How has your definition of SF changed throughout the course of this class?
All readers are shaped by their own “internal library,” or the cumulative effects of all the texts they have read.
How have your reading tendencies, practices, knowledge, and awareness changed over the course of this class?
What is the most useful thing, story, idea, practice, etc. that you have gained or experienced in this course?
And finally, for fun: what’s your favorite SF narrative, either inside or outside this class, in any format?
My definition of SF has changed throughout the course of this class because all I knew about SF before this class was based on television shows and movies. I learned about SF from classic SF books, which really gave me a new perspective on how wide the genre of SF can be. The stories we read we not all just aliens and space ships, but also technology, monsters, and robots. My reading tendencies, practices, knowledge and awareness changed over the course of this class because I learned how to read a text closer and think of it in totally different terms than I am used to. When we would discuss each text in class, my classmates and teacher prompts would raise questions and topics in the text that I never noticed when I read the short stories. I would literally be sitting in class thinking "how on earth did they get that from the text?" until we moved further in the class and it happened every discussion. I started to realize how much I learn from just talking about a text with other minds. The most useful idea I gained from this course is that a story can be ANYTHING the author wants it to be, and a good author, makes their story more than they ever dreamed it would be. Also I learned that fiction always benefits from going outside of t he standard storyline box. Throughout the whole course my favorite SF narrative was "For a Breath I Tarry" by Roger Zelazny. This is the story I chose to write my paper on and the story I feel i identified with most. I loved the main character Frost and his mentality and "heart". He knew what he wanted, and even though the odds were absolutely NOT in his favor, he persisted.
Thanks for everything AP! I really enjoyed your class!...which says a lot because I left my dorm at 7:30 to walk there every morning :D
Tara,
ReplyDeleteHaving a reading group, or even just a friend or two that you can read texts with, is absolutely a great experience. I have a reading buddy who I regularly disagree about texts with, and that disagreement can be a great learning moment as I try to figure out where the hell she's coming from. :) If you want to keep it up, assemble your own group or buddy and make it happen! I find it's most useful when people have very different reading backgrounds and preferences, as that's when the really wacky RR stuff comes up.
Glad you liked "For a Breath"! If you liked that, your summer reading recommendation is either "Ender's Game," by Orson Scott Card (similar striving) or "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman (similar epic scope).