Dear Mrs. Fletcher-Herring and Friends,

As most of you guys know, I’m a freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill. To make the most of my freshmen year experience, I have thought about taking a First Year Seminar. Another reason was because I have a friend who took this First Year Seminar last year and he strongly recommended it to me. I figured taking one would give me a better freshmen experience because I was still unsure about what was expected of me in college. All in all, I’m really glad that I decided to take this First Year Seminar because I got to do a lot of things that I thought I wouldn’t really get to do in any other traditional classes. Most of you guys probably would think that this portfolio would just include a lot of different types of papers I’ve written over the semester because that’s what would be expected in a traditional English class.
One of the most interesting things about this class is that this class incorporates literature with technology. I doubt a lot of you guys have been in an English class where you worked with computers other than using Microsoft Word to type your papers. First of all, most of our assignments were posted on the Internet on our class website, which is the site that you’re looking at right now. Throughout the semester, we also used different programs such as Audacity, Photoshop, and Photoshop Elements. I was already somewhat familiar with the programs but the structure of the class and the assignments helped me learn more about the different features of the programs. I acquired different skills for each of the programs and I’m glad I was able to take this class because most of the assignments were fun although they required me to think a lot more about the characters for example for the character playlists and collages.
I didn’t really learn much about HTML because I already learned some basic HTML codes in an introductory computer course I took back in high school. Most of all though, this class has been enjoyable because it was a unique, fun, and different way to explore literature. I’ll get into the details when I discuss each of my projects in detail.

Playlist
First Draft
Revision
The playlist assignment blew my mind away at first because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find and connect the right songs in order to compose a decent playlist. When I started on the actual assignment, however, it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I found it a little difficult for me to completely relate to the character for which I was doing the playlist but I tried my best and am still trying to revise some things, and looking for more songs to possibly add to the playlist. I really liked the playlist assignment because I was able to analyze a character differently and more in-depth, and I was able to present my analysis in a different way. I haven’t done a lot of revisions on the playlist except add a few more details about the analysis of the character. I added more details about how each song pertains to the character and why I chose the songs that I chose. This was a good way for me to explore literature because even though the TV show isn’t really a work of literature, there’s a lot of character development and analysis that could take place. By connecting those thoughts, characteristics, and analysis with music, I found that it was especially fun for me to not only explore my character in a new way but also explore new music.

Podcast
Because I Got High Podcast
The podcast, however, was the hardest assignment for me. I struggled a lot in the beginning in deciding the subject of my podcast. I didn't want to choose a serious topic because that would've made my podcast sound really boring. Then I remembered an artist named Afroman, of whom I first heard back in middle school. I remembered his songs being comical and I figured that I may be able to find some literary elements in the song. I was able to find some literary elements, but reflecting back on my podcast, I have to admit that it's definitely a rough draft because my thoughts aren't very coherent, and I have plans to revise my podcast and I plan to be more organized in the revision. One thing that I did like about the podcast assignment was working with Audacity. I've worked with Audacity before but I didn't use it as much as I did for this podcast assignment, so I was able to learn some new features. The podcast also really made me think about music that could be related to literature and made me really think about different genres of music. I wish I had more time to work on this revision but I didn’t get to revise the podcast as I wanted.

Collages
Character Collage of Chuck Bartowski
Revised Character Collage of Chuck Bartowski
Poetry Collage
Revised Poetry Collage
The collages were my favorite because I often use Photoshop just for fun and I was familiar with a lot of features so I felt like my collages turned out pretty well. I still have plans to revise the collages, however but I had a lot of fun doing them, though I'm not a very creative person. Another thing that I liked about the collage assignment was again, analyzing a character and presenting something about that character using a different and limited media. Overall, I'm absolutely enjoying this class because I'm rediscovering literature from a different perspective under different lens. I feel like using technology to study literature has been one of the most innovative ways for me to study literature and because it's so different, I'm enjoying this class more than I did my other English classes.

Video
No Country for Old Men Mashup Trailer
So pretty much, I’m basically trying to convey Chigurh as a lonely character because I felt like throughout the movie, he’s always by himself. Whether he enjoys being alone or not is questionable but regardless, I feel like he’s a lonely individual and hopefully everyone understands the funny twist. Working with this assignment was just as fun as the collages. I really liked working on this trailer although I feel like I could’ve done a lot better. It took me a while to get familiarized with the program but once I did, the technical part of it wasn’t too bad. I had some trouble getting some of the scenes and condensing them into just the scenes that I wanted. I was also unsure about the order of the scenes in which I wanted to put them but all in all I feel like it all worked out pretty well. I also had some trouble looking for music but overall, I had a lot of fun.