Welcome back from Fall Break! The UNC campus was buzzing with excitement and out of town guests this week due to the Homecoming game on Saturday and the Halloweekend festivities. As everyone has begun anticipating the end of the semester and the start of the holiday season, ENGL 105 began their last unit project this week! While some of us are already on winter break in our minds, I am sure all of us will pull through and create some amazing work. In addition, Taylor Swift ever so kindly released a new album on October 20th that I am sure is helping many of us get through the last few weeks. I know it has been helping me.
The students of ENGL 105 arrived in class on Tuesday, October 25th at 8am to a whole new group to work with for the final unit project. My group has some familiar faces and some that I am excited to get to know. The holidays are clearly on my group’s mind as we chose the name “Christmas.” At least this choice was a little less aggressive than group 2, who chose to name themselves “your mom.”
Our final unit project focuses on writing in the humanities. We are analyzing a short story of our choice and creating a video essay. To gain a deeper understanding of the humanities and the values of those who write within humanities subjects, each group answered forum questions designed to deepen our knowledge. For example, my group answered several questions about close readings and gained a better understanding of how to do them and why they are so important in the humanities. When each group was done answering their questions, we came together and shared our new knowledge. I personally did not know much about close readings before this activity and feel that my new skills will be useful when reading and analyzing short stories in this unit.
At the end of class on Tuesday, we brainstormed and searched for short stories that we wanted to use as the focus of our project. We discussed our choices with our groups and got their feedback. Each person in my group chose a short story that I had never read before, so I am excited to read about their stories when we give peer feedback later on. The story I chose is “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury. It is a story I read freshman year of high school, but it has always stuck with me because of its devastatingly sad ending. I am interested in getting to analyze its deeper meaning and Bradbury’s writing choices.
A rough draft of Feeder 3.1 was due for our class on Thursday. This feeder was a worksheet of eight questions that prompted us to ponder the deeper meaning of our short story and analyze the author’s word choice, punctuation, and style. On the worksheet, we picked out pivotal passages in our short story and dissected them for significance. In class, we discussed how to properly cite sources in MLA 9th format, how to conduct an effective literary analysis of a text and completed our Feeder 3.1 rough draft workshop with partners in our groups. While peer reviewing, I read about the short story one of my groupmates picked called “The Killers” by Ernest Hemingway. It was an interesting story about two hit men trying to kill their target that seemed to have the dominant theme of fear and how it impacts people.
We left class on Thursday with the feedback from our peers to look over and finalize our draft for submission next week. I think I am really going to enjoy this unit. I have always liked “All Summer in a Day” and am eager to dissect it and get to know the story even better. Hopefully most of us will be able to wake up early on Tuesday for class next week after a long night of trick-or-treating and other Halloween activities Monday night. I hope everyone can enjoy these last few weeks and appreciate their experiences from their first semester at college!
Featured Image:
Google Images. Creative Commons License.