary motifs throughout the podcast in a fun and enjoyable way. Although it ‘sounds’ easy, this process was quite painstaking and time consuming.

Through the process of creating the Jimmy Buffett Podcast, I learned a multitude of new skills about how to compose a literary assignment in the audio format. Although the end result of podcast project is a ‘simple’ mp3 file, the mechanics behind its production are much more complex. The essential multimedia tool for this project was the Audacity audio editor which served as a work bench for the podcast’s fundamental building blocks (segments of narration, clips from interviews, and samples from songs). Another useful tool was zamzar.com, a powerful website that can be used to convert between media formats. For the podcast, zamzar was primarily utilized to convert YouTube videos to audio clips that could then be imported into Audacity. Even armed with these great tools, the effort that is required to create a meaningful and entertaining podcast is no easy task.

Importing and editing all the audio pieces together in Audacity to create the perfect podcast presents many challenges. Composing with audio can be quite difficult and tedious. Organizing and presenting your ideas through the audio medium requires careful use of transitions, concise use of information, and precise timing. In addition to the technical aspects of this project, learning how to discuss what makes an artist literary through the use of songs and interviews was also engaging. I really enjoyed learning more about Jimmy Buffett and showing how he can be considered a literary figure by listening to and analyzing some of his most popular songs and interview clips. The Podcast assignment taught me a lot about how to work with a new media format and effective ways to express ideas through audio, while at the same time helped develop my knowledge of literary analysis. In the end, this trip to Margaritaville turned out to be one heck of a vacation.

Ready to go to Margaritaville?

Play the Jimmy Buffett Podcast (Original)

In the final cut of the Jimmy Buffett Podcast, I focused on the technical aspects of this multifaceted project in order to improve the sound quality. First, I replaced the poor quality recordings of the Jimmy Buffett interview clips with new high quality versions that Professor Anderson helped me obtain with a special software program. In addition, I experimented with the "Noise Removal" tool in the Audacity program in order to remove the static sound that was present in the background during some segments of the original podcast. In some places in the podcast, I think the noise removal feature improved the sound quality; however, in others, it seems that it may have simply removed the static and added a "tin can" quality to the audio. Nonetheless, I think the overall sound quality is much improved.

Play the Jimmy Buffet Podcast (Final)

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Collages:

Working on the literary collages was a great exercise. Not only did the collage assignment facilitate learning about the intricacies of Gimp and Photoshop, it also provided a means to both create a character study and analyze a poem through two separate collections of images. In addition, each of the collages required searching for images on sites like flickr and google images that reflected the character’s identity or the motif of the poem and then subsequently integrating them into a single composition.

Through the combination of the American flag waving in the background, the Apollo 11 at takeoff, and Neil Armstrong linking the Earth and the Moon, the first version of my character collage on Neil Armstrong (above, left) attempts to portray the patriotic spirit and adventurous attitude of the first man to step on the moon, while at the same time capturing the cinematic quality of his historic feat that was watched by millions of Americans on TV with the manipulation of the galaxy image to look like a projector at a movie theater.

For my revised character collage (above, right) I decided to take the cinematic theme to the next level and really make Neil Armstrong larger than life. I used various effects and layering techniques in order to create a very cinematic and futuristic background which as a classmate remarked is "perfect" for Neil Armstrong. Ultimately, I hope the vibrant and dramatic colors, bold effects, and image selection come together to reflect the identity of Neil Armstrong and the impact his first steps on the moon had on the world.

The task of the poetry collage was to represent a poem visually. Therefore, the first version of my Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Coliseum” Collage (above, left) is a composition of elements that portray the vigor of the Roman Coliseum and what it represents in the face of the passage of time as observed by the author. In the poetry collage in particular, I was able to learn a lot about the interpretation and representation of a poem which is an invaluable skill that can be applied in many ways across all aspects of literature.

The most significant changes in the revised Poetry Collage (above, middle) are the replacement of the outline of a man kneeling who many people said was hard to see with an image of Edgar Allan Poe from one of his portraits, the re-coloring of the gladiator, and refining the edges around the rock with the lizard.

In the final version of Poe's "The Coliseum" Collage (above, right) I darkened the coliseum with the "solarize" effect in Photoshop to increase the contrast between the coliseum and the figures in the forefront.

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Film Composition

After reading the Cormac McCarthy novel No Country For Old Men about an illicit drug deal gone wrong over fall break and watching the Best Picture winning film adaption in class, we moved on to creating our very own film composition. We were given three options in order to help us learn to read and write about films through exploring how films can be used as mediums for telling stories and editing bits of film to express our ideas. I chose the third option which was to develop a satirical mashup. Although I was not initially very fond of the ruthless, soulless, fearless Anton Chigurh, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between him and the Terminator.

Consequently, I chose the Terminator for the angle of my Film Composition, “Terminator: The Anton Chigurh Chronicles.” My satirical ‘episode’ aims to seamlessly bring the Terminator into the setting of the award-winning film No Country For Old Men. After failing to kill John Connor, the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) goes back in time to the 1980s for another mission: to kill Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a future leader of the resistance against the machines. This is very ironic because Chigurh, as portrayed in the film, is a ‘killing machine’; however, in ‘the Chronicles’ his role is now a future leader of the resistance against the machines and defender of humanity. Now that you know the basic plot of the film, I would like to give you some insight into the production process.

