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Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Manifesto Progress--blog task due April 20
Type 180+ words about your Manifesto.
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3 Else
Originally, I intended to write the narrative for the Manifesto, but I realized that I wanted to challenge myself a little bit more. Well, that and I realized that eight pages is not a feasible task to do by Friday. Instead, I have decided to choose the 8th option on the list and write about a literary theorist, and I have chosen to write about the beloved Toni Morrison. See what I did there? I have read only The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, but I have four other Morrison novels at home that I am looking forward to read. I enjoy Morrison’s challenges to society that she proposes to the reader, and I think that many of her novels belong in school curriculum. The content of her books is typically dealing with tough subjects to talk about in society; however, the difficult subject matter forces the reader to reexamine their lives and ultimately make them a better person. After reading The Bluest Eye, my life was changed and my perception on society ultimately changed. I believe that if Morrison was studied in schools, we would have a less racist and less degrading society.
My manifesto is juxtaposing Lord of the Flies and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I am comparing them using the three literary lens: feminine, marxist, and freudian. This books are a lot closer than they seem when using those lens to analyze them deeper. For example, in the feminine lens, both books portray women in a negative light. In Lord of the Flies, women are not present; however, women like characters are degraded, made fun of, and sometimes killed. Ralph, Piggy, and Simon are all characters that are portrayed with woman like characteristics; Piggy and Simon are killed; Ralph almost dies. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, women are portrayed in very negative light. Nurse Ratched is viewed as demon like for holding a position of power with an iron fist; if a man held her position and acted the way she did, he’d be praised. After reading these novels, one would come to the conclusion that womanly characteristics are negative and pathetic and male characteristics are the desirable ones. These books degrade women so much and gives the reader insight on how women were treated and/or viewed during this time.
In my manifesto, I am comparing Lord of the Flies and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest using the feminine lens, the marxist lens, and the freudian lens because these lens help the reader think harder about the meaning behind the books being analyzed. I chose these books to compare because both of these books were written during wars: war on humankind and war on womankind. War on humankind: Lord of the Flies was written after World War II in which the atomic bomb was used. William Golding wrote this book to show that savagery lurks even in the most prim and proper human beings. War on womankind: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was written when men were considered to be the most powerful figures in society and women had to fight their way to the top in order to get equal rights. Ken Kesey wrote this book to degrade women and show the world how savage a woman can get with power. Both books are about war, both books are about savagery. The more lens one uses, the better one will see, and the more comparisons one will see.
The manifesto project is the most daunting project to date in this introduction to literature class. The reason for this is the length. This manifesto will be the largest essay I have ever had assigned to me throughout my entire high school career. That mostly means I will have to think harder while writing it. For my manifesto, I chose the fourth option which brings into question the most important literary lens by which to study literature. My argument is that Marxism is the most important because it is all encompassing. Marxism looks into the social and economic sides of the work. For example, in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there is a definite example of a social caste system. The patients would be the lower of the classes, whereas the nurses are higher due to the fact that they have more authority. However, there are high tensions because the lower class is being oppressed by the upper class. The nurses are too strict towards the patients and deprive them of things that they enjoy. They also use electro shock therapy as a punishment, not for therapeutic purposes.
1 Harvison While I was reading through the available options to write my manifesto about, I was struggling to find one that I thought I could easily write about. I knew a narrative would be a hard essay for me to write, however, I also knew that researching a theorist would not interest me enough to be able to write many pages on. I figured I would create my own version of this manifesto and so far it is going great. I am writing about the history and effects of lobotomies as well as other mental health “cures”. It has been very interesting to research different people that had experienced lobotomies or that had survived becoming institutionalized. I found that even the infamous Kennedy family had a daughter, Rosemary, that suffered from disabilities and was also a patient that received a lobotomy. After reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I was very interested in the history of mental illness, both in the United States and across the world. Currently I am only on page three, but I have pages of research and for once I know where my essay is going.
While going through all of the options for the Manifesto the one that most spoke to me was the comparing and contrasting of books. Personally I love reading so analyzing books to their full potential brings me great pleasure. The books that I have decided to write about are Lord of the Flies, Life of Pi and lastly Beatrice and Virgil. The choosing of these three books ways in no way accidental, I specifically saw a predominant theme throughout each and everyone of them. All of them deal with evils, horrors, and beasts, which are in our everyday world and affect how people behave and represent themselves. The Lord of the Flies always me to go into depth about how their is a beast inside everyone especially since all of these young men on the island can feel the evil but see no evil because it is inside each and everyone of them. Next is Life of Pi where we see cannibalistic tendies within a young male Pi, who tries to cover up his misdoings by believing that Richard Parker was a lion instead of a man. Lastly Beatrice and Virgil who by far shows how horrors live everywhere because I saw that anyone could turn into a Nazi in order to protect their family or just to stay on the good side of the leader which could mean that my neighbors, friends, or family could've just easily been Nazi’s which to me is a scary thought.
3Bowman When I first glanced at the requirement sheet for our manifesto, I did not know exactly what avenue I wanted to pursue for this final essay. However, on my second look through I decided to go with the option of researching one particular literary theorist. I thought that this would be a good option because it would give me the opportunity to gain insight into another person’s (of whom I don’t know) point of view on the world around them. For this Manifesto, I chose to research Michel Foucault. His views on the world’s status of power and knowledge are quite intriguing and I look forward to further learning about what he has to say about this robust world. Additionally, I chose this option for the Manifesto for its length. As this is getting to be a quite busy time of year, I would rather spend my time in research for the content of this essay rather than striving to achieve length that may not hold interest throughout the entirety of the essay. In conclusion, I look forward to completing this Manifesto and hope all goes well throughout the process.
3 Schroder The topic I choose to write my Manifesto on is Juxtaposing two of the many novels we have read in class. The novels my partner and I choose are One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Life of Pi. As my partner Abby and I have began to write this essay, we made an outline of our ideas. We first began to compare and contrast the themes of the two books. As the themes have differences, they also share many similarities. We found that both of the books were released around extremely important times in history. Ken Kesey’s novel was released around the time of the cold war, when the government was fighting against communism. Yann Martel’s novel was released around the time period when the tragic event of 9-11 occurred. Both of the books are convincing the reader to step away from conformity in a way. Both of the authors are trying to convince the readers that being your own person is okay; one does not have to follow all of the “norms” in society. Pi is different in which he studies three different religions, whereas most only study one. Pi studies Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. He does not care what anyone thinks and most importantly what his parents even think of it. Abby and I also began to discuss in our essay the unpredictable characters and uncontrollable settings. As we continue to write our essay, both of us continue to be amazed on how easily the ideas and length are flowing to us.
The manifesto is the longest essay that I have had to write. After reading through all of the topics, I knew that I would write about the causal essay. This option stood out to me because I immediately thought about a lot of things that I could write about. As the manifesto is an eleven page essay, there is a lot of different things to write about. This was one of the hard parts of starting the manifesto, I had recollect a lot of information that I had at the beginning of the semester. I created a rough outline of all the things that I wanted to include in my essay. I decided to write about Lord of the Flies, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Life of Pi and Shakespeare. During this semester, we study more than just these four things, however while thinking about what to write about these literary topics and studied by almost every university in the country. I decided to not include some of the things we studied like Beatrice and Virgil, because it is a book that is studied less and not as known. The essay topic asked to explain why everyone studies these literary works. I also chose to not include the short stories because everyone studied different ones and different colleges will not all study the same ones.
For the Manifesto essay, I have decided to take my future into account and have written about pi. I am going to be a math major in college, but that was not the sole deciding factor for my essay topic choice. I am completely fascinated by pi; I am in awe of its discovery and of how it functions as a number. If you did not already know, pi is used to find the circumference of a circle, representing a shorter value for 3.14. An explanation like that is kind of bland for a number like pi. Pi literally has no end. Since it was first used (as a rough estimated value) around 4000 years ago, the human species has been able to get pi down to trillions of digits, all of which have no repeatable pattern. This itself is fairly impressive, even to those who are not fond of math, but what makes pi even more awe inspiring is how it can be interpreted in many ways. During class, we read Yann Martel’s Life of Pi , in which Martel took the idea of pi and how it has no repeatable value, and put that idea into a boy, also named pi, and how he underwent a journey through disaster, in which no event would ever be repeated by a sane human being. All of these ideas I have incorporated into my essay, plus some. Pi is an amazing concept.
Personally, I would rather do more research about a topic than come up with a whole narrative story; therefore, I thought that number eight would be the best choice for me. After mentally preparing myself by researching a little bit about each person and then finally choosing Sandra Gilbert, a feminist theorist. Sandra Gilbert is a great fit for me as I love looking at novels through the feminist lens like how she writes her novels and poetry. The feminist lens brings to light the topics of women versus men that most would rather just put to the side. I respect Sandra Gilbert very much as she became a women writer back when women were not suppose to do anything other than be a housewife. Sandra Gilbert’s books and poems should be added to schools everywhere as women and men will always have conflicts about who is superior. Gender should not prove anyone superior to another, but we have let that come in between our population way too much. Women were considered a minority back when they had to fight for their right to work, vote, and hold office. Granted the country has come a long way when thinking of all that us women do now, but there will always be the men that feel they exceed women; infuriating as it is we cannot get rid of it just as we cannot forget about racial differences. Overall, everyone could learn a valuable lesson from reading Sandra Gilbert’s works; especially her book she collaborated with Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination.
Thinking about the extensive length of this essay assignment, it was quite difficult to make a decision regarding how the last couple weeks of this class were going to end for me. Although it seems like a no brainer, I wanted to choose a topic I would enjoy writing about while still learning and researching. Finally, I decided on prompt 9, writing an argumentation essay by using an excerpt from a piece of work we have read this year. This seemed like the perfect combination of including our introduction to literature in class, yet leaving lots of space for outside information and personal thoughts on the quote itself. Surprisingly, when narrowing down which quote I wanted to use, most of my final options came from Beatrice and Virgil. While reading this novel, it did not seem as though there were many quotes I could write a whole essay on, but as I went back to reread through some of the passages, the reality of so many of them became apparent, and real life application was much easier than I had anticipated. My choice whittled down to sections of the book discussing fame and hope. Judging by the stance of our world and society at this moment, fame seemed much more interesting and relevant to life today, which is why I appointed my Manifesto to it.
My manifesto is going at a pace that some would deem scary. I’m not rushing through it, but I’m also not leaving it until the night before it’s due. Let’s just say it’s going at a slow pace. I’m comfortable with it though. I chose to do the option where you give awards to best character and categories like that. It’s kind of like the Oscars but with a different name. I have to write twelve pages and explain the awards and interview the would be winners. Along with the twelve pages I will include a feat. I am choreographing a dance to a piece of music Nathan Lanier. The dance is inspired by the book Lord of the Flies. The hostile environment the boys experience and the conflict between Ralph and Jack’s tribes. The music is peaceful at certain times as were the boys but also gains intensity. There are quiet moments then really loud moments representing the chaos the boys experience. The end is yet again peaceful and sad but dirty because the audience knows the real truth about what happened between the boys unlike a new viewer.
Galbavy 1 When looking at the lists for the manifesto topics I felt like this essay was going to be a struggle and I did not like the fact that the essays had to be so long. Looking at the future I realize that college will be filled with long challenging topics and have decided to accept this essay challenge and write to the best of my abilities finishing out the year strong. I chose to write on the games for Gustav. I decided to go with this topic because I feel like I can truly expand on each game and provide a strong mental standpoint that I see as being natural due to psychological research and the natural opinion that overtakes me in each game. I am going to do my best to provide a strong opinion on what I feel is right and then provide information on what others feel about the games based on poles. I will also try to relate each game to the holocaust even though I will nor will any site be able to provide the insight that any person truly present in the situation would of. These are the reasons that I feel I can accomplish this essay using the games for Gustav.
So far I am not really liking this manifesto essay, having one of the longest essays due at the end of the year kind of blows, but it is whatever. When I first looked at all of the options for the manifesto, I really did not like any of them, until I found the literary theory option. I like the literary theory option the best due to how many theories you can compose about and how you have to pick one as the best theory. Another reason why I chose the literary theory option was because we have composed two separate essays using some form of a literary theory, so I feel I know my stuff pretty well from those two essays. Not going to lie, but i just started my essay last night. I just found out yesterday that Friday the 21st a third of the essay is due, so I decided I should probably start this essay. I sat myself down last night and composed about three pages, so I was pretty content with myself after that. That is how my manifesto is going so far.
For my manifesto, I chose the ninth option. This is an argumentation essay based on a single quote from a literary work which we read in class this year. I decided to choose a quote from Life of Pi - “A germ of religious exaltation, no bigger than a mustard seed, was sown in me and left to germinate. It has never stopped growing since that day.” This quote stuck out to me immediately upon reading. Right away, it reminded me of a bible verse, Matthew 17:20. This verse reads: “He replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’”. This is one of my personal favorite verses from the Bible because I believe it has so much value and meaning for everyday life - that with even the tiniest bit of faith in God, amazing feats are possible. Pi’s survival on the lifeboat is nothing short of a feat, and it would not have been possible if it had not been for his dedication to faith. For my manifesto, I am going to expand on the power of religion, not only in literature but in real life.
Although the process of writing my manifesto has not started my research is in full force. For the Manifesto I chose to write about/discuss literary lenses and which one is best. I have started looking at the background of each lens and seeking out other blogs where the discussion of what lens is the best takes place.The reason I picked this one out of the bunch is simply because I believe it gives me more freedom to write and thoroughly explain to the reader why I think a certain lens is best. We have previously done a lens essay which will be helpful and of course will be contributed to my Manifesto. The research that goes behind this essay is rather easy to find and very interesting to read about. Learning the history of feminism and how the psychoanalysis lens came about are rather interesting and frankly surprised me. Although given this essay's length I find it incredibly daunting and find it easy to procrastinate. Determined not to let senioritis kick in my writing process will start soon!
1 Konz I chose to write about a quote that affected my life and explain to the readers why it is important to their lives. I also considered writing about the island in Life of Pi, because that section of the book really interested me, but I think I would have gotten really confused while trying to do research. Using a quote about laughter from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, there are a lot of things to talk about including the progression of laughter in the novel, the science of laughter, and the effects of laughter on the ward. While he is on the fishing trip, McMurphy comments, “Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy” on page. One thing that I think could add to my essay is telling a narrative type of story to make it more personal and relatable to what McMurphy is saying. The only problem with this approach is that I can not use “I,” “me,” or “my” so I do not think I will be able to make it work. In my opinion, the hardest thing about this essay will be reaching the 11 page minimum.
For my manifesto, I chose to write about excerpts that impacted me or how I felt about controversial or opinionated statements from the anticipation guides in class. I don’t know which quote or excerpt I will use (I do not even know from which literary work), but I plan to do some serious thinking and looking back at my forum notes. For the anticipation guides, I plan on reading through the Beatrice and Virgil anticipation guide and the Cuckoo’s Nest one. I remember these ones, especially the Beatrice and Virgil one, as having very controversial statements and having very difficult to answer questions. In this light, I compare it to playing the Games for Gustav because those are also morally challenging questions that require much introspection. I feel that because of this, I will end up vacillating between possible answers, but I think that is also okay because I am exploring all the possible options. Because I am allowed to combine manifesto options, I am excited to begin writing and researching for my manifesto. I think I will be able to pick and choose quotes and anticipation guide statements that follow a similar theme so that I will be able to tie them all together.
1 Klamm I personally love my topic for my manifesto. I love researching biology and have found it very fun to research if the island could actually be possible. I even enjoyed writing over a page just about soil. I have learned a lot doing this paper and will enjoy finishing it. I like how many options we had but I knew I would enjoy this one the most. I have not had any trouble writing my essay however, I have had some trouble finding information from science journals. I enjoyed researching different types of seaweed that could possibly make up the island. I also liked researching how an island could work without soil and what nutrients it would need in order to survive. I have had trouble writing an introductory paragraph. I feel like this essay is easier than the chapter essay because I can find more information about this topic. It is easier to do a research paper about biology than a paper about different aspects in the novel that your chapter is about. I love this essay and will enjoy finishing it.
Although I haven't fully started my Manifesto, I have many many ideas and I am excited to get started. For my manifesto I was originally going to write the narrative, however I already struggle getting to 8 pages so I thought I would pick a different topic for my essay. I decided to do number 18, which talks about the games in the back of the book of Beatrice and Virgil. I think that it will be an interesting topic to write about. I not only get to write about it, I get to play the games and interpret what they mean. Why are they in the back of the book? What is the purpose of them? Why are there 13 of them? Is it because the Holocaust lasted 13 years, or is it something that doesn't even relate to the holocaust. I'm going to write about what I would do and why I chose to do it that and I may ask others in my class or in my family to play a few and explain to me why they chose to do what they did. I might even do a combination the options, I like a lot of them and feel that it would be interesting and fun to do more then one topic to switch it up a lot. As I play the games, I think that the games are supposed to make you feel like a victim of the Holocaust. I really think that this topic will be a really great one to write about.
I decided to do the sixteenth option of the Manifesto, which means I have to rank authors and characters with through awards. I . I am writing it as if it were a script to a play about an awards show because I could not see how else this type of paper could be written. So I have setting, character descriptions, lines, and scenes for my paper. I was also excited to see that you had to make a trophy and I thought it would be fun to create a physical object that corresponds with the paper. I do not know what the "trophy" will look like yet, for it will probably be the last thing I do for the Manifesto. I think it will be very unorthodox, to say the least, but as long as it is done well, I think I can pull it off. If it is not, I think it will be a massive failure. The hardest part so far is coming up with the awards for the characters and authors. It just challenges me. I think once I have the awards figured out, everything else will fall into place.
It took me a long time to just pick my topic because I wanted to make sure that it was something that I was capable of writing. I initially wanted to do the classification essay on ranking the short stories in whatever way because I enjoyed the short stories. Then I remembered having to rank chapters in the Life of Pi essay and I wasn’t too incredibly fond of it so I decided to keep looking at my options. Length is one of my most difficult requirements to meet in essays so I most definitely did not want to do the twenty-four page essay. I finally decided on the Games for Gustav because when we were reading Beatrice and Virgil I was very interested in finding the symbolism in the story itself. Also the fact that the “games” bring to light the severity and the gruesomeness of the Holocaust itself. I think it was a good choice for me because it interests me and won’t be as challenging as the twenty-four page essays. I’m content with the freedom of this assignment and look forward to letting all of my thoughts spill into my essay.
Knutson 7 I chose a compare/contrast essay to write for my manifesto. I plan to compare two very interesting novels that we read this year. The first is Life of Pi, this is probably my favorite novel of the year. Life of Pi will be compared to Lord of the Flies. A major similarity between these two novels are the adapted behavior you attain when your mind goes into survival mode. The boys in Lord of the Flies become very hostile killing some of their own members, this is something you would never expect from these boys in their introduction at the beginning of the novel. Life of Pi demonstrates the same survival behavior. Pi Patel is a very kind boy who would never kill before he was placed in this dire situation where he was forced to kill for food. He decided his life was more important than the animals he needed to survive. After awhile the boys in both novels did not see this killing as a bad thing, they only saw a means of survival. I think this is a very interesting topic and I am excited to write about it.
When first looking at the options for the Manifesto, the only option stood out to me was option 3: comparing two novels. Jayde and I have decided to juxtapose One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Life of Pi. At first, I thought that finding ways to connect these two amazing novels would be the hardest part to this essay; however, we have found that it is actually the quite simple. We realized that both the book have unreliable narrators, uncontrollable settings, and they both have the theme of fighting against conformity. Another similarity that we will be expanding on is that Ken Kesey and Yann Martel use animals as symbols. Obviously, Martel connects animals to actual human characters in his story. Kesey’s animals symbols are not so obvious, but when Chief Bromden is looking out the window readers can link that the dog represents nature that is being killed by technology. We also have found out that contrasting these two novels is actually more difficult than comparing them. Overall, I think that the hardest part of writing this essay would be meeting all of the requirements that this option involves.
