honors for some reason does not require me to reflect on these even though my entire future career and life is based on these courses and this is what I am passionate about 🙂

English Major Courses

ENGL 325: British Literature – Medieval to Renaissance, Fall 2019

My most difficult course yet. This course focused more on the history of the King Arthur Analog as well as the history of English Kings. The attached artifact is my final research paper for the in which I connect the stories Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales to show how Chaucer used analog characters like Sir Gawain to set expectations up for his readers that he would then break as well as how his satire creates a feminist tone.

ENGL 336: American Literature – Realism to Contemporary, Fall 2019

American Literature is most often taught by highlighting the most canonized pieces of literature. Dr. Jesse took a different route with this course to prove how minorities in America have always existed but that critics, who define the canon, were keeping amazing authors and their works from reaching the masses because they were racists/sexist/homophobic. My artifact for this course is a literary analysis of Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues. I loved Feinberg’s work because it was the first time I had ever read something from the perspective of someone that does not fit the gender binary and how they struggled to live in a world full of categories/boxes that they never fit into.

ENGL 362: Diversity in Literature – Black Writers & Genre, Fall 2019

For Dr. Magill, this was a pilot course into the realm of how writers manipulate genre while also looking at works that are severely overlooked because they were written by black authors. Not only was it fun to look at how we as a society define genre and how it more of a grey area opposed to black and white, defined differences in genres, but it was also interesting to see how race did not play a major role in some of the stories. Of course, race always plays a role because we are humans that make assumptions based on observations of things like skin color, BUT it was nice to have a class that looked at black people and their work as being more multifaceted to not just be about racism but so much more. My artifact for this course is an analysis of N.K. Jemison’s The Fifth Season, a fantasy novel, that I believe also fits the neo-slave narrative genre.

ENGL 327: British Literature – Victorian to Contemporary, Spring 2020

British Literature – Victorian to Contemporary was my second British Literature course at Longwood and a requirement for my English major. It was great getting to know Dr. Emily Heady better as she was also my peer mentor coach my first semester at Longwood. This course also allowed me to discover T.S. Eliot and fall in love with some of his poetry about enlightenment. Thus, the artifact I chose for this course was an analysis I completed on Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi” which discusses the three wise men’s journey to find Jesus how that lead to alienation from their communities upon returning home. In short, Eliot is arguing that the journey to finding enlightenment is only half the work because after finding it you still have to continue living with that knowledge in a world that is not enlightened.

ENGL 365: Shakespeare, Spring 2020

A course on Shakespeare is a requirement for my English major which I fulfilled with Dr. Smith. I also enhanced this class with my colleague Payten Bovat which you can visit on my honors classes page here. This class is also a requirement for Theatre majors, thus, our final project for the class was to look at one of Shakespeare’s plays we read and design the blocking for it as if we were the director. Attached below is my project where I set Twelfth Night in 1980s California with plans to emphasize a feminist message and heighten the comedic aspects of the show – making it a more evident rom-com.

ENGL 335: American Literature, Fall 2020

This was 1/2 classes I took with Dr. Miller this fall. It was interesting to read primary texts from when North America was first colonized by Europeans and to think critically about their rhetorical arguments. Especially in The Jesuit Relations which is a series of published testimonies by the Jesuits who were Christian Missionaries. Rhetorically, their testimonies mimicked the stories of saintified peoples’ and worked to gain more sponsors for future mission trips. The artifact below however is an analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” as a romanticized satirical work that Dr. Miller completely disagreed with but loved.

ENGL 444: Virginia Literature, Fall 2020

Virginia Lit was my second course with Dr. Miller this semester. One of my favorite texts we read was Thomas Page’s In Ole Virginia which contains a series of short stories romanticizing the Old South and is written in a framed narrative with a black narrator at the center. The artifact below is a literature review I wrote on the scholarly analyses of Page’s appropriation of black voices.

ENGL 379: Understanding Nonhumans, Spring 2021

TBA

ENGL 326: British Literature: Restoration to Romanticism, Spring 2021

TBA

Rhetoric and Professional Writing Concentration Courses

ENGL 301: Rhetorical Criticism, Spring 2020

English 301 was my second course I completed in my Rhetoric and Professional Writing concentration. Dr. Guler focused this course on criticizing various rhetorical arguments made in popular culture based on different critical perspectives outlined in Deanna Sellnow’s Rhetorical Power of Popular Culture textbook. One of my favorites was Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic perspective which concentrates on understanding a character’s motivation based on their actions. Attached below is a link to an e-portfolio Dr. Guler had us create a more casual critique of various artifacts using the critical perspectives we learned about.

My Word Press Blog as an Artifact

ENGL 305: History of Rhetoric – Rhetoric of Apology, Fall 2020

In this course, we examined what an apology truly is rhetorically by reading Aaron Lazare’s On Apology as well as examining our own and others’ apologies. We also worked to examine Farmville’s reconciliation for the impact the school closings had on local families that are still living in Farmville today. In aiding in the work towards reconciliation, which a few local guest speakers said has not been finished yet and may never be, we worked on Dr. Lettner-Rust’s and the Moton Museum magazine with feature articles on what life was like in Farmville during this time to make sure history does not repeat itself and acknowledge where things went wrong. The artifact attached below is the article I edited for the magazine and can be found here in the published magazine: https://issuu.com/greenwoodlibrary/docs/ourlegacystorytellers_magazine_spr2021

ENGL 470: Professional Writing Skills, Spring 2021

Professional Writing with Dr. Guler was a lot of fun. We practiced writing various professional writing documents like memos, block letters, press releases, and more. Below is a completed report I created with two of my colleagues. We researched three refrigerator appliance websites and provided a hypothetical company with our recommendations for what they should implement in their website. I will be sure to carry the grammar rules, like the Eight “C”s, and the professional formatting guidelines into every work environment I enter.

ART 353: Artists’ Books, Spring 2021

Artists’ Books was my first art class since high school. It was a bit intimidating and very time-consuming at first, however, I learned to love book binding. Below are some images of devotional style books I made using Mohawk Superfine paper and fabric-wrapped book covers. From this course, I have refined my communication and presentation skills for proposals as well as learned the art of book binding. It was great to create a completed, tangible product and I plan on continuing book binding as a hobby or even a side-business.

Communications Minor Courses

COMM 101: Public Speaking, Fall 2020

I took COMM 101 Dr. Paal who challenged us to present four different times throughout the semester. It was interesting taking a public speaking class online and I feel better prepared to tackle the workplace post-COVID-19. The artifact I’ve chosen for this course is an outline my classmates and I put together for our final presentation with ways that professors can help create a more successful online learning environment experience given what my classmates and I struggled with this past semester and a half online.

COMM 141: Media Writing, Fall 2020

This was completely different from every other writing course I’ve taken before. It really challenged me to write in a new genre – media writing. Throughout the semester, I had to write about my news beat, or a topic of interest, and I chose Food Service on campus but more specifically the people that support it. It was great getting to know people more personally. So many of them have kids that they are supporting, many are even single parents. I wish there was a way I could support them more. The artifact attached is a feature story I wrote on CB Walker, one of the food service managers in Upchurch.

COMM 200: Comm Theory, Spring 2021

Communication Theory introduced me to the various ways we understand communication. In particular, I learned how our non-verbal communication is usually more transparent and reliable than our verbal communication. As well, in the artifact below, I discuss how media has the ability to influence us. However, it does not have the power to change our behavior as we still remain autonomy over ourselves.

Honors Courses