How I Met the Learning Outcomes for English 251

1. Knowing Literary Terms.

I found the learning of literary terms easy when this class started, but when I was told to apply the terms into my analysis and arguments, and not just identify them, I realized that I didn’t know what that meant. The other thing which I found myself lacking in was bolding the literary terms, but I was making sure to make a habit of that. I wasn’t perfect at it, but I was starting to get the hang of it.

I realize, however, that with the taking of two different literary classes, I was also going over things in my English 291 class when I didn’t really realize it. I wish I had the files to back that up, but computers and I have not gotten along during this term, and I have lost 95% of the work I had saved on my desktop.

2. Know Literary Genres and texts.

For the genres which we read, or partially read, for this term, and sub-genres, I have included the following:

Fiction:

The Hobbit (Fantasy)

Oroonoko; or the Royal Slave (Novelette)

Poetry:

Beowulf (Epic)

            Do not go gentle into that good night (Vilville)

            Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Bob-and-Wheel)

            Faerie Queen (Allegory)

            The Rape of the Lock (Mock Epic)

            O Captain! My Captain (Free Verse)

Drama:

            A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Comedy)

            Oedipus Rex (Tragedy)

            Twelfth Night (Comedy/Satire)

Nonfiction:

            Under Fire (Memoir/Autobiography)

            Die Bibel/The Book of Mormon (Scripture)

            Confessions of St. Augustine (Autobiography)

3. Write Literary Arguments.
Looking for literary arguments from past posts, I have these posts:
analyzing A & P, Greasy Lake, including my argument for the Book of Mormon being taught as literature.

4. Engage literature creatively and socially.
Looking back for creativity, it is definitely evident looking through the genres of poetry, drama, and nonfiction. But it was a process before I actually became creative with my works, and took a bit longer to become more social with the things that I was reading for English 251 (including English 291). I had to make an effort to be social.
Dead Poets Society, Thomas Dylan, Theatre vs. Theater, Socializing, Media and Family, and the Book of Mormon.

5. Use emerging tools and pedagogy.

Being social with what I’m reading and writing with others has been mostly positive. That’s how I’m choosing to look at it anyway. When it came to socializing for the Final Paper, I posted blogs onto Facebook, my deviantArt account, and of my wife. Socializing about literature, with my experience, so far, only occurs only if people actually look at your posts. Unless you’re posting pictures, posting a status, or looking at other peoples’ lives, you won’t be noticed.

My favorite social website overall, besides deviantArt, is Goodreads.com. I love this website, and I visit it several times a day to either add more books to my “to-read” list, update my status on books I’m currently reading, being able to comment and rate books, and to see what books that my friends are reading, and even recommend books that others should read, Taylor and I have exchanged recommendation to each other.

In addition to Goodreads.com, I do appreciate being able to look up authors and follow their works.

How I Met the Learning Outcomes for English 251

1. Know Basic Literary Terms and Methods

I feel like I have met this outcome. While learning drama, I did a post where I focused on terms used in Drama. When analyzing a show, A Second Birth, I looked into the terms such as props, scripts and a summary of the show to describe the performance.When doing nonfiction, I looked into the literary terms and methods that were used in the bible, especially things like foreshadowing. Over the term, I believe I have gotten to know the terms well enough for literary conversations.

2. Know Basic Literary Genres and Representative Texts

When I was learning about Nonfiction, I realized that there was a lot of forms of nonfiction that I read on a regular basis, including the scriptures, speeches and journals. For the social media and family  assignment, I created my own version of a nonfiction text, doing a literary criticism. For my final paper, I looked at the subgenre of feminist literature which could apply to many sets of genre, including fiction and nonfiction. I feel like I have learned a lot about genre and how to differentiate them, especially when it comes to nonfiction.

3. Write Literary Arguments

This one has been a major focus this semester. I believe I first started learning and doing this one when I summarized Death of a Salesman and when I looked at A Second Birth and how it was different from script to performance. These summaries have been beneficial in helping me learn how to form a literary argument. I also did this with The Importance of Being Earnest. The first time I feel I made a literary argument was when I took Katie Roiphe's "Do We Secretly Envy the Childfree?" and debated it from the other perspective of the ridicule people who decide to have a lot of children receive and how it is not right. My Social Media and the Family assignment was a version of a literary criticism, which took on a part of a literary argument. As I began to write my paper, I started writing a thesis about the influence of literature in our modern world and delve deeper in the thesis assignment where I had to rewrite my ideas five different ways. I soon said the difference between defending and empowering tones in feminist literature. This post was the beginning of my writing process. This finally ended with my preliminary draft and finally my last draft. This final assignment was able to help me go from summarizing texts to making my own arguments.