7 Grode The biggest challenge I found with the manifesto so far is picking a topic. I decided to go with number 4, which is an argumentation essay on which literary theory is the best and why. I chose the Freudian theory, or the psychoanalytic theory, because that is the literary lens I found the easiest to use, and it best suits my personality. Now that I have the topic picked out, I feel that I will have no problem getting the 11 pages done, especially since I already wrote a literary lens essay with this lens a few weeks back. I am planning on writing about and going into depth about the id, ego, and superego, and how that can make a story easier to understand, as well as the history from where it originates. I also plan on doing the same thing with the Oedipus complex, and dream sequence analysis, as well as finding and understanding themes and symbols and how they are important to literature. My biggest challenge now is getting the motivation and time set aside to work on this long essay.
Originally, I had no idea what I was going to do for my manifesto. However, last week Zoey and I were talking to Bailey Stroud and she mentioned doing something with the Games for Gustav. I found this to be a very interesting topic and more compelling for me personally than writing about different viewpoints or other topics that seem a bit bland. This essay topic will compel me to write more I feel like and I most likely will go over the requirement of 16.5 pages because the questions have so many views that can be used. No view is correct, but contrarily, no view is wrong. Being able to use first person in this essay I also think is both different and a good way to connect with the readers. The most challenging aspect of it however, is being able to view the questions and answer them in a way similar to that of a Holocaust victim, because it is unrealistic for anyone who did not suffer that to pretend they did. My introductory paragraph is in third person and I most likely will compose the conclusion in the same matter, as a way to formally conclude in a more informal emotion based essay.
I am actually incredibly excited about this Manifesto paper because of my topic choice. I chose the topic of picking a question from one of the pre reading survey forms and writing about it. I decided to write on whether the Holocaust will be taught in 500 years. I am a history nerd and the topic of genocide is always a dark interest of mine. This paper is giving me the chance to research the numerous genocides of the past and analyze them. I am able to write about Genghis Khan and the atrocities that the Mongols committed. I made the decision that the Holocaust would not be taught in 500 years like it is taught now for a multitude of reasons. My basic argument can be surmised as the Holocaust in not special in any way except with its recentness. Our grandparents fought in World War Two so anything involved with that era seems like a much more recent memory. We have Holocaust being taught to us every year because it is new and sensationalist; it is not remarkable. Unfortunately, our species is not foreigners to genocide and mass killings.
After overlooking the manifesto options, I choose to do the narrative essay option. While I think the 24 page requirement will be demanding and challenging, I think that it will help me with writing in the long run. I really enjoyed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, so I want to do narrative from someone else's perspective from Kesey's novel. I think it would be interesting to split it up, so I would have a set number of pages from Nurse Ratched, McMurphy, or another character. To write these different perspectives I will have to go back and look at the situation as it is originally written, I really like the creative aspect of this option. You could have everyone in this class write this same essay and we will all get different ideas of the other characters, and while you have to stay true to the story line, I think it will be a cool expansion on my literary lens essay because I did a psychoanalytic look at the same novel, so I can use those critics to my advantage in this essay.
3 Waldera For my manifesto, I decided to choose option 18, which was added at the exact perfect time as I was struggling with my prior essay. This is the option that Zoey and Riley made, it includes writing about your responses towards the Games for Gustav. My essay is coming along well and is significantly easier to write than I originally expected it to be. I also enjoy answering the questions because all of them are complexing to the mind, it forces you to really think about each one. I personally think no one can answer each question 100 percent honestly unless they have been put in the actual situation. I think in the end my essay will turn out good, the only problem I am having right now is how to format the questions and my answers into something that flows like an essay. Since there are 12 questions I do not think I am going to write about all of them, instead I will write about the most important and mind turning. On a side note, I am curious if I do a Feat if I would get pages taken off like some of the other options.
3 Waldera For my manifesto, I decided to choose option 18, which was added at the exact perfect time as I was struggling with my prior essay. This is the option that Zoey and Riley made, it includes writing about your responses towards the Games for Gustav. My essay is coming along well and is significantly easier to write than I originally expected it to be. I also enjoy answering the questions because all of them are complexing to the mind, it forces you to really think about each one. I personally think no one can answer each question 100 percent honestly unless they have been put in the actual situation. I think in the end my essay will turn out good, the only problem I am having right now is how to format the questions and my answers into something that flows like an essay. Since there are 12 questions I do not think I am going to write about all of them, instead I will write about the most important and mind turning. On a side note, I am curious if I do a Feat if I would get pages taken off like some of the other options.
1 Koehn The manifesto is the hardest task that literature students will face in class and the one in which I have been dreading all year mostly due to the length requirement. Although I chose to do the essay with a partner, the length will still be a hard and challenging requirement to achieve. At first, my partner, Emily, and I were contemplating writing our essay over the 3rd option, the compare and contrast of novels we read in class because it seemed like a never ending topic due to the vast amount of similarities and differences in each book. However, when the 18th option arose to write about the Games for Gustav, we saw this as a more interesting topic to write about and also a topic that would really make us think. Games for Gustav is a way for readers to really step in the victim's shoes of the Holocaust and understand how awful and nauseating the Holocaust was and the reality of what choices people could have faced in a life or death situation. There are no right or wrong answers, only opinions, which is what makes this essay a hard and easy essay to write about.
I am writing from option number 9, choosing a quote from a novel and expanding on it. I found a quote from my favorite novel, Life of Pi, that describes fear in a way that I had never thought of. This quote can be applied to my life, as well as many other students in the class of 2017. As we approach graduation, seniors are feeling excitement, stress, joy, anxiousness, and a lot of fear. Finishing our senior year brings a lot of activities, and we can often get caught up in everything that is going on. Some may fear for their GPA as we finish out the semester, or fear for their finals, or fear tripping on the stage while receiving their diploma. And it doesn’t stop there. College brings new experiences that we have been preparing for all this time. Whether it is fear of leaving home, meeting new people, picking the right school or major, leaving your friends, or other reasons, fear makes its presence known during senior year. On the other side of fear is everything you’ve ever dreamed of, and it is up to you to conquer it. Yann Martel’s quote relates directly to my life in the last months of my senior year, and other seniors as well.
For my manifesto I have decided to do number 13 the pi research essay. When I was looking at the topics I noticed that there were two research essay prompts. In composition, the causal essay was my favorite essay to write and that was a research essay, so I decided that a research essay is what I wanted to do. To choose between the biology and math one, I thought about which subject I enjoyed more and the answer was math, so I am writing about Ï€. As I am working on the essay, it is proving harder than I thought it was going to be. I have completed two pages of the essay but am stressing that I will not be able to achieve 11 pages. As I am reading articles about pi and the discovery, evolution, and uses of it, they are composed of the same information and do not give me much to expand upon. With this in mind, I had to think of ways I could expand to 11 pages. I have decided to begin writing about the mathematics of pi and all the facts about it then eventually turn it into how Ï€ and Pi’s experiences are related. I believe that if I continue my research and can find all the similarities I can achieve this manifesto.
6 Benitez The manifesto is a very daunting request to most of us doing it. We are required to write most likely our longest essay, this is put upon us in the end of the year. We are assigned lots of projects and as seniors who just want to finish, it is quite aggravating. Although this is alleviated a bit in that we have the option to choose what our manifesto is. I have chosen to do the Games for Gustav, as it can be fun as you think of what your response is to these games then you have to envision yourself actually in this situation. The thought of having to do a bunch of research just isn’t appealing to me right now. Ever since we got Beatrice and Virgil I saw the games and knew right away that they were holocaust related so I feel pretty confident on them. Since there are 13 games and 11 pages I will be able to spend most of a page per game letting me go in to detail quite a bit. They are a question of one's morales and that is what I have written about a lot for past essays making it even better.
As an aspiring physician, I chose to analyze Pi’s ocean voyage upon return to society. He was taken to a Mexican hospital where he was cared for until capable of moving to Canada. A medical report was certainly written up for the ailing Pi and I thought it would be fun to make one of my own. I discuss the myriad of injuries that befall a man at sea and give insight into their treatment. CTE offers a biomedical science course and a capstone EMT course. Each of these courses have provided invaluable information for me to draw upon. As a class last year, we read “Surviving the Extremes” which has pertinent information towards the body’s reaction to extended sea travel. My current plan is to attempt discussing Pi’s injuries as they would naturally occur. His first challenge is to avoid drowning. Once that is out of the way, he can focus on the five priorities of survival: First aid, seek shelter, drink water, signal for help and not to worry about food. These priorities are designed for those lost on land, however, and need to be tailored towards Pi’s situation.
My manifesto is going to be playing the games for gustav from the perspective of a holocaust survivor, and in all honesty I haven’t gotten a start on it yet but I plan on getting to it immediately to make the deadline for friday. I am excited to get into it so I can really analyze and learn more about how I think I would behave, and how I think I would interpret those horrible things jewish people had endured. I touched lightly on them during the forum, but I am very much looking forward to thinking deeply about each one. I hope it will be an enlightening experience and hopefully I could learn something about myself through it all. I plan on just diving straight into the games. I will give a brief explanation as to how I am going to go about answering them and how everyone should truly ponder such questions to begin even attempting to fathom how it felt to be in those shoes, and this is the closest one could get to imagining the unimaginable.
At first the manifesto seemed unconquerable. I planned on doing the narrative at first, because it contained the least amount of research, and I can just flow with information from my imagination. I write best when I have minimal requirements, and the topic is interesting. That is why I switched to Challenge 18. This challenge seems much more feasible for me since it is 11+ pages and still requires only information from my mind. The games written in Beatrice and Virgil are thought-provoking to the point where 11 pages of manifesto actually seems easy. That is until you start putting words to paper. Becoming one with the character you are writing about is not a simple task, and should not be taken lightly. Some questions are controversial, and many points could be made as to what is the right and/or moral decision. Yann Martel would not have put the game in the story if it were easily answered and thought out. The games are meant to be tough. We can’t honestly answer to what we would actually do if the moment arose as to when we would have to make that decision, so that is what makes them so interesting.
As I was reading through the Manifesto options, taking a quote from a novel that has deeply impacted myself really stood out. But as I kept reading, writing an essay from another person’s standpoint or career also stuck out because I thought about doing this during the Life of Pi essay. I knew the book I wanted to write about on my Manifesto was Life of Pi, because there was so much that interested me in the novel and many quotes that pertain to my life. I decided to combine the two options to make one great essay about a quote on fear and how a Christian religious leader would look at this quote and Life of Pi as a whole. I’m starting out my essay with my quote and then I will have an introduction of how fear affects our world each and every day. As I continue my essay, I plan to portray how fear has been a part of my life and how I’ve seen it overcome. I relate to Pi a lot in the religious aspects of the book--on wanting to love others and God. I think it’s going to be a fun challenge to look at Life of Pi and my quote about fear through a religious leader’s perspective.
For my manifesto I chose to do option 16 which is the academy awards of books essay. It is going surprisingly well and it is even kind of fun to make up this fake award show for the pieces of literature we have read this semester. I like being able to have a sense of control with this essay. I get to choose what I write about, I do not have many requirements with what I need to include in my essay so I get to just write and come up with things that fit into this essay. I get to choose the awards that will be given and who the nominees and winners will be. The page requirement is a little nerve wracking but I am hoping that with all the ideas I have that it will not be a problem. I find it somewhat fun to make this fake award ceremony, I really get to use my imagination throughout this entire process. I do not have to rely on anything except for what I read this semester and then just let my mind create this mock award ceremony by incorporating all the literature we have gone through.
For the majority of my life, I have known that I wanted to do something in the math and science field. Because of my interest in math and science, I have chosen to pursue a major in Mechanical Engineering, and because of this, I chose the option to research and write about the history of the discovery of mathematical pi: the mathematical constant that is the equivalent to the ratio of the distance across a circle (diameter) to the distance around the circle (circumference). Through my research I interviewed BV Calculus and Trigonometry teacher, Mr. Hogie. I also used this opportunity of research to get in contact with a couple of mathematics professors at SDSU, both of whom were very helpful. One of these professors even included a book for me to use, which I easily found via Google. This book provided me with approximately 75% of the research that I will be using throughout the manifesto. I have always been fascinated with the question of why something is, so I feel as though researching where pi came from will enlighten me in more ways than one.
My Manifesto is different than everyone else’s in that I am doing mine on the history of India. I was intrigued by this topic when we were assigned the chapter essay for Life of Pi. Chapter 29, my chapter, was all about how India was sort of having a peaceful civil war, some might say, by how Yann Martel was wording it. Mrs. Gandhi had been in the process of overthrowing the Indian government at the time, to which Mr. Patel was not so thrilled about. Mr. Patel did not particularly like Mrs. Gandhi and that could be because he lived in a patriarchal society. This chapter eventually brought the knowledge to Pi that he and his family would be leaving India to move to Canada because Mr. Patel was so distressed about the current state of India that he did not want his children growing up in a country that was having a power struggle. As I am very interested in history, myself, I think this Manifesto will be enjoyable to write because it will allow me to dig deeper into the history of somewhere other than America or Europe.
For my manifesto, I decided upon option 13: explaining how Ï€ affects the laws of nature. I have always been interested in physics, so challenging myself with a topic I enjoy learning immediately struck a chord in my mind. Circles in particular are a favorite topic of mine because of their strength and irrationality. Î itself is the purest quantification of the irrationality to a circle. However, Ï€ extends far beyond simple Euclidean geometry. For civil engineers, critical load of shear stress is calculated using the buckling formula, which includes Ï€ due to the wave patterns created by a flux of energy in the system. The principle of harmonic motion similarly follows wave functions due to the trigonometric identities exerting a variable gravitational acceleration upon the load. In physics, most definitions including Ï€ actually derive from wave motion rather than Euclidean geometry. Even quantum mechanics is built upon the definition of Ï€ with both Einstein’s theory of general relativity and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle containing the mathematical constant due to spacetime itself containing curvature. The overall effects of Ï€ in both Euclidean curves and trigonometric waves define much of the observable universe… far more than any Freshman geometry class could imagine.
6 Etrheim When I first looked through all of the options of the manifesto, I was absolutely lost on what topic to choose. Many of the options confused me but a few stood out to me that I would be able to accomplish. My first option I thought about writing was comparing the three books we read in class and seeing how the are similar and different. I decided on not doing that one anymore because I felt like I did not have good enough notes to get me through 11+ pages. Now I am debating on two topics. It is between arguing what literary lens is the best to look through when reading a novel or Games for Gustav. If I choose the argumentation essay, I would be able to look back at my literary lens essay to help me a little bit. But I also have to do some research on literary theorists, which is a little more work. If i choose to do Games for Gustav, I could just answer one question on one pages since there is 12 questions. The only hard part about this is how I make it into an essay form and making the questions and answers flow easily. I am sure once I choose one of the two topics, I will be able cruise on writing the manifesto.
For my manifesto, I decided that I would write by playing the Games for Gustav in the back of Beatrice and Virgil. Since this option was added, I thought that it would make a great subject to write about for myself. As these questions are very open ended and therefore able to make the reader really think about their answers, I feel that this opens up the essay to a lot of opportunities. With an open ended question, the entire question is up for analyzation, which I feel can pretty easily propel me to the 11 pages that are needed in the end. I am also very excited about game 13 (?) where you get to make up your own. You could hypothetically write a ton on that last game, since it can be anything you want; explaining the question, analyzing it, and lastly answering it in whatever fashion you’d like. There’s a lot of different ways to go with each game, so I feel that I should easily be able to write at least a page on each game. I think that the topic will be fun and a good writing experience.
3 House I have not made any decisions on what to do about my manifesto. I was thinking about doing the 24+ page narrative on Iago, about his past and what made him so but that is not gonna happen now. I do not have time for that given a third must be done by tomorrow and I'm gone all day tomorrow running track in Pierre. With the Games for Gustav added it gives this Manifesto an interesting twist. I'm surprised that this idea has not been thought of sooner. It is a completely personal topic but I addresses an important thing and I feel that a lot of people will have similar answers given our upbringing, social standings, and culture we have been raised in. I feel like a lot of people will pick this one though. But I do not enjoy researching and writing. It becomes more of you restating someone else words into your own essay and I feel like you lose a sense of self. I'll sit more on it and think more on it and start and finish my third of my essay today, hopefully.
1 Top I chose to write my manifesto essay about a blog task. Normally I struggle to find 180 or 350 words create a blog, although there were a few that I had strong thoughts about. The literary elements/devices used in Life of Pi create the mood throughout the book. Martel is known to leave most of the thinking up to the reader but in some cases can be extremely descriptive to ensure clarification. When describing the boat Pi was on, the author used exact dimensions and physical description details. In other novels wrote by the same author for example, Beatrice and Virgil, Martel references the Holocaust without saying it. The allusions and foreshadowing definitely hint towards the tragic event. So far I am not having trouble finding examples because I have the source of the internet. I have repeatedly searched things I remember from the book to find what chapter it was in instead of wasting my time flipping through the book to find it. I switch back and forth between first and third person, mostly third person but interjections of first person when I have an opinion.
After taking some time with looking at all the options, the manifesto that I am choosing to compose is made up of the Games for Gustav. I chose to do this particular concept for the fact that I can really elaborate on them. I like to be creative and new with my writing and write about something I can put my own ideas and feelings into. I am not a big fan of research mostly because it really is not something that I came up with. It is more of a factual essay with statements others have said. Thus the reason I am doing the games.I am planning on taking each game in the back of the Beatrice and Virgil novel and telling a completely new story for each of them. I feel that I can give different aspects and view points for every game and tell a new outcome each time. The things that I imagine can be gained from the different views of the games will be greater than one can ever think of on their own. My hopes for this manifesto is to show what my brain can come up with and how far it can go with crazy ideas.
For my Manifesto, I have chosen to examine a quote from Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil. Henry the author, writing as Beatrice, attempts to describe Virgil and finds that “[w]ords are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field” (88). The quote states one of the novel’s major themes. It shows that words can only do so much. Some feelings and events cannot be illustrated through words alone, and sometimes events and emotions can only be fully understood when a person actually experiences them. In my Manifesto, I will interpret and explain this quote. I plan to talk about how the theme presented by this quote is used within the play in the descriptions of the pear, Virgil, and the Horrors. I will also explore how the theme stated by the quote is present elsewhere in the novel, such as in Henry’s effort to describe Virgil, in attempts to discuss the Holocaust, and in both Henry the taxidermist and Henry the author’s struggles to compose literary works. So, I will discuss the quote’s role within the novel. Additionally, I plan to talk about how the quote can apply to the real world with tragedies such as the Holocaust, but also with other events and feelings, like victories and happiness. In my Manifesto, I may also choose to explore how tragedies can be illustrated and remembered through means that do not involve words. The sewing kit within the play provides an example of various ways events can be described and remembered, both through words and through gestures, events, and locations. The play itself is another example of how people can remember tragedies through different means. Though it contains words, the play is a fictionalization of a tragedy. It is idiosyncratic because it uses allegory and symbolism rather than facts and the typical Holocaust language to help people understand and remember the Holocaust. It is another unusual form of talking about the horrific event. I may also decide to talk about Henry the author’s development throughout the novel as he realizes that means other than words, such as the sewing kit in the play, can be used to remember events. Thus, my Manifesto will examine a quote from Beatrice and Virgil that contains one of the novel’s major themes and that can be applied to the play, the novel, and the real world. My Manifesto may also explore alternatives to the theme’s subject and Henry the author’s development throughout the novel.
