Category: Student Posts

What’s In Your Bag

The items I usually carry in my backpack:

  • Notebook
  • Laptop
  • Calculator
  • Pens
  • Pencils
  • Sunglasses
  • Book weight.

I felt this was a relatively simple project because I typically don’t carry much in my backpack. I don’t know that this really represents me, but I guess I typically do keep things simple and organized. While making this image, I made sure to keep everything in line within the width of the bag in order to create a line of sight within which to view the items. I think getting the lighting right for the image was the most difficult part because I didn’t have a good light source. I overcame this by changing the light gradient in the photo editor on my phone. I don’t think representing myself in a catalog of the stuff in my bag as a type of writing because I typically associate it writing with language. However I do see how one could make such an association.

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Tracing Maus Reflection

Before starting this project, I thought it wouldn’t be particularly difficult. However, I was immediately amazed at how long it took to even trace the individual pages of the book. For each page I must have traced for at least an hour and a half. I would definitely say that my tracing ability has improved as well as my recognition of proper tracing technique. In the first tracing, I often would smudge the graphite because of my hand. Consequently, I learned to draw left to right and carefully avoid contact with the paper as best as I could. After all of the tracings, the annotation proved to have its own problems. I initially though that I would just highlight certain aspects of the page, but after looking at a classmates annotation I realized I should cover the page in text. So, the annotations also took me around an hour and a half each. Next came writing about the different themes throughout Maus. I didn’t have any particular trouble with this part, but it was time consuming writing all of the ideas out. Finally came creating the landing page and posting the work. I found this to be the most gratifying part of the project because it felt like I truly finished as well as having something tangible online. Overall I would say this was a fun yet time consuming project.

Tracing Maus Reflection

When I was thinking about the pages that I chose for this assignment, I could not find any similarities and did not know what to write about. Then I decided to trace the chosen pages and during the process to notice some features that these two pages have in common. While I was engaged in the process of tracing them, I started noticing some details that I’ve never paid attention to before. This assignment helped me to better understand how big the tragedies were for Vladek and how they left a deep scar on his heart for the rest of his days. The tracing process itself was very unusual but I think I did pretty well. However, it took much longer to trace it that I thought. I spent a few hours on this assignment without even noticing how time flew. Additionally, for me, it was much easier to present my ideas in chunks like this, instead of writing in a more traditional format. However, I do not feel that this assignment helped me to get in on this secret language.

Overall, I highly enjoyed tracing and annotating pages and then linking the ideas between them.

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Photo: scanned from Maus’ cover page

Reflecting on Tracing Maus

Going into this project, I really did not know what to expect. I closely read the text and examined the images, but other than that, I really did not know what this project was going to have in store for me. My first challenge was picking out the pages I wanted to trace. Sure, I could have picked the more “popular” ones, the ones we spent time analyzing in class. But, I wanted to challenge myself. I decided to pick two pages we talked about, but not in full detail. I then began tracing, which took much longer than I anticipated but it allowed me to pick what I felt was most important to highlight in the line drawing. Annotating each page seemed helpful at first, but since I mostly had my ideas from the start, I really did not write much. I basically had all of my ideas planned out right after taking a first glance at the pages. This made it much easier for me to write my paragraphs, especially because they were more like mini separate assignments. I am looking forward to fine tuning this project as I feel like I was a little rushed in completing it due to studying for my other midterms.

Image found on Flickr

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