Critiques

Here go my critiques!
Sarah Smith
I thought your paper was really interesting. After hearing your speech, I was hoping to get a chance to read your paper. You have a lot of research done on the project. It is interesting to see how sex education is taught then and compared to now. I do not think that much has changed. It’s great that realized that and allowed it come through in your paper. I do not think that there are any 499 classes this fall that you might be able to use your paper in but I think you should definitely be on the look out for one. The only thing you may want to do to really expand your paper is talk a little bit more about the people who tried to lobby for change. It would make it interesting to see who tried to have sex education taught in a more complete and coherent fashion. It would be interesting to see how these people were shot down at their attempts to reform. I feel like your conclusion, much like mine, could have been stronger. I know how hard it is to finish a paper this long, you feel like you have a repeated everything a million times over and want to avoid it in the end. I will def take your advice and get mine to the writing center. Overall, I thought this was very well thought out and research paper. Grade: B

Rickta

This was a great paper. This is one of the best papers I have critiqued. You used a lot of great facts and quotes. You can tell a lot of researched has been done. The quotes really liven up your paper. It gives the paper a lot of credibility. I think this paper can easily be used for 499, its already 16 pages. It has a lot of information and for being as long as it is you never lose focus or become repetitive. The thesis is strong and clear. You really state what you are going to talk about and focus on the change over time. I hate to say it because your paper makes mine look like crap, but I thought it was really well written. I found a couple of grammatical mistakes but nothing the writing center couldn’t fix. Grade= A/A-

Self-Evaluation

Well here is a chance for me to display that I have learned. How exciting. Let me just take a minute to say how much I truly enjoyed this class. Beside the fact that it was a lot of work and sometimes very frustrating, I met a lot of great history majors (this was a first) and dramatically improved my writing skills. This class really opened up the door for opportunities as a new history major.
My attendance in this class was probably the best I had in any of my classes this semester. I only missed one class due to a cold. Unfortunately it was the class that we went over the library resources. Lucky for me Maddie gave me a card so I could make an appointment and catch up.
Class participation was pretty easy in this class. Everyone was so easy going. Sharing ideas and topics was really productive and I feel sharing my ideas with everyone really helped me with my topic. I feel that I benefited from peer work and enjoyed reading other peoples papers. I really tried to give people an honest opinion about their paper and add some constructive criticism. Minus the final paper, in which I forgot my original paper, I think I was always on time with my work. I had my blog caught up and my rough drafts on time. I attended the Library of Congress field trip and subsequently got in lost in Supreme Court. Attending this field trip really got me started on researching my paper.
This class took up the most time this semester. It really prepared me for what is to come in 499. I spent a lot of typing up my blog. I spent even more time immersed in books for this class; some were more fun then others. Research was probably the most boring and time consuming part of this, but I think that spreading it out really helped me and allowed me to spend more time pouring over each source. I spent countless hours writing and revising my final paper and then rewriting and revising it a second time. I think all this time spent on the final paper was worth it and really paid off in my final paper.
I learned how to budget time more efficiently this semester. I learned to not put things off until the last minute and most importantly make tons of back-ups. Also, no passive voice, ever! The problems I encountered usually just came from finding adequate resources. I do not think I would have done anything differently. The skills and knowledge learned came in the form of better writing skills and actually learning how to do research, which I was previously unaware of.
Like I said previously the knowledge I gained was researching skills. I had never done any research on such a large scale before. I learned about evaluating sources. I also learned where to find sources. I had no idea that there were so many places to look for sources, I would have never known about the Lion and Unicorn database. I took three other history classes and the things I learned in this class really helped those. I really enjoyed this class and look forward to the history of animation!

Critique Edited***

Here the link to my critique of Sarah's paper. I did not realize we were supposed to give it a grade so I will gove my grade here. I think Sarah would get A- because of the wording but I think after she looked over tha; she could easily get and A or A+! I thought it had alot of great information and the pictures she choose to illustrate her point were great.