6 Sorenson It is Thursday and I have yet to actually begin writing my Manifesto. I know I am doing the narrative option because I prefer writing from my own thoughts instead of writing about someone else’s. I also hate doing research and the narrative option does not have any research requirements. I am not really daunted by the length requirement. I have an idea and an outline for the story I want to tell, and I believe that I can reach, and possibly exceed, 24 pages. I am going to write about Nurse Ratched. I want to tell a story that explains how she came to be the rigid conforming woman that she is. The story will be a sort of prelude or precursor to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. She is the perfect character for me to write about. The author gives enough details about her life before the ward that I can draw from those aspects of her life to create a story. Yet Nurse Ratched is still an ambiguous character, so I have the liberty to create a story about the details of her life.
3 Wheeler I chose to do the causal essay explaining why the books, plays, poems, etc from this year are taught in high school and college courses. At first I thought I could do the letter recommending the books to a friend/family member, but I quickly realized that that was not going to happen. I have written an essay similar to this causal one in my sophomore year, but with a much narrower field. That essay was why specifically Huckleberry Finn should be taught in schools. I feel like having written that essay gave me a sort of practice for this much longer and more broad essay. I am a little worried about the essay, because I feel like it could easily become very repetitive. But I am still pretty confident that this essay will turn out okay. I am enjoying talking about the purpose of studying these novels, because it allows me to be poetic in my writing, in a sense. I feel my writing can be more meaningful and genuine in this essay than in some of the other essays from this year. All in all, I am pleased with how it is going so far, but I also know that I need to get my act together and continue to write it earnestly, instead of procrastinating.
We just got started on our manifesto a few days ago. I am writing mine with Koehn because I think being able to bounce ideas off of each other overall creates a superior essay versus when you write it alone. We are writing in response to the Games of Gustav in the back of the novel Beatrice and Virgil. It actually has been a little difficult, considering all the answers to the games are truly up to your own decision. Either decision that you make could have dire consequences, which really requires you to think it through. These games were meant for you to really put yourself in the situation of being in the Holocaust. They are super deep, and are actually questions I’m sure many people were struck with when the Holocaust was taking place. I am actually very excited to write this essay and think it will be a fun one to compose. There are so many different viewpoints that you can take on each situation, that I do not think that meeting the page requirement will be a hard task.
For the past couple of weeks, I have struggled to start writing my Manifesto. I have looked over the topics plenty of times and never found inspiration to start my essay. Only today have I decided on a couple of topics to write my essay about. My Manifesto will be over a combination of two topics, completely about the algae island that Pi found on his journey. I will be using literary lenses to look into the deeper meaning behind this island, perhaps it is a symbol for Heaven, or the Garden of Eden. This island seems as though it is paradise, only until Pi discovers the “forbidden fruit” or the teeth in the tree. The island chapter is the longest in the entire novel and I feel that it is most important addition to the story in terms of symbolism. For another topic in my essay, I will be discussing the legitimacy (or not) of the island. When I first read the novel I questioned whether or such a place could exist naturally somewhere in the ocean. After brief research I have found that there are many reports and forums of people discussing the same thing that I have thought.
The Manifesto topic I have chosen is to research a literary theorist from the Term Tuesday list argue that this theorist should be studied, appreciated more for significant, undervalued contributions.I chose this topic because I am more of a research driven writer. Though this topic may be somewhat more difficult than others, it has less of a page requirement. This fact is very appealing to me, as I do not have much for time in this season of the year. The literary theorist from the Term Tuesday list that I chose is Jacques Derrida and his theories regarding deconstruction. Though I have not researched too in depth yet, I do have the basic understanding of his role in the founding of the theory of deconstruction in the 1960s. The theory of deconstruction is a theory “that questions the fundamental conceptual distinctions, or “oppositions,” in Western philosophy through a close examination of the language and logic of philosophical and literary texts”. I think this theory is very underappreciated because it is not often studied, through plays into many other theories.
1 Vielmette For my manifesto I am writing about Pete's quote in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest which is "I'm tired". I'm loving this essay so far and love how much more is inside this two word quote and how it is so much more than just "I'm tired". I had to stop writing parts of my intro because I didn't think I would come up with this much from two words when in my life and the real world. My intro I feel is too long even as it takes up all of my first page then half of my second almost and I want to shorten it, but I don't know what to shorten it too. The only things that I am worried about is the research part of the essay, not because it is more work, but because I already feel like I have more than 11 pages to write about and don't want this to continue over 15 pages. Hopefully I can finish a third of my essay within the next day so that I can get a decent grade on the whole thing for the semester.
For my manifesto, I decided to write about a quote taken from one of the novels we have read as a class. My quote comes from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. McMurphy says, “All I know is this: nobody's very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down.” I chose this quote because I could easily see how it related to society today. McMurphy was talking to Harding about Harding and his wife’s relationship, but this quote means so much more than that. I think McMurphy is saying that not only does everyone in the ward tear each other down, but everyone outside the ward does as well. In the ward, they would tear each other apart greatly. For example, during the meetings they would pick a topic about a person and talk about it. Billy Bibbit was a subject during one of these meetings. He was affected so much by what had happened, that he killed himself. In today’s society, people are torn down so much by people, that they think their only option is to kill themselves. I have a lot of ideas on how I want my manifesto to look, but I always have troubles starting. Since this essay is the longest one this year, I am going to plan it out better than I normally do. I have been doing a lot of research for it, so it should come together well.
1 Jeanson I choose to torture myself with twenty-four pages of pure imagination. Not my best idea but it is the only choice I felt I could make into something I was proud of. In total I will create six different “fan fictions”. Some will be longer than others and a few I even made into poetry. I want to tell the character’s story of before the ones we have read in class. A few are to give reasons behind their behavior and others are solely created to give insight on their past or future. The max amount of pages for the poetry is two pages. I find it hard to make them any longer than that. The longest story is eight pages and it is about Jack Merridew and his time at the school before the plane crash. It was very hard for me to write a poem about the feeling of infatuation. As I have never felt that it is hard for me to pretend to be someone who has. I am unsure on how it will all turn out but hopefully it at least has some sort of entertainment value.
I have been holding off this Manifesto essay for the last week and until only a couple days ago, I realized I should probably start my essay. The hardest part for me was picking a topic to write about. I could not decide between writing a 24 page narrative or writing an essay about the Academy Awards of Books. They both looked like fun and easy essays to write about, but I was not ready to write 16 or 24 pages. Then came a new topic about the Games for Gustav. I find this topic to be interesting because there are numerous amounts of viewpoints that can be taken. So, I decided to try and attempt at writing for this for my essay. I am going to describe how every single question/game can make anyone and everyone question their own humanity, their love for themselves, and their love for others. In my essay, I will write about how each question relates to the Holocaust in some way, shape, or form and how the question can be answered by different people. This essay topic although it is interesting, it will also be a challenge to write about.
When I first took a look at the manifesto challenge options and instructions I was overwhelmed. There were many options for me to choose from but I had no clue what I truly wanted to do. I could write a 24 page narrative or I could write 11 pages on a different idea. I chose to write the 11 pages on option number 3 which is comparing 2 or 3 novels that we read in class. Going with the 11 pages I also have to have excerpts from experts, excerpts from the novels, term tuesday terms, and a works cited page. I decided that I will juxtapose Lord of the Flies and Life of Pi. Having this big of an essay due at the end of the semester is not going well for me. I started on my manifesto the other night and got about 2 sentences. My plan is to spend a good amount of time on it tonight. The two novels are very similar in many aspects, and they also have a few differences. I am hoping that I will be able to put all I have left into this essay and make it an incredible essay.
I viewed the list of options to write my manifesto, and changed my mind multiple times on which one I wanted to do. Originally, I was going to compose about option one, writing about a prequel or sequel of a character from any of the novels we had previously read in class. Eventually, I decided instead to do the idea invented by my fellow classmates of option 18, answering Gustav’s games in the back of Yann Martel’s novel of Beatrice and Virgil. The simplicity of its requirements is something to marvel at, for the lone requirement is 11+ pages which should be easily done, considering there are thirteen games contained in Martel’s work. I reread these games often before even reading the novel, as I was instantly hooked on the infinite amount of possibilities to answer the games. Each person can individually answer the question and there is no definite answer. The compelling attribute to the games is the unique situation each one puts the reader into, for many are outreaching and unlikely to occur in the normal person’s life. Therefore, I believe the 18th option to be the most suitable for me.
3 Hoffman I am relentlessly attempting to begin this manifesto. The path I have chosen is option 6: Classifying top 10 poems for whatever reason I deem worthy. I have not yet decided what I will classify them by; "most intriguing" sounds boring, ironically. "Most difficult" to understand would be a funny one, would it not? "Most relevant" would be very difficult to not be ridiculously biased. All I am aware of is this blank slate I’ve been given comes with hundreds or thousands of colors. I may destroy or make beauty, the choice is mine. I need five Tuesday terms--an easy task--and works cited. I will look up every meaning to every poem I choose, therefore, works cited will not be difficult. I have already looked into “The Love Story” by T.S. Elliot, which has many readings, animations, interpretations, etc. I hope to be as lucky with this poem as I am with others I choose. I plan on including Shane Koyczan in this list, as he is my favorite modern-day poet. He speaks with passion and meaning in every poem he writes, all of which include music that is tailor-made to the voice he recorded, so it sounds good but I can confirm that he has a beautiful mind as well. I wish to go with luck in this task, I wish to write with charm.
For my Manifesto I was either thinking of doing the narrative or the Games for Gustav. When I was looking at the narrative I couldn’t decide to write all 24 pages about one thing or write multiple different narrative essays that would be 8 pages. Upon looking at all of the topics I decided that the best topic to write about was the Games for Gustav. I feel like this will be pretty easy because each of the games will be able to expand more and more on them. With the 11 page requirement, my only worry would be if I can write almost an entire page for each question. I am hoping that it will be pretty easy to reach this because the 13 games will need more explanation on some games compared to others. I think the most daunting task of this manifesto is the length. Another difficulty involved in the Manifesto is to prevent myself from becoming repetitive. Even though everyone wants to just be done with school the last few weeks are only the start of the race with multiple assignments being due and having huge impacts on final grades
7Huska Looking at the options for the manifesto I could not really find one that seemed interesting to me or something I could put my time into a make it good. At least, not until I saw number 16. Number 16 is where you write something like the oscars but with books. I knew this would be a fun adventure so that is what I started with. There is not any previous essays with this number so it is a little tough for knowing what guidelines to follow and having another’s ideas to help spark something within me. I decided to go with a script format including interviews before the show and possibly during, acceptance speeches and introductions to the awards, and occasionally some scene directions. I find this fun as I get to practically create a whole show complete with reactions and anything I want. Another part of this essay is that I have to create a statue. I am not that creative so I have gotten my help and some things went a bit...wrong. It will make sense how once I present the statue to Mr. Christensen. I actually really like this essay even though it takes a lot of time and effort but I like that we get to be creative with this project.
After having a very difficult time deciding which topic to write for my manifesto, I have decided to go with the new option of playing the “Games for Gustav.” This topic most definitely stuck out to me as the most interesting, and I’m excited to see what I can do with it. The games really make you think hard about a lot of things, and they have intrigued me ever since I first read them. So I figured this would be the best topic for me to write in depth about. I have no actual writing done on the manifesto at this point, but I plan on dedicating a good amount of time into it today and tomorrow to meet the deadline. I am not 100% sure on how I am going to structure my essay; whether it be answering each question in order, or just choosing my favorites and going in depth on just the few that I choose. I think this will be a fun challenge and I am looking forward to seeing how it will turn out.
On my manifesto, I have not gotten a huge start on it, but I have many ideas of how I will be writing it. I have chosen to partake in the first prompt for the manifesto. This prompt is that you must write a total of twenty-four pages to either the prequel or sequel to a book or short story that we have read in class. First, I am doing a story about what happened to Jack Merridew before the plane crashed on the island and everything turned out bad. It is a work in progress, and I am still trying to make it sound good enough to be an actual story. So far, this manifesto is not hard for me to be writing, but it is going to take me a while to figure out a good plot line or a good part of a plot line to have. Next, I plan to write a story about the man with the parachute in the Lord of the Flies by William Golding as no one knows anything about that man. I plan to give a detailed background as to why he was parachuting and how he had come to his demise. I plan to have stories about all of the other novels we have read in class as well as the ones that I have already written. I do enjoy this prompt as I enjoy writing things that are my own creations. I enjoy being able to express my thoughts in a constructive way and a way that could intrigue other people as well as myself.
3 Headrick For my manifesto I am playing Games for Gustav. This is actually my favorite essay so far and I do not dread writing the required pages. At first I was inundated learning that 1/3 of the manifesto is due on Friday but I now feel happy and it is not really a burden to play the games. I “played” some of these games with my mom just to see what her answers would be. The answers she had were typical mom answers which led me to think that people of different ages will twist the games into what there life is right now. Johnke and Zoey are also doing this essay and I have quickly learned that their answers are different from my mom’s. They have no heart and do not know what it is like to lose a child. I do not know either. That is just the first game so we will probably grow to hate each other from this essay. At least we are talking about literature. I also might do a feat but depending if I can get it done in time. The feat will be a secret to create suspense.
After multiple topic changes, I have chosen to do the causal essay for my manifesto. I decided to do this essay because I feel that in today’s society, the push for math and science skills have overshadowed the importance of literature study. I believe that literature still holds a major significance in today’s growing world. The stories we studied in class this year provide a perspective on society that is not commonly viewed. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest really opened my eyes on 1960’s society. Lord of the Flies and Life of Pi examined the savage side of human nature and how brutal it can become in desperate situations. Using different literary lenses and identifying literary devices in each story develops important analytic skills. It took me a long time to come up with a topic because there were many of them that I wanted to do. I now have a topic and I am now ready to begin researching other expert’s opinions, review five term Tuesday terms, and think of what I want to discuss in my essay.
I chose to write on the topic about finding the value of pi, not just as a number, but also as its impact on the world. This is definitely not because of the possibility of a math major. I chose this topic because it gives me the chance to learn more of the history and reasoning behind pi because that has actually been a question that has never really been covered throughout all my math classes. Those are the things that intrigued me about this topic that are a little more fascinating than the known fact that pi is the circumference divided by the diameter. I plan to discuss the origins of pi. In the process of learning this, I have discovered that pi has been used for thousands of years! It was first mentioned by an Egyptian scribe on a piece of papyrus dating back to 1645 B.C. which was called the Rhind Papyrus after it fell into the hands of Egyptologist Alexander Henry Rhind. I have also found an amazing quote by William L. Schaaf describing pi as the most mysterious and relevant number to society. One of my goals is to continually relate my essay to this quote because it is the essence of the point I am trying to make.
In utter and total candidness, my essay has yet to be conceived. As of now, I am fully aware that my essay topic will be playing and typing about my experience playing the Games for Gustav, a portion of Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil that interested me greatly, and which I have already put some decent level of thought and consideration into. The questions are not only thought-provoking, requiring some careful consideration and no shortage of analysis, but are also emotion-provoking, pulling into the play your personal feelings. They are almost a necessity to play the games fully and garner total appreciation for this portion of Martel’s book. A lot of the questions are related to human suffering, to both your own personal and that of those around you, and how you should deal with that suffering, ease it off those around you and yet off of yourself as well, which can be quite the complicated task. They call up questions involving your own existence, why should this happen to you? Who and what is God? Amongst many others. I think this is an interesting way for Martel to challenge the conventional views of human suffering, and present them in the seemingly innocent format of games, with totally brutal and harsh implications and reality.
My manifesto is juxtaposing the two novels One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Life of Pi. I am comparing their themes, the literary lenses, and the general idea of what Ken Kesey and Yann Martel were trying to say in their writing. I have so far only have gotten a page and a half in, but I feel as if it is going very smooth. The books are very similar the more I begin to analyze the two. While reading both of the novels separately I never quite realized how much they have in common until I started thinking more deep about the novels. For instance, at the end of both of the novels they ended in ways I had not imagined and they leave you wanting more. Both Kesey and Martel do not tell the reader what will happen next, but let the reader decide how to interpret the story themselves. Another aspect I noticed in both of the books, is the presence of current issues tied into the stories. The authors did this strategically without the reader noticing until the story begins to “pick up”. I believe that these books have more in common than not.
I started my first paragraph today. It’s a start. I have not done much with my manifesto as I had quite a hard time choosing a topic. I first decided on the literary theorists option but I realized that many of the theorists have produced books; books I would have to read and I would not be able to finish those before the deadline. I saw that Riley and Zoey came up with this fascinating idea of playing Games of Gustav as an option; I automatically was drawn towards it. In my essay I will go into depth with each question. There are thirteen so I am pretty sure I can make eleven pages. What I like about this topic so much is that I can go anyway with this. I can talk about my own experiences as conducting some narratives of my own. I have complete creative control and I get a chance to gain insight on what each holocaust survivor went through during this time. Although this essay won’t be anything compared to what they went through, I’ll at least receive a better understanding and I am sure that is what Yann Martel wanted when he first produced this book.
6 Waltner It took me a while to decide on which topic I would write about for my manifesto. I was initially most worried about picking one that would be easy to get 11 pages, but then I decided I need one that would interest me. If I found it interesting then 11 pages will be a lot easier. Therefore I decided to write about the recently added Games for Gustav. This essay I will write in first person and attempt to put myself in the shoes of the innocent people in the concentration camps. I found this one very interesting because the games, or questions, help you understand the daily struggles these men and women were put through. The part I will struggle with the most is how to format my whole essay. I do not want the whole thing to be repetitive and like a list of the games. Currently I am on page three, but still not confident with the flow of the essay. Also I am hoping to incorporate the book by adding a few quotes that relate to the games. However, I find the topic very interesting which will make it much easier to write about.
1 Mikkelsen When I first began thinking about my manifesto, I felt overwhelmed and was not sure which option to choose. I looked through a few and thought they would be interesting. I ultimately picked option 14 because I felt it was an option that I was passionate about and hopefully could write a good amount of information about and be interested in. I am writing about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, from a nurse’s perspective. I have a little over two pages written currently and right now I am talking briefly about the history of nursing and what it means to be a nurse. I think that writing from a nurse’s perspective is interesting because one of the main conflicts of the novel is the unfair treatment of the patients; the unfair treatment of the patients is the result of how the nurses act toward them. In addition, I am discussing the negative stigma surrounding mental health and how there is still a negative stigma regarding mental health today. I believe this is important to discuss because if one does not understand mental health and the treatment that has been implicated for it, one would not be able to understand a nurse’s role in treating patients with a mental illness. I think my manifesto is off to a good start, but I am a bit concerned with getting the eleven page requirement; that is something I am going to have to work through.
The Manifesto project is the longest essay I have ever had to write but not the hardest. I am writing my Manifesto with my partner Riley Johnke. Writing this paper together helps us bounce different ideas off of each other. After a couple discussions, we decided to come up with our own topic of playing the Games of Gustav that are in the back of Beatrice and Virgil. I believe now that this option has been added more people are joining in playing the games. Every single person will have a different viewpoint because no one sees things the same. There are no right or wrong answers. Our essay is coming along very well. It is actually bringing out our inner demons because of the deep, dark topics we are discussing. It is fun writing in this manner because it is based off of our own opinions and we do not have research any topics. I do not think it will be an arduous task to meet the 16.5 page requirement because there are so many feelings and viewpoints that are out there.
I have decided to write about the games for Gustav for my manifesto. I think it will be an interesting challenge. The games are designed to place you between a rock and a hard place and there is no easy solution to any of the prompts. To really understand the games themselves you have to empathize with the holocaust victims and imagine their situation. Writing about this will be unpleasant, I imagine. It is inherently depressing. I think it will be interesting though. There’s a lot I could say about any of the given games. I have not really started quite yet, but once I get going I think it will come together quickly.
