English 112 Web Spring 2002: English Composition II:
Writing About Literature and an Introduction to Literary Genres
Sabrina M Tidewater
Community College
Reflective Hypertext Essay
When I registered for online Eng112 I didn’t know exactly what to expect. I can’t recall if literature was introduced to me when I was in high school, but I have never been fond of reading it. I’ve always had this picture painted in my head that literature was difficult to understand and was boring. After taking English 112 I have gathered that literature is not as boring as I imagined. Just the same as any book you read it is what you make of it.
Although the requirements and expectation for this course was posted in advance, I assumed more communication would go on between students and teacher and not students to students. I enjoyed this communication between the students because there were times I had a question and students that knew the answer answered them. It astounded me that we as students were able to critique one another’s work. Throughout the years I’ve attended school I have never had the opportunity to critique another student’s paper. More teachers should allow students to critique one another so another opinion is given other than the teacher. I think it makes a difference if a student knows what another student thinks of him or her.
We begin this semester with discussions of fiction. We read and discussed the The Birthmark and The Minister’s Black Veil. I found stories to be so beautifully written and the characters appeared to be real live people. I also found the two stories to be unusual. In “The Birthmark (359)” Georgiana was a beautiful woman with a small birthmark on her cheek and her husband Aylmer who thought her birthmark was the most repulsive thing he had ever saw. Eventually Georgiana is convinced that her birthmark should be removed. After so much pain and suffering because of this birthmark Georgiana die very unhappy. The story that caught my eye is The Minister’s Black Veil (341). This story main focus is Mr. Hooper who had a shame so bad that he chose to wear a veil to prevent others from seeing his shame. Mr. Hooper’s black veil caused him to be the talk among the town and the church. “Some gathered in little circles, huddled closely together, with their mouths all whispering in the center; some went homeward alone, wrapt in silent meditation: some talked loudly, and profaned the Sabbath –day with ostentatious.” (The Minister’s Black Veil, 343) I found this story be very harsh because the characters in this story was so quick to judge Mr. Hooper and didn’t know him. This criticism was the same as what we as people go through in the real world. In my fiction paper “Who Are We to Judge” I compared the disparagement Mr. Hooper face in The Minister’s Black Veil” and the disparagement we face in the real world.
Shortly after
studying fiction we moved into drama.
We discussed plays such as Trifles (1238) and The Glass
Menagerie (1893). They were
both very interesting plays but my favorite was Trifles. In this play
Mr. Wright was accused of killing her husband.
Although Mr. Wright said little her character was described by Mrs. Hale.
According to Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Wright “used to wear pretty clothes and be
lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the
choir.” (Trifles, 1241) When Mrs. Wright married Mr. Wright her whole demeanor
changed. She was no longer that live
person rather a lonely and depressed person.
We were assigned to do submit a complete research paper on one of the
previous assigned plays and I choose to concentrate the neglect Mrs. Wright
received from Mr. Wright. The title of
this paper is Signs of Neglect in
Trifles by Susan Glaspell.
Throughout the semester we were reminded to plan for our living literature project. At first I wasn’t trilled about seeing a live play but after viewing Daughters I was very excited about viewing more plays in the future. This play was about an Italian family of woman and how they dealt with family crisis. Going to see this play, for me, was the best assignment my teacher could have given me.
The very last task we were assigned to us was to write a poem. At first I had no clue on how to write a poem. After reading Introduction to poetry I had a better understanding. The hardest part came and that was composing a poem. I read each poem assigned and pick one that I could relate to. So I picked Mirror (789) by Sylvia Plath. I choose this poem because I’ve known several male and female that were not happy with themselves. Me being a person happy with herself I decide to talk about the good things you see as a woman when you look in the mirror. The title of my composed poem is Reflection of Me. I have never written a poem or even thought about it, but this was a really good experience for me.
This class was a good experience for me. I had never thought of taking an online class but after this experience I plan to other online classes in the future. I would like to take Mrs. Reiss for her time and patience.
Works Cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Minister’s Black Veil.” The
Bedford Introduction to Literature. Boston: Bedford,
Glaspell, Susan. “Trifles.” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Boston: Bedford, 2002. 1237-1246.
My
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5/02/2002 by Sabrina
M