Stephanie Lenox

I took the editing and publishing workshop with Stephanie and also attended her poetry reading.

It was interesting to see two different sides of her English passions. I was very surprised at the types of poems she wrote/read because they were very different from her business side. Her poems were very informal and deep, they really showed emotions and had a sense of humor in them. Compared to her philosophies on editing and publishing which were very much about effective communication, relationships and professionalism. It was nice though to see the different sides because it made me able to connect more to her and her poetry by seeing her as a real person outside of the business world.

I have never been to a poetry reading before and it was a very interesting experience. It puts the poems into perspective when you hear them read from the author's tone of voice rather than your own. When you read them yourself you imply your own personal meanings.

Research Paper Assignment

Graphic novels are becoming very popular in young adult literature and as an aspiring high school English teacher I want to research topics/themes in this book so that way if I wanted to teach it in the future I would have a good background to pull from. I found the views of women presented in this novel are views that many Americans are not used to seeing or dealing with. I want to research deeper into the oppression of women in Iran and how that can affect young men and women growing up. I also want to put some aspects of social standing in there because I really feel that depending upon which class you fell in had an influence on the severity of the oppression you received. And possibly to tie in a cultural connection to people in the U.S I could talk about the contemporary movements about wearing the shawl here in America. I have seen articles on the internet about Muslim women taking a stand and voicing their opinion about the meaning of the shawl and whether or not a woman should be required to wear it.

Short Story: Sarah by Mary Lavin

I thought this story was interesting because the stigma for having children out of wedlock in Ireland was very bad. Many women-- as I have learned through the films we watched in class-- were sent to asylums to go through a process of reformation. But in the short story Sara the only thing that was said about Sara was that she had a bit of a bad name. Even the people in her community would go to defend her. It makes me wonder why the views in this story did no match the views that I have seen in other parts of Ireland. Yet at the same time none of the other town women trusted her around their husbands. Another interesting difference I noticed between the short story and the film was that in the story when Katty was telling her husband about what happened to Sara she said that she was found where women like her belong, in a ditch. Why did she not say a magdalum asylum? It is clear to me however that at the end of the story Katty did believe that the father of Sara's child was her husband. And I do believe that as well because of the husband's reaction. Did he react the way because he actually had emotions towards Sara or because she was carrying his child? This story for me leaves a lot of room for the reader to make inferences, it does not give a lot of detail about the mindset of Sara or any other characteristics for that matter except for the fact that she was a religious woman.

I am having a hard time grasping onto the fact that these nuns in the asylums truly believed that these children from the penitents were born as bad children. How did they think that denying them a mother was going to fix anything. How can a woman deny their motherly instincts?