portfolio

So, I did my portfolio and I'm not quite sure where to post it other than the wikispace.... so imma do it here too:

Christine's Portfolio

Thanks for an enriching class y'all.

Culminating Assignment for Students

Use the internet to research as much as you can about Gregory Corso. Where is he from? What kind of personal stories can you find? What interested him about literature? About San Francisco? What pictures can you find? Videos? With everything that you find about Corso, use Zotero to keep track of your information and your references. Once you have all your Corso information collected on Zotero, BUILD A GLOG on glogster.com about Gregory Corso! Include as many meaningful pictures, videos, quotes as you can. Then invite your group members to view your finished glog (groups of 3-4 will be assigned).

Use your blog at blogger.com to review how you think your glog relates to what you learned about your other group members' glogs. How does your writer relate to the writers that your other group members explore? What does that say about the SF beat movement? How does your artist stand out from the rest? How are all of them relevant today? How are they relevant to what seems to be the San Francisco identity?

Glog Project

The glogger project was wonderful. I loved the group work and for something so individualistic, we worked really well together to make a glog page that we all liked (good team work Jessica, Alden & Caroline).

BUT.........

SERIOUSLY? wikispaces makes me homicidal ........

after having such a great experience that culminated our reading, class participation, interpretation, and discussion, we have to then post it on to wiki-crap-spaces.... I honestly don't know why we use it.... Its like having a delicious meal... and then a crappy dessert.. it leaves a horrible taste in your mouth...

Wiki-spaces...... you suck...

and if you don't know how to find your own glog address... you suck too..

Whitman Assignment Revised

" A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? . . . . I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark,

and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child . . . . the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the

same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves."

Cemeteries have historically been a unique place where the living meet the dead. Before bodies of the deceased are laid to "rest", there are a multitude of customs and traditions that some societies abide by to reflect their belief structures. In Whitman's time, there was a movement towards rural cemeteries that was heavily influenced by early American Romantic ideas of art and nature. Even in the above passage, you can see there are connections between romantic ideas of life and death that are reflected in the way landscapes and gardens are perceived.

When thinking about a cemetery as a romantic space, reflect on this passage from Walt Whitman's "Blades of Grass" (1855). What do you think Whitman is trying to say about life, death, existence in the universe? What meaning can you infer from this portion being set in a rural (or garden) cemetery? How does this passage relate to other themes in the poem?

For the first phase of your assignment, write a reflective, free versed journal entry to work out some thoughts about this passage and its meaning. This journal entry shall not be more than 1 page and there need not be any particular argumentative structure unless you feel compelled. This is to help you construct some thoughts about the passage in relation to the rest of the text so that you can then formulate an argumentative statement about the passage.

Then compose a 3-5 page short formal essay with an argumentative statement addressing some of the questions posed above, supported by textural evidence from the poem to support your claims. You may use outside sources from academically reliable resources if you wish but it is merely optional. Use the connections you have made (or have started to make) in your journal entry about life, death, bodies, landscape, american romanticism, etc.

Whitman Assignment

" A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? . . . . I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark,

and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child . . . . the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the

same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves."

By reflecting on this passage from Walt Whitman's "Blades of Grass" (1855), what do you think Whitman is trying to say about life, death, existence in the universe? What meaning can you infer from this portion being set in a cemetery? How does this passage relate to other themes in the poem? Write a reflective, free versed journal entry to work out some thoughts about this passage and its meaning. This journal entry shall not be more than 1 page and there need not be any particular argumentative structure unless you feel compelled. This is to help you construct some thoughts about the passage in relation to the rest of the text so that you can then formulate an argumentative statement about the passage. Then compose a 3-5 page short formal essay with an argumentative statement addressing some of the questions posed above, supported by textural evidence from the poem to support your claims. You may use outside sources from academically reliable resources if you wish but it is merely optional.

Where the dead and the living meet

Themes of mortality and landscape reoccur throughout Whitman's "Blades of Grass". The relationship between the living existence and spiritual existence can be spatially represented through landscape, nature, architecture and the human/spiritual agency within that space.

What comes to mind when considering the dead (spiritual) and the living (mortal) in relation to landscape is a cemetery. The imagery of vegetation, stone, architecture, transcendent spirituality, bodily presence all coexist to shed insight on the interconnectedness of the different stages of life. The living come to visit the dead, the dead lay rotting away, freshly cold bodies are lowered into the earth, plants, grass and flowers sprout from the earth that engulfs the bodies, all of this is very interesting.

