MultiMedia Project - Victor

Victor, a barista at Starbucks, had a unique take on those storied British monarchs - Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots.  Below, he explains his motivation:

"The Starbucks cup. Although it may seem like a simple plastic object, it is a modern representation of socioeconomic status, something that was easily shown in the olden days by the possession of a crown. I decided to depict both Mary and Elizabeth as the Starbucks siren since they were both iconic women, and were known throughout the world, such as the logo of a siren in our days. Furthermore, I went on to show the drastic gap between the queens by drawing Queen Elizabeth on a larger cup, making Mary, Queen of Scots out to be the underdog. I believe this is relevant to the course since it represents a modern world view of royalty and how we’ve come to be able to portray socioeconomic status throughout the world. In addition, I hope to show the difference in power between two women of status by analyzing the letters sent between Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth, along with information from the text."

MultiMedia Project - Angel

Angel created an artistic piece that illustrates the various identities of the narrator in Eliza Haywood's story, "Fantomina." Published in the 18th Century, Haywood's narrator takes on several disguises in order to conduct a social experiment, and to engage in a romantic and physical relationship with a man.

In Angel's work, the narrator controls marionettes of her different identities (a maid, a prostitute, a widow, and a mystery woman) and love interest.  This is particularly striking because Angel reveals the narrator's surprising agency as a white woman in 18th Century England.   

MultiMedia Project - Britney

by Britney

For my project I decided to choose the story of "Fantomina" as my subject of interest. In the story of Fantomina, Fantomina is committing acts which is modernly known as “Catfishing”. The idea that our aristocratic lady is creating disguises to catfish Beauplaisir inspired me to create a modern approach of her experiences. I created a cellular device on a piece of paper and on the screen we see some sort of social media platform open. The social media platform I decided to use was instagram. Instagram is a popular platform where people tend to show themselves off and their lavish lifestyle, although most times not all is what it seems. I chose instagram as the platform for our catfisher because that is where catfishing is commonly taking place. On the screen we can obviously see that the main account logged in is our aristocratic woman that goes by the username of “aristocratic.womxn” and how although she has millions of followers she only has one close friend. To represent her grand status I drew pictures that would recommend places she has traveled. Much like the era of Fantomina wealth equivalates to aristocracy and posting it on the internet proves it. That close friend being her mother which helps reflects off of the novel on how her mother was the only one to help her with her pregnancy.

The second account logged in is “phantom.mina”, who represents Fantomina and has red lips as her profile picture to represent her as a prostitute and seductive, The third profile is represented by a cowboy hat and the username of “_countrycelia_” who is obviously Celia the maid from the countryside. Mrs. Bloomer is represented by a black widow spider with an appropriate username; “blackwidowblxxmer”. The black widow represents how she is a widow, hence the name. The final identity, Incognita, is represented by blue question marks and by the username “incognita.incognito”. In the photo the doll in the yellow dress is our mastermind behind it all laying comfortable in her bed playing with Bleauplaisir’s mind and emotions.

MultiMedia Project - Melanie

Melanie, for her project, authored a PowerPoint that investigated the life ad trials of Mary, Queen of Scots.  The historical and interpersonal conflict between Queen Elizabeth I and her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, captured the interest and imagination of many students.

MultiMedia Project - Bruce

Bruce created a drawing that captures two identities of a narrator in Eliza Haywood's story, "Fantomina." Published in the 18th Century, Haywood's narrator takes on several disguises in order to conduct a social experiment, and to engage in a romantic and physical relationship with a man.

MultiMedia Project - Emily

Emily created an art piece that depicts the plot of Eliza Haywood's story, "Fantomina." Published in the 18th Century, Haywood creates a narrator who takes on several disguises in order to conduct a social experiment, and to engage in a romantic and physical relationship with a man.

MultiMedia Project - Gabriela

Gabriela created a PowerPoint to address the life and writing of Margery Kempe, a medieval religious writer who lived in England.

Food Topics

 









This semester in Composition I courses, students will consider the topic of food in different ways.  My colleague, Professor Allison Wright, does research, writing, and teaching connected to food studies, and after numerous conversations with and learning from her, I started asking my students to choose various topics under the larger umbrella of "food." 

As the writers in these courses develop their topics and ideas, I become more excited about the scholarship they will produce (I also get pretty hungry). 

Some topics under consideration include:

• Important foods
• Pupusas
• Atole
• Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Birthday Cake
• Tamales
• Important Memories
• A BBQ with friends
• Holiday celebrations
• A new food experience, such as a student visiting Thailand
• A family gathering
• Important People Making Food
• Grandmothers 
• Fathers
• Friends
• Mothers

Food is a means of engaging with others, but also a way to connect to one's cultural, religious, or national roots.  Though a seemingly simple overall topic, student scholars often draft and create incredibly touching and important pieces related to their food experiences and memories.  When the writing is meaningful, the results are incredible.

