A VICTORIAN INDEX:
Professor Bump, clearly a Victorian, has designed a verbose course website complete with lengthy quotes, numerous pictures and a multitude of, well, WORDS. Why? Because Bump is a Victorian. Well, I want to be a Victorian too, so I thought it only appropriate that I model my website off of that of a true Victorian. Therefore, This is my Index.
Indeed, on this page there will be a "Complete and accurate index" linking to every individual item listed on the rubric for the electronic portfolio. B ut, as you know, this course has been about our journey, our personal pilgrimage, so I felt it extremely necessary to let you go on your own pilgrimage in order to reach the contents of this portfolio.
IN THE BEGINNING:
Believe it or not, professor Bump held the first day of class even when the University of Texas cancelled all classes! Talk about dedication. Even before classes started, with little more than answers in an online question session, we were required to write our very first Required Discussion Board. It was difficult. It made us think. I was forced to explore the Role of the University. With this I began myWhirlwind adventure--a journey towards self-discovery. This was Definitely not in the course description.
AND SO STARTS THE NONSENSE.
Why are you a liberal arts major? Not exactly small talk, I know. My good friend Matthe Arnold taught me the importance of seeking to " know [myself]and the world" done through knowing," the best which has been thought and said in the world." (Matthew Arnold, Literature and Science.) In order to make the most of this course, I must fully understand the magnitude of the task at hand: Understanding the world.
HAMMERING OUR THOUGHTS
Only after sparking a thirst for deeper understanding did the class begin to explore other facets of Victorian Literature. To best don the Victorian mindset, we first builta firm foundation in our knowledge of the era. Miller, Bukley, Mill and Carlyle taught the class about Victorianism and the concern for the Disappearance of God during this time. When Ruskin iced the cake with a description of the Gothic, the class was ready to read Victorian Gothic Novels.
INTO
The Texts:
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
CharlesDickens' A Tale of Two Cities
Anne Bronte's Tenant at Wildfell Hall
Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland
UNITY
My writing skills were honed this semester. We had two major writing projects:
Peer Editing played a major role in our growth as writers
For our second project,
we used an annoying peer-editing system called SWORD. For the
second
and third drafts of P2 we were required to do two
Self-Evaluations as well as review other students'
EXTRA CREDIT:
The musical Revue
Believe it or not, all of the requirements (RDBs,
ODBs, and SWORD links) are already linked on this page--this is the
Victorian way. I feel like I truly embodied the spirit of Eliot: Tons of
information presented in an all-too-dense fashion.
I
worked very hard to link all of the information to the appropriate places and
then back to the index. But, if you would rather see all of these links
presented in a non-Victorian index, thus, betraying the essence of the
class....well, then, Click here: