Technology

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As opposed to most college students I think, I have taken most of my courses online, with relatively few classes in an actual classroom. The main difference for me is that in a classroom, the time has been set aside and solely dedicated for school. Usually I have been able to do the majority of my classwork in class and take very little of it home. There is also the added benefit of  teacher and classmate interaction which, though possible, occurs much less frequently and spontainiously. On the flip side, online classes have allowed me the flexability to work whenever I want, doing as much (or as little) as I have the time for right then. Therein lies the biggest challenge for online classes: if you don’t have a passion for it, it takes effort to keep up, and if you dislike the subject, it may be almost impossible to give it all of your effort. That would be my recommendation there; if it is a subject that you like, it should be just fine to take online. In an English class, especially one focused primarily on writing papers of any leangth, online may serve just as well as a classroom based course. Afterall, there is often little need for instruction of much length before an assignment is submitted, and most of the interactions afterward are focused on what the student can improve on the assignment.

As for the last three questions for this assignment, I really don’t know what to answer. To be honest, most of the gadgets that we used made it harder for me to get my assignments done. I did enjoy getting feedback from other students on the blog, but like my own comments, they get posted only because they have to be posted. No one looks beyond the few posts that they have to in order to get their responses out, and NO ONE looks at older posts. It’s not a bad thing, it is just how it works. As for the final presentation, to me it was hard because I didn’t know how “pretty” it had to be, so I didn’t even know where to start or when to quit. To be honest, I think it was rather dull and simple, but it fulfilled the assignment. Of all of the things we used this semester, I must say in all honesty I will likely never use again. (Except maybe Extranormal, just for fun. It looked kind of cool, but too cool for school…)

Prezi-tation

Such a thing, unfortunately, cannot be imbedded in my blog. So as per the instructions of the Prezi web site, here is the link to my sweet (or maybe not so sweet) Prezi.

Reflections of a Stretched and Altered Mind

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This has been a very different sort of English class. I’ve learned a lot about myself- likes and dislikes, skills I have and things that really need improvement- and I hope to say I’m better from it. As I have said many times before, I don’t enjoy writing; I never have. However, at least I know I can come up with something now. Instead of taking forever just to write a single page and days to finish an assignment, I can get started and have a decent draft in as little as 30 minutes… sometimes. The only way I could do this is by deciding that I couldn’t take the assignment too seriously. If I actually tried to write to the best of my ability taking the most professional attitude towards the subject, I would never keep up. I learned to write how I would speak and write what I would think. The sheer volume of writing to be done has been the hardest, most frustrating and best things this class did for me. Don’t get me wrong, I never want to do it again, but now any other class will be simple by comparison!

In contrast, I have always loved to read. Yet again, this class threw me for a loop. Instead of just looking at the story or poem itself, I was encouraged to “look beyond what I see” (Lane) and try to find the meanings hidden deep within the texts. For example, look at the poetry reading. I spent long hours pouring over these texts wondering, “How am I supposed to know what they were thinking from this?!? I can hardly understand what they did say.” In the end I had to just make up something to get started writing and then the rest came afterwards. It was the same with the final project. It started with an accident on my part. I knew that the Narnia stories had a lot of symbolism in them, but I got it in my head that it was J. R. R. Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings that I started my project on. Now, I thought that at least there would be something there, after all the man was a linguist and created 11 languages by himself, not to mention the cultures and peoples that he created and detailed in his stories. In this I was a little disappointed; not only did he specifically deny and discourage such talk, but everything in it could be tied twenty different ways! In the forward to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Mr. Tolkein states,

“As for any inner meaning or ‘message’, it has been in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit…. Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”

                                                                                    (Tolkein xvi-xvii)

Looking at other stories I have read and what the authors have stated of them, this is often the case with many pieces of literature: all too often, we try to drum up grand themes that in all probability didn’t exist in the mind of the author. In such cases, especially when the author is deceased and cannot address the question directly, who is to say what meanings are right or wrong, or if there even is one? Case in point: all of the Frankenstein papers....

            All this is a little outside the realms of simple accounting, and goes against my very personality and reasoning, so I set it aside and don’t even bother. However, for the purposes of this course I believe that having only one of eleven learning outcomes finish a little shaky is OK.

Sources:

Lane, Nathan, perf. The Lion King 1 1/2. Disney, 2004. DVD.

Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel. The Lord Of The Rings. One Volume Edition. Boston: Houton Mifflin Company, 1994. xvi-xvii. Print.