Authoring America

Final Portfolio

Posted December 13th, 2007 by Brandon Jones

Portfolio

Upon my entry of the Engl.128 course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I had absolutely no idea what was in store for the semester. If you were to ask me at he beginning of class what kind of activities we were going to be participating in, I would have been far away from the truth. My assumption would have guessed that our work would have been typical of most college coursework at the university. I probably would have said read a few books, write a few papers, take a few tests, then call it a day. Contrary to that belief, this course has challenged the robotic normalcy that I was accustomed to in school. In this technologically advanced age, computers are an essential item to acquiring information. As time progresses, our dependency on the computer increases as it is now a vital part of our school and work environments. I have witnessed this firsthand as I re-entered college after a 6 year absence. When I left, school laptops were optional; the internet was recreational; and Napster was free. In my first semester back, I didn’t have one single class in which I didn’t have to use a computer. I walked into my classes with a pen and paper and felt primitive. It was like I was Fred Flintstone chipping words into a large stone tablet. Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from computer illiterate, I just wasn’t use to using computers interactively in the classroom. It was my learning experience in my Engl.128 course that prepared me for what is in store. Participating in a series of classroom assignments, we incorporated literature with modern day technological advances. No longer do we have to partake in the strenuous days of all-nighters trying to write a paper about something that we’ll forget about a week later. In this course, we creatively used different computer applications to reinforce our comprehension of literature. These were such applications like Windows Movie Maker, Photoshop, and etc that helped facilitate the process of learning. It was an intriguing course using these different mediums to learn, share, and discuss our knowledge. Empowered with the knowledge of literature past and present, we were asked to engage in these activities to present our own interpretations through a web based classroom.

Playlist

On our first assignment we were asked to create a playlist. This playlist was to represent a favorite character, person, or idea from a wide variety of mediums. The playlist is suppose to embody the life of that specific person, character or idea. We were asked to utilize certain media tools like YouTube, and ITunes for visual and audio representation.When we were first asked to participate in this assignment, my initial reaction was to panic. I was very unsure of the person I wanted to feature in my playlist, not to mention the type of songs I should feature. This is a matter that I felt would take a great deal of consideration. Should I go from a comedic aspect, and use Michael Vick? I thought it would be ingenius to have songs that represented his emotions or maybe even from the dog's perspective. I dismissed that idea with the issue being so recent, it was still a touchy subject for most. I brainstormed various individuals and characters, who I thought were worthy of making a playlist. These were such great American influneces on our society like Spongebob Squarepants, Flava Flav, He-Man, and the list goes on. My final decision I found while having a discussion with a very disillusioned family member. I think we have all met the young teenager that is rebelling against everything that requires authority and discipline. The one that tries so hard to be different and to stand out from everyone else, but joins a gang where they all wear one exclusive color. It was the ignorance of the gang's influence on his young mind that I began informing this teen about black pride. I began telling him about the knowledge I had gained from college and my own readings about our African American heritage. One of the stories that stuck with him was about the Black Panthers, because of their influence on hip-hop. It was the artist and gangmember, The Game, he heard mention Huey Newton, and began inquiring about the Black Panther leader. I knew limited information about Newton myself, so I researched more about him. It was in my own search to find out more about Newton that I chose him for my playlist. I knew that after I chose a person that the songs would eventually follow.

Huey P. Newton

Collages

The second assignment we were asked to complete during the semester were two photo collages. The photo collage was a visual interpretation of a particular poem and literary work.The collage assignment was alot easier to put together being that I had no deep insightful meaning behind the two. I thought that the assignment was interesting because your putting a visible image behind your interpretation of a reading. You can take everything that the story brings to mind and create a canvas of your imagination. I felt like a new age Michelangelo or Picasso, gathering various images to incorporate in my assignment. The first collage was of Shakespeare's "Hamlet", inwhich I wanted to show the mindstate of the young prince. I gathered alot of pictures that represented different emotions or mindstates that symbolised Hamlet's affliction. Hamlet was a complex character with varoius emotions throughout the play. His emotional inconsistencies made it easy for me to gather numerous pictures that illustrated how he felt. My poem Collage was "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks. I really like the story behind the poem, so I tried to tell the story through the collage. I gathered pictures that were along the storyline inorder to grasp the poem's meaning.

Hamlet
We Real Cool

Annotations

The next assignment we participated in was the annotation of a few Emily Dickinson poems. If you have ever read Dickinson, then you know she was a poet that used alot of symbolism to illustrate her life. We were asked to use a webpage called Litwiki to create our own ideas about the symbolism she used in her poems. On this web site, we analyzed every possible word or phrase to gain a comprehensible meaning to what she was trying to portray. I found this assignment interesting because for once we were the critics. It was rather intriguing to see each of my classmates analysis of what the author is speaking about. There were no right or wrong answers, just our opinions in a site was organized like a internet round table discussion. Any question or insight that we had about a poem could be answered or debated by our peers.

Banish
Are you nobody too?
Somebody
Who Are you
House
And Immortality
Because I Could Not Stop For Death

Blog Postings

Throughout the duration of the semester, we were asked participate in a series of class readings. Instead of writing numerous reflection papers, we held online discussions through our blog postings. These postings were used to open a discussion about each of the readings in class. The blogs were similar to the annotation assignment because they allowed students to express their ideas. These ideas were contrived off the personal interpretations of member of the class. Each class member was given the opportunity to discuss their own opinions, as well as comment on the postings of our peers. This opened the classroom to various analysis of one particular reading. I enjoyed our blogs because I’m an introverted person. Usually in most classes, you are put on a soapbox to speak in front of several peers. The blogs decreased the pressure of having to speak in front of a classroom. I found it easier to speak my mind when I was able to think critically about the readings then post my answer. Any reservations I had about saying the wrong thing was thrown out the window as I was able to think more thoroughly about the material.

Readings
Hard Rock
Work and Identity
A Good Man Is Hard To Find
We Real Cool
Hardware

Podcast

Choice and Consequence

Video

Our final assignment for the semester was to create a video that symbolized a particular idea or movement. We used our knowledge of applications like Windows Movie Maker to create a movie clip to describe this idea. In order to express each of our ideas, we gathered various photo and audio clips that reinforced the theme of the movie. We embedded each item into our work to create a cohesive movie clip. I think this activity was probably the assignment that I enjoyed the most. It was an opportunity to use our own knowledge and incorporate that information into movie form. The activity was rather empowering, I felt like a poor man’s Ron Howard or Steven Spielberg. The end product was rewarding, being able to see a combination of ideas implemented effectively.

Harlem Renaissance

Brandon Jones's blog
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