Extra Post

So I know we were supposed to make up a post to fill in for last week...I think. Anyways, I will just take a moment to say this was the hardest paper I have ever written. Trying to narrow down a topic was wretched! Once I finally narrowed I was so excited, I thought I had more then enough information to easily fill 10 pages. The longer I typed the less I was sure. After some editing and juggling I filled 11. I think writing this paper was good experience because it taught me how balance my time on large projects as well as how to do some serious research. Overall, my paper is worthy of line edit time and I hope it turns out well!

Outline

I really wanted to talk about Popular Culture in essay, so this is what I based my paper on.
Paragraph 1
-I wanted to open with a quote.
-Then I want to go to discuss my thesis.
Paragraph 2
-Here I will talk in more detail about pop culture
-what it means in each time period
-Mention the fact that all of the books come from England.
-talk about the fact that all the writers look down their nose at pop culture.
Paragraph 3,4,5
-talk about how each book approaches the idea behind pop culture.
Paragraphs 6,7,8
- give some background on each of the books.
Paragraphs 9,10,11
-for each books give details about what was going at the time that each of the books were written
- Give the history of pop culture at each of the times
Paragraphs 12,13,14
-give the details from the books about instances of pop culture
-in some of the books discuss the lack of pop culture and the reason behind the omission
Paragraphs 15,16,17
-discuss the gender in reference to culture in the books
Conclude the essay

Bibliography--Updated

This is my updated bibliography, it is now in Chicago style as well.
Bibliography

Cathi Dunn MacRae, "Harry Potter Update: Is It for Young Adults?" in Urbana, Vol. 89, No. 4, March, 2000, pp. 137-38

Andrew Stuttaford, "It's Witchcraft," in National Review, Vol. 51, No. 19, October 11, 1999, p. 60

Alison Lurie, "Not for Muggles," in New York Review of Books, Vol. 46, No. 20, December 16, 1999, pp. 6-8.
***This one also makes reference to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

"Why Harry's Hot." Newsweek (17 July 2000): 52.

Tucker, Nicholas. "The Rise and Rise of Harry Potter." in Children's Literature in Education 30, no. 4 (December 1999): 221-34.

Shannon Maughan, "The Race for Harry Potter," in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 246, No. 7, February 15, 1999, p. 33.
Alasdair Campbell, Children's Writers: 6 Roald Dahl, The School Librarian, Vol. 29, No. 2, June, 1981, pp. 108-14.

Walker Rutledge, "Roald Dahl: Overview" in Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers, 1st ed., edited by Laura Standley Berger, St. James Press, 1994.

Michael Wood, “The Confidence Man”, in New Society, Vol. 50, No. 898-99, December 20-27, 1979, pp. xiv-xvi.

Frederic Raphael, “Stories from the Source of Heartlessness”, The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4618, October 4, 1991, p. 28.

Eric Patterson, "Roald Dahl: Overview" in Contemporary Popular Writers, edited by Dave Mote, St. James Press, 1997.


THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. Weekly (0000-0019); Volume: 247; Issue: 47; Date: 2000

Naomi Lewis, "C. S. Lewis: Overview" in Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, 4th ed., edited by Laura Standley Berger, 1995.

Lee Siegel, "Harry Potter and the Spirit of the Age: Fear of Not Flying," in New Republic, November 22, 1999, p. 40.
***References both Harry Potter and The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe.

Wikipedia Project, Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Project.


University of Minnesota, Children, Youth and Family Consortium, University of Minnesota Children, Youth and Family Consortium.

Net Guides, Net Guides, Net Guides,

Nostalgia Central, Nostalgia Central, Nostalgia Central.