In researching for this essay, I came across a writing in which someone answered each of the questions. Upon reading the answers he has written, it seems this writer is quite short-sighted and lacking empathy. To the prompt “An armed guard tells you to sing, you sing. He tells you to dance, you dance. He tells you to act like pig, you act like a pig. He tells you to lick his boots, you do. He tells you to _____, but you don’t understand it because it is in a foreign language. What do you do?” he writes “Stand up and kick him in the balls.” This isn’t the worst of his answers either.
I had a hard time choosing my manifesto topic and was deliberating between numbers 7 and 18. The reasons I would have chosen number 7 are that the stories we study are also studied in many other places, and for a multitude of reasons. We have already studied quite a few things including novels, short stories, and now Shakespeare as well. Nearly everyone agrees that these things have value that we can get from studying them, and they are also very vocal about sharing why, so this essay would have been relatively easy despite the research that would be necessary. Number 18 is the games for Gustav. Games for Gustav is intriguing because it involves a few moral choices and it makes one think. Another appealing part of it is that it does not require nearly so much research. In the end I decided that I would do the games for Gustav. I liked the idea of being tested mentally and morally as these games will do.
For my Manifest I am choosing to write 11 pages on a quote from one of the works we read in class. I would say that so far it has taken me the longest time to pick the quote that I wanted to do. There are so many powerfully well written quotes in all the books that we read! The quote that I ended up choosing is from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It reads, “the stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon.” I like this quote because I think it has a good message and it is an analogy. Being able to compare people and characteristics to the moon and stars, I believe allows for some creativity and puts the mind in a different mood of thinking. So far I have gotten some of my ideas down to help visualize what the body of my essay is going to look like. I plan to talk about first what I believe the quote is saying. I also plan to talk about how it works and relates to the book it is in. Lastly, I am going to use real people as examples of who I think are brighter stars than others. Making such comparisons, I hope to make my essay more relatable to readers and real life. Overall I am happy with the way my essay is looking right now and hope that the final product is something I can be proud of.
7 Symington Initially, I was considering writing my Manifesto based on either the quote from one of the novels perhaps Life of Pi or the argumentation essay regarding finding out more about one of the literary critics and attempt to justify as to why they deserve to be appreciated more. After talking outside of class with Riley, I decided to play Games for Gustav. I personally feel like this will allow me to be a little bit creative with some of the scenario outcomes and the overall topic of the Holocaust interests me as well. As of right now, I am beginning to focus on writing the scenario and analyzing different ways that different groups of people may react to that situation. During this time, I plan on talking with some classmates and recording their responses and reactions to some of the Games and what they would do as possible outcomes that I had never considered before. Overall, I think that this is one of the few topics that I would actually like to write about and I feel like there is a lot to cover based on just each scenario in the end of Games for Gustav.
This manifesto has been the most troublesome issue thus far. All I was told was that there was a huge essay that was twenty four pages. After hearing this information, I avoided it completely and did not even look at the requirements or qualifications of what I had to do for this essay. I recently pushed myself to at least pick a topic and I chose to do the argumentative essay where I either agree or disagree with the points made by Yann Martel in his emails. I chose to do this because I figured arguing is what I am best at, so I should pick something that I at least some what know how to do. I am nervous because I have very little motivation left, so it is going to take a lot of work to get this done. I have yet to read all the email and what his opinions on stuff really is, so I haven't started or made a general outline which means I have a lot to do. But now that I have at least picked a topic, I know that I am one step closer to accomplishing the tough task of writing eleven pages.
Writing a narrative that would add on to the original story intrigued me as I often think about what characters do when the book is closed. A good novel character, in my eyes, is one that I feel the characters could be real and hold a life outside of the ink and paper. The idea I was tossing around for the narrative is also one I really liked, I wanted to do two stories about Richard Parker. One story would detail the physical tiger that lived on the boat with for 227 days the other would be more of a mental interpretation similar to inside out. As time went on, however, I became less enchanted with my idea, I still like it but that original love for it is gone. Fortunately, when I was reading through the comments of other classmates trying to find other ones who are setting out to write a narrative I found one that detailed their original plan and how they have switched gears from a narrative to writing scenarios for Games for Gustave. I didn't have any recollection of this topic so I went back to have a look for it and now my original excitement for writing a manifest has been renewed. Games for Gustave was one of my favorite features from Beatrice and Virgil as they are so thought provoking and I still regret not having an entire class period dedicated to discussing how we believe we would behave in each scenario. So now I have a topic I am genuinely excited to work on. I am very confident that fulfilling the page requirement will be a fairly easy task as I have gone through these scenarios so many times and I am very thankful that I no longer dread the manifesto but instead am filled with excitement.
I have decided to do option three for the manifesto by doing a juxtaposition of Lord of the Flies and Life of Pi. When I first decided to pick this topic, my brain was overflowing with ideas; however, whenever I sit down to write some of my essay, my mind goes blank. To make matters worse, even when a good comparison arises for them, I get a decent start to my paragraph, but then I hit a wall and really struggle to find more. As of now, my essay has mostly focused on the comparison of the use of animals as well as how they relate to the lens we have learned so far in class. For example, the tiger represents the the id of Pi, and how he has to fight his inner id to prevent himself from falling to savagery. Eventually, I will go more in depth on topics such as the themes, as well as how both protagonists live by their ego, but most overcome the adversity set upon them from the antagonists. Then in comparison, the pig represents the savagery causing them to fall away from a civilized lifestyle. So far, I have found the task of writing this essay challenging, but I have already managed to write out three and a half pages. I hope to get through a vast majority of it this weekend since I will be stuck in a hotel for awhile.
In all honesty, I am still unsure of how I want to approach this new assignment. I have read through the suggestions multiple times, and I have found many of them to be interesting, maybe even conceivable. However, none seem to “speak” directly to me. Though, with the first stages of our progress due tomorrow, I realize I must make this important decision sooner rather than later. I have personally always enjoyed the research and information gathering stages of essays more compelling to me than the actual writing process, and therefore I know I want to chose an essay that is not all imagination. I will chose an essay topic that requires at least some aspect of research, and probably depends less on my personal imagination and creativity than others would. At this point, after reading through the options once more, I believe I will be going with option number seven, which is a casual essay discussing why the literature we have studied through this course is still so relevant and important in today’s world. I intend to especially emphasize the importance of the works of Shakespeare, and possibly other older, classic literature that a large portion of people believe to be irrelevant and therefore unessential. Hopefully, I am able to successfully elaborate on their importance without being to repetitive or boring for anyone that happens to read it.
For the topic of my Manifesto, I have decided upon writing a narrative essay. I have always enjoyed creative writing to a degree much greater than that of writing based on research, although, I feel this is probably a common opinion. The majority of what I have written so far is fiction based on what I think happened to certain characters before they appear in the literature we read. It is extremely intriguing and a great deal of fun to be able to explore what might have taken place in the character’s life to incite them to act in a certain way or choose a certain course of action. With many of the books we read (aside from maybe Life of Pi) the readers are thrust right into the thick of things with few references to what took place in characters lives before the events taking place. It is the events of the past that mold the choices of the future. What takes place in a character’s past is just as important as what they are choosing to do in the present. It gives readers an insight as to what molded a character into what they have become now, good or bad and shows us that not every character can be whittled down to a strict “good and evil” status. In fact, good and evil hardly ever exists completely within the confines of a story. All that there is, is the choices the characters have decided to make for whatever reason, and how the reader decides to interpret those choices.
Blue 7 To be honest I am currently at a loss of words when I am trying to write this. So far, I have a little over a page done and I have no clue where my essay is going let alone how I am going to get to 11 pages eventually. I chose to write about a quote from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I am in strong favor of the quote and absolutely love its meaning. However, I am finding it nearly impossible to write about in first person. I have countless personal stories about how laughter has been key to getting myself through life and tough situations. However, because it must be in third person it is difficult to share those experiences. Plus it is not much of a researched topic either. Hopefully if I can just make it to near 4 pages by friday night I can somehow piggyback that and turn it into an eleven page manifesto. In its current status however, it is rough. As the kids say, “morale is low”. Although I have found something I am passionate about, I am not exactly sure how to write about it.
3 Scholten Initially, I was going to do the manifesto about the Games for Gustav but in the end I decided to do option 3 which is doing a compare and contrast essay about two books we have read this semester. I felt like this option was one of the easiest and also the only option that I could get eleven pages done. I am doing my compare and contrast essay about Life of Pi and Lord of the Flies. At first glance, many people probably do not think there are many similarities and differences between these two books but I dug deeper into both books and actually there are a ton of similarities and differences. One similarity is that all the characters in both books are just trying do the same thing and that is to survive. In both books, Ralph and Pi are just trying to survive from the animals on the island and lifeboat. One similarity between Ralph and Pi is that they just want to be rescued and would do anything to be back home. These are just the edge of the many different similarities and differences between these two books. I have been happy with the progress I have made and I will keep working to make my manifesto great.
1 Campbell I chose to write the casual essay about why students need to continue reading the different pieces of literature that we have read this semester. I chose to do this because I think it is important to learn from the books that you read. Although they may be nonfiction, most of the time the underlying message or idea is pretty accurate in that time setting or situation. I chose to write about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Life of Pi. I truly did enjoy these two novels and I feel like they really challenged me to think in different ways. They had a lot of symbolism and ideas that threw you off at different points. As I mentioned in what I have written so far in my Manifesto, when Yann Martel entertains the idea that Pi was actually alone on the boat with humans this whole time instead of the animals, that was extremely confusing. It made you think completely different about the whole story. That idea is one of the many that challenges readers to think differently and have their own views/opinions about topics. That is why I wanted to write this easy, to show how important these novels are to me and how I think they would be helpful to others.
I have been taking the Manifesto challenge fairly slow, with all the options available I wanted to make sure I chose one that will not cause extreme writers block. I came to the conclusion of compare and contrast just because that type of essay really provides with all lot of material especially if you are contrasting novels, which provide a substantial amount content compared to contrasting two sports. I saw that some people were comparing and contrasting Life of Pi to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or Life of Pi to The Lord of the Flies, however, I think the best comparison would be Life of Pi to Beatrice and Virgil, because of both novels being written by Yann Martel I think that creates a very good comparison. Also, both of Martel’s novels are based upon “controversial” topics which just sets up the compare and contrast perfectly, even though they are not closely related. Overall, taking a look at every topic and deciding which topic to dive into helped me extremely, and more than likely saved me from having to restart halfway through the writing process.
My manifesto will be about option 18: Games for Gustav. So far, I have written and introduction about the mixed reviews of Beatrice and Virgil. Most websites and blogs have harshly bashed the novel, but I did manage to find a few favorable reviews. I will look at each "game" and describe what Yann Martel was trying to get the reader to do. For example, in game one Martel asks the reader if they would risk their son's death so the family can eat. He poses the question as a yes-or-no format, rather than an open-ended question. If Martel had said "what do you do?" rather than "do you let him go?", the reader could have said that they would go in his place, but by only allowing the two options of yes or no, the reader is forced to choose between his/her son and the rest of his/her family. By choosing that wording, Martel is asking his readers to feel, rather than think. The simple language in the novel up to this point also suggests that Martel's goal was never for the reader to think, but to put themselves into the situation emotionally.
I am going to be honest… at first when thinking about this manifesto, I was dreading having to write it. 11+ pages seems scary and insurmountable. On top of that, none of the topics really intrigued me. I was initially going to do the topic of “which literary lens is most important” until I saw Riley and Zoey’s new idea of playing Games for Gustav. It has turned a dreaded paper into a paper that I am surprisingly enjoying to write. I mean really really enjoying writing it. Games for Gustav makes you think in new and challenging ways, testing your morals, creativity, wits, and intelligence. Not only that, but it makes you truly see the decisions, predicaments, and hardships that Holocaust victims had to face. I also really enjoy it because I can write it with minimal research, while still putting a lot of time into thinking, “What would I truly do?” Many times, my morals tell me one thing but I know what my actual response would be in that situation. Writing the paper can even cause emotions, which is exactly what Yann Martel was trying to accomplish. I must give Riley and Zoey some credit, because they have turned this manifesto from something I was dreading to something I am enjoying.
After a couple of days debating on which one of the options I wanted to use, I decided to research a literary theorist. I originally chose this one over a few others (including the Academy Awards of literature, the causal essay about why literature is studied, and the narrative essay) because of it only needing 8 pages; but as I got going on it I realized that I did not think most of the people to write about were very interesting until I found William James. William James stood out to me while I was looking in the Term Tuesday folder because of the title of his work, “What Makes a Life Worth Living?” This was a question I constantly find myself asking, so I googled him and knew he was going to be the subject of my manifesto when I saw his influence in psychology and some of his quotes: “The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes” and “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
At the beginning of this whole thing, I had no idea which option I was going to choose...to go with the longer, easier option or to do the more researched, shorter essay. It was difficult for me to decide. This is for sure the longest essay I have had to write in my whole high school career. I chose to write the 8+ pages of the argumentation essay where you research a listed literary theorist and argue that they should be more appreciated or studied. I chose this one because of the fact that I really enjoy feminist theorists and the different ways they look into the lens and how they go about letting it be known. The feminist lens really interests me and I enjoy seeing the different ways authors write about it and incorporate it in unique ways into the novels. I chose Laura Mulvey because she was interested in feminist lens and is a critique about it. I do not think this essay will be out of reach, but I do believe it will challenge me as we end the school year and this class.
I originally had planned on choosing the option to write a narrative for the manifesto project. I soon began to realize that this was not feasible, especially with my infamous procrastination practices. I then switched to thinking I was going to attempt the causal essay option. I then realized this would be an extreme challenge, for I do not remember the majority of the novels and short stories we have studied this semester. My good friend Layne Symington then pointed out to me that there were some new options added to the list of topics for the manifesto. I saw the Games for Gustav option, and was hooked instantly. These games were the best part of the book and group discussion for Beatrice and Virgil, which was a lousy novel altogether. To begin writing, I have started with an introduction about the premise of the questions and my tactics at how I am to go about answering said questions. So far, I have answered about three questions, and will continue until I have answered them all. These games interest me, even though most are terrible to think about.
For a long time, I had no clue what I was going to write about. I went back and forth between a few topics but the page requirement made me not want to write about some of them. Twenty four pages is a long essay. I was dreading writing the manifesto at first, but when the Games for Gustav option came about, I was actually very interested in writing about them. It's really interesting to put yourself in the shoes of someone who would have to make these types of decisions. It's horrible to think about. I couldn't imagine being in that kind of situation. Reading them is hard, but writing about them seems even more difficult. It seems like whatever option you choose is a bad one. You can either risk your life or the lives of others, a situation that I would never want to be put in. I started writing about them, and the writing actually came very easy. I think it's crazy that the idea of these games are totally ironic. Games are usually a fun pastime, but these games are nothing of the kind. They are some of the most difficult situations that you will ever have to think about. Now that I picked a topic that I am actually passionate about writing, I think that the manifesto seems more capable of being conquered.
I am writing my manifesto on my own topic: the physiological and mental changes that Pi undergoes during his ordeal. To organize it, I am going stage by stage, beginning with the sinking of the ship. Each stage will comprise of 2-3 paragraphs discussing what is happening in Pi’s mind psychologically (for example, discussing the activation of the amygdala when Richard Parker boards the boat), on a macro-physiological level (for example the effects of a rush of adrenaline on Pi’s body), as well as the molecular changes that happen within his body (like heat shock proteins being produced to help him deal with the extreme heat of the sun). I have not yet settled on how to break up the rest of the novel, but I know that I want to specifically discuss the point at which Pi gives up and allows himself to starve almost to death until encountering the Frenchman. This part of the story has so much material in it for my essay topic. I can discuss the ability of the brain to force physiological changes on the body and the bodies defenses to starvation and dehydration that allow him to get back up and survive.
My manifesto is a precursor, or prelude to the life and twisted demeanour of the taxidermist in Beatrice and Virgil. It begins with an expository description of hitler's germany so as to introduce the horrors of the time period. I refer to the taxidermist as “the boy” as he lacks a legitimate name. I find that this dehumanizes him, which also adds emphasis to the fact that he in his actions is inhuman. Or at least he was in his actions prior to his exodus to the city in which Beatrice and Virgil takes place. In my narrative as it where, i attempt to create the taxidermists motives in his awful childhood. The taxidermist finds his strength in hitler's fascist ideology. In that he becomes a youth and eventually climbs the ranks into the nazi regime. His specialty: the medical examination and preservation of certain jewish subjects in order to be experimented upon. His guilt eventually overcomes him and he flees nazi germany to a canadian city post war. He tries to fabricate catharsis through the creation of his play, but once a twisted individual, always a twisted individual.
My original plan for my essay was to do option number 2. In this option, I would have written about emails and replies that Yann Martel had previously sent to our class. Instead, I chose option number 18. In this option, I simply have to “play” Games for Gustav. I chose this option because, well, to be honest, it seemed easiest. You do not necessarily have to do any research for this option. Plus, you can write in first person. This was helpful to me because my mind often thinks in first person when writing essays, and sometimes I accidentally slip it in anyways. For me, the goal of this essay is to become a victim of the Holocaust and to try to play the games from that point of view. This is easier to do after reading Beatrice & Virgil, because Yann Martel has a way of using the twisting of fiction in order to bring out the essence of an event, and make you truly feel history, instead of simply learning facts and dates. Personally, this is my biggest takeaway from this class: lessons must evoke emotion in order for us to learn from them.
While I have yet to begin my manifesto, I have decided on a topic: I will be writing about and “playing” the Games for Gustav from Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil. Each as interesting as the last, Martel’s thirteen games evoke strong immediate emotional responses but require much thought to be played or answered completely. Exploring the games from a first person narrative may be an interesting way to put a new spin on observing the Holocaust, which I think Martel would wholeheartedly approve of any new way to honor the suffering of so many during that time period. Sometimes the Holocaust can be desensitized when it is presented in fact form like during a history class, or in an essay, but Martel knows that there are intangible things, like emotions, that can not be properly conveyed by non-fiction. He devised these Games for Gustav to give readers a short and meaningful experience related to the Holocaust. Martel wrote thirteen games in total, and I intend to write about each of them, including game number thirteen, which was left blank.
6 Tingle For my Manifesto, I decided that I want to do option 2: an essay that compare/contrasts the novels we have read in class. I want to include the Lord of the Flies, Life of Pi, and Beatrice and Virgil because they were my favorite books that we have read this year, and I took an appropriate amount of notes over all three of them. I am writing about how each book gives a powerful message to the reader, but each message is slightly different, and they are all portrayed in a very unique way. The endings in all three books leave a powerful, emotional impact on the reader, but this emotional impact is different in its own way. Lord of the Flies may leave the reader feeling pity for the boys, but yet a feeling of dissatisfaction because they don’t know how the boys will function once they are reunited with their society. Life of Pi gives the reader a choice of how the story actually went by telling two different stories of what he experienced in his journey, and he doesn’t say which one is true, and this can be very intriguing for readers or extremely frustrating. Beatrice and Virgil, however, has an ending that I have not experienced before while reading a book. The climax of the plot happens so suddenly that it may just completely take the reader by surprise. Along with the endings of the books, I am also mentioning the allegories all three stories contain and how they are portrayed to the reader through symbolism.
98 comments:
3 Else
Originally, I intended to write the narrative for the Manifesto, but I realized that I wanted to challenge myself a little bit more. Well, that and I realized that eight pages is not a feasible task to do by Friday. Instead, I have decided to choose the 8th option on the list and write about a literary theorist, and I have chosen to write about the beloved Toni Morrison. See what I did there? I have read only The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, but I have four other Morrison novels at home that I am looking forward to read. I enjoy Morrison’s challenges to society that she proposes to the reader, and I think that many of her novels belong in school curriculum. The content of her books is typically dealing with tough subjects to talk about in society; however, the difficult subject matter forces the reader to reexamine their lives and ultimately make them a better person. After reading The Bluest Eye, my life was changed and my perception on society ultimately changed. I believe that if Morrison was studied in schools, we would have a less racist and less degrading society.
