Shakespeareance with Aubrie

I realized yesterday that I spent about a half hour on Aubrie's blog looking at her projects and designs and I didn't even mention that on my blog.

Aubrie really seemed to connect with Shakespeare. She focused the majority of her efforts on the pop culture/creative side, but there was evidence that she did her homework and did more than just skim the plays. Her drawings were really spot on. They showed a lot of talent and thought. The course objectives that she excelled in were connecting Shakespeare creatively  and critically. She also used her new found digital skills to upload and put her Shakespeare drawings on the web. She didn't really focus on the scholarly aspect, but her research into the pop culture side shows that she did enjoy and work hard to understand Shakespeare more throughly, especially how he applies to today.

Re-purposed and doing just fine

I wanted to share a little bit more about my experience with the re-purposed paper. At first I really had no idea what I wanted to do, but talking with Professor Burton and Kaleigh really helped push me in a good direction. I knew I wanted to make a video, because I really enjoy making them and I knew that it would be a good medium. I also knew I wanted it to be interesting and engaging for anyone who watched it. It hit me as I was watching Modern Family one afternoon that I should make a mock-umentary. It's only a mock documentary because I wanted it to be more entertaining than what I imagine a real documentary being and I didn't document it as I was actually writing my paper. I only wanted to show the digital media side instead of the process as a whole. So it wasn't exactly true to form, hence mock-umentary.

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I really like my end product. I think it is exactly what I wanted. Especially when Dr. Burton asked if he could use it as an example for a lecture. I was on cloud nine...I've never had a teacher actually want to keep something that I've created. (excepting a mask I made in 9th grade theater class, but still...) Mallory and the education majors also wanted to use my video in their presentation which I of course said yes too. I really meant what I said in my video, I did not want to make something that only I cared about. I wanted other people to like it too, and they did!

This re-purposed paper did exactly what I wanted it too. It incorporated all the things I love: Shakespeare, Acting, Creating, Filming, and Learning. It used the medium that I chose for a specific purpose and worked.

Semester Reflections

I remember filling out my goals at the start of the semester and now it seems unreal that the semester is over. I am now going to review how I think I met or did not meet my goals. The original blog is here: Start of the Semester Goals (Although I did just copy and paste my original blog for review here...)

Here I go...

Learning Outcomes

• History, Context, Genres and Themes, and Ethics
  Explain the historical and literary contexts, genres and themes, and ethical dimensions of Shakespeare’s representative works. I want to delve a little more into the historical side of things. I really do like history and could definitely find some good scholarly articles that explain more of the historical context. Since I have already read a few of Shakespeare's plays and know a little bit about their themes, genres, and ethical dimensions, I think that I study and focus on the themes a little closer. I want to do at least one blog post per play on this learning outcome. 
  ***This is my reflections color*** I did do this for most of the plays that I read. I focused more on The Taming of the Shrew, but I still did looked into these categories for the other plays. (I should have made a link for this category so I could find specific examples.) 
• Secondary Scholarship
  Develop familiarity with key secondary scholarship about and critical perspectives of Shakespeare's works. This is what I will do to find out my historical and contextual insights. I will use  blogging Shakespeare and the library resources to accomplish this.
  I spent a lot amount of time doing library research as well as online research for my research paper. Scholarship and critical perspectives of Shakespeare's work
• Scholarly Research
  Perform scholarly research on Shakespeare’s works by identifying and evaluating appropriate research sources, incorporating these sources into a well-documented formal academic paper, and formulating arguments based on those sources. I feel like next week this one will be tackled. I did this with style. Research Paper 
• 1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy
  
  
  Demonstrate mastery over fundamental information about Shakespeare’s works, life, and legacy
  a. Breadth (knowledge of a range of Shakespeare’s works) Reading to understand all of the plays that are assigned/chosen in this class I did this
  b. Depth (more thorough knowledge of a single work) I will choose my favorite of the plays and make drawbacks to it throughout the semester. Making sure that I can have enough knowledge to make critically engaging debates on it. I accomplished this with The Taming of the Shrew. I also really did have a debate on this. Trailer Video
  c. Performance (stage and screen) This one won't be hard, I performed Romeo and Juliet last fall and I love seeing different performances. I want to watch 2-3 productions of different plays and analyze them critically: theme, language, cultural. How well do they stay with the written script, what is taken out either for time or poor judgment. I watched several productions and analyzed them. I watched: Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, Kiss Me Kate- on video. I also watched two live performances- The Merchant of Venice and Love's Labor's Lost. 
  d. Legacy (history, scholarship, popular culture) I want to watch at least one loose interpretation of Shakespeare and analyze it. I want to see if it held true to any of Shakespeare's themes or devices despite the contemporary aspect. I also want to 'pin' everything I find on Shakespeare. I did manage to watch a loose interpretation, which helped me with my paper and then I also pinned a lot of the stuff I found on Shakespeare. 
• 2. Analyze Shakespeare Critically
  