Kjos Ministries, Kjos Ministries, Kjos Ministries,

Pennington, John. “From Elfland to Hogwarts”. Project Muse. 3 Apr. 2005

Natov, Roni. “Harry Potter and The Extraordinariness of Ordinary”. Project Muse. 3 Apr. 2005.
Kid Source Online, Gender Issues in Children's Literature, Kid Source Online,
Books
Dahl, Roald. Matilda. New York: Penguin. 1998
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. New York: Scholastic. 2000
Lewis, C.S. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe. New York: Harper Collins. 1950

I messed up

ok..So i had the info about LoC and I got a little delete happy and accidently deleted without saving it. So this is a annotated version. Sorry.....The library of congress was an interesting field trip. I liked how much information Leroy gave us. I really like how much information he gave about the databases. Until that field trip I had yet to use them. The databases he gave us has really helped out in my research for this and other classes. I was a little disappointed that the rooms were closed. However, I did get the number for the woman that works in the children’s room. We are in the process of working out a meeting.

Post 4 Essay Topic

The focus for my paper will be the representation of children in literature. To do this I will be looking at 3 books, Matilda by Ronald Dahl, A Series of Unfortunate Events Book1 by Lemony Snicket and Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling. I choose these books because they represent to main factors in children’s books, “the magical child” and the “smart” kid. I like Matilda and Harry Potter for this especially. I feel that they both show case this quality in their main characters the best.
Along with the actual books I will be using a variety if secondary sources. I want to look at how other people view these characters. I know that I will find a lot of information on the “magical” kid aspect because people debate it so much. I was hoping to use the internet for additional information but I was also hoping to go as far and get some feedback from actual kids who read these books. This is my tentative plan at the moment.

Harry Potter THe Goblet of Fire Primary Source. I think I am going to use these three books for my paper. I think they each make my point. The focus of my paper is the representation of kids, with special attention on the magical child and the smart kid. 

"'Perished,'" Mr. Poe said, "means 'killed.'"
"We know what the word 'perished' means," Klaus said, crossly. He did know what the word "perished" meant, but he was still having trouble understanding exactly what it was that Mr. Poe had said. It seemed to him that Mr. Poe must somehow have misspoken.
"The fire department arrived, of course," Mr. Poe said, "but they were too late. The entire house was engulfed in fire. It burned to the ground."
Klaus pictured all the books in the library, going up in flames. Now he'd never read all of them.Mr. Poe coughed several times into his handkerchief before continuing. "I was sent to retrieve you here, and to take you to my home, where you'll stay for some time while we figure things out. I am the executor of your parents' estate. That means I will be handling their enormous fortune and figuring out where you children will go. When Violet comes of age, the fortune will be yours, but the bank will take charge of it until you are old enough."
 

Matilda Primary Source 

Entry 2 2-10-05

I read about childhood aggression last week. The story was called “The Play’s the thing. This did not really have any thing historical in it; it did however point me in the direction I have decided to take my paper. I want to look at aggression in children throughout history. I was thinking that I could perhaps focus on what role media would play in this. Before there was TV and video games there was radio and live shows. I do not know a lot about the types of programs they played on the radio. I think I would like to look more into whether they played different shows each night or was more like one long story. I also want to look into how many stations the average radio got and if they played different things on each of the different stations. I know some that programs were like soap operas we have today. They story I read in the children’s reader was saying that children and the media were not blame for how kids turned out, it was the fault of parents who did not give their kids an alternate means to release the pent up stress and frustration of being a child. In my paper I think I’m going to take the same side. I personally do not think that media can be blamed. On some level, I think, parents have to stand up and take some responsibility for their kids. If kids are explained what they are seeing in terms they can understand and given an outlet for how they feel, then parents shouldn’t have to worry that kids will pick up bad habits.
I would also like to look at whether there was appropriate entertainment for each age or whether they just lumped all kids’ entertainment together. Today, we have the “V-chip” this advancement in television lets parents know what is appropriate for their kids. For example at the top of the screen will appear a sign that says rated “G” this let parents know that is made for the general audience. I know that radio programs would not have had this but I wonder if they have radio programs for a younger audience and a different one for older kids. I know they made books for all ages. I am also going to look into what the general themes were in books and radio around these times.