Group Project Response

I thought all the projects were superb, but I have particular appreciation for Sonja and Camile’s project. Not only was the story hilarious, it was well-produced and well-presented. I loved the puppet show pieces dispersed throughout the story. By far the best part of the whole thing, however, was the witch’s voice. For some odd reason I really identified with the witch… I don’t know why…

Group Project

For the group project (Operation Stingray), we are going to develop an online choose-your-own adventure type story. It will have sweet illustrations and killer storylines. The story lines will lead the reader on an adventure that will both entertain and educate. It will be fantastic.

What is Narrative?

This question is quite weighty. According to Stewie from Family Guy, a narrative has a beginning, middle, and end. But I don’t think that exactly encapsulates everything a narrative is, though that may be all some require for a satisfying story. Well, that and some sort of obstacle for the protagonist to overcome (Stewie mentions that as well).

These criteria are certainly necessary for a successful narrative, but I feel that there is also something else. I think connection of some sort to the subject of the narration is also essential, atleast for a truly successful narrative. What sort of connection there will be in the narrative is primarily up to the author, though also to varying degrees the reader controls their reaction to the story. So I guess my take on ‘what narrative is’ would be this: Narrative has a beginning, middle, and end (follows some sort of sequence of time and events, though it can be disjointed); the protagonist(s) overcome some some sort of obstacle or come to some new realization; and there is a connection forged between reader and story/characters.

Remix of Religion

I really liked Mr. Dierker’s Remix project; partially because I had a similar idea when I was brainstorming. Really, though, I liked the way the idea was presented. Using only the beginnings and endings of each religious text boiled each religion down to a manageable size. I liked the way the text was put around the image of the world. To me, it showed how cluttering religion can be, yet also making so much empty space a little bit brighter. I thought this project was pretty keen.

Remix Project

For this project I think I will take a few pages from my old (high school) journal and either do a cut-up or my own version of Tom Phillips’ A Humument. I haven’t decided for sure, but I think I’m leaning towards the Phillips’ idea. I like this idea because old journals are important in one way, but I’ve always wondered what to do with them. I think finding hidden meaning and purpose inside my old thoughts would be interesting to me and perhaps entertaining to someone else (or not).

RedRidinghood

For this assignment, I looked at RedRidinghood by Donna Leishman. I chose this one primarily because the image of the hardcore little girl caught my attention and piqued my interest right away. I was not disappointed once I started viewing the piece. The visual elements were great. They were cartoon-like, but not childish. The choices were satisfying, by which I mean that there were not so few choices that I felt I was watching a movie passively, but also not so many choices that I felt like I was always missing out on something. That being said, I did choose to view the piece more than once because I was sure that I had missed at least a few elements that I probably would have appreciated.

The first viewing actually made me even more interested in the work than I had been before viewing it. I won’t promise that I understood everything that happened, but I will promise that I liked what I was seeing. In the path I followed, there was a choice to have Red dream or wake. I, of course, chose to have her dream. This dream sequence also had diverging paths, but they were arranged and presented in such a way that I was enabled to see all of them before being forced to wake the dreamer. I really appreciated this feature because I knew I was getting to see everything. The second viewing made things clearer and I was able to understand more of what the story was trying to convey. Overall, I loved the retelling of a classic tale in a modern way.