Howl vs. Leafs of Grass 5/18/11

The major shocking similarity I see almost immediately is that the formatting is very much the same in both of these works. It gives an initial idea, and then lists sentence-long blurbs to give examples. That's pretty standard for both of them. However, the ideas contained within are very different. Leaves of Grass speaks of a good America (I think), an America that is becoming a world leader. While in Howl, the perspective has changed immensely; now, the idea is that America is falling apart. The new generation is a failure. they are to busy with sex and drugs to understand anything, and America suffers.

The Petrified Man 5/16/11

There are some stories that you just find to be useless and of no purpose. Granted, there are some excellent fictional novels out there that serve no greater purpose than to entertain, but they usually are elongated stories that have many different plot elements and ideas to explore. The Petrified Man, though in the same category of literature, serves no such purpose. It is a very short work that serves as simply a window into the life of these people; I find that it almost seems realist in a way. As for the reliance on dialog, I can say that I rather enjoyed it. It made the story more interesting and further opened the window into the character's world, but it did nothing to add meaning to the story.

The Love Song 5/10/11

After the initial thought of "what in the world are these rambling words trying to say," I actually started to understand this poem a little better. I have to admit, it was through a mixture of you and Jeanette telling me what was going on, but still, I think I understand. While this poem appears to have nothing to do with love on the surface, it is only when you start to really look into it that you see those hidden elements. And I think, once you have figured out what it is actually talking about, this poem definitely portrays a love story. It speaks of this wonderful place "where women speak of Michaelangelo," a place that the man really wants to reach (presumably the heart of is "girlfriend"). However, this destination is so thoroughly surrounded by nasty 'deterrents' that the man can find no way to his (again, quotations) "girlfriend." In a way, this is a situation really easy to relate to. A man really wants to kick things up a notch with his "girlfriend," but can find no way to do it without destroying his relationship with her. I think I have hit upon what you were wanted in this blog entry, if not, yell at me/comment that I need to look at it again. I do wish that poets would just say what they want to say and stop talking. The whole extra frivolous blah is so hard to get through. Personal opinion/vendetta against complicated poetry.

Fuller Project 5/9/11

Well, I now have successfully completed the first two paragraphs of my essay, and I am not feeling as unprepared as I thought I would. I have spoken about Fuller's early life and the influences she had on her as she was growing up, and I am planning on using the next paragraph to dive into her "great radical dualism." If you can find some extras time (though I know none of us has any of it), I would appreciate if you can go through and look at my second paragraph and make sure that I am still on target. Thanks

Project 5/3/11

Ok Mr. Cook, so here's the deal. I'm probably not going to be working much on this project this week due to the AP exams and the enormous amount of stress they're putting on me. I should be able to work on it a little bit on Wednesday night, but I have nothing written for today and won't be writing anything tomorrow most likely. I will take full advantage of the class time we have tomorrow and jump off from there, but my homework time is filled. I will have a paper to hand in to you next Tuesday. Just trust that.

Fuller Project 5/1/11

I think I am pretty much ready to start writing my paper. I have spoken with you enough to have a general outline to follow in my head, and I have read enough to know most of what I need to about Fuller and her work. I have finished reading the two sources that I will be relying most heavily upon, so the next step is just sitting down to write. I will do my best to get the paper written up this week so you can have a rough draft to look at before it is do next Tuesday, but with my AP exams weighing upon me, I'm not sure how much time I will be able to devote to it. I will do my best though and keep you updated with where I am. I was not able to work this past weekend because I had a track meet Friday night and then a Boy Scout backpacking trip Saturday and half of Sunday. I will work to make up that lost time though.

Fuller 4/27/11

So let me tell you what I have come up with as my project based on what we have talked about. A brief outline;

1. Intro
2. Background/early influences
3. Beliefs as from The Great Lawsuit
4. Analysis of beliefs and their implications? maybe
5. Conclusion

It's the fourth segment that I'm not too sure what to do with. I am going to spend tonight doing some more research, and then hopefully I will be pretty close to writing. If you have suggestions based on that fourth segment, let me know. I will probably be by to talk about all of this again pretty soon.

