Hi, my name is Joanna and I want to write a piece to accompany the project that I am posting online. As a graduating senior, I feel like I've gotten some tunnel vision as the spring winds down toward finals period, and I'm hoping this blog will open up some light to see the end of it.
It's an exciting time as I reflect on the past four years and anticipate the future. I am proud to present the work of the Grimm Family, a group of six creative students in English 40b (Birth of the Short Story) as my final project at Brandeis University. I also want to showcase our work as a thank you to Professor John Plotz for being part of a great, if hectic, closing semester. Lastly, I will shout out to my groupmates for their attention and cooperation throughout the process: Thanks guys, you're great.
Since its beginning in January, our class has worked hard to plod through short stories that range from the widely renowned Fables to the more obscure Fantomina. During this time, we resurrected Dickens through class discussions and tested our own creative hand by rewriting Aesop's fables. Besides that, we even managed to incorporate some Harry Potter debates into the mix.
This project republishes a boys' story from an 1860's Reader. Hardly personal and certainly old, its deep-rooted origins make its content somewhat distant to read, yet the gesture of posting this becomes highly personal as I've given myself to four classes this semester to complete my degree in English and American Literature. That's enough reading and writing to drive anyone a little crazy, and its certainly driven the message home that learning continues for a lifetime.
As I worked with other students, I found pieces of my education in the Fine Arts and English unexpectedly converging. Visiting the Special Collections in the lower regions of the library opened up some of the resources we have of original magazines and collections. In essence now I get to tell the story behind the story by relating to you the process of one project among many produced by students this semester.
