Brandon Rebboah<<<<<< Click here to go back to the index!
Writing With New Media
Professor Bousquet
June 8, 2010

Spring Quarter Learning Essay

Throughout the last two quarters I believe that this class has helped me learn a lot about myself. Not only has my writing improved, I learned a lot about myself. When starting my first hypertext in the fall I didn’t think I was capable of creating such an expansive project. Throughout the fall quarter, with my projects on Guatemala, racism in the educated class, and low wages in sports I think that I built the confidence I would need for a much more rigorous second quarter. I think that my final project from the first quarter, low wages and sports, was the most helpful going into the spring quarter. I believe this because that was the first project we had to write a review of the literature and annotated bibliography. I think that this project really prepared me for the second quarter, where we had less time to build an expansive hypertext about Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother.  As I reflected on in my first quarter learning essay, the thing I struggled with the most the first quarter was writing in a way that was both academic and interesting at the same time. I believe that in the second quarter, I not only improved my writing in an academic sense, but also become a more creative writer. In the second quarter, I wasn’t afraid to step out of the box as much, or experiment with my style of writing. Moreover, at the end of last quarter I really viewed the fall quarter as a learning experience. With a strong sense of what Dreamweaver was about, what academically was expected me and a realistic idea of college writing, goal going into this spring quarter was to push myself and build upon the A work I did in the first part of this sequence class. I knew I was capable of getting an A, so I wanted to really focus on making my hypertexts about things that interested me and the aesthetics behind them.
My favorite part about my first hypertext for this quarter was the content. I was able to incorporate my love for Science Fiction, both prose and film, into an academic setting. My first hypertext about Little Brother was centered on Doctorow’s attempt to create a modern day dystopia. For me, after finishing this project I was proud of the work I had accomplished because I really enjoyed writing it. I think picking a topic that I was truly interested in dramatically improved my writing. I was really able to spend a lot of time with my dystopian hypertext. One of the most beneficial ways in which I edited my hypertext was by writing a thoughtful and complete linear version. This allowed me to think in a more academic sense, and blend my hypertext writing and my linear versions into the final product. If I could critique my first hypertext for the spring quarter, I would say that the thing I could improve the most would be the layout of the site. I love the aesthetics of the site, but I believe that I cared too much of beauty rather than functionality.
After the first hypertext, I went to work on my screenplay. At first I was overwhelmed by the screenplay because I wasn’t familiar with the way in which to format a screenplay. I decided to let go of my qualms about that and have fun. For me, it was another chance to write about something I cared about. To me, I think one of my strongest gifts in writing is my creativity. I really enjoying creating fictional characters and settings and I believe my screenplay did a good job of that. My screenplay, which entitled “Puppet”, was a harsh critique of the politics in Little Brother. I decided to write about this because in my opinion Doctorow made the reader rush to conclusions too quickly without looking at both sides of the situation. Regardless, I believe that I wrote a strong screenplay.  I strongly believe that my screenplay could have been produced into a good movie, but have no hard feeling that it wasn’t because there were some wonderful screenplays. My strongest critique of my screenplay is the ending. I think that while I ended it abruptly to comment on Doctorow’s ending, I could have done a better job of reworking the ending to draw a better connection between what I thought of Doctorow’s novel.
My favorite project this quarter was by far the movie that I produced with 4 other students. While we discussed the project for weeks in class, I went into the project very nervous. I didn’t know exactly what to expect. I was scared that working with Second Life and with other people would be a difficult assignment. I was right, it was difficult but I really had fun with it. The movie I made with Michael Adair, Caitlin Cutting, Lindsay Grove, and Mirella Villapando entitled “Email Guard” taught me more than any other project in the first or second quarter. First, it taught me that I could meet any deadline. I stressed about meeting such a challenging deadline the entire time we were working on the project. More importantly, it taught me that New Media can be used in a variety of ways. I thoroughly enjoyed being the editor for my group’s movie because I got to experiment with camera angles, positions, and effects. To me this was such a valuable project because it taught me that there is more than one way to create a thoughtful piece that conveys a message. In my opinion, the video was so much more effective than any hypertext. I felt that my group, and all the groups for that matter, did an excellent job of running with a commentary on Little Brother and make it come to life. I thought that the project drastically changed my view on what can be considered academic, and that I really enjoyed making a movie. Although it wasn’t my first movie, I really learned a lot about how to use cinematic elements to make your story even more interesting. This is why, out of all the projects I have done in the  class, from both quarters, Email Guard, is by far the thing I’m most proud of. Not only did my group and I overcome obstacles to create a movie, but it was also the most time consuming. Although it was time consuming, I feel that I reaped the benefit when I saw the final project.
On the whole, I believe that I learned a lot about New Media in this class. Not only did my writing improve, but I really learned more valuable lessons. I learned how to be creative and create hypertexts that were visually stimulating as well as academic. Also, I learned that New Media doesn’t just have to be a bunch of words thrown on a hypertext. I learned that creativity can have a part in academic work. Creating a hypertext, a movie, or a glog is just as relevant as writing a ten page paper.
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