Project 4/25/11

So I have finished up reading the short blurb of The Great Lawsuit from the Anthology and also the synopsis of the book on JSTOR. My next step will be to talk to you in study hall tomorrow about where to go from here. It would have been nice to have been able to talk about it today, but I was not yet ready. Now I am though. In reading Fuller's stuff, I basically got a sense that she was saying pretty much the same thing over and over again intermixed with a bunch of blah. There really don't appear to be that many different thoughts involved in this work. Something to ponder.

Margaret Fuller 4/24/11

I have not been very successful over the past couple of days in getting a whole lot done, especially in class. I still have a good bit of The Great Lawsuit to read in the Anthology, and I am planning on doing that in study hall tomorrow. Then hopefully I will be able to competently talk to you about my project. Also, tonight (Sunday) I have been reading an article that I looked briefly at about a week ago. It is on JSTOR and is titled Margaret Fuller and the Transcendental Ethos: Women in the Nineteenth Century.  It is actually a very good synopsis of the book once you get into chapter 4, and I picked out a couple of quotes that I thought were especially significant.I have them listed at the end of this blog. Those that contain a number in parenthses are straight from The Great Lawsuit. If you find any of them that you like or think I should write about when you read over this, just let me know. Also, I was a bit frustrated because I would have really liked to use Diigo in my reading, but it won't let me do it in JSTOR because it is not actually hi-lightable text. If there is a way around this problem, I would really like to know. 

• "'We must have units before we can have union' (150). The development as woman as individuals--that is, their cultivation of self--therefore takes on primary importance."
• "Fuller understood, intuitively at the beginning, that the emancipation of women depended on a redefinition of the terms 'female' and 'male' and a reevaluation that the bearing that both these terms had on the culture of the self."
• "'The especial genius of woman I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency'" (161).
• "'Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But, in fact, they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens into solid, solid rushes into fluid.There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman'" (161).
• "She [Fuller] thus attempts to preserve the ultimate primacy of intuition over rationalism and to face the immediate need to stress the intellectual potential of women."

Project 4/21/11

So I spent class time today reading from The Great Lawsuit in the Norton book. I expect to finish reading through it tomorrow in class, and then we can talk about where I want to go with it. I wanted to read the book, but it was way more work than I had time to do; therefore, I'm really happy to be able to read an abridged version. I feel a little bit better now after talking about my project, and I hope that I will have a better idea of what I want to do when I finish. So, immediate goal is finish the story in class tomorrow. Long term goal...we shall see.

Fuller 4/19/11

I spent pretty much all of class yesterday doing more research on Fuller. I specifically looked up a JSTOR article that was a synopsis of Fuller and Women in the nineteenth century. I also read a little bit of her book itself. I would like to talk with you soon. I have been doing some thinking into my project and I have pretty much decided to stick with Women in the nineteenth century as my main source. I'm not really sure what I specifically want to approach in my essay though. I have considered a couple of ideas including contrasting the fights for rights of different types of people, including prisoners along with men and women. Another idea was to look at different aspects of only her beliefs of rights between men and women. I would like to have some discussion before I go off in some direction I'm going to regret later

Margaret Fuller Project 4/18/11

So today I spent the period just doing background research on Margaret Fuller. I read the majority of the Wikipedia section on here and read her portion of the Norton Anthology as well. I decided rather than blindly diving into her works, it would be better for me to work on narrowing down my field or research by working on a thesis. I really wanted to look more at her contribution to the Transcendentalists rather than her Feminism, but I need to research more. I hope to have some concrete discussion points by the end of the day tomorrow.

1/14/11

So, as I have done nothing further on my project since the last blog, this is going to be short. Like I said, I have an idea and we worked out that I should look at Fuller's thoughts on the interaction between Men and Women. So, yeah. I will try to have picked out and started one of her books by monday. And honestly, you don't need to waste your time commenting on this one. There won't be much to say.