1 Kueter M
My manifesto is juxtaposing Lord of the Flies and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I am comparing them using the three literary lens: feminine, marxist, and freudian. This books are a lot closer than they seem when using those lens to analyze them deeper. For example, in the feminine lens, both books portray women in a negative light. In Lord of the Flies, women are not present; however, women like characters are degraded, made fun of, and sometimes killed. Ralph, Piggy, and Simon are all characters that are portrayed with woman like characteristics; Piggy and Simon are killed; Ralph almost dies. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, women are portrayed in very negative light. Nurse Ratched is viewed as demon like for holding a position of power with an iron fist; if a man held her position and acted the way she did, he’d be praised. After reading these novels, one would come to the conclusion that womanly characteristics are negative and pathetic and male characteristics are the desirable ones. These books degrade women so much and gives the reader insight on how women were treated and/or viewed during this time.
1 Kueter A
In my manifesto, I am comparing Lord of the Flies and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest using the feminine lens, the marxist lens, and the freudian lens because these lens help the reader think harder about the meaning behind the books being analyzed. I chose these books to compare because both of these books were written during wars: war on humankind and war on womankind. War on humankind: Lord of the Flies was written after World War II in which the atomic bomb was used. William Golding wrote this book to show that savagery lurks even in the most prim and proper human beings. War on womankind: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was written when men were considered to be the most powerful figures in society and women had to fight their way to the top in order to get equal rights. Ken Kesey wrote this book to degrade women and show the world how savage a woman can get with power. Both books are about war, both books are about savagery. The more lens one uses, the better one will see, and the more comparisons one will see.
7 Olthoff
The manifesto project is the most daunting project to date in this introduction to literature class. The reason for this is the length. This manifesto will be the largest essay I have ever had assigned to me throughout my entire high school career. That mostly means I will have to think harder while writing it. For my manifesto, I chose the fourth option which brings into question the most important literary lens by which to study literature. My argument is that Marxism is the most important because it is all encompassing. Marxism looks into the social and economic sides of the work. For example, in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there is a definite example of a social caste system. The patients would be the lower of the classes, whereas the nurses are higher due to the fact that they have more authority. However, there are high tensions because the lower class is being oppressed by the upper class. The nurses are too strict towards the patients and deprive them of things that they enjoy. They also use electro shock therapy as a punishment, not for therapeutic purposes.
1 Harvison
While I was reading through the available options to write my manifesto about, I was struggling to find one that I thought I could easily write about. I knew a narrative would be a hard essay for me to write, however, I also knew that researching a theorist would not interest me enough to be able to write many pages on. I figured I would create my own version of this manifesto and so far it is going great. I am writing about the history and effects of lobotomies as well as other mental health “cures”. It has been very interesting to research different people that had experienced lobotomies or that had survived becoming institutionalized. I found that even the infamous Kennedy family had a daughter, Rosemary, that suffered from disabilities and was also a patient that received a lobotomy. After reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I was very interested in the history of mental illness, both in the United States and across the world. Currently I am only on page three, but I have pages of research and for once I know where my essay is going.
7 Van Kalsbeek
While going through all of the options for the Manifesto the one that most spoke to me was the comparing and contrasting of books. Personally I love reading so analyzing books to their full potential brings me great pleasure. The books that I have decided to write about are Lord of the Flies, Life of Pi and lastly Beatrice and Virgil. The choosing of these three books ways in no way accidental, I specifically saw a predominant theme throughout each and everyone of them. All of them deal with evils, horrors, and beasts, which are in our everyday world and affect how people behave and represent themselves. The Lord of the Flies always me to go into depth about how their is a beast inside everyone especially since all of these young men on the island can feel the evil but see no evil because it is inside each and everyone of them. Next is Life of Pi where we see cannibalistic tendies within a young male Pi, who tries to cover up his misdoings by believing that Richard Parker was a lion instead of a man. Lastly Beatrice and Virgil who by far shows how horrors live everywhere because I saw that anyone could turn into a Nazi in order to protect their family or just to stay on the good side of the leader which could mean that my neighbors, friends, or family could've just easily been Nazi’s which to me is a scary thought.
3Bowman
When I first glanced at the requirement sheet for our manifesto, I did not know exactly what avenue I wanted to pursue for this final essay. However, on my second look through I decided to go with the option of researching one particular literary theorist. I thought that this would be a good option because it would give me the opportunity to gain insight into another person’s (of whom I don’t know) point of view on the world around them. For this Manifesto, I chose to research Michel Foucault. His views on the world’s status of power and knowledge are quite intriguing and I look forward to further learning about what he has to say about this robust world. Additionally, I chose this option for the Manifesto for its length. As this is getting to be a quite busy time of year, I would rather spend my time in research for the content of this essay rather than striving to achieve length that may not hold interest throughout the entirety of the essay. In conclusion, I look forward to completing this Manifesto and hope all goes well throughout the process.
3 Schroder
The topic I choose to write my Manifesto on is Juxtaposing two of the many novels we have read in class. The novels my partner and I choose are One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Life of Pi. As my partner Abby and I have began to write this essay, we made an outline of our ideas. We first began to compare and contrast the themes of the two books. As the themes have differences, they also share many similarities. We found that both of the books were released around extremely important times in history. Ken Kesey’s novel was released around the time of the cold war, when the government was fighting against communism. Yann Martel’s novel was released around the time period when the tragic event of 9-11 occurred. Both of the books are convincing the reader to step away from conformity in a way. Both of the authors are trying to convince the readers that being your own person is okay; one does not have to follow all of the “norms” in society. Pi is different in which he studies three different religions, whereas most only study one. Pi studies Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. He does not care what anyone thinks and most importantly what his parents even think of it. Abby and I also began to discuss in our essay the unpredictable characters and uncontrollable settings. As we continue to write our essay, both of us continue to be amazed on how easily the ideas and length are flowing to us.
6Bachman
The manifesto is the longest essay that I have had to write. After reading through all of the topics, I knew that I would write about the causal essay. This option stood out to me because I immediately thought about a lot of things that I could write about. As the manifesto is an eleven page essay, there is a lot of different things to write about. This was one of the hard parts of starting the manifesto, I had recollect a lot of information that I had at the beginning of the semester. I created a rough outline of all the things that I wanted to include in my essay. I decided to write about Lord of the Flies, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Life of Pi and Shakespeare. During this semester, we study more than just these four things, however while thinking about what to write about these literary topics and studied by almost every university in the country. I decided to not include some of the things we studied like Beatrice and Virgil, because it is a book that is studied less and not as known. The essay topic asked to explain why everyone studies these literary works. I also chose to not include the short stories because everyone studied different ones and different colleges will not all study the same ones.
Reindl 1
For the Manifesto essay, I have decided to take my future into account and have written about pi. I am going to be a math major in college, but that was not the sole deciding factor for my essay topic choice. I am completely fascinated by pi; I am in awe of its discovery and of how it functions as a number. If you did not already know, pi is used to find the circumference of a circle, representing a shorter value for 3.14. An explanation like that is kind of bland for a number like pi. Pi literally has no end. Since it was first used (as a rough estimated value) around 4000 years ago, the human species has been able to get pi down to trillions of digits, all of which have no repeatable pattern. This itself is fairly impressive, even to those who are not fond of math, but what makes pi even more awe inspiring is how it can be interpreted in many ways. During class, we read Yann Martel’s Life of Pi , in which Martel took the idea of pi and how it has no repeatable value, and put that idea into a boy, also named pi, and how he underwent a journey through disaster, in which no event would ever be repeated by a sane human being. All of these ideas I have incorporated into my essay, plus some. Pi is an amazing concept.
3 Moelter
Personally, I would rather do more research about a topic than come up with a whole narrative story; therefore, I thought that number eight would be the best choice for me. After mentally preparing myself by researching a little bit about each person and then finally choosing Sandra Gilbert, a feminist theorist. Sandra Gilbert is a great fit for me as I love looking at novels through the feminist lens like how she writes her novels and poetry. The feminist lens brings to light the topics of women versus men that most would rather just put to the side. I respect Sandra Gilbert very much as she became a women writer back when women were not suppose to do anything other than be a housewife. Sandra Gilbert’s books and poems should be added to schools everywhere as women and men will always have conflicts about who is superior. Gender should not prove anyone superior to another, but we have let that come in between our population way too much. Women were considered a minority back when they had to fight for their right to work, vote, and hold office. Granted the country has come a long way when thinking of all that us women do now, but there will always be the men that feel they exceed women; infuriating as it is we cannot get rid of it just as we cannot forget about racial differences. Overall, everyone could learn a valuable lesson from reading Sandra Gilbert’s works; especially her book she collaborated with Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination.
1 Presler
Thinking about the extensive length of this essay assignment, it was quite difficult to make a decision regarding how the last couple weeks of this class were going to end for me. Although it seems like a no brainer, I wanted to choose a topic I would enjoy writing about while still learning and researching. Finally, I decided on prompt 9, writing an argumentation essay by using an excerpt from a piece of work we have read this year. This seemed like the perfect combination of including our introduction to literature in class, yet leaving lots of space for outside information and personal thoughts on the quote itself. Surprisingly, when narrowing down which quote I wanted to use, most of my final options came from Beatrice and Virgil. While reading this novel, it did not seem as though there were many quotes I could write a whole essay on, but as I went back to reread through some of the passages, the reality of so many of them became apparent, and real life application was much easier than I had anticipated. My choice whittled down to sections of the book discussing fame and hope. Judging by the stance of our world and society at this moment, fame seemed much more interesting and relevant to life today, which is why I appointed my Manifesto to it.
Hauge 3
My manifesto is going at a pace that some would deem scary. I’m not rushing through it, but I’m also not leaving it until the night before it’s due. Let’s just say it’s going at a slow pace. I’m comfortable with it though. I chose to do the option where you give awards to best character and categories like that. It’s kind of like the Oscars but with a different name. I have to write twelve pages and explain the awards and interview the would be winners. Along with the twelve pages I will include a feat. I am choreographing a dance to a piece of music Nathan Lanier. The dance is inspired by the book Lord of the Flies. The hostile environment the boys experience and the conflict between Ralph and Jack’s tribes. The music is peaceful at certain times as were the boys but also gains intensity. There are quiet moments then really loud moments representing the chaos the boys experience. The end is yet again peaceful and sad but dirty because the audience knows the real truth about what happened between the boys unlike a new viewer.
Galbavy 1
When looking at the lists for the manifesto topics I felt like this essay was going to be a struggle and I did not like the fact that the essays had to be so long. Looking at the future I realize that college will be filled with long challenging topics and have decided to accept this essay challenge and write to the best of my abilities finishing out the year strong. I chose to write on the games for Gustav. I decided to go with this topic because I feel like I can truly expand on each game and provide a strong mental standpoint that I see as being natural due to psychological research and the natural opinion that overtakes me in each game. I am going to do my best to provide a strong opinion on what I feel is right and then provide information on what others feel about the games based on poles. I will also try to relate each game to the holocaust even though I will nor will any site be able to provide the insight that any person truly present in the situation would of. These are the reasons that I feel I can accomplish this essay using the games for Gustav.
7 Hanson
So far I am not really liking this manifesto essay, having one of the longest essays due at the end of the year kind of blows, but it is whatever. When I first looked at all of the options for the manifesto, I really did not like any of them, until I found the literary theory option. I like the literary theory option the best due to how many theories you can compose about and how you have to pick one as the best theory. Another reason why I chose the literary theory option was because we have composed two separate essays using some form of a literary theory, so I feel I know my stuff pretty well from those two essays. Not going to lie, but i just started my essay last night. I just found out yesterday that Friday the 21st a third of the essay is due, so I decided I should probably start this essay. I sat myself down last night and composed about three pages, so I was pretty content with myself after that. That is how my manifesto is going so far.
1 Forster
For my manifesto, I chose the ninth option. This is an argumentation essay based on a single quote from a literary work which we read in class this year. I decided to choose a quote from Life of Pi - “A germ of religious exaltation, no bigger than a mustard seed, was sown in me and left to germinate. It has never stopped growing since that day.” This quote stuck out to me immediately upon reading. Right away, it reminded me of a bible verse, Matthew 17:20. This verse reads: “He replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’”. This is one of my personal favorite verses from the Bible because I believe it has so much value and meaning for everyday life - that with even the tiniest bit of faith in God, amazing feats are possible. Pi’s survival on the lifeboat is nothing short of a feat, and it would not have been possible if it had not been for his dedication to faith. For my manifesto, I am going to expand on the power of religion, not only in literature but in real life.
6 Zajicek
Although the process of writing my manifesto has not started my research is in full force. For the Manifesto I chose to write about/discuss literary lenses and which one is best. I have started looking at the background of each lens and seeking out other blogs where the discussion of what lens is the best takes place.The reason I picked this one out of the bunch is simply because I believe it gives me more freedom to write and thoroughly explain to the reader why I think a certain lens is best. We have previously done a lens essay which will be helpful and of course will be contributed to my Manifesto. The research that goes behind this essay is rather easy to find and very interesting to read about. Learning the history of feminism and how the psychoanalysis lens came about are rather interesting and frankly surprised me. Although given this essay's length I find it incredibly daunting and find it easy to procrastinate. Determined not to let senioritis kick in my writing process will start soon!
1 Konz
I chose to write about a quote that affected my life and explain to the readers why it is important to their lives. I also considered writing about the island in Life of Pi, because that section of the book really interested me, but I think I would have gotten really confused while trying to do research. Using a quote about laughter from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, there are a lot of things to talk about including the progression of laughter in the novel, the science of laughter, and the effects of laughter on the ward. While he is on the fishing trip, McMurphy comments, “Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy” on page. One thing that I think could add to my essay is telling a narrative type of story to make it more personal and relatable to what McMurphy is saying. The only problem with this approach is that I can not use “I,” “me,” or “my” so I do not think I will be able to make it work. In my opinion, the hardest thing about this essay will be reaching the 11 page minimum.
1 Sherron
For my manifesto, I chose to write about excerpts that impacted me or how I felt about controversial or opinionated statements from the anticipation guides in class. I don’t know which quote or excerpt I will use (I do not even know from which literary work), but I plan to do some serious thinking and looking back at my forum notes. For the anticipation guides, I plan on reading through the Beatrice and Virgil anticipation guide and the Cuckoo’s Nest one. I remember these ones, especially the Beatrice and Virgil one, as having very controversial statements and having very difficult to answer questions. In this light, I compare it to playing the Games for Gustav because those are also morally challenging questions that require much introspection. I feel that because of this, I will end up vacillating between possible answers, but I think that is also okay because I am exploring all the possible options. Because I am allowed to combine manifesto options, I am excited to begin writing and researching for my manifesto. I think I will be able to pick and choose quotes and anticipation guide statements that follow a similar theme so that I will be able to tie them all together.
1 Klamm
I personally love my topic for my manifesto. I love researching biology and have found it very fun to research if the island could actually be possible. I even enjoyed writing over a page just about soil. I have learned a lot doing this paper and will enjoy finishing it. I like how many options we had but I knew I would enjoy this one the most. I have not had any trouble writing my essay however, I have had some trouble finding information from science journals. I enjoyed researching different types of seaweed that could possibly make up the island. I also liked researching how an island could work without soil and what nutrients it would need in order to survive. I have had trouble writing an introductory paragraph. I feel like this essay is easier than the chapter essay because I can find more information about this topic. It is easier to do a research paper about biology than a paper about different aspects in the novel that your chapter is about. I love this essay and will enjoy finishing it.
6 Riley
Although I haven't fully started my Manifesto, I have many many ideas and I am excited to get started. For my manifesto I was originally going to write the narrative, however I already struggle getting to 8 pages so I thought I would pick a different topic for my essay. I decided to do number 18, which talks about the games in the back of the book of Beatrice and Virgil. I think that it will be an interesting topic to write about. I not only get to write about it, I get to play the games and interpret what they mean. Why are they in the back of the book? What is the purpose of them? Why are there 13 of them? Is it because the Holocaust lasted 13 years, or is it something that doesn't even relate to the holocaust. I'm going to write about what I would do and why I chose to do it that and I may ask others in my class or in my family to play a few and explain to me why they chose to do what they did. I might even do a combination the options, I like a lot of them and feel that it would be interesting and fun to do more then one topic to switch it up a lot. As I play the games, I think that the games are supposed to make you feel like a victim of the Holocaust. I really think that this topic will be a really great one to write about.
I decided to do the sixteenth option of the Manifesto, which means I have to rank authors and characters with through awards. I . I am writing it as if it were a script to a play about an awards show because I could not see how else this type of paper could be written. So I have setting, character descriptions, lines, and scenes for my paper. I was also excited to see that you had to make a trophy and I thought it would be fun to create a physical object that corresponds with the paper. I do not know what the "trophy" will look like yet, for it will probably be the last thing I do for the Manifesto. I think it will be very unorthodox, to say the least, but as long as it is done well, I think I can pull it off. If it is not, I think it will be a massive failure. The hardest part so far is coming up with the awards for the characters and authors. It just challenges me. I think once I have the awards figured out, everything else will fall into place.
3 Casey
It took me a long time to just pick my topic because I wanted to make sure that it was something that I was capable of writing. I initially wanted to do the classification essay on ranking the short stories in whatever way because I enjoyed the short stories. Then I remembered having to rank chapters in the Life of Pi essay and I wasn’t too incredibly fond of it so I decided to keep looking at my options. Length is one of my most difficult requirements to meet in essays so I most definitely did not want to do the twenty-four page essay. I finally decided on the Games for Gustav because when we were reading Beatrice and Virgil I was very interested in finding the symbolism in the story itself. Also the fact that the “games” bring to light the severity and the gruesomeness of the Holocaust itself. I think it was a good choice for me because it interests me and won’t be as challenging as the twenty-four page essays. I’m content with the freedom of this assignment and look forward to letting all of my thoughts spill into my essay.
Knutson 7
I chose a compare/contrast essay to write for my manifesto. I plan to compare two very interesting novels that we read this year. The first is Life of Pi, this is probably my favorite novel of the year. Life of Pi will be compared to Lord of the Flies. A major similarity between these two novels are the adapted behavior you attain when your mind goes into survival mode. The boys in Lord of the Flies become very hostile killing some of their own members, this is something you would never expect from these boys in their introduction at the beginning of the novel. Life of Pi demonstrates the same survival behavior. Pi Patel is a very kind boy who would never kill before he was placed in this dire situation where he was forced to kill for food. He decided his life was more important than the animals he needed to survive. After awhile the boys in both novels did not see this killing as a bad thing, they only saw a means of survival. I think this is a very interesting topic and I am excited to write about it.
7 Myers
When first looking at the options for the Manifesto, the only option stood out to me was option 3: comparing two novels. Jayde and I have decided to juxtapose One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Life of Pi. At first, I thought that finding ways to connect these two amazing novels would be the hardest part to this essay; however, we have found that it is actually the quite simple. We realized that both the book have unreliable narrators, uncontrollable settings, and they both have the theme of fighting against conformity. Another similarity that we will be expanding on is that Ken Kesey and Yann Martel use animals as symbols. Obviously, Martel connects animals to actual human characters in his story. Kesey’s animals symbols are not so obvious, but when Chief Bromden is looking out the window readers can link that the dog represents nature that is being killed by technology. We also have found out that contrasting these two novels is actually more difficult than comparing them. Overall, I think that the hardest part of writing this essay would be meeting all of the requirements that this option involves.
