for my world literature class, we had groups with designated countries to be expertise with. my group consisted of Karissa, Neha, Johanna and Katie and our country was Japan...
in our assignment, besides leading the class in discussions and having a cultural presentations of our country, we also did a one page paper of our participation in class and a 3 to 5 page paper critical response to one of the stories we had selected.
I was unsure about the 3 to 5 page critical paper. I asked around a little too late I guessed. I treated the critical paper as if it was a research paper.
I took out all these books in the library (I think at least 27 books) and I had a week to do this. Of course I caved in. I was stuck I had a writer's block. I finally asked around and my classmates responded that the critical response paper was a close reading (more interpretive while using the text for support and clues).
In the end I ended doing half research and half interpretive. I was reading a book called a Profile of a Nation: Japan, the summary of the country's aesthetics and religion gave me an idea, and I started to see connections.
the research part that I did dealt with understanding the Zen tradition of Japan and I related this to the connections I saw.
I was so tempted just to give a bunch of block quotes, because I feared that I would butcher the interpretation...
reflecting on the presentation, i see how I could have delivered my part better...I didn't want to write out my presentation and just read from that, I wanted to maintain eye-contact, but I just freeze up and start to mumble and to stutter...
Posted by Michael Diezmos at October 10, 2005 9:22 PM