Mid Semester Eval & Personal preference for future study

I am very much enjoying the conversations in class, and I think that I have learned from my classmates' comments and perspectives.  For me, I like to think about the underlying questions that we are pondering in the context of assigned readings.  So far, I think about questions such as "If everyone supported this concept, what would that look like," "How do we learn differently from different genres, and how do writers manipulate that learning by choosing a certain genre," "What are the presumptions or prejudices about genre and forms of writing," "If we expect the writing world to promote the evolution of a certain genre how does this impact structure and does that matter," "What does the evolution of a genre mean, anyway," and finally, "What is the message of this class?"  So as we listened to our BMC guest speakers about their digital projects, I was wondering not so much about how they accomplished it or what they expected from it, but rather I thought about the purpose of having a piece of writing so accessible.  When we read Satrapi's graphic novel, I thought about the reason she wrote it and the reason she chose to write it in a graphic novel.  When we read "Mad at school," I thought about the breakdown of structures that we know if everyone were to promote the evolution of this type of education.  There are more examples that are too numerous to write in this small jaded space.  

I suppose I think that what is 'working' for me is having class discussion on a range of topics.  I like that Anne presents different ideas and questions throughout the class and allows us to explore them to our content.  I like that if I don't get to say something in class, I can post it!  I don't like working in small groups of two people because then I only get one person's view, and often there is not enough time to talk about other groups' conclusions or discussions.  I like the grading policy of the course because it is very much in line with my own private notions about grades.  I don't think that I benefitted from having two sets of BMC students/alumni talk about their digital projects.  I think I would have benefitted equally from having one day devoted to learning about their projects.  I like the exercises on the board about 51% of the time.  I think that they make us individually come to our own definitive conclusions about a topic, which I like very much because often I've experienced in other humanities classes that people don't actually say anything (even if they are talking).  On the other hand, we may read out what we write, but only some people will expand on what they wrote.  

Overall, I am enjoying the course very very much and I look forward to class time every day.

I am intrigued by the conversion of books into movies.  I would like to answer questions of, "How does a screen-writer decide what to keep in a movie and what to leave out," "How is the same message portrayed in a movie, if it is," "How is learning different in a movie than in a book," "Why would an author be interested in turning his/her movie into a book," and more.  I think that I am mostly curious about the actual conversion of a novel into a screen play.  How is a novel crunched and converted into mostly dialogue.  What challenges does a screen-writer have to overcome?  Then, we could also investigate movies turned into books.  Why would someone want a book version of a movie?  Is it different?

I just think it is so cool!!!!!!!!!!!