Hello everyone!
My name is Amanda (although most people call me Mandy) and I am a second-year student with a major in speech sciences. To introduce myself a little further, I was born and raised in Vancouver and I hope to pursue a career in speech pathology after completing my education, specifically working with young children with speech impediments. I became interested in becoming a speech-language pathologist a couple of years ago because I enjoy the idea of helping children express themselves and reach their full communicative potential.
Personally, I decided to take this course to fulfil part of my literature requirement after receiving an email and viewing the trailer promoting the class. To be completely honest, the literature requirement is the part of my degree that I have been putting off the most as I have never been great with analyzing literature however after reading more about the ‘choose your own adventure’ aspect of this course and the large variety of literature, I thought I would give this class a try! I am really excited to learn more about Latin American literature as I haven’t read much from Latin American authors and I am always excited to gain new perspectives and learn about different cultures.
One thing that also intrigues me about this course is the theme of play. As someone who currently works with children, when I heard the word ‘play’ I first think of all the games I play with others and how creativity is key to being one of the first to achieve the objective of the game. For example, if you are playing hide and seek, it is generally the person with the most creative and out-of-the-box hiding spot that is last to be found or the person with the best strategy in uno who is the first to lose all their cards. With all this being said, I am excited to view the literature through the lens of ‘play’ and see the creativity of how the varying authors convey the meaning behind their stories. Additionally, I am excited to see the creative different perspectives and interpretations of the text from all my classmates to open my eyes to new points of view.
With all this being said, I am really excited to get to know all of you over the course of the term and learn about all the different pieces of literature provided in this course!
Question to think about: If you were given the option to transport as any book or series, which one would you choose and why?
Hello Amanda, thank you for your blog post! I really enjoyed your reflection on the theme of play. Creativity is definitely the key in “play”, and I think that’s what makes literature so special. Not only does the author’s creativity play an important role, but the reader’s creativity also in a way “constructs” a new meaning within the same literature. I guess in this way, we’ll be able to “play” around with literature in this course and find new connections and meanings. To answer your question, I would like to transport into the Harry Potter series. I’m not the biggest HP fan, but who wouldn’t want live in that world!
– Daniel Choi
Hello Amanda,
Great post, and I think your discussion question was very creative. That’s a tough question to answer but I know I would not want to be part of the hunger games or twilight series, so I think I would have to say Harry Potter as well.
Hi Amanda!
I really appreciate your commentary about the creativity associated with play. As for your question, I think I would like to live in the Legend of Zelda universe, which I think would be relatively safe for the average person and include a number of interesting creatures and landscapes. Other universes, as other have point out, may be exciting to watch as an outsider but unfortunately less exciting to actually live in.
Katherine
Hey Mandy!
Perhaps I misjudged the speech science, as I had always imagined that one who would specialize in it would also have a strong interest in literature. Im not sure why, but I guess it makes sense that speech is quite different from writing… although typically both used to express ourselves. Haha.
I also liked your thoughts about play, and the importance of creativity as a means to win. I think that speaks to the objective of the course, really. I suppose we are all hear to bring new ideas and expand our perspectives together, which will require a great deal of open-minded creativity, and that doing so is exactly what makes us successful in the class! Thanks for bringing that idea to light!
Hi Amanda!
That is so great that you want to help children through speech pathology, what a rewarding career!
I am also taking this literature course to fulfill my literature requirement, and it is also a part of my degree that I have been putting off. So we are in this together! Haha. But I also agree with you that the premise of this course is very enticing!
I would like to transport into the Divergent series. 16 year old me, who was absolutely obsessed with the books, would feel so cool.
Good luck this semester, and see you in discussion!