This class has seriously helped me through some hard times this semester. When I was super stressed, I would grab my Divergent book, or Walk Two Moons, and read chapter after chapter, all while thinking to myself “Look, I’m doing homework and relaxing!” The environment of the class made me want to be there, because I felt like everyone else wanted to be there too. I have read so many books recommended by my classmates this semester. It’s great to be in a class with other students who love to read, as well as being able to have an actual in depth discussion about the books.

While reading through some of my old blogs, I realized that I can pretty deep sometimes. Like look at this poem:

So much depends upon

A filled in scantron

And built up units

To get by in life

That shit is deep! In no other class that I have taken in college was I given the chance to write poetry. I don’t think I am that good or anything, but I do feel like it was fun and different. I have learned to look deeper into the meaning of things. Like when I analyzed what the why the book was titled “Kissing the Witch”

“I believe the book is called kissing the which because it is something someone would never think of doing. And I think the stories in this book are twisted in a way people never would have thought of or expected. So I think the title is a sort of lead in for how the book is.”

I also learned a lot more way to use technology to my advantage. I thought it was really cool to make a Facebook page for the main character in “Walk Two Moons”. Like you had mentioned in class, I think this is a great alternative to making students take a test or write a paper. With this assignment, I had to really analyze how the main character would talk, and things she would want to post online, as well as picture that related to the story. I could totally see myself using this assignment in my classroom if I have the right age group.

1. I think the text really wants the reader to think about how influential media and advertising can be. I feel like, to us, it is absolutely absurd to think that one day people will have live “feeds” implanted inside of their brains at birth, but then again, I am sure that if you went back 200 years ago and talk to people about how we live our lives today, they would think a lot of the things we do are just as absurd. I just think the text really wants the reader to consider how technology is today, and how it might change over a long period of time.

2. I actually made a few connections. Take the novel 1984 for example. Although a lot of it seems unrealistic, I actually did a report on just how accurate the novel is to today’s world in terms of privacy. I also have seen a statistic that the average person will see about 300 advertisements a day without even consciously knowing they are seeing (or hearing) them. They fact that this book shows how someone could have a feed of advertisements 24/7 inside their head and just kind of block them out when they need to is kind of like what we do now. By making these connections, I can see just how affected our society is by technology, as well as how much it can help/hurt us.

4. This text is actually really interesting. In a way, I can see how this book portrays the real world that I know, but I can also see how this book is a sort of fantasy world. Because it is set in the far future, the book has the basics of my real world, such as teenagers still acting like teenagers. However, it has the fantasy of the future, illustrating a trip to the moon for a weekend getaway. To the characters, this is their reality, but to me, it is new and very interesting. Although it is hard to imagine a world like the one lay out in the novel, the author does a great job at making it as believable as possible.

1. I really enjoyed both the article and the Ted talk, however, I feel as if the article talked more about the advantages of using comics in the classroom. I did find it very interesting how McCloud related comics to computers and how they can help comic books evolve into something more elaborate and inviting. I feel like both scholars are making a great point on how comics are a much bigger thing then just superheroes and children’s tails. They also both focus on how comics can give the reader a much deeper and complex way of taking in a story. McCloud says “The artist gives you something to see within the panels, and then gives you something to imagine between the panels.” This is a really cool concept that I have never thought of before. I is true that in between each panel, the reader has to think of what happened on their own, giving the reader a sort of control over the comic. As a future teacher, I really enjoyed how Versaci looked at using comic books in the classroom. He says “But by placing a comic book-the basic form of which they no doubt recognize-into the context of a classroom, teachers can catch students off guard in a positive way, and this disorientation has, in my experience, led students to become more engaged by a given work”, which I have never even considered doing. A teacher might imagine a comic book as being distracting or not as educationally helpful as a novel, but after reading this article, I would have to disagree. Being able to give a student something that both stimulates their visuals and challenges them to read and interpret everything on just one page can be very excited and education for them. Versaci says “reading comic books requires an active, though largely subconscious, participation on the part of the reader. Such participation has been referred to as “closure,” whereby the reader fills in the details of the empty space between the panels, and the result of this process is to “foster an intimacy … between creator and audience”. This is exactly what I’m talking about! Students have the opportunity to do so much with a comic book that they might not be able to do with a novel.

 

2. Reading Anya’s Ghost was very different than anything else I have had to read for a class. Most of the time for a class I would read a novel, short story, poem, or article, so reading a comic book was a really cool, new experience. When I have read comics in the past, it has mainly been just the Sunday comics, because I was never really into comic books. Going into this assignment, I assumed that the comic book style would be different than anything else I have read, which it was. It defiantly changed how I looked at comic books. I always assumed that they were either funny, or involved superheroes; both being very childish. After reading Anya’s Ghost, I realized that that comic books can be just as mature and have serious story lines as any other novel or poem out there. Versaci say “I lit upon a genre that is an ideal way for middle, secondary, and post-secondary school English teachers to accomplish what we need to do more of: energize classes and engage students, teach much needed analytical and critical thinking skills, and-most importantly-invite students to develop meaningful opinions about what constitutes literary merit”, and I couldn’t agree more. We do need to energized classes and engage students when it comes to literature. I can imagine using comics in just that way, to get students excited about literature, and to give them something new and unexpected.

1. I think William sees a farm. He might be imagining an average sized farm with chickens and maybe other things you would find on a farm. I am assuming it must not be that big since there is a wheel barrow instead of a farm tool that could carry a lot more stuff then that. It is probably winter or spring season since that red wheel barrow is has rain on it. He might have felt grateful to see that there is water on the wheel barrow because that means that it is raining, which is good for crops on a farm. He also might feel very concerned. I think the poem is saying that there are a lot of things that can depend of just one small thing, and without that one small thing, everything else could fall apart.

2. So much depends upon

A filled in scantron

And built up units

To get by in life