7 Grode
The biggest challenge I found with the manifesto so far is picking a topic. I decided to go with number 4, which is an argumentation essay on which literary theory is the best and why. I chose the Freudian theory, or the psychoanalytic theory, because that is the literary lens I found the easiest to use, and it best suits my personality. Now that I have the topic picked out, I feel that I will have no problem getting the 11 pages done, especially since I already wrote a literary lens essay with this lens a few weeks back. I am planning on writing about and going into depth about the id, ego, and superego, and how that can make a story easier to understand, as well as the history from where it originates. I also plan on doing the same thing with the Oedipus complex, and dream sequence analysis, as well as finding and understanding themes and symbols and how they are important to literature. My biggest challenge now is getting the motivation and time set aside to work on this long essay.
7 Johnke
Originally, I had no idea what I was going to do for my manifesto. However, last week Zoey and I were talking to Bailey Stroud and she mentioned doing something with the Games for Gustav. I found this to be a very interesting topic and more compelling for me personally than writing about different viewpoints or other topics that seem a bit bland. This essay topic will compel me to write more I feel like and I most likely will go over the requirement of 16.5 pages because the questions have so many views that can be used. No view is correct, but contrarily, no view is wrong. Being able to use first person in this essay I also think is both different and a good way to connect with the readers. The most challenging aspect of it however, is being able to view the questions and answer them in a way similar to that of a Holocaust victim, because it is unrealistic for anyone who did not suffer that to pretend they did. My introductory paragraph is in third person and I most likely will compose the conclusion in the same matter, as a way to formally conclude in a more informal emotion based essay.
7 Loosbrock
I am actually incredibly excited about this Manifesto paper because of my topic choice. I chose the topic of picking a question from one of the pre reading survey forms and writing about it. I decided to write on whether the Holocaust will be taught in 500 years. I am a history nerd and the topic of genocide is always a dark interest of mine. This paper is giving me the chance to research the numerous genocides of the past and analyze them. I am able to write about Genghis Khan and the atrocities that the Mongols committed. I made the decision that the Holocaust would not be taught in 500 years like it is taught now for a multitude of reasons. My basic argument can be surmised as the Holocaust in not special in any way except with its recentness. Our grandparents fought in World War Two so anything involved with that era seems like a much more recent memory. We have Holocaust being taught to us every year because it is new and sensationalist; it is not remarkable. Unfortunately, our species is not foreigners to genocide and mass killings.
7 Haase
After overlooking the manifesto options, I choose to do the narrative essay option. While I think the 24 page requirement will be demanding and challenging, I think that it will help me with writing in the long run. I really enjoyed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, so I want to do narrative from someone else's perspective from Kesey's novel. I think it would be interesting to split it up, so I would have a set number of pages from Nurse Ratched, McMurphy, or another character. To write these different perspectives I will have to go back and look at the situation as it is originally written, I really like the creative aspect of this option. You could have everyone in this class write this same essay and we will all get different ideas of the other characters, and while you have to stay true to the story line, I think it will be a cool expansion on my literary lens essay because I did a psychoanalytic look at the same novel, so I can use those critics to my advantage in this essay.
3 Waldera
For my manifesto, I decided to choose option 18, which was added at the exact perfect time as I was struggling with my prior essay. This is the option that Zoey and Riley made, it includes writing about your responses towards the Games for Gustav. My essay is coming along well and is significantly easier to write than I originally expected it to be. I also enjoy answering the questions because all of them are complexing to the mind, it forces you to really think about each one. I personally think no one can answer each question 100 percent honestly unless they have been put in the actual situation. I think in the end my essay will turn out good, the only problem I am having right now is how to format the questions and my answers into something that flows like an essay. Since there are 12 questions I do not think I am going to write about all of them, instead I will write about the most important and mind turning. On a side note, I am curious if I do a Feat if I would get pages taken off like some of the other options.
3 Waldera
For my manifesto, I decided to choose option 18, which was added at the exact perfect time as I was struggling with my prior essay. This is the option that Zoey and Riley made, it includes writing about your responses towards the Games for Gustav. My essay is coming along well and is significantly easier to write than I originally expected it to be. I also enjoy answering the questions because all of them are complexing to the mind, it forces you to really think about each one. I personally think no one can answer each question 100 percent honestly unless they have been put in the actual situation. I think in the end my essay will turn out good, the only problem I am having right now is how to format the questions and my answers into something that flows like an essay. Since there are 12 questions I do not think I am going to write about all of them, instead I will write about the most important and mind turning. On a side note, I am curious if I do a Feat if I would get pages taken off like some of the other options.
1 Koehn
The manifesto is the hardest task that literature students will face in class and the one in which I have been dreading all year mostly due to the length requirement. Although I chose to do the essay with a partner, the length will still be a hard and challenging requirement to achieve. At first, my partner, Emily, and I were contemplating writing our essay over the 3rd option, the compare and contrast of novels we read in class because it seemed like a never ending topic due to the vast amount of similarities and differences in each book. However, when the 18th option arose to write about the Games for Gustav, we saw this as a more interesting topic to write about and also a topic that would really make us think. Games for Gustav is a way for readers to really step in the victim's shoes of the Holocaust and understand how awful and nauseating the Holocaust was and the reality of what choices people could have faced in a life or death situation. There are no right or wrong answers, only opinions, which is what makes this essay a hard and easy essay to write about.
6 Reinschmidt
I am writing from option number 9, choosing a quote from a novel and expanding on it. I found a quote from my favorite novel, Life of Pi, that describes fear in a way that I had never thought of. This quote can be applied to my life, as well as many other students in the class of 2017. As we approach graduation, seniors are feeling excitement, stress, joy, anxiousness, and a lot of fear. Finishing our senior year brings a lot of activities, and we can often get caught up in everything that is going on. Some may fear for their GPA as we finish out the semester, or fear for their finals, or fear tripping on the stage while receiving their diploma. And it doesn’t stop there. College brings new experiences that we have been preparing for all this time. Whether it is fear of leaving home, meeting new people, picking the right school or major, leaving your friends, or other reasons, fear makes its presence known during senior year. On the other side of fear is everything you’ve ever dreamed of, and it is up to you to conquer it. Yann Martel’s quote relates directly to my life in the last months of my senior year, and other seniors as well.
Thompson 6
For my manifesto I have decided to do number 13 the pi research essay. When I was looking at the topics I noticed that there were two research essay prompts. In composition, the causal essay was my favorite essay to write and that was a research essay, so I decided that a research essay is what I wanted to do. To choose between the biology and math one, I thought about which subject I enjoyed more and the answer was math, so I am writing about Ï€. As I am working on the essay, it is proving harder than I thought it was going to be. I have completed two pages of the essay but am stressing that I will not be able to achieve 11 pages. As I am reading articles about pi and the discovery, evolution, and uses of it, they are composed of the same information and do not give me much to expand upon. With this in mind, I had to think of ways I could expand to 11 pages. I have decided to begin writing about the mathematics of pi and all the facts about it then eventually turn it into how Ï€ and Pi’s experiences are related. I believe that if I continue my research and can find all the similarities I can achieve this manifesto.
6 Benitez
The manifesto is a very daunting request to most of us doing it. We are required to write most likely our longest essay, this is put upon us in the end of the year. We are assigned lots of projects and as seniors who just want to finish, it is quite aggravating. Although this is alleviated a bit in that we have the option to choose what our manifesto is. I have chosen to do the Games for Gustav, as it can be fun as you think of what your response is to these games then you have to envision yourself actually in this situation. The thought of having to do a bunch of research just isn’t appealing to me right now. Ever since we got Beatrice and Virgil I saw the games and knew right away that they were holocaust related so I feel pretty confident on them. Since there are 13 games and 11 pages I will be able to spend most of a page per game letting me go in to detail quite a bit. They are a question of one's morales and that is what I have written about a lot for past essays making it even better.
20 April 2017
6 Smit
As an aspiring physician, I chose to analyze Pi’s ocean voyage upon return to society. He was taken to a Mexican hospital where he was cared for until capable of moving to Canada. A medical report was certainly written up for the ailing Pi and I thought it would be fun to make one of my own. I discuss the myriad of injuries that befall a man at sea and give insight into their treatment. CTE offers a biomedical science course and a capstone EMT course. Each of these courses have provided invaluable information for me to draw upon. As a class last year, we read “Surviving the Extremes” which has pertinent information towards the body’s reaction to extended sea travel. My current plan is to attempt discussing Pi’s injuries as they would naturally occur. His first challenge is to avoid drowning. Once that is out of the way, he can focus on the five priorities of survival: First aid, seek shelter, drink water, signal for help and not to worry about food. These priorities are designed for those lost on land, however, and need to be tailored towards Pi’s situation.
6 Corcoran
My manifesto is going to be playing the games for gustav from the perspective of a holocaust survivor, and in all honesty I haven’t gotten a start on it yet but I plan on getting to it immediately to make the deadline for friday. I am excited to get into it so I can really analyze and learn more about how I think I would behave, and how I think I would interpret those horrible things jewish people had endured. I touched lightly on them during the forum, but I am very much looking forward to thinking deeply about each one. I hope it will be an enlightening experience and hopefully I could learn something about myself through it all. I plan on just diving straight into the games. I will give a brief explanation as to how I am going to go about answering them and how everyone should truly ponder such questions to begin even attempting to fathom how it felt to be in those shoes, and this is the closest one could get to imagining the unimaginable.
6 Eigenberg
At first the manifesto seemed unconquerable. I planned on doing the narrative at first, because it contained the least amount of research, and I can just flow with information from my imagination. I write best when I have minimal requirements, and the topic is interesting. That is why I switched to Challenge 18. This challenge seems much more feasible for me since it is 11+ pages and still requires only information from my mind. The games written in Beatrice and Virgil are thought-provoking to the point where 11 pages of manifesto actually seems easy. That is until you start putting words to paper. Becoming one with the character you are writing about is not a simple task, and should not be taken lightly. Some questions are controversial, and many points could be made as to what is the right and/or moral decision. Yann Martel would not have put the game in the story if it were easily answered and thought out. The games are meant to be tough. We can’t honestly answer to what we would actually do if the moment arose as to when we would have to make that decision, so that is what makes them so interesting.
7 Woodward
As I was reading through the Manifesto options, taking a quote from a novel that has deeply impacted myself really stood out. But as I kept reading, writing an essay from another person’s standpoint or career also stuck out because I thought about doing this during the Life of Pi essay. I knew the book I wanted to write about on my Manifesto was Life of Pi, because there was so much that interested me in the novel and many quotes that pertain to my life. I decided to combine the two options to make one great essay about a quote on fear and how a Christian religious leader would look at this quote and Life of Pi as a whole. I’m starting out my essay with my quote and then I will have an introduction of how fear affects our world each and every day. As I continue my essay, I plan to portray how fear has been a part of my life and how I’ve seen it overcome. I relate to Pi a lot in the religious aspects of the book--on wanting to love others and God. I think it’s going to be a fun challenge to look at Life of Pi and my quote about fear through a religious leader’s perspective.
6 Bogensberger
For my manifesto I chose to do option 16 which is the academy awards of books essay. It is going surprisingly well and it is even kind of fun to make up this fake award show for the pieces of literature we have read this semester. I like being able to have a sense of control with this essay. I get to choose what I write about, I do not have many requirements with what I need to include in my essay so I get to just write and come up with things that fit into this essay. I get to choose the awards that will be given and who the nominees and winners will be. The page requirement is a little nerve wracking but I am hoping that with all the ideas I have that it will not be a problem. I find it somewhat fun to make this fake award ceremony, I really get to use my imagination throughout this entire process. I do not have to rely on anything except for what I read this semester and then just let my mind create this mock award ceremony by incorporating all the literature we have gone through.
3 Brandsrud
For the majority of my life, I have known that I wanted to do something in the math and science field. Because of my interest in math and science, I have chosen to pursue a major in Mechanical Engineering, and because of this, I chose the option to research and write about the history of the discovery of mathematical pi: the mathematical constant that is the equivalent to the ratio of the distance across a circle (diameter) to the distance around the circle (circumference). Through my research I interviewed BV Calculus and Trigonometry teacher, Mr. Hogie. I also used this opportunity of research to get in contact with a couple of mathematics professors at SDSU, both of whom were very helpful. One of these professors even included a book for me to use, which I easily found via Google. This book provided me with approximately 75% of the research that I will be using throughout the manifesto. I have always been fascinated with the question of why something is, so I feel as though researching where pi came from will enlighten me in more ways than one.
6 Beckman
My Manifesto is different than everyone else’s in that I am doing mine on the history of India. I was intrigued by this topic when we were assigned the chapter essay for Life of Pi. Chapter 29, my chapter, was all about how India was sort of having a peaceful civil war, some might say, by how Yann Martel was wording it. Mrs. Gandhi had been in the process of overthrowing the Indian government at the time, to which Mr. Patel was not so thrilled about. Mr. Patel did not particularly like Mrs. Gandhi and that could be because he lived in a patriarchal society. This chapter eventually brought the knowledge to Pi that he and his family would be leaving India to move to Canada because Mr. Patel was so distressed about the current state of India that he did not want his children growing up in a country that was having a power struggle. As I am very interested in history, myself, I think this Manifesto will be enjoyable to write because it will allow me to dig deeper into the history of somewhere other than America or Europe.
Powell 1
For my manifesto, I decided upon option 13: explaining how Ï€ affects the laws of nature. I have always been interested in physics, so challenging myself with a topic I enjoy learning immediately struck a chord in my mind. Circles in particular are a favorite topic of mine because of their strength and irrationality. Î itself is the purest quantification of the irrationality to a circle. However, Ï€ extends far beyond simple Euclidean geometry. For civil engineers, critical load of shear stress is calculated using the buckling formula, which includes Ï€ due to the wave patterns created by a flux of energy in the system. The principle of harmonic motion similarly follows wave functions due to the trigonometric identities exerting a variable gravitational acceleration upon the load. In physics, most definitions including Ï€ actually derive from wave motion rather than Euclidean geometry. Even quantum mechanics is built upon the definition of Ï€ with both Einstein’s theory of general relativity and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle containing the mathematical constant due to spacetime itself containing curvature. The overall effects of Ï€ in both Euclidean curves and trigonometric waves define much of the observable universe… far more than any Freshman geometry class could imagine.
6 Etrheim
When I first looked through all of the options of the manifesto, I was absolutely lost on what topic to choose. Many of the options confused me but a few stood out to me that I would be able to accomplish. My first option I thought about writing was comparing the three books we read in class and seeing how the are similar and different. I decided on not doing that one anymore because I felt like I did not have good enough notes to get me through 11+ pages. Now I am debating on two topics. It is between arguing what literary lens is the best to look through when reading a novel or Games for Gustav. If I choose the argumentation essay, I would be able to look back at my literary lens essay to help me a little bit. But I also have to do some research on literary theorists, which is a little more work. If i choose to do Games for Gustav, I could just answer one question on one pages since there is 12 questions. The only hard part about this is how I make it into an essay form and making the questions and answers flow easily. I am sure once I choose one of the two topics, I will be able cruise on writing the manifesto.
3 Scherb
For my manifesto, I decided that I would write by playing the Games for Gustav in the back of Beatrice and Virgil. Since this option was added, I thought that it would make a great subject to write about for myself. As these questions are very open ended and therefore able to make the reader really think about their answers, I feel that this opens up the essay to a lot of opportunities. With an open ended question, the entire question is up for analyzation, which I feel can pretty easily propel me to the 11 pages that are needed in the end. I am also very excited about game 13 (?) where you get to make up your own. You could hypothetically write a ton on that last game, since it can be anything you want; explaining the question, analyzing it, and lastly answering it in whatever fashion you’d like. There’s a lot of different ways to go with each game, so I feel that I should easily be able to write at least a page on each game. I think that the topic will be fun and a good writing experience.
3 House
I have not made any decisions on what to do about my manifesto. I was thinking about doing the 24+ page narrative on Iago, about his past and what made him so but that is not gonna happen now. I do not have time for that given a third must be done by tomorrow and I'm gone all day tomorrow running track in Pierre. With the Games for Gustav added it gives this Manifesto an interesting twist. I'm surprised that this idea has not been thought of sooner. It is a completely personal topic but I addresses an important thing and I feel that a lot of people will have similar answers given our upbringing, social standings, and culture we have been raised in. I feel like a lot of people will pick this one though. But I do not enjoy researching and writing. It becomes more of you restating someone else words into your own essay and I feel like you lose a sense of self. I'll sit more on it and think more on it and start and finish my third of my essay today, hopefully.
1 Top
I chose to write my manifesto essay about a blog task. Normally I struggle to find 180 or 350 words create a blog, although there were a few that I had strong thoughts about. The literary elements/devices used in Life of Pi create the mood throughout the book. Martel is known to leave most of the thinking up to the reader but in some cases can be extremely descriptive to ensure clarification. When describing the boat Pi was on, the author used exact dimensions and physical description details. In other novels wrote by the same author for example, Beatrice and Virgil, Martel references the Holocaust without saying it. The allusions and foreshadowing definitely hint towards the tragic event. So far I am not having trouble finding examples because I have the source of the internet. I have repeatedly searched things I remember from the book to find what chapter it was in instead of wasting my time flipping through the book to find it. I switch back and forth between first and third person, mostly third person but interjections of first person when I have an opinion.
1 Wrightsman
After taking some time with looking at all the options, the manifesto that I am choosing to compose is made up of the Games for Gustav. I chose to do this particular concept for the fact that I can really elaborate on them. I like to be creative and new with my writing and write about something I can put my own ideas and feelings into. I am not a big fan of research mostly because it really is not something that I came up with. It is more of a factual essay with statements others have said. Thus the reason I am doing the games.I am planning on taking each game in the back of the Beatrice and Virgil novel and telling a completely new story for each of them. I feel that I can give different aspects and view points for every game and tell a new outcome each time. The things that I imagine can be gained from the different views of the games will be greater than one can ever think of on their own. My hopes for this manifesto is to show what my brain can come up with and how far it can go with crazy ideas.
7 Runia
For my Manifesto, I have chosen to examine a quote from Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil. Henry the author, writing as Beatrice, attempts to describe Virgil and finds that “[w]ords are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field” (88). The quote states one of the novel’s major themes. It shows that words can only do so much. Some feelings and events cannot be illustrated through words alone, and sometimes events and emotions can only be fully understood when a person actually experiences them. In my Manifesto, I will interpret and explain this quote. I plan to talk about how the theme presented by this quote is used within the play in the descriptions of the pear, Virgil, and the Horrors. I will also explore how the theme stated by the quote is present elsewhere in the novel, such as in Henry’s effort to describe Virgil, in attempts to discuss the Holocaust, and in both Henry the taxidermist and Henry the author’s struggles to compose literary works. So, I will discuss the quote’s role within the novel. Additionally, I plan to talk about how the quote can apply to the real world with tragedies such as the Holocaust, but also with other events and feelings, like victories and happiness. In my Manifesto, I may also choose to explore how tragedies can be illustrated and remembered through means that do not involve words. The sewing kit within the play provides an example of various ways events can be described and remembered, both through words and through gestures, events, and locations. The play itself is another example of how people can remember tragedies through different means. Though it contains words, the play is a fictionalization of a tragedy. It is idiosyncratic because it uses allegory and symbolism rather than facts and the typical Holocaust language to help people understand and remember the Holocaust. It is another unusual form of talking about the horrific event. I may also decide to talk about Henry the author’s development throughout the novel as he realizes that means other than words, such as the sewing kit in the play, can be used to remember events. Thus, my Manifesto will examine a quote from Beatrice and Virgil that contains one of the novel’s major themes and that can be applied to the play, the novel, and the real world. My Manifesto may also explore alternatives to the theme’s subject and Henry the author’s development throughout the novel.