Using a the cemetery as a cultural object in which to place some thematic motifs in Whitman's "Blades of Grass:, I would ask that one examine the agency of the life cycle in this poem. What is the relationship between spiritual transcendence and physical deterioration,land scape and life, ritual and space. And in light of all these questions, what about one's findings deepens the understanding of this work as a classically American work?

The DIIGO ATE YOUR BABY!!!!

haha... I just HAD to say it... anyway...

SURPRISINGLY, Diigo was not so hard once it was installed and my computer froze twice. The little interactive icons are cute and I really like commenting on other peoples' stickies. I loved that Ilse highlighted a word and put in the definition to it... I do that all the time when writing in my books... which brings me to the criticisms:

1) it kinda slows down my browser. I think it is because there is so much to load, it is completely understandable... but I am high-speed-spoiled and any lag on my load time is like an eternity.

2) have you guys ever bought a used book and someone wrote all over it? It's frustrating because instead of reading the text and YOU being the first one to think of something and write in the margins... SOMEONE ELSE BEAT YOU! and WORSE, they might be more articulate than you... darnit.... I didn't come here to be outwitted...

( to be honest... I pencil-ravage my books and by the time I'm done with them, I feel a sorry for the next person that picks it up to read... all used up... those... the sad remains of my reading process)

But as a whole, I DO really like this DIIGO thing... I can see this teaming up with book clubs and ebooks or googlebooks or whatever... This is a very exciting new tool.

Before I F*** it Up Again

I am aware of my current passive aggression...

BUT

the lack of direction of the wiki-space is not only frustrating, its disheartening. I do not want to participate at all, unknowingly creating maniacal links to who-the-hell-knows-where... Sorry but I had no idea what was going on...

but before I loose it all here it all is...

http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2721

http://library.duke.edu/specialcollections/collections/jazzindex.html

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/mnchome.html

ilearn... you suck.

I don't know about you all, but I feel that ilearn is not very user friendly. Something about the interface gets me lost and there is not much information on our page. I think a forum is good to have between classmates, peers, etc, but it should be supplemental to the classroom conversation. Although, if we said it already in class, what is the point in saying it again online? It's nice to have something like ilearn (although somehow I like blackboard better) so that we can access course materials at any time, any day, but sometimes its so demanding that you miss an assignment before even knowing that its been assigned. It's like my bank of america online banking. I should, but I don't check my balance everyday... BECAUSE I'M SCARED OF WHAT ITS GONNA TELL ME! I don't check ilearn because I WANT TO and I'M EXCITED TO SEE WHAT'S NEW! I check it because I have to and I need to know what my next assignment is!

RSS feeds.... ARE US too lazy?

RSS feeds make it even easier and faster to get instant information from whatever site. But I wonder what value it holds when it comes to an academic setting. We used the RSS feed to get live feeds of our classmate's blogs, and I think that helps with keeping the conversation and dialogue going within the classroom, among the students. BUT...I am concerned about getting overloaded with information.. and when I say information, its really more about opinions... and how would I put all these opinions to use? Not in a paper I wouldn't use it. Who in their right mind would use a blog in an academic paper, and risk a sub-par grade. Anyway, I think blogs are good or communication and RSS feeds are a good short cut for getting updates, but I really feel that we are not working hard enough in our current day for the opinions we pretend to want to hear. I prefer book clubs, lecture halls, class discussions--I personally like working harder to communicate with people... and even when I do jump into the academic conversation, I would like add my dialogue and know who I am talking to. I want a real conversation.. perhaps not an electronic dialogue.

Charles Dickens

I'm taking a course on 19th century mystery and one of the books we started reading is Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend. It is....... huge. And from what I remember from Great Expectations, I am not looking forward to this. There is something about Dickens that really bores me. It just feels so inaccessible. I am aware of his themes of nouveau riche vs. old money, breaking through class structures, la la la.... but the only thing I can think about when reading his works is "Why and how the hell are these people in the same room together?" It never seems like any of them like each other. I feel like Dickens just throws them together and makes up some kind of opportunity in between and VOILA! Oh, I don't know. I need help getting excited about Our Mutual Friend. Anyone read this before? Any words of encouragement?

Nevertheless, I'm sure its not as dreadful as I am making it out to be.

My arm is tingly

The great thing about technology is that we are sharing so much information easily and OH SO QUICKLY. But seriously, setting this blog roll up, the click click clicking, the copy pasting, the multiple browser windows-- it's all so tedious. I miss paper.