When I enrolled in this class I expected it to be much like many of the other English classes I have taken. I though we would read literary works, discuss them in class, and write papers. I figured that ultimately the class would culminate in a 10-20 page paper. I'm happy to say that I was wrong. I've never had an English class that challenged me to examine literature through a medium other than pen or paper (or rather laptop and MS Word). Unfortunately numerous personal and technical hardships have limited many of my efforts and I wish I had taken this class during a less physically, mentally, and emotionally trying semester. Mishaps aside, this class has allowed me to think outside the box (which is great but I’m very rarely in the box). I have thorough enjoyed the opportunities to study literature from atypical views. I also really liked the fact that literary works found in the book were not the only works studied, and students were allowed to examine literature outside the text book that might not otherwise be represented. I think that students gain valuable perspectives from challenging the typical norms of what is literary and literature is represented (through photo collages, examining music as works of literature, videos, etc.).




Character Playlist
This was the first assignment of the year and I chose to represent Pecola Breedlove from Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”. I really wanted to get across the pain and ridicule that Pecola faced. In addition Toni Morrison makes a lot of points about beauty and it’s relation to African Americans in this book and I wanted to illustrate those ideas as well. I knew of several songs that dealt with pain and beauty and I was even able to find a song that incorporated pain with the theme of blue eyes. The most important thing to me when choosing songs were the words or the overall message. The rhythm and mood were not so important because for this particular character I wanted to tell her story through song and lyrics. With my first attempt I approached it with a very “by the book” approach. I chose songs and gave brief explanations of how they related and/or why I chose them. There wasn’t much creative expression involved. However when I revised the playlist I actually stepped inside some of the characters and explained how the song related from their point of view. It was like I took on the persona of certain characters and wrote the explanations in their “own” words. I really liked the revision because it has a little more “personality” and creative flair than the original.
Playlist (revised)
Playlist (original)

Collages
The collages were by far my (second) favorite assignment. With my first collages I was learning the software, kind of getting a feel for everything. I learned a tremendous amount about the basic editing involved in making these types of collages (creating masks, erasing, cropping, adjusting transparency, etc.). I have never done anything like this and the process was very exciting. Getting feedback from my first collages I was looking forward to taking some suggestions as well as enhancing my skills and doing new and different things with the images. Unfortunately my computer crashed and I lost both of the original collages. I expected to just redo them even though it would be a lot of work. I installed and reinstalled Photoplus on my laptop SEVERAL times only to learn that the software is incompatible with my Vista (my operating system). I then tried using the photo editing software installed on my computer but that was mainly for working with digital pictures and doing things like red eye reduction. I then tried installing other free photo editing software only to find that these programs didn’t offer the same editing tools that I wanted and was accustomed to. Finally I gave in to my frustration and decided to let the originals stand as my final collages.

Character Collage
For the character collage I chose to represent a character from one of my favorite books “The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint”. This story is about a half-white half Apache Indian boy who has his head run over by a mail truck. His mother was an alcoholic and Mint eventually went to live at and Indian boarding school where he endured many (very comical) hardships. My background was an image of Indian land and in the center I placed an Indian boy. In the feathers of the boy’s headdress I placed an mail truck and angled it as if it were driving into his head. I placed the word miracle at the top of the collage because it was one of the most important words of the story and stood as a representation of Edgar. I also chose a picture of an Indian boarding school and placed it behind the boy because the boarding school was something in his past, and something he had overcome. Because alcohol was also a central factor in Edgar’s life I wanted to place it very close to him. If I was able to revise this collage I would remove the beer bottles (I agree that they seem kind of out of place) and would place a beer bottle in the headdress in much the same fashion as the mail truck.
Poem Collage
For the poem collage I decided to represent Langston Hughes’ “The Trumpet Player: 52nd Street”. I think I chose this poem because Hughes is one of my favorite poets. Also I liked the imagery that played in my head as I read the poem. Because the poem focuses mainly on the trumpet player, I wanted the trumpet player image to be the most prominent image in my collage. I also didn’t want the collage to feel cluttered and chose to represent only a few choice images from the poem. I picked a few lines from the poem to represent:
• “The Negro/With the trumpet at his lips/Had dark moons of weariness/Beneath his eyes”
For the background or central image I chose a black man playing the trumpet. I found a picture of a sad moon and placed it under his eyes to represent the “moons of weariness”.
• “ Where the smoldering memory/Of slave ships”
I wanted this image to be especially powerful because slavery has had profound impacts on this society. I chose a picture of a slave ship where slaves were being tossed overboard and placed it in the trumpet player’s head. By placing the image in the head and making it semi-transparent I thought it would give a memory-like feel.
• “The music/From the trumpet at his lips/Is honey/Mixed with liquid fire”
I really liked this line but I wasn’t exactly sure how to incorporate it. I decided to play on the color of honey and liquid fire and music notes. I painted the music notes gold and red-orange. Had I been able to do revisions I definitely would have changed the image in the head. I would have moved the slave ship into one of those thought bubbles to simulate a memory. I also would have painted the music notes with actual pictures of honey and fire rather than simply painting them with colors.

Annotations
I thought this assignment was actually kind of difficult. Going through and explaining or annotating things was hard for me. It’s one thing to explain the overall message of a poem, but explaining particular words/phrases was more challenging for me. Despite my initial hesitations I pressed on and completed all ten.

Blog Postings And Comments
This was probably the hardest assignment to follow. The projects were so interesting and required so much thought and time, that I often forgot to post. When I did post I tried to not only answer the posed question, but to also offer a thoughtful reflection of the material. With my comments I tried not to dismiss other people’s thoughts but to see where they got there idea and either support their assertions or offer a differing point of view.

Blog Postings
Death In Texas

A Good Man

Comments
Work

Girl/Sweat

Lucky

Video
Last but certainly not least there was the video. I was very skeptical when I first read the assignment. I wasn't sure how the whole creating a video thing would work. I started to think about what I wanted my video to be about; maybe race in America, a music artist with exceptional lyrical talent, or book I really like. Ultimately I decided to end where I began: with Toni Morrison. I think she is an exceptional writer, speaker, African American woman. She has blazed a path for those of us in later generations inspiring us with writing that is raw, gripping and real. I definitely felt she was important enough to do a video on, and so I set out to represent Toni Morrison. With all that she has written my video could have easily been ten minutes long. For time's sake I chose to depict a small amount of biographical info and three of her novels. For the part about her novels I felt that it was important to show some of the prominent themes in the book and I selected images that corresponded with each theme. The process of actually making the video, selecting images and music was kind of easy. I was able to find some really good images. I chose Erykah Badu's "On & On" as the background music because I think that both Badu and Morrison are strong women and I really just like the song in general. I had a lot of fun learning to use the storyboard to import and sequence the images. I also learned how to play with text overlays and different transitions and effects. One thing i did have to watch out for was timing. If I changed to duration of one image the whole timeline changed and my text overlays shifted and didn't always stay with their intended image. Overall the video was extremely fun and educational and I thoroughly enjoyed making it.
Video