Mid-Session Check In

Dear Mrs. Cline,

Being more than halfway through the class, I feel like I have gotten quite a bit out of the coursework. I enjoy this class because we get to read material and respond to it, whereas my last english class was a lot of writing to persuade. I really enjoyed the novel that we read The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien as well as the play by Sean Huze. I read O’Brien’s novel in high school, but I feel by reading it again and responding to your prompts and papers, I have seen an even deeper meaning than the first time. I feel that the writing you have assigned for these works and throughout the course have been helpful in analyzing the material instead of just summarizing like I have done in the past. The readings really affected me because they were tied to true events, and being that I am living through the same time that the men in Huze’s play are, I felt even more connected to his characters. 

       The additional assignments such as “Shitty First Drafts”, “The Necessity to Speak” by Sam Hamill , and the extra credit Operation Homecoming were great assignments to help me as a student grow in the areas that they focused on. They connected well to what we were studying at the time, and helped give just a little bit of a deeper understanding. I also really enjoyed the poetry of witness assignments. I am usually not a fan of poetry, but these pieces were interesting and written in a way that I was really unfamiliar with, but connected with quickly. It was a great introduction to the reading of O’Brien’s novel. My biggest challenge this far in the class would probably be learning to analyze rather than just summarize, but I think at this point I am getting much better at it. My greatest success in this class would be learning to blog and to create an interesting post for my reader. 

        One of my favorite parts of your class is the way you make it feel like you are actually in a class even though it is all online. With the videos and the blogs we are able to get to know our classmates and our instructor better. As an instructor, I like that you make yourself available for our questions and have office hours so we are able to see you if we need anything cleared up. The lecture material that you post is also really helpful instead of just giving us text to read.  For my second half of the class, I hope to improve my writing skills even more. I also hope to master analyzing a text. Analyzing rather than summarizing has helped me in a few of my other classes this semester as well. I think it is a really good skill to have and will be helpful throughout my college career. Overall, I have really enjoyed the class up to this point!

Sincerely,

Kelsey Drake

Sean Huze: The Sand Storm

My initial reaction to Huze’s play The Sand Storm was that it was very raw and a truthful account of the events happening in Iraq. His use of stage direction adds a very vivid picture for the reader as if the play is being performed in one’s mind. His experience from his enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corps adds what just an author could never achieve. He has the memories that make this play come alive. He uses flashbacks throughout the play as well to tell the stories of the men. The play begins with Sergeant Casavecchia talking about the way that no one really knows what war is really like. He says, “Politicians, four-stars, Scott McLellan, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Moore...Shit. Like any of them know what the hell they’re talking about. But you all listen to ‘em don’t you? Your experts.” I liked this introduction because it is a very true statement. We listen to supposed “experts” about the War in Iraq or whatnot, yet many of these people have never ever served in a war nor experienced what these soldiers or marines are feeling. The men talk about the people that they kill, the civilians and enemies. This piece is extremely powerful because as I have seen in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, many men begin to feel dehumanized after killing not only their foes, but innocent people as well. They tell stories of events that really affected them, and of different men that they encountered that were influential, such as Lt. Smith, who took his job seriously, and respected the men he was in charge of. One of my favorite pieces of the play was the ending. The men all stand on the stage and talk about Sergeant David Casavecchia, who died. They talk about the many things he was, a father, son, brother, friend, track star, quarterback, and a marine. This was powerful to me because these men are human. These men had a life before war, and will hopefully have one to follow. These men are assigned to do unthinkable things at times, and have many problems following the “unreality” that the war brings to them. When they return home, they have extremely hard times adjusting to normal life. Plays such as Huze’s give us civilians a little better of an understanding of what these men feel.

Here is a link to more information on Sean Huze. He is not only a writer but an actor as well! He played in the Green Zone with Matt Damon recently. Very Interesting!!!!