  
  Interpret Shakespeare’s works critically in their written form, in performance (stage or screen) and in digitally mediated transformations. This includes 
  a. Textual analysis (theme, language, formal devices)
  b. Contextual analysis (historical, contemporary, cultural)
  c. Application of literary theories 
  d. Analysis of digital mediations
  I already mentioned this in the last section, but I want to do this with 2-3 productions of Shakespeare's plays and one loose interpretation. Starting with Henry V. I definitely did this one. Kiss Me Kate was the loose interpretation. I also analyzed Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, and Love's Labors Lost.
• 3. Engage Shakespeare Creatively
  
  
  a. Performance (memorization, recitation, scene on stage or video) I definitely will do this, but I'm not sure that anybody really wants to see me perform Shakespeare. I did this in my Modern College video. In the end I  recited some Shakespeare (someday I'll be famous--jk).
  b. Individual creative work (literary imitation, art, music) I could definitely do this one, I am a master with crayons. Well I consider my projects to have covered this, but I really wis
  c. Collaborative creative project I think we have one of these at the end of the semester... I will again say that the re-purposed paper and the teaser trailer accomplished this one.
• 4. Share Shakespeare Meaningfully
  
  
  This includes engaging in the following:
  a. Formal Writing. Develop and communicate your ideas about Shakespeare clearly in formal and researched writing and through a format and medium that puts your ideas into public circulation. I believe this is due in Feb. and I will definitely blog about it. I already posted a link to this...somewhere...
  b. Informal Writing. This mainly means through regular online writing check, already doing this, but to set a goal I will at least do this 3 times a week. I did not meet this one completely on the terms I suggested. Sometimes I blogged more, but then as I started spending more time on the paper and projects, I blogged less than I probably should have.
  c. Connecting. Share one’s learning and creative work with others both in and outside of class. My husband will not like this one, but I will share with him anyway. I need to practice my creative performance on someone first anyway...I accomplished this in and out of class. My husband read my papers and helped me with my projects and I posted them so I could get feedback from the class too.
• 5. Gain Digital Literacy
  Students use their study of Shakespeare as a way of understanding and developing fluency in 21st century learning skills and computer-mediated modes of communication. Those skills are grouped under the following categories.
  a. Consume - Effective and independent selecting, searching, researching, 
  b. Create - Producing content that demonstrates learning and which can be shared for others to profit from.
  c. Connect - Engage with other learners within and outside of the class to develop thinking and share more formal work.
  With the goals I have set for the other categories this one will be used as a means to accomplish them. My Modern College project that I did analyzed my method for this class. It is a very effective means to showcase what I have learned from digital media.
  
  
  
  
  Overall, I think I did really well. I learned a lot about digital literacy, Shakespeare, and myself and I was able to cohesively make project that I think shows this. This has been one of my favorite classes. I have had to stretch myself and I have proved to myself that I can do what I set my mind to do. I am very happy with the place I've come to at the end of this class.

Mikhaela and Kayla present: Our Trailer Extraordinaire!

I am finally posting my and Kayla's trailer video! I think this format will really get people interested in our papers/our repurposed content. As you can tell the only things missing are the links to our papers/repurposed content, but that is because I am still waiting on Kayla to send me her information. I decided to go ahead and post this since it is finished besides that. Please give me your input. I really value constructive criticism.

Modern College-Shakespeare Style

I have finally finished my repurposed project and here it is: Modern College
If you would like to have a look at the original paper take a look: A Cated Kate

It feels so refreshing to be finished. I have worked some long hours trying to get this as close to perfect as possible. I hope there aren't any major issues I will have to fix. I feel like it is in a good place.

Comparable Inspirations

I tried to make my idea somewhat original and so my original thought was that I couldn't find any comparable media to show where my inspiration came from. I realized though that it isn't as original as I had planned. First of all my whole idea was pretty much stolen from the show Modern Family to begin with. Their purpose is to legitimize different family dynamics in a mock documentary...which is what I wanted to do. I wanted to legitimize ideas of researching for research papers in a humorous way...ie a mock documentary.

This is an example of my Modern Family inspiration.

Another video that is comparable on a humorous level is this video:

This is another example of taking a common and loved media device and using it to create an informative video. Although this one is less than exact in it's information...

Blogging Shakespeare is a site that explores Shakespeare through the medium of blogging. They use resources that are not considered legitimate sources, like blogs and vlogs to explore Shakespeare related topics.

I just found this brilliant video where a women discusses whether or not Kate is a shrew and gives evidence that would satisfy both: 

Editing Thoughts

I feel like my video is in a good place as it is. It is effective and well produced. I got the bulk of what I wanted to say down, but there is room for improvement. I'm a perfectionist at heart and so I want my video to be well done. So here is the list of what I am going to improve this weekend:

-add in more Shakespeare
-show my progress as I was working on my paper
-use a couple Shakespeare quotes
-add in text over video
-clean up sound
-try and rerecord the soundtrack to match the shots
-shoot new out-of-ideas scenes
-explain Social Proof more explicitly
-use the website: bloggingshakespeare.com (shakespeare bites back)
-http://www.folger.edu/Content/Discover-Shakespeare/Shakespeare-Links.cfm (use this too)


We will work from there...