You cannot cough like a long term smoker and write at the same time

And then I got sick. On December fourth a nasty cold forced me to stay in bed. I coughed like I had been smoking three packs a day for at least ten years. Needless to say, it was not my idea of having a good time. The constant battle to stop my vocal cords from leaving my throat kept me busy for the next six days. So, no work was done on my part.
Feeling slightly better, I started to think about the wiki. The navigation bar had to be revised because there was simply too much content on it. Also, the links to the different sites needed an overhaul. And I had to start adding the templates for our authors, books and literary periods.
Sadly I have to report that I was not yet capable of achieving these new goals. Having a severe cold for over a week really threw me of. I'm still getting back on my working schedule. I hope after the holidays I will be finished with my plans concerning the wiki.

The Wikispaces hick up

After putting a lot of work into our wiki, we of course wanted to make it public. But there was a little hick up. Wikispaces wants you to pay one dollar to make it possible for the world to see -and judge- your work. The obstacle is not paying the one dollar. Rather the fact that the only payment option is connecting one's credit card to Google Wallet. Google Wallet aims to rival electronic payment services like Paypal and it is understandable that a person might feel uncomfortable giving the credit card information to a service that could be a high priority target for hackers due to the young age of the service. So, if you do not trust Google Wallet or do not have a credit card you are not able to publish your wiki. In order to go around that problem I will look into finding a similar webtool like Wikispaces, that does not use the same method.

J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye

Information on the author

Name J.D. Salinger

Date of birth/place of birth January 1, 1919, in New York City

Family background married to Claire Douglas, daughter of a British art critic, until 1966; they had two girls

Education Salinger graduated from Valle Forge Military Academy, and after a five-month trip to Vienna, took night classes at Columbia University

Famous works The Catcher in the Rye

Additional information Salinger served in the army from 1942 to 1944. After he came back, he was hospitalized after a nervous breakdown

His work The Catcher in the Rye is, up until today, has sold more than 120 million times and has become a fixed part of the curriculum in school

Information on the epoch

Postmodernism

Date: 1945- today

Background information: Postmodernism is located right after WWII, when soldiers came back from war and were disillusioned and in a crisis. Another questions raised during that time was the boundary between reality and fiction.

Main stylistic devices: During that time intertexuality and metafiction are the most influential stylistic devices. Intertexuality means that the text refers to other texts and metafiction means that the text is self- referential and plays with the fact that the text knows that it is a text, which keeps the reader aware that the text is fiction.

Famous authors and books: J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye;  Woody Allen;  Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire;  Allen Ginsberg Howl; John Irving

Information on The Catcher in the Rye

Title:                                        The Catcher in the Rye          

Publishing date/ place:          1951 in New York

Reactions: The actual target audience was adults, but since the book has themes like growing up and all the problems that come along with it, it became even more popular among young teenagers and because of that the main character has become a symbol for teenage rebellion. The book was not that popular when it first appeared, it was even banned from the classroom in 1961 until 1982. After that it became a fixed part of the school curriculum.

Summary: The book talks about the events that led to the nervous breakdown of main character Holden Caulfield. The story is directly narrated by him. The story begins at his school; he is about to leave for Christmas break. He will not come back to this school, because he was expelled, since he failed four of his five subjects in school. Since he cannot bear to stay at the school any longer, he secretly takes a midnight train to his hometown New York. There he stays in a hotel, because he does not want his parents to know yet that he was expelled. He then meets several different types of people and secretly visits his little sister. During his stay he is drunk most of the time. After taking his little sister to the Central Park Zoo Holden ends the story with not wanting to talk about his current situation.

