Ashley Kramer
Promotional Poster/Video representation
I thought Ashley’s video was extremely effective in portraying the essence of her author and that she did a very good job incorporating this aspect into her entire presentation. The video portraying various views of “what like a girl” looks like. This was incorporated into the presentation as Alice Walker in The Color Purple addressed gender roles and breaking free from stereotypical gender roles. This was also enforced by her promotional poster of the hands breaking free from the chains. Great job!
Kelly Wu
Video
I really loved Kelly’s inclusion of the Ellen Degeneres clip. Not only was it entertaining and perfect for the target audience, but it fit extremely well with the major theme addressed throughout the presentation. As the importance of decision making was discussed in the presentation, the video definitely reinforced this idea because even though the decision Ellen discussed in the video--something as simple as deciding which lane to drive in-- it shows that we face decision making every day. I also liked the other visual representations such as the frame from the film version of the book to keep the audience engaged in the presentation. Great job!
Kara Lennon
Promotional Poster/Video
I really thought Kara did a good job portraying the essence of Tennessee Williams throughout the entire presentation. Specifically, looking at the promotional poster, the visual representation really reinforced this. By portraying the beam of light going through the prism one color and coming out the prism an entire spectrum of colors, emphasizes the importance of light as not only a huge role in the novels, figuratively, but literally as well, since the works were actually plays with stage and lighting directions. The video she included also reinforced this and gave us another visual aid to help understand the importance of light, as it portrayed the same woman and how she appeared to look different and seemed to be expressing different facial expressions when in reality, she was not moving at all. I really thought these components added to the effectiveness of the entire presentation, as it was consistent through the whole presentation.
Jordan Grollmus
Funeral Blues/ Visual representations
I thought Jordan did a really nice job with visual representations. For example, I really like how she included a frame from the film version of the little boy at a 9/11 memorial to give us an idea of what the book was about. I also loved how she included pictures and diagrams the author drew in the pages so we were able to visualize it as well. I also thought the comparison of her poem was very good because she addressed the feelings of despair and tragedy which were very important aspects of both. Awesome job!
Kylie McCalmont
Visual representation/Poetry Comparison
I thought Kylie did an awesome job portraying the style/era of her novel consistently throughout her presentation. For example, the image included in her powerpoint portrayed a mountain with one side bright and cheery with rolling green hills, whereas the other side looked darker and more rocky. This was a perfect representation of switching from the Victorian Era to the Gothic Era. I also thought the poem she chose to relate to Wuthering Heights, “Alone” by Edgar Allen Poe, was a very good choice because she did a very nice job comparing them to each other by pulling lines that were similar into the powerpoint, showing the melancholy tones and gothic imagery and how they were similar.
Self Reflection:
Looking at the concrete aspect of my project, I utilized various pictures throughout my PowerPoint presentation. I thought this was an important aspect to include because it allowed the audience to be more engaged in my presentation. I also did this because I included various images of Big Brother or eyes because this was a very major aspect of 1984 with posters of Big Brother everywhere. I believe my performance in my presentation was very engaging, especially with my inclusion of the cupcakes with little eyes, which reinforces the essence of 1984 as Big Brother watches everything. This was a major aspect of my novel, and I believe that in my extra credit explanation I did a very nice job relating the cupcakes back to the novel with various quotes to back it up. I believe the design of my PowerPoint was also effective as I implemented many pictures and dark colors to enforce the darkness of the dystopian society in the novel. Something else I believed I did well in this project was the research paper. I was able to utilize almost all of the literary criticisms that I found and implement them into my research paper. I also believe I had a strong introduction and thesis that was creative and engaging. Something I could've done better would definitely be using more eye contact in the presentation because I tended to read off the screen. If doing this project again, I would’ve spent more time revising my poetry essay, as this was my lowest scored aspect of the presentation. I really liked that we had to do reflections for others as well as ourselves because l was able to further analyze other students work to see how they went about analyzing their author’s writing as well as the stylistic choices they included. I also believe this project was good preparation for the AP Literature exam because the book and author we chose to research could definitely come in handy for an open question prompt, as I feel as though I would be able to compose a well written essay over 1984 with knowledge of George Orwell’s writing style and its effect on the work as a whole.