The Project 4/13/11

I feel pretty confidant with my plans to do this project, I think. My current schedule only leaves me about 8 days from the time that I finish with all of my preliminary work to the time that the finished product is due. But knowing myself, I know that I am going to have to give myself a lot of time; otherwise, I'm afraid I won't be motivated enough to hold to my calender. As for the project itself, I feel fairly content working with Margaret Fuller, but I am not sure in which direction to take it. I am going to try to get up with you soon so we can talk about a direction that I can go in.

Macbeth 3/31/11

I find Macbeth interesting for one main reason, and that is that it is so easy to relate to the feelings expressed by the characters. For Macbeth, he knew what he was going to do was wrong, yet driven by greed and against his best judgement, he went on to kill the king and guards anyway. This is a common theme that appears in everyday life; though not on as large a scale, people are faced with scenarios where they do something that they know is morally wrong, yet out of greed they do it anyway and feel horrible about it afterwards. Lady Macbeth plays the role of the instigator, the one who is really pushing to do a bad thing out of greed, but doesn't wish to get her own hands dirty. And the list goes on. I don't think I would be nearly as interested in this play if it did not have this modern day connection.

Research project schedule 3/30/11

So this is the plan that I'm going to work with, I think. I would like to have my "guiding questions" done by Friday April 15. By that point I will have confirmed what I am working on and will have a clear direction to work towards. By the following Friday, April 22, I want to have all or at least most of my sources identified and started on. By Monday, May 2, I want to be completely finished reading and taking notes on my sources. By that day or soon thereafter, I should be able to create my outline. I am going to put all of this on a calender that I have shared with you.

Thus the research project begins 3/28/11

So after today and the brief discussion that we had, I think I am have a workable topic for the project. I found that the transcendentalists were a bit of an enigma for me, and I would really love to understand them more. For English honors, we had to read The Metaphysical Club, which was all about that movement, and I didn't understand a word of it at the time. I think that it can become a really useful resource for me though now that I understand the implications of the movement. I don't know how much of the book talks about Margaret Fuller, or if she's even mentioned at all, but I can at least use it as a umping off point. I don't really know what I want to study about her yet, but I think I will be able to choose a more focused field once I have done more research. At this point though, it is all about Fuller

Macbeth Act 1 3/27/11 (late)

        This is my blog for last Friday just so that you know. I am finding the reading and annotating of Macbeth to be very confusing actually; it is not an easy story at all to follow, as it just seems to jump right into something that we know little about. Also, I'm a bit confused honestly why we are reading this in American Lit. It's not really American at all. Not a complaint, just a curious observation. The annotation of the story is marginally useful. Most of the work that my group, myself included, have been doing is just defining words with the stick notes, which isn't really needed when you can just double-click for a definition of a word.
        I'm somewhat anxious about this project that we are going to be doing. I think I understand, but it is really hard to find a start-off point. I think it would be really helpful to have a day of class time to ask questions and formulate what we want to do in terms of our projects and schedules.

3/23/11

So since I was not in class this past Tuesday, I will tell you about our wonderful trip to WCU. It was only 11 of us who went, plus Madame Shook, and we had to leave at 7:30, which wasn't fun. The day itself was a blast though; we did a skit that we put together and also an impromptu musical. We were the first up in the skit category, and there were four schools in total. We were doing a murder mystery in the Catacombs of Paris. The skit went well, and in the end we took second for it. That was the only thing that we had planned for the day, but we noticed that there were only two entries in the French Music category, so we did an impromptu song that we had sand for Café Night and actually took second out of three for that too :) It was a really fun day, and I think we represented Rabun Gap well. And, my personally favorite part, we stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home.

Diigo 3/20/11

I think Diigo could prove to be a very useful tool, especially if we use it collaboratively. I personally found that it made me analyze the work that I was reading a little more in depth, since I was looking for places to comment. I think it would be easier to use if you were to specifically say, "find passages that discuss naturalism," or whatever it might be. It makes it more difficult to know what to look for when you just say "go forth and highlight." I do think that it has a lot of potential for our needs, and I think we will be able to use it to its fullest when we work collaboratively.