6 Sorenson
It is Thursday and I have yet to actually begin writing my Manifesto. I know I am doing the narrative option because I prefer writing from my own thoughts instead of writing about someone else’s. I also hate doing research and the narrative option does not have any research requirements. I am not really daunted by the length requirement. I have an idea and an outline for the story I want to tell, and I believe that I can reach, and possibly exceed, 24 pages. I am going to write about Nurse Ratched. I want to tell a story that explains how she came to be the rigid conforming woman that she is. The story will be a sort of prelude or precursor to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. She is the perfect character for me to write about. The author gives enough details about her life before the ward that I can draw from those aspects of her life to create a story. Yet Nurse Ratched is still an ambiguous character, so I have the liberty to create a story about the details of her life.
3 Wheeler
I chose to do the causal essay explaining why the books, plays, poems, etc from this year are taught in high school and college courses. At first I thought I could do the letter recommending the books to a friend/family member, but I quickly realized that that was not going to happen. I have written an essay similar to this causal one in my sophomore year, but with a much narrower field. That essay was why specifically Huckleberry Finn should be taught in schools. I feel like having written that essay gave me a sort of practice for this much longer and more broad essay. I am a little worried about the essay, because I feel like it could easily become very repetitive. But I am still pretty confident that this essay will turn out okay. I am enjoying talking about the purpose of studying these novels, because it allows me to be poetic in my writing, in a sense. I feel my writing can be more meaningful and genuine in this essay than in some of the other essays from this year. All in all, I am pleased with how it is going so far, but I also know that I need to get my act together and continue to write it earnestly, instead of procrastinating.
1 Long
We just got started on our manifesto a few days ago. I am writing mine with Koehn because I think being able to bounce ideas off of each other overall creates a superior essay versus when you write it alone. We are writing in response to the Games of Gustav in the back of the novel Beatrice and Virgil. It actually has been a little difficult, considering all the answers to the games are truly up to your own decision. Either decision that you make could have dire consequences, which really requires you to think it through. These games were meant for you to really put yourself in the situation of being in the Holocaust. They are super deep, and are actually questions I’m sure many people were struck with when the Holocaust was taking place. I am actually very excited to write this essay and think it will be a fun one to compose. There are so many different viewpoints that you can take on each situation, that I do not think that meeting the page requirement will be a hard task.
3 Roby
For the past couple of weeks, I have struggled to start writing my Manifesto. I have looked over the topics plenty of times and never found inspiration to start my essay. Only today have I decided on a couple of topics to write my essay about. My Manifesto will be over a combination of two topics, completely about the algae island that Pi found on his journey. I will be using literary lenses to look into the deeper meaning behind this island, perhaps it is a symbol for Heaven, or the Garden of Eden. This island seems as though it is paradise, only until Pi discovers the “forbidden fruit” or the teeth in the tree. The island chapter is the longest in the entire novel and I feel that it is most important addition to the story in terms of symbolism. For another topic in my essay, I will be discussing the legitimacy (or not) of the island. When I first read the novel I questioned whether or such a place could exist naturally somewhere in the ocean. After brief research I have found that there are many reports and forums of people discussing the same thing that I have thought.
1 Talcott
The Manifesto topic I have chosen is to research a literary theorist from the Term Tuesday list argue that this theorist should be studied, appreciated more for significant, undervalued contributions.I chose this topic because I am more of a research driven writer. Though this topic may be somewhat more difficult than others, it has less of a page requirement. This fact is very appealing to me, as I do not have much for time in this season of the year. The literary theorist from the Term Tuesday list that I chose is Jacques Derrida and his theories regarding deconstruction. Though I have not researched too in depth yet, I do have the basic understanding of his role in the founding of the theory of deconstruction in the 1960s. The theory of deconstruction is a theory “that questions the fundamental conceptual distinctions, or “oppositions,” in Western philosophy through a close examination of the language and logic of philosophical and literary texts”. I think this theory is very underappreciated because it is not often studied, through plays into many other theories.
1 Vielmette
For my manifesto I am writing about Pete's quote in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest which is "I'm tired". I'm loving this essay so far and love how much more is inside this two word quote and how it is so much more than just "I'm tired". I had to stop writing parts of my intro because I didn't think I would come up with this much from two words when in my life and the real world. My intro I feel is too long even as it takes up all of my first page then half of my second almost and I want to shorten it, but I don't know what to shorten it too. The only things that I am worried about is the research part of the essay, not because it is more work, but because I already feel like I have more than 11 pages to write about and don't want this to continue over 15 pages. Hopefully I can finish a third of my essay within the next day so that I can get a decent grade on the whole thing for the semester.
7 Dybdahl
For my manifesto, I decided to write about a quote taken from one of the novels we have read as a class. My quote comes from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. McMurphy says, “All I know is this: nobody's very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down.” I chose this quote because I could easily see how it related to society today. McMurphy was talking to Harding about Harding and his wife’s relationship, but this quote means so much more than that. I think McMurphy is saying that not only does everyone in the ward tear each other down, but everyone outside the ward does as well. In the ward, they would tear each other apart greatly. For example, during the meetings they would pick a topic about a person and talk about it. Billy Bibbit was a subject during one of these meetings. He was affected so much by what had happened, that he killed himself. In today’s society, people are torn down so much by people, that they think their only option is to kill themselves. I have a lot of ideas on how I want my manifesto to look, but I always have troubles starting. Since this essay is the longest one this year, I am going to plan it out better than I normally do. I have been doing a lot of research for it, so it should come together well.
1 Jeanson
I choose to torture myself with twenty-four pages of pure imagination. Not my best idea but it is the only choice I felt I could make into something I was proud of. In total I will create six different “fan fictions”. Some will be longer than others and a few I even made into poetry. I want to tell the character’s story of before the ones we have read in class. A few are to give reasons behind their behavior and others are solely created to give insight on their past or future. The max amount of pages for the poetry is two pages. I find it hard to make them any longer than that. The longest story is eight pages and it is about Jack Merridew and his time at the school before the plane crash. It was very hard for me to write a poem about the feeling of infatuation. As I have never felt that it is hard for me to pretend to be someone who has. I am unsure on how it will all turn out but hopefully it at least has some sort of entertainment value.
3 Holter
I have been holding off this Manifesto essay for the last week and until only a couple days ago, I realized I should probably start my essay. The hardest part for me was picking a topic to write about. I could not decide between writing a 24 page narrative or writing an essay about the Academy Awards of Books. They both looked like fun and easy essays to write about, but I was not ready to write 16 or 24 pages. Then came a new topic about the Games for Gustav. I find this topic to be interesting because there are numerous amounts of viewpoints that can be taken. So, I decided to try and attempt at writing for this for my essay. I am going to describe how every single question/game can make anyone and everyone question their own humanity, their love for themselves, and their love for others. In my essay, I will write about how each question relates to the Holocaust in some way, shape, or form and how the question can be answered by different people. This essay topic although it is interesting, it will also be a challenge to write about.
1 Beck
When I first took a look at the manifesto challenge options and instructions I was overwhelmed. There were many options for me to choose from but I had no clue what I truly wanted to do. I could write a 24 page narrative or I could write 11 pages on a different idea. I chose to write the 11 pages on option number 3 which is comparing 2 or 3 novels that we read in class. Going with the 11 pages I also have to have excerpts from experts, excerpts from the novels, term tuesday terms, and a works cited page. I decided that I will juxtapose Lord of the Flies and Life of Pi. Having this big of an essay due at the end of the semester is not going well for me. I started on my manifesto the other night and got about 2 sentences. My plan is to spend a good amount of time on it tonight. The two novels are very similar in many aspects, and they also have a few differences. I am hoping that I will be able to put all I have left into this essay and make it an incredible essay.
6 Meyer
I viewed the list of options to write my manifesto, and changed my mind multiple times on which one I wanted to do. Originally, I was going to compose about option one, writing about a prequel or sequel of a character from any of the novels we had previously read in class. Eventually, I decided instead to do the idea invented by my fellow classmates of option 18, answering Gustav’s games in the back of Yann Martel’s novel of Beatrice and Virgil. The simplicity of its requirements is something to marvel at, for the lone requirement is 11+ pages which should be easily done, considering there are thirteen games contained in Martel’s work. I reread these games often before even reading the novel, as I was instantly hooked on the infinite amount of possibilities to answer the games. Each person can individually answer the question and there is no definite answer. The compelling attribute to the games is the unique situation each one puts the reader into, for many are outreaching and unlikely to occur in the normal person’s life. Therefore, I believe the 18th option to be the most suitable for me.
3 Hoffman
I am relentlessly attempting to begin this manifesto. The path I have chosen is option 6: Classifying top 10 poems for whatever reason I deem worthy. I have not yet decided what I will classify them by; "most intriguing" sounds boring, ironically. "Most difficult" to understand would be a funny one, would it not? "Most relevant" would be very difficult to not be ridiculously biased. All I am aware of is this blank slate I’ve been given comes with hundreds or thousands of colors. I may destroy or make beauty, the choice is mine. I need five Tuesday terms--an easy task--and works cited. I will look up every meaning to every poem I choose, therefore, works cited will not be difficult. I have already looked into “The Love Story” by T.S. Elliot, which has many readings, animations, interpretations, etc. I hope to be as lucky with this poem as I am with others I choose. I plan on including Shane Koyczan in this list, as he is my favorite modern-day poet. He speaks with passion and meaning in every poem he writes, all of which include music that is tailor-made to the voice he recorded, so it sounds good but I can confirm that he has a beautiful mind as well. I wish to go with luck in this task, I wish to write with charm.
3 Buteyn
For my Manifesto I was either thinking of doing the narrative or the Games for Gustav. When I was looking at the narrative I couldn’t decide to write all 24 pages about one thing or write multiple different narrative essays that would be 8 pages. Upon looking at all of the topics I decided that the best topic to write about was the Games for Gustav. I feel like this will be pretty easy because each of the games will be able to expand more and more on them. With the 11 page requirement, my only worry would be if I can write almost an entire page for each question. I am hoping that it will be pretty easy to reach this because the 13 games will need more explanation on some games compared to others. I think the most daunting task of this manifesto is the length. Another difficulty involved in the Manifesto is to prevent myself from becoming repetitive. Even though everyone wants to just be done with school the last few weeks are only the start of the race with multiple assignments being due and having huge impacts on final grades
7Huska
Looking at the options for the manifesto I could not really find one that seemed interesting to me or something I could put my time into a make it good. At least, not until I saw number 16. Number 16 is where you write something like the oscars but with books. I knew this would be a fun adventure so that is what I started with. There is not any previous essays with this number so it is a little tough for knowing what guidelines to follow and having another’s ideas to help spark something within me. I decided to go with a script format including interviews before the show and possibly during, acceptance speeches and introductions to the awards, and occasionally some scene directions. I find this fun as I get to practically create a whole show complete with reactions and anything I want. Another part of this essay is that I have to create a statue. I am not that creative so I have gotten my help and some things went a bit...wrong. It will make sense how once I present the statue to Mr. Christensen. I actually really like this essay even though it takes a lot of time and effort but I like that we get to be creative with this project.
3 Roegiers
After having a very difficult time deciding which topic to write for my manifesto, I have decided to go with the new option of playing the “Games for Gustav.” This topic most definitely stuck out to me as the most interesting, and I’m excited to see what I can do with it. The games really make you think hard about a lot of things, and they have intrigued me ever since I first read them. So I figured this would be the best topic for me to write in depth about. I have no actual writing done on the manifesto at this point, but I plan on dedicating a good amount of time into it today and tomorrow to meet the deadline. I am not 100% sure on how I am going to structure my essay; whether it be answering each question in order, or just choosing my favorites and going in depth on just the few that I choose. I think this will be a fun challenge and I am looking forward to seeing how it will turn out.
3 Coyle
On my manifesto, I have not gotten a huge start on it, but I have many ideas of how I will be writing it. I have chosen to partake in the first prompt for the manifesto. This prompt is that you must write a total of twenty-four pages to either the prequel or sequel to a book or short story that we have read in class. First, I am doing a story about what happened to Jack Merridew before the plane crashed on the island and everything turned out bad. It is a work in progress, and I am still trying to make it sound good enough to be an actual story. So far, this manifesto is not hard for me to be writing, but it is going to take me a while to figure out a good plot line or a good part of a plot line to have. Next, I plan to write a story about the man with the parachute in the Lord of the Flies by William Golding as no one knows anything about that man. I plan to give a detailed background as to why he was parachuting and how he had come to his demise. I plan to have stories about all of the other novels we have read in class as well as the ones that I have already written. I do enjoy this prompt as I enjoy writing things that are my own creations. I enjoy being able to express my thoughts in a constructive way and a way that could intrigue other people as well as myself.
3 Headrick
For my manifesto I am playing Games for Gustav. This is actually my favorite essay so far and I do not dread writing the required pages. At first I was inundated learning that 1/3 of the manifesto is due on Friday but I now feel happy and it is not really a burden to play the games. I “played” some of these games with my mom just to see what her answers would be. The answers she had were typical mom answers which led me to think that people of different ages will twist the games into what there life is right now. Johnke and Zoey are also doing this essay and I have quickly learned that their answers are different from my mom’s. They have no heart and do not know what it is like to lose a child. I do not know either. That is just the first game so we will probably grow to hate each other from this essay. At least we are talking about literature. I also might do a feat but depending if I can get it done in time. The feat will be a secret to create suspense.
1 Singh
After multiple topic changes, I have chosen to do the causal essay for my manifesto. I decided to do this essay because I feel that in today’s society, the push for math and science skills have overshadowed the importance of literature study. I believe that literature still holds a major significance in today’s growing world. The stories we studied in class this year provide a perspective on society that is not commonly viewed. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest really opened my eyes on 1960’s society. Lord of the Flies and Life of Pi examined the savage side of human nature and how brutal it can become in desperate situations. Using different literary lenses and identifying literary devices in each story develops important analytic skills. It took me a long time to come up with a topic because there were many of them that I wanted to do. I now have a topic and I am now ready to begin researching other expert’s opinions, review five term Tuesday terms, and think of what I want to discuss in my essay.
1 Ellis
I chose to write on the topic about finding the value of pi, not just as a number, but also as its impact on the world. This is definitely not because of the possibility of a math major. I chose this topic because it gives me the chance to learn more of the history and reasoning behind pi because that has actually been a question that has never really been covered throughout all my math classes. Those are the things that intrigued me about this topic that are a little more fascinating than the known fact that pi is the circumference divided by the diameter. I plan to discuss the origins of pi. In the process of learning this, I have discovered that pi has been used for thousands of years! It was first mentioned by an Egyptian scribe on a piece of papyrus dating back to 1645 B.C. which was called the Rhind Papyrus after it fell into the hands of Egyptologist Alexander Henry Rhind. I have also found an amazing quote by William L. Schaaf describing pi as the most mysterious and relevant number to society. One of my goals is to continually relate my essay to this quote because it is the essence of the point I am trying to make.
7 Broekemeier
In utter and total candidness, my essay has yet to be conceived. As of now, I am fully aware that my essay topic will be playing and typing about my experience playing the Games for Gustav, a portion of Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil that interested me greatly, and which I have already put some decent level of thought and consideration into. The questions are not only thought-provoking, requiring some careful consideration and no shortage of analysis, but are also emotion-provoking, pulling into the play your personal feelings. They are almost a necessity to play the games fully and garner total appreciation for this portion of Martel’s book. A lot of the questions are related to human suffering, to both your own personal and that of those around you, and how you should deal with that suffering, ease it off those around you and yet off of yourself as well, which can be quite the complicated task. They call up questions involving your own existence, why should this happen to you? Who and what is God? Amongst many others. I think this is an interesting way for Martel to challenge the conventional views of human suffering, and present them in the seemingly innocent format of games, with totally brutal and harsh implications and reality.
7 Jensen
My manifesto is juxtaposing the two novels One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Life of Pi. I am comparing their themes, the literary lenses, and the general idea of what Ken Kesey and Yann Martel were trying to say in their writing. I have so far only have gotten a page and a half in, but I feel as if it is going very smooth. The books are very similar the more I begin to analyze the two. While reading both of the novels separately I never quite realized how much they have in common until I started thinking more deep about the novels. For instance, at the end of both of the novels they ended in ways I had not imagined and they leave you wanting more. Both Kesey and Martel do not tell the reader what will happen next, but let the reader decide how to interpret the story themselves. Another aspect I noticed in both of the books, is the presence of current issues tied into the stories. The authors did this strategically without the reader noticing until the story begins to “pick up”. I believe that these books have more in common than not.
6 Mendoza
I started my first paragraph today. It’s a start. I have not done much with my manifesto as I had quite a hard time choosing a topic. I first decided on the literary theorists option but I realized that many of the theorists have produced books; books I would have to read and I would not be able to finish those before the deadline. I saw that Riley and Zoey came up with this fascinating idea of playing Games of Gustav as an option; I automatically was drawn towards it. In my essay I will go into depth with each question. There are thirteen so I am pretty sure I can make eleven pages. What I like about this topic so much is that I can go anyway with this. I can talk about my own experiences as conducting some narratives of my own. I have complete creative control and I get a chance to gain insight on what each holocaust survivor went through during this time. Although this essay won’t be anything compared to what they went through, I’ll at least receive a better understanding and I am sure that is what Yann Martel wanted when he first produced this book.
6 Waltner
It took me a while to decide on which topic I would write about for my manifesto. I was initially most worried about picking one that would be easy to get 11 pages, but then I decided I need one that would interest me. If I found it interesting then 11 pages will be a lot easier. Therefore I decided to write about the recently added Games for Gustav. This essay I will write in first person and attempt to put myself in the shoes of the innocent people in the concentration camps. I found this one very interesting because the games, or questions, help you understand the daily struggles these men and women were put through. The part I will struggle with the most is how to format my whole essay. I do not want the whole thing to be repetitive and like a list of the games. Currently I am on page three, but still not confident with the flow of the essay. Also I am hoping to incorporate the book by adding a few quotes that relate to the games. However, I find the topic very interesting which will make it much easier to write about.
1 Mikkelsen
When I first began thinking about my manifesto, I felt overwhelmed and was not sure which option to choose. I looked through a few and thought they would be interesting. I ultimately picked option 14 because I felt it was an option that I was passionate about and hopefully could write a good amount of information about and be interested in. I am writing about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, from a nurse’s perspective. I have a little over two pages written currently and right now I am talking briefly about the history of nursing and what it means to be a nurse. I think that writing from a nurse’s perspective is interesting because one of the main conflicts of the novel is the unfair treatment of the patients; the unfair treatment of the patients is the result of how the nurses act toward them. In addition, I am discussing the negative stigma surrounding mental health and how there is still a negative stigma regarding mental health today. I believe this is important to discuss because if one does not understand mental health and the treatment that has been implicated for it, one would not be able to understand a nurse’s role in treating patients with a mental illness. I think my manifesto is off to a good start, but I am a bit concerned with getting the eleven page requirement; that is something I am going to have to work through.
1 Sjogren
The Manifesto project is the longest essay I have ever had to write but not the hardest. I am writing my Manifesto with my partner Riley Johnke. Writing this paper together helps us bounce different ideas off of each other. After a couple discussions, we decided to come up with our own topic of playing the Games of Gustav that are in the back of Beatrice and Virgil. I believe now that this option has been added more people are joining in playing the games. Every single person will have a different viewpoint because no one sees things the same. There are no right or wrong answers. Our essay is coming along very well. It is actually bringing out our inner demons because of the deep, dark topics we are discussing. It is fun writing in this manner because it is based off of our own opinions and we do not have research any topics. I do not think it will be an arduous task to meet the 16.5 page requirement because there are so many feelings and viewpoints that are out there.
1 Quanbeck
I have decided to write about the games for Gustav for my manifesto. I think it will be an interesting challenge. The games are designed to place you between a rock and a hard place and there is no easy solution to any of the prompts. To really understand the games themselves you have to empathize with the holocaust victims and imagine their situation. Writing about this will be unpleasant, I imagine. It is inherently depressing. I think it will be interesting though. There’s a lot I could say about any of the given games. I have not really started quite yet, but once I get going I think it will come together quickly.
