11/5/08

Dear President Barack Obama,
I am very glad to see someone such as yourself come into the White house, especially in these troubled times. Just to get things straight, the fact that you are of African American origin is not a factor as to why I believe you are our country’s best choice right now. It is your policies and strategies that I believe will help get America back on its feet. On another note, I read the email Ralph Nader sent you attempting to expose your so-called cowardice. This has not shaken my view of you at all and only strikes me as a desperate cry from a dirty politician to start drama over a victorious candidate. But alas, let’s move on to why I am writing this letter.

11/5/08
    
        Dear President Barack Obama,
I am very glad to see someone such as yourself come into the White house, especially in these troubled times. Just to get things straight, the fact that you are of African American origin is not a factor as to why I believe you are our country’s best choice right now. It is your policies and strategies that I believe will help get America back on its feet. On another note, I read the email Ralph Nader sent you attempting to expose your so-called cowardice. This has not shaken my view of you at all and only strikes me as a desperate cry from a dirty politician to start drama over a victorious candidate. But alas, let’s move on to why I am writing this letter.

    We edited our script and found out that we had way too many lines so we had to edit it down a lot. Our script is organized but we still haven’t figured out who is saying what and we haven’t really decided on how were presenting. We don’t want out presentation to be boring but we don’t want to have to do too much because we have a very short time to finish this.

    We said we were going to read the lines but I think that wouldn’t be enough. Then we said we were going to use cards to help with the transition between acts and scenes. I want to make the cards that we use interesting. I want to put pictures of who’s talking on each card and what their actions are.

    So far my group is working extremely well. We all have lots of ideas that we want to put into this project, it’s just a matter of putting it together though. The first thing that we were discussing was finding the lines. We all wanted to find as many lines as possible so we could edit the script any way we wanted. We divided the acts amongst us and everyone looked for lines that dealt with jealousy. At first it was hard to find any lines that actually saying that someone was jealousy but when I looked deeper into it I found a lot.

  Another issue we were talking about was how we were going to edit the script. We didn’t say who would say what yet     because we want to know how much we were going to need first. After we edit our script things will become clearer.

Process: So far we are done with our Initial script. We started out with finding important line that sets our plot and then supports our theme. Since we were assigned on specific acts and scenes we found the lines, wrote a brief description of what happened and put it on google doc. So far everyone found their part and put it on google doc.

Group Dynamics: At this point everyone’s parts are done. No one was assigned to write the lines out on google doc. Since the two scenes I was assigned were pointless and did not have anything important on it so I was done first. I went online and found The Othello book and then read through google doc to see which lines we needed and then started pasting everyone’s lines. Since Guess was also done with me he also found the lines he needed for his section. As we finished coping and pasting our script I worked on my section where I cut out all the lines from the original text that we did not need. Because Sarah was not there I tired doing her line too. My other team members are working on theirs right now.

Editing: For the editing part it’s very confusing for me. Well not exactly, I was confused at first of what I should be doing so yeah. So far I have cut down my lines to where a character says something and it basically states what my one line summary says about that event. I did not go over where I have to link the scenes, but that will be done soon and we should be working on that the next class.

Evolving Understanding: I choose each line by looking at what that line leads to. For example I wrote the line where Iago tells Cassio to drink with him, this is important because that leads to Cassio to get drunk, get in a fight with Rodrigo and then get fired by Othello. So things like that, which basically changes or go along with Iago’s plan in the play are what I usually pick out.

Cirque Du Freak

This is one of my favorite books. It puts a twist on the way people look at vampires and Darren Shan really brings it to life by speaking like a teenager going through this rough time. I always want to read these books and I hate having to stop. Reading this book keeps me entertained and I’m always surprised. I love reading the introduction to the book. Darren Shan is still the character and he’s telling us about his love of spiders and it made the whole book seem all the more real. I found myself forgetting that I was just reading a fiction book and this man was nowhere near my age. If it weren’t for this collection I would hate reading, but Darren Shan makes me see the fun in reading and the imagination it brings is fantastic. The first chapter gives me plenty of time for laughs before the action when I’m clinging to my book. I would recommend this to all horror fans because it’s a way of life you never expected. Sometimes you laugh until tears come to your eyes, other times your crying because the character goes through real problems in his own horror story.