Salinger, J.D.: The Catcher in the Rye. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd, 1986

http://www.biography.com/people/jd-salinger-9470070

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8084931.stm

http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc9.htm

The Playboy of the Western World – John Millington Synge

The drama focuses on Christy Mahon who is looking for accommodation and arrives at a hostelry which is located in a village in Mayo, a county in Western Ireland. Here, amongst others, he meets Pegeen Mike who is supposed to marry her relative Shawn Keogh. Christy’s story about having killed his father is of high interest to all the people he meets in the hostelry. Thus, he is seen as a hero. However, Pegeen Mike now admires Christy. This endangers the planned marriage between her and Shawn. When Christy’s father, who is supposed to be dead, appears Christy is no longer seen as a hero. He tries to re-establish his status by again trying to murder his father. However, the old man does not die and father and son leave the village. Now that Christy is gone Pegeen Mike has to marry her relative Shawn Keogh.

Information on John Millington Synge

Name:                                      John Millington Synge

Date of birth:                           1871

Education:                               Synge attended Trinity College Dublin to study Irish language and history

Famous works:                         Riders to the Sea (1904), The Playboy of the Western World (1907)

Additional information:              Synge was raised by his very religious mother together with four

siblings. Influenced by Darwinism Synge abandoned the ideology of his mother and also religion itself.

On behalf of the writer Yeats, Synge spend several summers on the Aran Islands in Western Ireland. His stays very much influenced his later works which got very famous.

Information on The Playboy of the Western World

Title:                                        The Playboy of the Western World, drama

Publishing date:                       first premiered in 1907

Place:                                      Abbey Theatre, Dublin

Reactions:                                The opening night resulted in massive criticism and riots due to the fact that many of the audience thought that Synge’s piece delivers a very unpleasant and inappropriate picture of the Irish peasantry. However, Synge obviously knew that his drama would not be loved by everyone. Whereas he thought that the virtuous side of the Irish was well known, he was of the opinion that there is a side of the Irish temperament that is too wild to be dealt with within pieces that are intended for Irish readers. The reason for all the criticism was that the audience was convinced that Synge presented the Irish as a nation of murderous savages. Spectators criticised this even though the Irish peasants were seen as very noble and honest people during that time. Synge failed in trying to fight all the critique claiming that the drama is based on a true story and the language he used within his piece is typical of the country people.

Modernism/the early 20^th century

Dates:                                     late 19^th and early 20^th century

Background information:           The era was very much influenced by the ideas of Charles Darwin. Also, that period is characterized by a break with traditional styles in poetry.

Main stylistic devices:              comparison; irony; satire

Main themes:                            breaking down of social norms; rejection of standard social ideas, traditional thoughts and expectations; rejection of religion

Famous and most influential authors and books:

John Millington Synge (The Playboy of the Western World)

James Joyce (Ulysses)

Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse)

Bibliography:

Lengeler, Rainer (Hrsg.). John Millington Synge. The Playboy of the Western World.

Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000.

http://www.online-literature.com/periods/modernism.php

Templates

We are now at a point in our project where we will start to write the articles about our chosen books, authors, etc. Therefore we started to discuss what information should be included or left out, since we only want to give a general overview. This is the template we came up with:

Authors – Template

Name

Date of birth/place of birth

Family background (children, wife/husband)

Education

Profession (if other than writer)

Famous works

Additional information (e.g. Synge’s religious mother, heavy drinker)

Information on work – Template

Summary – full text (150 words)

Name

Publishing date

Place

Reactions

Era - Template

Dates

Background information

Main stylistic devices

Famous and most influential authors and books

In addition we will post links or book titles that we come across in our research as further reading recommendations, which can be used to get more details on the respective topic. We also decided to limit the actual summary of the plot to a 150 words, in order to keep it brief and not too extensive. These templates and guidelines might also be helpful when we decide to invite other students to contribute to our side, so that all articles can follow roughly the same pattern.

Working with prezi.com

To create the upcoming presentation about our project I thought it would be a good idea to try a new webtool: Prezi (www.prezi.com). I had heard about this tool before but this was the first time I actually worked with prezi on my own.

