Another class I am taking this semester is Monsters in Literature. My initial reasoning for taking it was that it seemed interesting, and I was trying to avoid taking creative writing, but I am glad I ended up taking it because I've learned a lot through it. The class is one of the many asynchronous classes resulting from the pandemic, so we conduct everything online through UH's site Laulima. It's organized so that we have weekly assignments, and over the last few months, we have been reading a few different books. We've looked at vampires while reading Carmilla and Dracula, and right now, we are reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Next up on our list is World War Z, a much more modern book than the previous three written in the victorian era. It's interesting the look we get into Victorian society through reading these stories. We can see its fears, as well as its beliefs and values. Each week we read a couple of chapters of whatever book we are on, take notes in a Dialectal Journal (DJ) style, and turn them in the following week. Our professor will also provide extra resources that play into the week's assignments for note-taking. On Wednesday, we have our first forum post of the week called a Lit Explorer Post. It's usually a shorter post where we write poems based on the book, draw scenes, or analyze a resource and write about it. Friday, we have our main Discussion boards to post our responses to some questions based on that week's chapters. We also have to respond to other classmates' posts throughout the week to interact and see other people's views on things relating to the book. While the professor is very active and gives us feedback, the class is still done entirely online, so getting the work done on time requires our self-directional skills. We also need to actively read the novels and analyze them to understand and respond to other people's takes on them. At times it is challenging because some concepts are harder to analyze and understand than others, but as you respond to other posts and look at the book's themes closer, it gets easier to see what's going on.
Below is an example of our DJ Notes, as well as and example of our Lit Explorer posts and Friday Discussions.
Below is an example of our DJ Notes, as well as and example of our Lit Explorer posts and Friday Discussions.