sarah meyers' legacy
To All Future Students,
To describe this class with anything less than “hard work” would be a complete understatement. Do not think that once you sign up for this class, you can work on the assignment the day before it is due and expect to breeze through each project. These assignments take time, critical thinking skills, and patience. Professor Laing-Urbina leaves assignments vague so that student can take the time to figure out what needs to be done on their own. She makes you figure out leadership skills, how to work as a team, and how to analyze a story by looking at themes and literary criticisms. My legacy is here to help you out before you start the class, so look carefully over my sample assignments to help you on your own assignments.
For my portfolio, I decided to add my Background Research and Themes of Literature work, in addition to the Midterm Team Project. I chose to add the two assignments that gave me the most trouble, so I could help future students understand what will be asked of them and give them advice before they embark on these trying tasks. My Background Research work will hopefully guide future students on finding information on the history of an author of their choosing and how to find an image that relates not only to the author, history era, or geographic region they chose, but to the theme of literature they chose the first week of class as well. Tying images to themes is important in this class, and if students understand how to do that now, it will only benefit them when they begin their own work. For my three themes of literature, I chose: first and second generation migrants, diversity, and love is the worthiest pursuit, so these were the themes I focused on throughout the course. Chose the best themes because you will use them over and over again.
The next assignment I added was the Midterm Team Project. The reason why I chose to add the Midterm Team Project was because I wanted to explain how much hard work group projects are. The assignment is called a “team” project because the goal is to work together, but sometimes not everybody wants to work together. With my midterm, you can see how some things were left out of our website because not everybody worked together. Some people did not include the right information, or only used one example when we needed three, and so forth. I also added some feedback from other students so you could see what other people thought about our project, too. One thing I would have changed if I could go back was time. For if I had known that I would be doing most of the work, I would have started earlier. Start the team project as early as possible and realize that you will learn a lot. From this experience, I learned to work together as a community member even when it is hard. Do not give up on your group; be supportive instead. Group projects work well when you decide to go above and beyond what is expected of you in order to get the work done. Be compassionate and encouraging towards others, ask other team members if they need help, and don’t be hesitant to take the lead. After all it’s your grade, too.
Two of the stories I read this semester are: “Immigrant Picnic” by Gregory Djanikian and “Night” by Majid Naficy. “Immigrant Picnic” can be described using the Formalism Theory of literary criticism. This poem uses rhyme schemes to contribute to the meaning that every culture has different phrases and a lot of people do not understand America’s common phrases, but use them anyway. Irony and paradox is used to show this message, too. The two themes of literature that show themselves in this story are: first and second generation migrants and diversity. The story, “Night” can be described using New Historicism, Cultural Studies because the story is showing the time period it is in. The theme of diversity is shown in this work, by showing the diversity of the world and how even though we are all connected, we are all still so distant because we are so far from each other. These two works both show diversity and two schools of criticism.
Examples of my work that show mastery of the first and second course objectives are shown in each of my Reading Journals. The first course objective, “Understand and discuss an author’s choice of vocabulary, genre, symbolism, and rhetorical devices to convey meaning and evoke the reader’s response” and is shown when I define vocabulary words such as “stoic” and “loblollie” used in the text and the use of couplets and alliterations used by Thomas Tillam in “Upon the First Sight of New England.” An example of my mastery of course objective two, “Use literary vocabulary and reference various schools of criticism in discussion” is shown in another one of my reading journals. I explain how connotation, point of view, and metaphors are all used in stories by Phillis Wheatley and J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur. In these journals, I have demonstrated and identified vocabulary, schools of criticism, and more.
To sum it up, your semester will be brilliant, frustrating, imaginative, trying, interesting, and more. This is not your normal English class. You might hit a road block when working on your group project, but do not hesitate to ask for help from the teacher, to use the resources she gives in the resource tab, or to look at sample assignments to help you on this journey. This is not supposed to be that complicated; it is supposed to be engaging, so engage.
