Emily Shepherd Portfolio Reflections

[0:00] Image of poetry essay assignment and e-poem assignment on class website

Hi everyone, this is my e-portfolio video.

In this class we were given the opportunity to work with poetry both in a traditional academic sense where we wrote an essay analyzing a poem, as well as a nontraditional way of analyzing poetry through multimedia composing.

[0:22] Image of “They shut me up in Prose--” poem on website

The poem I chose to engage with for both assignments was Emily Dickinson’s “They shut me up in Prose”

I have to admit that I was not that excited about the poetry essay because first, I have difficulty analyzing poetry in general, and second, I have done this type of assignment many times and I was not looking forward to doing another one.

[0:37] Image of poetry essay assignment

[0:50] Image of e-poetry assignment

When I found out about the e-poem I was was happy because I had never done anything like this before, and I have been wanting to work on my video editing skills for quite some time. I was also looking forward to the more creative aspect of the assignment.

[1:02] Image of essay draft

When I finally started working on the poetry essay, I was surprised to find that I did actually enjoy it. I have not had the opportunity to study much of Dickinson’s poetry and once I found “They shut me up in Prose” and actually read it a few times over I was pleasantly surprised that I felt a strong connection to the poem right away.

[1:25] Video of editing the e-poem in software

This connection only strengthened as I engaged with the poem in many ways, including the e-poetry project. This project allowed me to think about the strong imagery of the poem and to think more deeply about the symbolic meaning behind the literal words. 

[1:40] Quote appears on screen: 

“...the need to engage students across modalities.” - Paul Baepler and Thomas Reynolds, The Digital Manifesto, Minneapolis

I think there certainly is a need to engage students across modalities, and that when this is done, students can learn the subject-matter better. 

[1:52] Quote appears on screen: 

“The authors used low threshold (easy-to-learn) technologies to help students extend their capabilities to express ideas and to engage in “transmedia navigation.” - Paul Baepler and Thomas Reynolds, The Digital Manifesto, Minneapolis

When it comes to literature, there are a multitude of ways to engage with a text as well as different learning styles. A teaching style where you give students the opportunity to engage with subject-matter across disciplines can be very effective.

[2:07] Quote appears on screen: 

“...the goal of literary work (of literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text.” - Bart, “S/Z” excerpts S/Z image

The e-poem in particular made me feel like I was more of a producer of text and no longer a consumer. Since I am not very artistically inclined, I am very frequently a consumer. This does not help me to grow as a person or to develop my creative talents. I was grateful for the opportunity to finally be a producer where I could make artistic decisions about my interpretation of the poem and to present it in a way that is hopefully beautiful and stimulating to its audience.

[2:36] Quote appears on screen: 

“Bakhtinian intertextuality — with each text, avowed adaptation or not, afloat upon a sea of countless earlier texts from which it could not help borrowing” - Thomas Leitch, “Adaptation Studies at a Crossroads,” Oxford

Lastly, this class helped me understand that literature is built upon the literature that came before it. This is such a helpful concept to understand in both literature and life. In life, all of our work and what we do as human beings is built upon the people who came before us. When we understand this, we can begin to move away from an individualistic society towards one that is more collective in nature. It truly is amazing what literature can teach you.

[3:07] Music starts; side-by-side images of e-poem video playing and scrolling through poetry essay, while zooming in on the last stanza cited in the poetry essay: Himself has but to will/And easy as a Star/Look down opon Captivity--/And laugh-- No more have I--

[3:53] Video ends