In researching for this essay, I came across a writing in which someone answered each of the questions. Upon reading the answers he has written, it seems this writer is quite short-sighted and lacking empathy. To the prompt “An armed guard tells you to sing, you sing. He tells you to dance, you dance. He tells you to act like pig, you act like a pig. He tells you to lick his boots, you do. He tells you to _____, but you don’t understand it because it is in a foreign language. What do you do?” he writes “Stand up and kick him in the balls.” This isn’t the worst of his answers either.
3 Munson
I had a hard time choosing my manifesto topic and was deliberating between numbers 7 and 18. The reasons I would have chosen number 7 are that the stories we study are also studied in many other places, and for a multitude of reasons. We have already studied quite a few things including novels, short stories, and now Shakespeare as well. Nearly everyone agrees that these things have value that we can get from studying them, and they are also very vocal about sharing why, so this essay would have been relatively easy despite the research that would be necessary. Number 18 is the games for Gustav. Games for Gustav is intriguing because it involves a few moral choices and it makes one think. Another appealing part of it is that it does not require nearly so much research. In the end I decided that I would do the games for Gustav. I liked the idea of being tested mentally and morally as these games will do.
7 Mork
For my Manifest I am choosing to write 11 pages on a quote from one of the works we read in class. I would say that so far it has taken me the longest time to pick the quote that I wanted to do. There are so many powerfully well written quotes in all the books that we read! The quote that I ended up choosing is from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It reads, “the stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon.” I like this quote because I think it has a good message and it is an analogy. Being able to compare people and characteristics to the moon and stars, I believe allows for some creativity and puts the mind in a different mood of thinking. So far I have gotten some of my ideas down to help visualize what the body of my essay is going to look like. I plan to talk about first what I believe the quote is saying. I also plan to talk about how it works and relates to the book it is in. Lastly, I am going to use real people as examples of who I think are brighter stars than others. Making such comparisons, I hope to make my essay more relatable to readers and real life. Overall I am happy with the way my essay is looking right now and hope that the final product is something I can be proud of.
7 Symington
Initially, I was considering writing my Manifesto based on either the quote from one of the novels perhaps Life of Pi or the argumentation essay regarding finding out more about one of the literary critics and attempt to justify as to why they deserve to be appreciated more. After talking outside of class with Riley, I decided to play Games for Gustav. I personally feel like this will allow me to be a little bit creative with some of the scenario outcomes and the overall topic of the Holocaust interests me as well. As of right now, I am beginning to focus on writing the scenario and analyzing different ways that different groups of people may react to that situation. During this time, I plan on talking with some classmates and recording their responses and reactions to some of the Games and what they would do as possible outcomes that I had never considered before. Overall, I think that this is one of the few topics that I would actually like to write about and I feel like there is a lot to cover based on just each scenario in the end of Games for Gustav.
6 Baldridge
This manifesto has been the most troublesome issue thus far. All I was told was that there was a huge essay that was twenty four pages. After hearing this information, I avoided it completely and did not even look at the requirements or qualifications of what I had to do for this essay. I recently pushed myself to at least pick a topic and I chose to do the argumentative essay where I either agree or disagree with the points made by Yann Martel in his emails. I chose to do this because I figured arguing is what I am best at, so I should pick something that I at least some what know how to do. I am nervous because I have very little motivation left, so it is going to take a lot of work to get this done. I have yet to read all the email and what his opinions on stuff really is, so I haven't started or made a general outline which means I have a lot to do. But now that I have at least picked a topic, I know that I am one step closer to accomplishing the tough task of writing eleven pages.
6 Braley
Writing a narrative that would add on to the original story intrigued me as I often think about what characters do when the book is closed. A good novel character, in my eyes, is one that I feel the characters could be real and hold a life outside of the ink and paper. The idea I was tossing around for the narrative is also one I really liked, I wanted to do two stories about Richard Parker. One story would detail the physical tiger that lived on the boat with for 227 days the other would be more of a mental interpretation similar to inside out. As time went on, however, I became less enchanted with my idea, I still like it but that original love for it is gone. Fortunately, when I was reading through the comments of other classmates trying to find other ones who are setting out to write a narrative I found one that detailed their original plan and how they have switched gears from a narrative to writing scenarios for Games for Gustave. I didn't have any recollection of this topic so I went back to have a look for it and now my original excitement for writing a manifest has been renewed. Games for Gustave was one of my favorite features from Beatrice and Virgil as they are so thought provoking and I still regret not having an entire class period dedicated to discussing how we believe we would behave in each scenario. So now I have a topic I am genuinely excited to work on. I am very confident that fulfilling the page requirement will be a fairly easy task as I have gone through these scenarios so many times and I am very thankful that I no longer dread the manifesto but instead am filled with excitement.
3 Clemenson
I have decided to do option three for the manifesto by doing a juxtaposition of Lord of the Flies and Life of Pi. When I first decided to pick this topic, my brain was overflowing with ideas; however, whenever I sit down to write some of my essay, my mind goes blank. To make matters worse, even when a good comparison arises for them, I get a decent start to my paragraph, but then I hit a wall and really struggle to find more. As of now, my essay has mostly focused on the comparison of the use of animals as well as how they relate to the lens we have learned so far in class. For example, the tiger represents the the id of Pi, and how he has to fight his inner id to prevent himself from falling to savagery. Eventually, I will go more in depth on topics such as the themes, as well as how both protagonists live by their ego, but most overcome the adversity set upon them from the antagonists. Then in comparison, the pig represents the savagery causing them to fall away from a civilized lifestyle. So far, I have found the task of writing this essay challenging, but I have already managed to write out three and a half pages. I hope to get through a vast majority of it this weekend since I will be stuck in a hotel for awhile.
6 Berg
In all honesty, I am still unsure of how I want to approach this new assignment. I have read through the suggestions multiple times, and I have found many of them to be interesting, maybe even conceivable. However, none seem to “speak” directly to me. Though, with the first stages of our progress due tomorrow, I realize I must make this important decision sooner rather than later. I have personally always enjoyed the research and information gathering stages of essays more compelling to me than the actual writing process, and therefore I know I want to chose an essay that is not all imagination. I will chose an essay topic that requires at least some aspect of research, and probably depends less on my personal imagination and creativity than others would. At this point, after reading through the options once more, I believe I will be going with option number seven, which is a casual essay discussing why the literature we have studied through this course is still so relevant and important in today’s world. I intend to especially emphasize the importance of the works of Shakespeare, and possibly other older, classic literature that a large portion of people believe to be irrelevant and therefore unessential. Hopefully, I am able to successfully elaborate on their importance without being to repetitive or boring for anyone that happens to read it.
3 Kluin
For the topic of my Manifesto, I have decided upon writing a narrative essay. I have always enjoyed creative writing to a degree much greater than that of writing based on research, although, I feel this is probably a common opinion. The majority of what I have written so far is fiction based on what I think happened to certain characters before they appear in the literature we read. It is extremely intriguing and a great deal of fun to be able to explore what might have taken place in the character’s life to incite them to act in a certain way or choose a certain course of action. With many of the books we read (aside from maybe Life of Pi) the readers are thrust right into the thick of things with few references to what took place in characters lives before the events taking place. It is the events of the past that mold the choices of the future. What takes place in a character’s past is just as important as what they are choosing to do in the present. It gives readers an insight as to what molded a character into what they have become now, good or bad and shows us that not every character can be whittled down to a strict “good and evil” status. In fact, good and evil hardly ever exists completely within the confines of a story. All that there is, is the choices the characters have decided to make for whatever reason, and how the reader decides to interpret those choices.
Blue 7
To be honest I am currently at a loss of words when I am trying to write this. So far, I have a little over a page done and I have no clue where my essay is going let alone how I am going to get to 11 pages eventually. I chose to write about a quote from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I am in strong favor of the quote and absolutely love its meaning. However, I am finding it nearly impossible to write about in first person. I have countless personal stories about how laughter has been key to getting myself through life and tough situations. However, because it must be in third person it is difficult to share those experiences. Plus it is not much of a researched topic either. Hopefully if I can just make it to near 4 pages by friday night I can somehow piggyback that and turn it into an eleven page manifesto. In its current status however, it is rough. As the kids say, “morale is low”. Although I have found something I am passionate about, I am not exactly sure how to write about it.
3 Scholten
Initially, I was going to do the manifesto about the Games for Gustav but in the end I decided to do option 3 which is doing a compare and contrast essay about two books we have read this semester. I felt like this option was one of the easiest and also the only option that I could get eleven pages done. I am doing my compare and contrast essay about Life of Pi and Lord of the Flies. At first glance, many people probably do not think there are many similarities and differences between these two books but I dug deeper into both books and actually there are a ton of similarities and differences. One similarity is that all the characters in both books are just trying do the same thing and that is to survive. In both books, Ralph and Pi are just trying to survive from the animals on the island and lifeboat. One similarity between Ralph and Pi is that they just want to be rescued and would do anything to be back home. These are just the edge of the many different similarities and differences between these two books. I have been happy with the progress I have made and I will keep working to make my manifesto great.
1 Campbell
I chose to write the casual essay about why students need to continue reading the different pieces of literature that we have read this semester. I chose to do this because I think it is important to learn from the books that you read. Although they may be nonfiction, most of the time the underlying message or idea is pretty accurate in that time setting or situation. I chose to write about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Life of Pi. I truly did enjoy these two novels and I feel like they really challenged me to think in different ways. They had a lot of symbolism and ideas that threw you off at different points. As I mentioned in what I have written so far in my Manifesto, when Yann Martel entertains the idea that Pi was actually alone on the boat with humans this whole time instead of the animals, that was extremely confusing. It made you think completely different about the whole story. That idea is one of the many that challenges readers to think differently and have their own views/opinions about topics. That is why I wanted to write this easy, to show how important these novels are to me and how I think they would be helpful to others.
1 Reese
I have been taking the Manifesto challenge fairly slow, with all the options available I wanted to make sure I chose one that will not cause extreme writers block. I came to the conclusion of compare and contrast just because that type of essay really provides with all lot of material especially if you are contrasting novels, which provide a substantial amount content compared to contrasting two sports. I saw that some people were comparing and contrasting Life of Pi to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or Life of Pi to The Lord of the Flies, however, I think the best comparison would be Life of Pi to Beatrice and Virgil, because of both novels being written by Yann Martel I think that creates a very good comparison. Also, both of Martel’s novels are based upon “controversial” topics which just sets up the compare and contrast perfectly, even though they are not closely related. Overall, taking a look at every topic and deciding which topic to dive into helped me extremely, and more than likely saved me from having to restart halfway through the writing process.
7 Poole
My manifesto will be about option 18: Games for Gustav. So far, I have written and introduction about the mixed reviews of Beatrice and Virgil. Most websites and blogs have harshly bashed the novel, but I did manage to find a few favorable reviews. I will look at each "game" and describe what Yann Martel was trying to get the reader to do. For example, in game one Martel asks the reader if they would risk their son's death so the family can eat. He poses the question as a yes-or-no format, rather than an open-ended question. If Martel had said "what do you do?" rather than "do you let him go?", the reader could have said that they would go in his place, but by only allowing the two options of yes or no, the reader is forced to choose between his/her son and the rest of his/her family. By choosing that wording, Martel is asking his readers to feel, rather than think. The simple language in the novel up to this point also suggests that Martel's goal was never for the reader to think, but to put themselves into the situation emotionally.
3 Wickersham
I am going to be honest… at first when thinking about this manifesto, I was dreading having to write it. 11+ pages seems scary and insurmountable. On top of that, none of the topics really intrigued me. I was initially going to do the topic of “which literary lens is most important” until I saw Riley and Zoey’s new idea of playing Games for Gustav. It has turned a dreaded paper into a paper that I am surprisingly enjoying to write. I mean really really enjoying writing it. Games for Gustav makes you think in new and challenging ways, testing your morals, creativity, wits, and intelligence. Not only that, but it makes you truly see the decisions, predicaments, and hardships that Holocaust victims had to face. I also really enjoy it because I can write it with minimal research, while still putting a lot of time into thinking, “What would I truly do?” Many times, my morals tell me one thing but I know what my actual response would be in that situation. Writing the paper can even cause emotions, which is exactly what Yann Martel was trying to accomplish. I must give Riley and Zoey some credit, because they have turned this manifesto from something I was dreading to something I am enjoying.
7 Livingston P
After a couple of days debating on which one of the options I wanted to use, I decided to research a literary theorist. I originally chose this one over a few others (including the Academy Awards of literature, the causal essay about why literature is studied, and the narrative essay) because of it only needing 8 pages; but as I got going on it I realized that I did not think most of the people to write about were very interesting until I found William James. William James stood out to me while I was looking in the Term Tuesday folder because of the title of his work, “What Makes a Life Worth Living?” This was a question I constantly find myself asking, so I googled him and knew he was going to be the subject of my manifesto when I saw his influence in psychology and some of his quotes: “The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes” and “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
6 Clark
At the beginning of this whole thing, I had no idea which option I was going to choose...to go with the longer, easier option or to do the more researched, shorter essay. It was difficult for me to decide. This is for sure the longest essay I have had to write in my whole high school career. I chose to write the 8+ pages of the argumentation essay where you research a listed literary theorist and argue that they should be more appreciated or studied. I chose this one because of the fact that I really enjoy feminist theorists and the different ways they look into the lens and how they go about letting it be known. The feminist lens really interests me and I enjoy seeing the different ways authors write about it and incorporate it in unique ways into the novels. I chose Laura Mulvey because she was interested in feminist lens and is a critique about it. I do not think this essay will be out of reach, but I do believe it will challenge me as we end the school year and this class.
7 Woessner
I originally had planned on choosing the option to write a narrative for the manifesto project. I soon began to realize that this was not feasible, especially with my infamous procrastination practices. I then switched to thinking I was going to attempt the causal essay option. I then realized this would be an extreme challenge, for I do not remember the majority of the novels and short stories we have studied this semester. My good friend Layne Symington then pointed out to me that there were some new options added to the list of topics for the manifesto. I saw the Games for Gustav option, and was hooked instantly. These games were the best part of the book and group discussion for Beatrice and Virgil, which was a lousy novel altogether. To begin writing, I have started with an introduction about the premise of the questions and my tactics at how I am to go about answering said questions. So far, I have answered about three questions, and will continue until I have answered them all. These games interest me, even though most are terrible to think about.
3 Livingston
For a long time, I had no clue what I was going to write about. I went back and forth between a few topics but the page requirement made me not want to write about some of them. Twenty four pages is a long essay. I was dreading writing the manifesto at first, but when the Games for Gustav option came about, I was actually very interested in writing about them. It's really interesting to put yourself in the shoes of someone who would have to make these types of decisions. It's horrible to think about. I couldn't imagine being in that kind of situation. Reading them is hard, but writing about them seems even more difficult. It seems like whatever option you choose is a bad one. You can either risk your life or the lives of others, a situation that I would never want to be put in. I started writing about them, and the writing actually came very easy. I think it's crazy that the idea of these games are totally ironic. Games are usually a fun pastime, but these games are nothing of the kind. They are some of the most difficult situations that you will ever have to think about. Now that I picked a topic that I am actually passionate about writing, I think that the manifesto seems more capable of being conquered.
1 Hoffmann
I am writing my manifesto on my own topic: the physiological and mental changes that Pi undergoes during his ordeal. To organize it, I am going stage by stage, beginning with the sinking of the ship. Each stage will comprise of 2-3 paragraphs discussing what is happening in Pi’s mind psychologically (for example, discussing the activation of the amygdala when Richard Parker boards the boat), on a macro-physiological level (for example the effects of a rush of adrenaline on Pi’s body), as well as the molecular changes that happen within his body (like heat shock proteins being produced to help him deal with the extreme heat of the sun). I have not yet settled on how to break up the rest of the novel, but I know that I want to specifically discuss the point at which Pi gives up and allows himself to starve almost to death until encountering the Frenchman. This part of the story has so much material in it for my essay topic. I can discuss the ability of the brain to force physiological changes on the body and the bodies defenses to starvation and dehydration that allow him to get back up and survive.
Willard 6
My manifesto is a precursor, or prelude to the life and twisted demeanour of the taxidermist in Beatrice and Virgil. It begins with an expository description of hitler's germany so as to introduce the horrors of the time period. I refer to the taxidermist as “the boy” as he lacks a legitimate name. I find that this dehumanizes him, which also adds emphasis to the fact that he in his actions is inhuman. Or at least he was in his actions prior to his exodus to the city in which Beatrice and Virgil takes place. In my narrative as it where, i attempt to create the taxidermists motives in his awful childhood. The taxidermist finds his strength in hitler's fascist ideology. In that he becomes a youth and eventually climbs the ranks into the nazi regime. His specialty: the medical examination and preservation of certain jewish subjects in order to be experimented upon. His guilt eventually overcomes him and he flees nazi germany to a canadian city post war. He tries to fabricate catharsis through the creation of his play, but once a twisted individual, always a twisted individual.
Barton 6
My original plan for my essay was to do option number 2. In this option, I would have written about emails and replies that Yann Martel had previously sent to our class. Instead, I chose option number 18. In this option, I simply have to “play” Games for Gustav. I chose this option because, well, to be honest, it seemed easiest. You do not necessarily have to do any research for this option. Plus, you can write in first person. This was helpful to me because my mind often thinks in first person when writing essays, and sometimes I accidentally slip it in anyways. For me, the goal of this essay is to become a victim of the Holocaust and to try to play the games from that point of view. This is easier to do after reading Beatrice & Virgil, because Yann Martel has a way of using the twisting of fiction in order to bring out the essence of an event, and make you truly feel history, instead of simply learning facts and dates. Personally, this is my biggest takeaway from this class: lessons must evoke emotion in order for us to learn from them.
3 DeCurtins
While I have yet to begin my manifesto, I have decided on a topic: I will be writing about and “playing” the Games for Gustav from Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil. Each as interesting as the last, Martel’s thirteen games evoke strong immediate emotional responses but require much thought to be played or answered completely. Exploring the games from a first person narrative may be an interesting way to put a new spin on observing the Holocaust, which I think Martel would wholeheartedly approve of any new way to honor the suffering of so many during that time period. Sometimes the Holocaust can be desensitized when it is presented in fact form like during a history class, or in an essay, but Martel knows that there are intangible things, like emotions, that can not be properly conveyed by non-fiction. He devised these Games for Gustav to give readers a short and meaningful experience related to the Holocaust. Martel wrote thirteen games in total, and I intend to write about each of them, including game number thirteen, which was left blank.
6 Tingle
For my Manifesto, I decided that I want to do option 2: an essay that compare/contrasts the novels we have read in class. I want to include the Lord of the Flies, Life of Pi, and Beatrice and Virgil because they were my favorite books that we have read this year, and I took an appropriate amount of notes over all three of them. I am writing about how each book gives a powerful message to the reader, but each message is slightly different, and they are all portrayed in a very unique way. The endings in all three books leave a powerful, emotional impact on the reader, but this emotional impact is different in its own way. Lord of the Flies may leave the reader feeling pity for the boys, but yet a feeling of dissatisfaction because they don’t know how the boys will function once they are reunited with their society. Life of Pi gives the reader a choice of how the story actually went by telling two different stories of what he experienced in his journey, and he doesn’t say which one is true, and this can be very intriguing for readers or extremely frustrating. Beatrice and Virgil, however, has an ending that I have not experienced before while reading a book. The climax of the plot happens so suddenly that it may just completely take the reader by surprise. Along with the endings of the books, I am also mentioning the allegories all three stories contain and how they are portrayed to the reader through symbolism.
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