4. Engage Literature Creatively and Socially

I struggled with this one at the beginning of the term because I didn't know what Dr. Burton meant by "creative". After our meeting together, I realized I needed to bring my love of stories and movies together. In my social media and family assignment, I used my father as an example in the text. Though I never got the chance of mentioning it in a post, I began to use a website named flixster.com which was able to help me to get more in touch with movies I enjoy and putting both literature and movies together. In another class, we were reading James Joyce's Dubliners, which inspired me to want to make a movie of my favorite of the stories, Eveline, which I wrote about in this post. I also put myself out there by putting up a story I wrote as a sophomore. I feel like I enjoyed blogs more now when I was able to take things I enjoyed and apply it to my posts.

5. Use Emerging Communication Tools and Pedagogical Methods. 

I used Facebook a lot this term to receive help for my final assignment. In two posts, I mentioned conversations over my statuses. This one was my first one, where I just mentioned the idea on feminist movement on our modern society. The next one I posted was a personal conversation between my sister in law and I had about feminist literature. I used the library website to be able to find a literary reference to assist me in my paper. I still continue to use Goodreads, where Richard and I have had the chance to recommend books to one another, and it also helped me to have literary discussions with friends on Facebook.

How I Met the Learning Outcomes for 251

1. Know basic literary terms and methods.
This is one that I specifically needed to focus on, after meeting with Dr. Burton after midterms it was made clear to me that I wasn't too great at the terms. I buckled down and really tried to focus on the terms. It was hard for me to remember to bold the terms like we had been asked to. It was also hard for me to remember to explicitly state them. But there were a few blog posts where I was able to look at certain literary terms and methods. Like when I analyzed T.S. Eliott's poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I also analyzed a poem that I really care about, Richard Wilbur's The Writer. Two others, not poems, that I was able to analyze and look at literary methods were The Things They Carried, and A&P. In the Drama unit, I was able to talk some more about literary terms when I discussed plays I was reading, for instance: the deconstruction I did of Death of A Salesman. Though I didn't post much about literary terms in and their uses during the week we look at nonfiction, we talked in class so much about it - I took so many notes - I really feel like I have improved in this learning outcome.
2. Know basic literary genres and representative texts.
I DEFINITELY know basic literary genres and some representative texts for each. I might have thought I did before, but after Dr. Burton's post about all of the sub-genres of nonfiction, now I really realize what all it entails! Of course I know theatre genres, theatre is my area of expertise. When I was looking at different plays to possibly direct, I posted about the genres of each. When I read nonfiction I commented on the genres. I also did an entire post of how I WRITE nonfiction (not necessarily so 'literary') every week in my own blog and didn't realize what it was! Back when I was taking the midterm, I was a little rocky on the different kinds of genre in poetry so as part of my personal learning plan, I have read more in the textbook trying to learn the difference between poetry genres. I feel like I understand better and can tell the difference between lyric poetry and elegiac poetry and sonnets and such! Also, thanks to my ENG 420 and TMA 397 classes, I have been reading books every week that fit into our four MAIN genres: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction. 
3. Write literary arguments.
My literary arguments are mostly the same as when I talked about certain posts in learning outcome number one. When I would analyze the two poems and the two short stories. I would say, however, the main literary argument (and where I have been most successful with this learning outcome) was for my final paper. I think the best example of that is when I wrote why I care about the play I chose. In preparation of my paper I looked at some articles that defended dark themes, like I did, and wrote a blog post about how this could help my argument. Also, my ENTIRE paper is a literary argument for 'Night Mother!
4. Engage literature creatively and socially.
 For me, since the midterm, my two favorite ways we have engaged in literature creatively/socially is when my Drama group did our presentation and everyone got to perform in their assigned genres (yes it was my group, but I am not trying to brag - I really had a lot of fun watching all of the performances) and when the Nonfiction group assigned us to write an argument for or against technology/family in the assigned nonfiction genre. I was assigned to write a political speech, and I'll be honest, this is my FAVORITE thing I have written in this class. It was my pride and joy :) I've also been trying to give more useful feedback on other people's posts, instead of some that I see. I didn't just want to fulfill the requirement, I wanted my feedback to be useful like some were for me! Particularly in the last few weeks when we have been focusing on writing our paper, I knew that if I had something helpful to say then it would be beneficial for my classmates for me to say it! It was nice, also, to receive helpful comments in return. 
5. Use emerging communication tools and pedagogical methods.
I wasn't sure if this next example fit into #4 or #5, probably both. But I loved the assignment to use social media and share a modified version of our thesis statements. I thought it was incredibly helpful and it was also exciting every time I got a notification that someone had commented on one of my two facebook posts. Of course, I've also kept up with my goodreads account. I've made my paper available by using emerging communication tools. I think the main thing that I have done to fulfill the requirement, using pedagogical methods, was the initial idea, process, and completion of my outside learning plan. I said I wanted to choose a play. I had eight plays I was reading. I completed my goal! Along with that, I've been reading required reading and I've been reading on my own in each genre to fulfill this.