Before I was able to start working on the presentation I had to sign up and create my own account. Within this account all my future presentations will be saved and thus, I can work on them whereever and whenever I have access to the internet. In my opinion this is very effective and efficient when it comes to presenting. You do not necessarily need to bring your own computer because you can use whichever machine available.

Prezi provides a great deal of designs for presentations. I think this range of samples is a good way to get started. Since there are so many different tools that Prezi offers (besides the look) it is very helpful to have a final design. Furthermore, the sample also helps you organise the presentation. In addition, compared to the usual powerpoint presentation Microsoft offers, Prezi already included animation per se. This makes a very lively presentation!

My first attempt to use Prezi turned out quite well even though it took quite a lot of time to get used to how prezi is working. With regard to future presentations I think I would use Prezi again because it is a nice change to Microsoft's programme. Once you know how to work with Prezi it is relatively easy to handle the tool.

Reviewing the article

Questions 1 - 5:

1. What is the title of the article? Who is the author? Where and when did the article appear?

The article is called "The Endangered Scholarly Book Review" and was written by Lynn Worsham in April 2012. It was published on the website of "The Chronicle (of higher education)".


2. What are the authors credentials?

The author is a professor of English at Idaho State University and an Editor for JAC (A Journal of Rethoric, Culture and Politics).


3. What is the nature of the article?

It's a newspaper article.


4. What is the theme of the article?

The theme could be described as "the scholarly book review and its current situation".


5. Why did the author write it?

The author sees a decline in the book review section of a lot of scholarly journals. With this article she points out the importance of saving these kinds of reviews from extinction.

Reviewing the article tasks

Hey,
here are our answers to today's task.

Reviewing the article (Questions 6 to 14 by Hella and Miriam)

What does the author claim?

Even though many publications do not offer scholarly reviews anymore (if they do, they only publish reviews online), the author thinks that book reviews are still very important for intellectual life.

How does she support this?

1.       Worsham is of the opinion that writing book reviews is a good practice for both advanced doctoral students and new staff of the faculties when it comes to develop intellectual skills that are necessary for scholarly writing.

2.       Well written reviews do have important function within the scholarly community because everyone can make decisions based on the reviews.

3.       The number of reviews shows the scholarly reputation because the more reviews the higher reputation.

  

What is the overall appeal of the article (or lack thereof)? Give reasons.

With her article, Worsham wants to encourage people to go on writing reviews and publishing them. As pointed out before, the author is convinced that book reviews are necessary for the scholarly community. Her conviction includes the idea that book reviews are a good practice for scholars in terms of intellectual skills. In addition to this, reviews function as decision maker and show the scholars’ reputation.  

Do you agree or disagree with what the writer suggests? Why?

We agree to what the writer suggests. Even though we do not write scholarly reviews and thus reviews do not provide practice concerning our writing skills, scholarly reviews do help us on choosing books that we read and work with.

What options does the article suggest? Explain.

The answer and explanation to this question can be found in “How does she support this?”.

Do you know of any other writings on this theme? Do they coincide with what you think or what the author thinks?

Since this is the first time we have considered book reviews and how to write such pieces, we do not know any other writings on this theme yet.

Does the article provide any new insights for you or a larger reading audience?

The article provides some new insights for us. First, we did not know that you need to get permission to write a review. Secondly, we were not aware of the fact that you should only review the newest publications. Worsham points out that it takessome time until a review gets published and thus, it is of great importance to only write reviews on new publications.

Give your overall evaluation and recap your main reasons for this.

We think that the article is very well written and has a clear style. This makes it very easy to follow the thoughts of the author and understand her argumentation. There are no difficult words or phrases which also help to get the author’s point. Beneficial is also the fact that Worsham provides some tips on how to write a good review. We will keep this in mind for our action research on the reading list.

Would you recommend this article, and if so, to whom?

Yes, we would recommend the article to our fellow students because Worsham not only points out the importance of book reviews, but also provides tips for writing a good review.