Forms and Genres 9/11: Loss & Redemption, Dr. Lund, Spring 2019
ENGL 210 Forms and Genres is (according to Longwood’s course descriptions here) “an introduction to the formal analysis of texts, which may include works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, film, and other genres”. The version of this course that I took was the honor section of Forms and Genres 9/11: Loss & Redemption. I did not know what to expect from this class, and I was not required to take it; however, something about the title intrigued me, so I took an interest to take it. Loss & Redemption was the overall theme that our readings, assignments, and exams centered around. We live in a post 9/11 culture, and little would anyone know that a lot of television shows we watch and literary works we read has been affected by that culture. We read/analyzed/discussed three different literary works: American Widow (Alissa Torres), A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan), and All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr) as well as watch Person of Interest and Pine Gap in Dr. Lund’s class. He encouraged us to participate (whether we wanted to or not- most of the time he would just call you out) fully because… in ENGL 210 “just okay, is NOT okay”. We had to put in work to fully get the lesson out of the class. I learned to step out of my comfort zone, not every question is a stupid one- it is only stupid if not asked. For our final as well as being the honor part of the course, we had to do a “Major Project”. This project was completely up to us, but it had to incorporate the post 9/11 culture we live in, readings that we had done, and even some of the television shows we watched as part of the course. The one thing that was the most important was our own personal experience within the post 9/11 culture. I have attached my final project for ENGL 210 as my artifact.