Week Three Response

There were two main tasks this week. On Monday, we discussed the Other Place by Mary Gaitskell. My group came up with a short summary about the story that it is about a father’s concern about his son’s abnormality, which is also shared by the father, and is simultaneously emphasized and downplayed by the father. The narrator talks about his problematic family history like it is not a big deal. For instance, things like his mother was a prostitute and his father was abusive. Through the unique tone and language of the writing, we were able to discover a larger context behind the words---“the Other Place” is an imaginary world in the narrator’s mind, where there is sexual violence against women. On Wednesday, we had group presentations on monsters as genres. Each group presented on the historical overview, audience expectations, and the examples of films about the monster they were assigned to.

My group did not present because one of the members was absent. Nevertheless, I was still nervous. Growing up, I’ve always hated public speaking. It was one of the biggest nightmares I had. Although I had to do quite a few throughout high school, such as history, science, and literature presentations, I did not like them. However, I do think that public speaking is a necessary skill to develop in life. Because of that, I am willing to overcome my fear through practices in this course especially because it is rare for me to have interactions with peers in most lectures where there are hundreds of students.

From observing other groups presentations, I realized how visuals can have a significant impact on the material. Every group used powerful graphics in their presentation. One group even played a short film to help the audience understand the expectations of demons, which was a brilliant idea.

Most of the work we did so far is a preparation for the upcoming Rhetorical Analysis paper. I think I am going to use I Am Legend by Richard Matheson in my essay. Therefore, I need to pay more attention while reading the book and maybe take notes along the way. As mentioned in the last response, I am not good at writing. I know that I am going to encounter more challenges during the process of writing the paper. But I would like to see myself improve and learn more techniques about how to write effectively from this assignment.