Week 3 Blog Post

Goals

My goals for this week were to finalize my works cited list and look further into my sources that I have found. I was successful in both of those goals, finding some in depth articles on my books such as excerpts from A Critical Companion to Jack London and Complicity and Resistance in Jack London's Novels: From Naturalism to Nature. I have been able to read through the majority of both of those and I have taken good notes on them this weekend. My goal for this week is to spend my class time and after school time finishing my notecards because my works cited is now pretty much finished.  

Activities

This week, I spent class time finding sources and I spent time after school reading through the sources and working on notecards. Being a four day week and only having a couple of classes to work in this week, I was not able to get as much done in school as I have been in previous weeks but I am making up for it at home sufficiently. 

Problems

The only problem I have really encountered this week is my headphones being too loud in class. I have new headphones that bleed sound way too much and I keep unknowingly setting them too high and I wind up distracting my classmates. I can always count on Omar to tap me on the shoulder when they get too loud though. Omar's the real MVP. 

Reflection

This week I have been able to work very well and stay on track with what I wanted to do. Nothing remarkable or amazing has been accomplished this week but a solid week of progress on research is exactly what I wanted to do and exactly what I accomplished. 

Week 2 Blog Post

Goals

My goals for this week were to find and evaluate as many sources as possible. My primary sources are due in a week and a half from now so I need to make sure that I have all my primary sources in order so that I can easily take notes and annotate them. I was able to find some fantastic articles that discussed the themes in The Call of the Wild and White Fang and I am looking forward to reading and annotating them tomorrow. My goals for the next week are to finalize my list of primary sources and work heavily on my annotations so that I am ready for the due dates the following week.

Activities

This week, I narrowed down my topics I will be writing about to Instinct and Love. In my books, the protagonists are deeply affected by both instinct and love, causing them to act differently and change. Another activity I accomplished was finding many more sources and marking them in my bibliography. I know it seems like busy work now but it will save me so much in the long run. 

Problems

The biggest problem I faced this week is that I spent almost an entire class period trying to find this literary criticism that, from the summary, appeared to be perfect for my research paper. I worked with the librarians and Sarah but for some reason, the actual article could not be found. Because of this, I lost much valuable research time.  

Reflection

After this second week of research, I am getting more and more of an idea of what I want to write about. I have noticed that the themes that I am writing about aren't spoken directly that much about in the literary criticisms I have been finding. This discouraged me at first but then I realized that I could still find so much about my themes in different parts of the writings. So far, I have been finding it as an arduous but rewarding process.

Week 1 Blog Post

Goals

This being the first true week of research paper work, my goal for this week was to find some good sources in the library that can help me narrow down what I want to write about. I was able to find 2 good books about the author of my books and another book that is based solely around analyzing one of my books. My goal next week is to look into these books more and find even more sources.

Activities

This week, the two activities I accomplished were compiling a list of questions about my books and finding resources in the library. The questions I made about my books helped me think more about the themes I may want to write about in my research paper. 

Problems

So far, the only problem I have faced is that I have so many ideas about what I want to write about. White Fang and Call of the Wild are both so interesting and such a fantastic combination that there are endless possibilities that you can write about. 

Reflection

This week has really given me a perspective of how much more work I need to do for this project and what kind of work it is going to be. I am incredibly interested by the two books I am researching so I am looking forward to writing this paper more than any other.