Blogs

We met with the 313 last Wednesday afternoon. It was a very nice sunny day for the exploration.  ESEMers first led the geological exploration. Our route was from Pembroke Arch down to Mill Creek. (Neither botanical nor geological exploration covered the other side of the campus.) I found the geological exploration was not a redundant experience at all. I learned a lot by hearing what other ESEMers said and feedbacks from 313ers. We looked at the rocks in the architecture and observed the geological conformation of the campus. We talked about the fall line and discussed that the geological foundations influenced how human constructed habitats. The anecdote about parking lots and the Rhoads pond was very revealing. We wrapped up when we reached the Mill Creek. The hidden place changed a lot from the last visit about three weeks ago. The thick layers of leaves made our steps clumsy and noisy. To some extent, I felt Bryn Mawr would not have been the same place without this periodically flooding creek.

I won’t be in class tomorrow (I saved myself $100 by taking an earlier bus home for Thanksgiving), but here are some questions and thoughts I have about Eva’s Man.  On page 169, there seems to be a conversation going on between Eva and her psychiatrist (who’s gender I am not sure was revealed, but I am assuming that he is male?)   The psychiatrist asks, “Why did you kill him?” and Eva replies, “I filled in the feelings”.  This short part seems to support a theory that we discussed last class: Eva killed Davis because he represented all the other men in her life.  She saw him and her relationship with him, and “filled in” all the other feelings of mistreatment/abuse she had received from men.  This is further supported on page 171 when she appears to be talking about many men that have been in her life, but only refers to them as “he”, making them seem like one entity. 

Hello All,

In my quest to better understand the hunger games as a tool for learning in the classroom, I have found this article written by a student at another university:

http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1310&context=srhonorsprog&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Dliterary%2520criticism%2520of%2520hunger%2520games%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CDAQFjAA%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdigitalcommons.uri.edu%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D1310%2526context%253Dsrhonorsprog%26ei%3DVJ-pUOShO6vh0wG_yICgDQ%26usg%3DAFQjCNHfffVw8aicP2Vul5K0ROcKdU-LFQ#search=%22literary%20criticism%20hunger%20games%22

This persepctive compares themes found in the hunger games to classical themes found in other classical, well know books that are typically used in classrooms. This further leads me to thinking that our classmate Kelsey had the right idea, by using the hunger games alongside another text to highlight certain themes and ideas that could relate to real world historical events. This could both engage the student, while teaching history in a new and innovative way. Please let me know what you all think!

-Besan

          I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy this reading experience. I hesitate to say this because as an English learner, I ought to learn to read all kinds of literatures. But as a reader, I certainly would not choose this kind of book to read if I don’t have to. The story is depressing and fragmental storyline just make it harder for me to understand.

        In another piece which I normally would not read for fun, Sommer talked about the danger of readers wanting to know everything in the story and felt the sympathy while reading. Indeed, when I was reading this piece, the usual tendency to make connection and understand every detail failed because of the author’s special arrangement unique way of narrating Eva’s story. I was annoyed at first because the disconnected plots and disoriented timeline contradicted with the easy-following dialogues. During discussion, we talked about the reasons why the story is the way it is now. We thought that maybe Eva could not remember things clearly and thus unable to tell the story again. When I was reading the piece, I couldn’t cut my thoughts of thinking Eva’s experience as real-life as at least based on some proportion of real-life experience and kept thinking that I want to know more about the Eva’s story. Just as Sommer talked in her article, the tendency for reader to be greedy can be dangerous and jeopardize the reading experience. Well, I still have a ambivalent feelings about Sommer’s opinion, but she is definitely right this time.

A reflection on a collaborative botanical and geological ramble

We began our collaboration sitting in the chairs outside English House, just like we do for class. When talking through our two different (and yet similar) classes I was most struck by how we seemed to cover the same general topics, but that we used different texts to build up these topics. The freshmen mentioned the rewrite of a paragraph with the tragedy/comedy lens; when I asked if they had read “the Shakespeare reading” they said no, that they had read Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir “Fun Home.” Having read this book in a past course with Anne I enjoyed looking back at my memory of it, wondering how my reading with this ecological and feminist lens may differ from the reading I had when it was in a non-fictional prose class. Since the book is currently residing with my mother, I may just have to pick it up again over winter break to see… 

We had the freshmen crush and smell the leaves of privet, viburnum, and spice bush, as well as explore the differences between beech and tulip trees with their sense of touch. Thinking back to the very beginning of the semester, I wonder if our willingnesses to do these things would have been different; did people feel more comfortable getting “down and dirty” with nature because of what we’ve discovered together in our outdoor classroom? I’d like to think so, especially considering some of the words that were said that one class where we were speaking our associations with nature.