Producing “Terminator: The Anton Chigurh Chronicles” involved bringing together many of the skills I learned and developed throughout the Computers and English Studies Seminar. The techniques I garnered during the creation of the Podcast, in particular, such as cutting and transitioning audio files, where expanded upon to include cutting and transitioning scenes of movies which contain both audio and video components. Whereas for the podcast, the Audacity program was used, the film composition required a different program. I had to decide between working with the Windows Movie Maker program or Adobe Premiere. Because I wanted to give myself the best opportunity to create an outstanding, professional-quality film, I opted to download and take advantage of the 30-day trial of the newly-released Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 program.

Another part of the production process was obtaining the scenes required for composing the film. Professor Anderson gave the class a head start by cutting and uploading many of the best scenes from No Country For Old Men. Moreover, after posing my idea for the film composition to him, he generously provided me with the original Terminator movie from which I pulled many scenes. Finally, I obtained any other scenes and soundtracks I needed from YouTube.

With all the materials I needed on my hard-drive and a vision for what I wanted to create in mind, I began editing and rearranging scenes as well as adding music and title frames to create the first episode of “Terminator: The Anton Chigurh Chronicles.” Several tens of hours and hundreds of cuts later, the film was complete and ready to be uploaded to YouTube, a prime example of how computers and the internet have facilitated sharing engagement with literature. Using multiple films and source materials increased the difficulty of the production process, but also added to the entertainment factor. Clearly, a multimedia composition is much more exciting than one made up of only audio or images. Ultimately, the film composition was my favorite assignment of the semester because it brought together much of what we had learned from the previous assignments as well as allowed us to take those skills to the next level while at the same time providing us a lot of freedom to be creative in the process.

Without further ado, please enjoy Terminator: The Anton Chigurh Chronicles which I have embedded here:

Watch Terminator: The Anton Chigurh Chronicles in High Quality on YouTube.

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Blog Posts & Comments:

The Litcasting website is an integral part of the Computers and English Studies Seminar. Not only does it serve as a hub for compiling each student's works, but it also is an invaluable resource for online discussion that advances one of the primary goals of the class - sharing engagement with literature. This website acts a portal through which students can actively engage one another through blog posts, comments, reflections, and other 'casts'. This interaction among students allows for a better overall course experience that is evident in higher quality portfolios that can, in part, be attributed to peer feedback and evaluation. For instance, the comments I received on my collages and podcast were helpful when I was revising them and thus played an instrumental role in enhancing my portfolio. Ultimately, some of my weekly engagements include:

My first cast was a brief discussion about how Edgar Allan Poe's great poem, "The Coliseum," embodies many of the literary techniques Poe is renowned for such as alliteration, parallelism, and metaphor, all of which contribute to its lyrical, yet musical quality.

My first reflection discussed what a 'blast' it was creating the Neil Armstrong playlist.

As a Jason Bourne Fan, I commented on Travis' playlist.

I listened to and commented on Kevin's 3EB Podcast which I thought was "great overall!"

Another podcast I enjoyed listening to and made a comment on was Mark's The Clash Podcast which in my opinion had a very conversation feel with a strong intro.

The third podcast that I thought had "a lot of strong points" and commented on was Kelsey's The Beatles Podcast.

I made a reply on Scott's Blog Post "Thoughts on Political Satire" in which I discussed the question is political satire good, bad, or both?

I commented on Kevin's blog post about gimp and photoshop brushes & tutorials.

I replied to a comment by Scott on my Poe's "The Coliseum" Collage.

I wrote a reflection on my Jimmy Buffet Podcast titled "Podcast In Paradise."

I reflected on the character identity and poetry collages.

I made a reply to a comment on Joey's the Joker Collage.

I commented on Jordan's Sheriff Jack Carter Collage.

I replied to a comment made about The Tyger Collage by Jordan.

I made a comment about the brush strokes on Kevin's poetry collage.

I commented on Gon's Chuck Bartowski Playlist Revision.

I replied to a comment on Scott's Blog post "No Country for Old Men: Initial Thoughts/Reactions."

I discuss how Chigurh's world view is that the outcome of every event is the result of the intersection between the sum of individuals actions and chance on Jordan's blog about "Who is Chigurh?"

I commented on the similarities between O Brother where Art Thou and the Odyssey.

I discussed the way that Chigurh always seems to be one step ahead of the law and how this may have contributed to Sheriff Bell's decision to retire.

I commented on Scott's Madame Bovary Collage Revision.

I made a suggestion about the layering of the images in Travis' revised James Bond collage.

I wrote a blog post about the improved sound quality of the 2nd Cut of my Jimmy Buffett Podcast.

I discussed the revisions I made to my poetry collage and asked the class which version they liked better.

I wrote a blog post inviting everyone to check out my film composition, Terminator: The Anton Chigurh Chronicles.

I commented on Emily's excellent use of framing in her Water For Elephants Collage #2.

I commented on Kevin's Harry Potter Collage (version 2.0).

I commented on Ashton's Pirates of Agrabah film composition.

I made a suggestion with respect to the cropping on Joey's the Joker Collage.

I replied to a comment made about my Neil Armstrong Collage revision.

I commented on and made a suggestion for Jordan's Edward Cullen Character Collage.

I made a comment about the Blake's "The Tyger" Poetry Collage.

I commented on Caitlin's The Sound of 8 Mile Film Composition.