If you were to click and read my midterm progress report, you could see how I've improved in all five learning outcomes!

How I met the learning outcomes for English 251

1.  LITERARY TERMS

At the beginning of the semester, I wrote a lot of concept posts that talked generally about a single literary term.  Now, each of my posts ties literary terms/methods into textual analyses. Usually, I try to explain the effect of one or several literary elements within a text, as with my analysis of the epigraph in Outliers and my review of A Wrinkle in Time.  My final paper discusses metaphors, images, and symbols in Jane Eyre.

2.  GENRES

Here is a list of my personal readings by genre.

How I met the learning outcomes for English 251

To start off, here is a link to the blog where I did this same thing but for the midterm. If you want to see the same type of thing but before the halfway-ish point in the class go here: Midterm 

So how have I met the learning outcomes for this class? The way this is going to go down is I am going to list the outcomes and underneath will be links to blogs that show I did it as well as a quick discussion that dives into a little more depth (consonance/alliteration).

1. Know basic literary terms and methods.

I learned a lot of terms this term and I mixed a lot of them up too. In this blog where I summarize a book I read I show some terms that I know mixed with the summary. I realise I haven't gotten better at being explicit about the terms in my blogs. I used some terms above and from what I understand I can use both because they are pretty close in meaning... I know I have used some other terms in blog posts but I didn't bold them and probably won't find them.

2. Know basic literary genres and representative texts.
After being told that I needed to read more genres I did my best to read as many different kinds as I could. It didn't work so well in the drama week but I did read a number of different nonfiction genres during that week. Then for my paper I read some YA, fairy tales, children's, and nonsense fiction books.

3. Write literary arguments.
The paper I wrote for this class argues that retellings of stories and fairy tales are good and should be read (or something to that effect). I wrote a historical contextualization paper for my other class. Its thesis is "Although some people might argue that part of the definition of poetry is that the writer must use elevated language, Sassoon and Owen show through their works “Glory of Women” and “Dulce Et Decorum Est” that sometimes a simple, direct phrase is the most effective way to get their message across." In that paper I also talked about Pablo Neruda's "Explico algunas cosas." I didn't post that paper on the blog.

4. Engage literature creatively and socially.
My Goodreads profile. I tried to keep up with my readings on Goodreads although I could have done better at it. I posted stuff on my Google+ account and I posted a couple of things to Facebook.  I wrote a Dramatic Monologue and a Stream of Consciousness. I talked to my family, my husband, friends, old roommates, and some more people about what I was reading and what I was writing about. It helped me to get some ideas and it was fun to discuss literature. The nonfiction group had us each write in a genre of nonfiction on a certain topic and I wrote in the Travel Writing style in this blog.

5. Use emerging communication tools and pedagogical methods.
Perhaps this is another good spot to put that Travel Writing blog post because it talks about social media... Below I have links to the Self Directed Learning/Reading Plans (SDLP) for the drama and nonfiction weeks. I learned more about the HBLL Library's website, the part that helps you find good stuff. Here is the blog post about that.
Self directed learning/reading plans: 
For the Drama week I wrote this plan and for Nonfiction week I wrote this plan.

Paper: 

Here is a link to the blog post that has the final draft of my paper and links to all the posts that lead up to the final version.

Meaningful comments:
There were several comments that were meaningful to me. 

In this blog post, I really liked Kimara's comment. It helped me to start looking at some other Dr. Seuss books in different ways.

Kirsten's and Taylor's comments on this blog post helped me feel a little bit better about my first topic.

I appreciated the comments by Robert and Dawn on my post that included my Dramatic Monologue. I also had some positive comments for it on Facebook.

It wasn't on my blog, but Leah reviewed the rough draft of my paper and I really appreciated the advice and discussion we had about it. She had even read one of the books I used with my paper and it was fun to talk about it.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my blog posts!