Sarah Meyers
To describe this class with anything less than “hard work” would be a complete understatement. Do not think that once you sign up for this class, you can work on the assignment the day before it is due and expect to breeze through each project. These assignments take time, critical thinking skills, and patience. Professor Laing-Urbina leaves assignments vague so that student can take the time to figure out what needs to be done on their own. She makes you figure out leadership skills, how to work as a team, and how to analyze a story by looking at themes and literary criticisms. My legacy is here to help you out before you start the class, so look carefully over my sample assignments to help you on your own assignments.
For my portfolio, I decided to add my Background Research and Themes of Literature work, in addition to the Midterm Team Project. I chose to add the two assignments that gave me the most trouble, so I could help future students understand what will be asked of them and give them advice before they embark on these trying tasks. My Background Research work will hopefully guide future students on finding information on the history of an author of their choosing and how to find an image that relates not only to the author, history era, or geographic region they chose, but to the theme of literature they chose the first week of class as well. Tying images to themes is important in this class, and if students understand how to do that now, it will only benefit them when they begin their own work. For my three themes of literature, I chose: first and second generation migrants, diversity, and love is the worthiest pursuit, so these were the themes I focused on throughout the course. Chose the best themes because you will use them over and over again.
The next assignment I added was the Midterm Team Project. The reason why I chose to add the Midterm Team Project was because I wanted to explain how much hard work group projects are. The assignment is called a “team” project because the goal is to work together, but sometimes not everybody wants to work together. With my midterm, you can see how some things were left out of our website because not everybody worked together. Some people did not include the right information, or only used one example when we needed three, and so forth. I also added some feedback from other students so you could see what other people thought about our project, too. One thing I would have changed if I could go back was time. For if I had known that I would be doing most of the work, I would have started earlier. Start the team project as early as possible and realize that you will learn a lot. From this experience, I learned to work together as a community member even when it is hard. Do not give up on your group; be supportive instead. Group projects work well when you decide to go above and beyond what is expected of you in order to get the work done. Be compassionate and encouraging towards others, ask other team members if they need help, and don’t be hesitant to take the lead. After all it’s your grade, too.
Two of the stories I read this semester are: “Immigrant Picnic” by Gregory Djanikian and “Night” by Majid Naficy. “Immigrant Picnic” can be described using the Formalism Theory of literary criticism. This poem uses rhyme schemes to contribute to the meaning that every culture has different phrases and a lot of people do not understand America’s common phrases, but use them anyway. Irony and paradox is used to show this message, too. The two themes of literature that show themselves in this story are: first and second generation migrants and diversity. The story, “Night” can be described using New Historicism, Cultural Studies because the story is showing the time period it is in. The theme of diversity is shown in this work, by showing the diversity of the world and how even though we are all connected, we are all still so distant because we are so far from each other. These two works both show diversity and two schools of criticism.
Examples of my work that show mastery of the first and second course objectives are shown in each of my Reading Journals. The first course objective, “Understand and discuss an author’s choice of vocabulary, genre, symbolism, and rhetorical devices to convey meaning and evoke the reader’s response” and is shown when I define vocabulary words such as “stoic” and “loblollie” used in the text and the use of couplets and alliterations used by Thomas Tillam in “Upon the First Sight of New England.” An example of my mastery of course objective two, “Use literary vocabulary and reference various schools of criticism in discussion” is shown in another one of my reading journals. I explain how connotation, point of view, and metaphors are all used in stories by Phillis Wheatley and J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur. In these journals, I have demonstrated and identified vocabulary, schools of criticism, and more.
To sum it up, your semester will be brilliant, frustrating, imaginative, trying, interesting, and more. This is not your normal English class. You might hit a road block when working on your group project, but do not hesitate to ask for help from the teacher, to use the resources she gives in the resource tab, or to look at sample assignments to help you on this journey. This is not supposed to be that complicated; it is supposed to be engaging, so engage.
Sarah Meyers