We planned to have our shared experience with the freshmen on Saturday morning.  Unfortunately, they didn’t show up.  Instead of going on the geological ramble, Sara, Emma, and I lay on the lawn outside of English House, looked up at the trees, and talked about eating cookies and pizza and Thanksgiving dinner.  It was nice.  Saturday was a beautiful day.  The ground was cold and a little damp, but it didn’t matter because the sun was shining so brightly.  Sara noticed the bulbs on the Tulip tree branches; they look like pearls.  A hawk flew through the sky.  There were three men raking/leaf blowing the leaves off the grass.  

What a weekend. Saturday I spent a very full, very incredible 12 hours in New York City. I had been once before with my parents doing all the touristy stuff people do, but this Saturday I went with my friend Kara who knew all the secret, wonderful details of the city. While we were there we visited one of my best friends from high school, Jim, who goes to the Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn. I think we were both a little taken back to see each other in such an urban setting, so different from the suburban/rural setting of Lawrence, Kansas. We spent lunch reminiscing (read: gossiping) about old friends and a dearly loved town that felt worlds away. Jim reminded me about everything I love about home and my hometown. After having that conversation sitting on the moon bench right now makes me think about everything I love about good old Lawrence, KS. Fall looks the same in both places, squirrels race in the treetops above and the forrest floor below. I can see the occasional person traversing the green, and leaves fall like rain. I love fall, I love home, and I love Bryn Mawr. The moon bench really made me think of home today in all the best ways possible. Even though there weren't many people out I could feel the community around me buzzing. I feel the same way sitting in a park in Lawrence as I do sitting on the moon bench. What a weekend. 

My new site, the Haverford duck pond, becomes more and more beautiful. The bird population was up today-- maybe 70-80 geese as well as the usual dozen or two ducks-- and also exceptionally vocal. The ducks go quack quack quack, while the geese make a cry that is both more musical and harsher, more strident. They may have been noisy today because of the human families there feeding them, but it seemed to me to be something else as well. The geese are on the move, and it's an exciting time for them. But really their motivation is way beyond my ability to guess at it. They have their own life.

Something that happened at the end of our class at the Cannery last week had me thinking about the connection between metaphors and silence. As one who's never quite grasped the meaning or function of metaphor, I was thankful for Howard’s straightforward description. He described metaphors as a tool to explain ideas that can't be put to words by using other objects or ideas as a medium of comparison. Metaphors give words to otherwise unexplainable ideas. What I took away from that explanation was the idea that metaphors provide a sense of agency to those who perhaps lack a broad vocabulary or just those for whom words don't suffice a way to express an experience or feeling. This tool then provides a sense of agency because, all too often, you rendered broken if you can't express yourself in a way that others can understand. In what I saw to be a distinct parallel, Anne explained mentioned at the end of Friday’s class that silence, too, is a strategy that can be used when words just don't work. And, as we've established many times in class, silence is understood as way to exert power and agency in assuring that you aren't misunderstood or your words misused. So, silence and metaphor are used in similar situations but result in vastly different outcomes. What does this say about the choice between using metaphors and choosing silence? Is one more effective than the other?

Today was the most perfect fall day in the tree. I wasn't cold at all, or excessively warm. (Note: I did not have to do jumping jacks. Any day that I don't have to do jumping jacks to stay warm is a pretty good day) I was a bit skeptical when I approached the tree, because its leaves have not turned to a shocking red or a bright yellow, but a slightly icky in-between color of caramel, yellow, and light green. (On one leaf! The horror!) But the leaves inside the tree were (thank goodness!) a nicer yellow, with fewer dead leaves. The air was crisp, but the slight breeze that tickled the outside of the tree, didn't touch me. There was enough light to see under the tree, and, when I emerged, a slight pink was blending with the blue sky at the horizon. It was a good day.