My group and I are just about finished our script. Myself and I think another of my team members have found lines from all the acts and scenes we were assigned. We have them up on the Google Docs, and the rest of my group is just about finished with their acts and scenes as well.

There have been no additional difficulties so far relating to my group and their ability to work together. Our situation has been pretty much a complete success. No one wastes time or gets off task. We talk about what needs to be discussed, then we get done what needs to be done. Everyone is working effectively and efficiently, so there are no problems with my group, as far as I can see.

When adding lines to the Google Docs, my group searches for the quotes that can show off our theme without actually saying it, as well as give hints to the storyline and move it forward. We try to get the juicy quotes that let you easily know what's going on at whatever point of the story the quote is from. For editing, we try to pick out what is unnecessary in the quotes/lines we find and try to get to the point without too much extra information. My group picks tha lines apart and then puts them back together in a way that can be more understandable to the audience and not bore them or leave them stumped.

Now, after finding my lines and looking at those that my partners found, I do understand some of the secret jealousy and character edvelopment to a greater degree. I realized that Brabantio was jealous of Othello almost from the start, seeing as how his daughter was tempted by a "Moor" and not a noble man of Venice. He thinks just about anyone else would be a better choice for Desdemona, but that doesn't seem likely. Also, I've seen how Othello's jealousy was sparked little by little over the course of the story. Throughout Acts 1-3, he gets little nudges down the path to jealousy, but in Acts 4 and 5, he really starts to get "heated" and reveal the jealousy that was created in him by Iago's plan. He goes off on Desdemona about her being a whore with Cassio and giving away his blessed handkerchief, and even questions Emilia's motives. His judgement starts to become clouded near the ending and when the story does come to a close, he ends up dead.

    So far our group has split up the scence and we have looked for things that have to do with manipulation. We all did that for our scenes. Luckily our group had is pretty well together and got all our scenes done by today.

    Today we had to decide quickly what were are going to do for the presentation. We unanimously decided on a podcast. Working in a team gives you and advantage to help eachother out and spread the work out so that each person doesn't have to much.

Process: We made our Google Doc also some of the lines are done. We decided on what we are going to do and it is going pretty well.

Group Dynamics: Well we are pretty good at working together and we are making decisions as a group. Every one is on their own on doing their parts and we should be done and good to go soon.

Editing: Since we did not come to anything that we have to edit of each others we are still working on our own parts. We are planning on doing either a pod cast or a regular movie and this will be edited as we go along.

Evolving Understanding: Well first when I was reading the book I didn’t think that deep about what each person was saying and what it meant through out the whole book, but after I reread each line it seems to me that every line has its own meaning. I choose the lines that best fit my theme, misunderstanding, which meant I had to pick the scenes where if a character said something and it meant something else to a different character. For example when Iago talks to Cassio about Bianca, while Othello thinks Cassio and Iago is talking about Desdemona.

My Group= Mekeda, Lucas, Shannel, Me

 Benchmark Topic= Jealousy

So far, my group has found quotes relating to the topic in Act 1 and Act 5. The project is going wel. We used our in-class time to find the quotes we have so far, and we have already discuseed and decided how we will present the final project. It will be a series of monologues for important scenes involving certain characters, instead of just straight up text reading. Also, we have decided to get more quotes and start editing over the weekend.

Working as a group has not been a problem for us. All members work efficiently and do not waste time. Our successes are that we stay on the same page and don't get off point when having discussions, we work seriously and diligently, and we get along with each other.No one argues or has trouble comunicating. The only difficulty the group has had so far was that we had trouble deciding on how we would present the final project, since none of us really were too concerned about how we presented. So,we all just agreed on and picked monologues.

In terms of understanding the text, I have gotten a better understanding since the project started. I see how characters show their jealousy without saying it. Also, I've seen that the jealousy started earlier than i thought. For example, when the story begins (on the first page, in fact) Iago talks of his disappointment and disgust at Cassio receiving the lieutenancy instead of him. Iago puts his jealouusy out for the audience to see as soon as possible, not exactly a smart move, but it still helped me to understand him a little more, as well as the concept of jealousy in the rest of Othello.