Local Issues

This summer session, I am asking students to consider a local issue that is important.  In the early writing process, student scholars shared their ideas about those things that impact them directly.  Below are a few of the topics they addressed:

• The separation and impact on families due to immigration regulations and deportations
• How increasing commercialization and building affects area environments and home spaces
• Lack of safety in neighborhoods due to inadequate lighting
• Housing and work instability
• Sidewalk and road issues - inaccessibility or unsafe areas due to lack of sidewalks, and terrible road conditions that lead to car trouble and concerns
• The push in communities to obtain a college degree because it the answer for all financial woes, though this is not the best path for all individuals
• Instability or trouble in family or home spaces
• The need for neighborhood connections, consideration, and/or pride - neighbors are not communicating, bonding, or caring for their spaces
• The increase in crime due to many of the above issues

We often get caught up in discussing or worrying about 'big' issues in national conversations without considering how those 'big' issues, and even those things that somehow seem 'small,' have an enormous impact on our local environments and day-to-day lives.

Many students that attend our college come from the Aldine, Spring, and Humble areas of Houston and are keenly aware that their neighborhoods, and definitely city and state governments, need to do more for them.

Students Write - Prof. Martin's Class: Ricky

You Can Lead A Horse to Water...
by Ricky Treadway

Pedernales Falls State Park

Since I was a small child, the outdoors soothed me. I could return home from a terrible day at school, drop my bags at the front porch and just disappear in the woods until just before dark. It was a place I could be myself and find peace and quiet amongst my usually hectic days. During our library visits in English, I would check out every book I could on the animals from my area. When I read all those, I would ask for more.

My quest for knowledge of the world around me couldn’t be sated enough as a child. When I look at where I am now, I am disappointed and taken aback at the blatant disregard for simple knowledge that lies quite literally at our fingertips. I found everything I needed to know in an Encyclopedia Britannica as a child where as now, both children and adults fail to learn even the basic information before word vomiting on a social media post or talking to their neighbor about what they saw on Fox News.

Educating others on the outside world around them has become a passion. Since moving to Texas in 2010, I’ve come to realize that despite the neighborhoods like mine (Spring Trails) being advertised as “Bringing you close to nature…” the residents don’t understand that you can’t pick what parts of nature you get to see. You can’t expect to live in a home that borders a creek or patch of trees to be barren of all wildlife except the occasional bird.

After witnessing this mentality throughout Spring Trails, I began to do something about it. I took it upon myself to post on Nextdoor, Facebook and other social media outlets about what you can find amongst our homes and yards here. I started educating people on what a Copperhead actually looks like and how to keep them out of your yard. Many of the neighbors still believed that mothballs worked without realizing that the EPA regulations specifically state that it’s illegal to place them outside in the open. It poisons animals, children and our groundwater, not to mention, it doesn’t deter snakes because they don’t smell the mothballs like we do.

After two years of offering classes and services to help people learn, I myself have learned a valuable lesson. The old adages, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” and “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks” rings truer than ever when it comes to offering free education. Some people thrive off of grandpa’s old stories of being chased by a nest of Cottonmouth, Milk snakes drinking from a cow’s udder ,and Coachwhip snakes rolling themselves like a wheel to escape predators. They never stop to think about how outlandish they sound or how hard it is to actually prove any of those are real when the accurate information is right in your pocket.

  

Birthday party educational program

Students Write - Prof. Martin's Class: Zona

What Goes On In My Neighborhood
by Zona Thomason

Deerbrook Estates, satellite view and additional coloring to note sections

You would never know that this community off of FM 1960 was seriously separated. There are the four separations in this community. Everyone is mildly copacetic, but everyone has their area.

The one subdivision has four parts. Old, New, Low-end, and Zombie-Land; these for parts have one mission that connects them all. The crime has gotten out of control because of Hurricane Harvey.

Each area has suffered from the crime, so no one feels safe walking to their car or inside their homes. Because of this home owners have looked to their Home Owners Association (HOA) and Municipal Utilities District (MUD) for help. This has brought light on certain situations.

The MUD board has refused to add more constables to protect our communities so has the HOA, which has caused our four sections to united and work together to make our community a safer place. With petitions and various volunteers it has allowed people to make friends in areas that they wouldn’t have before.  I asked on the community page and quite a few said that they made friends in different sections because of this fight against crime.

With every section contributing to the petition (http://chn.ge/2BWJW9m & http://chn.ge/2BWJW9m) our four part subdivision has really started becoming one. I have already experienced this on my block where everyone watches each other’s property, and someone is always outside when the kids are playing outside. So seeing this happen with a subdivision really gives me hope that maybe, just maybe humans can live together without harming one another.