English Conference

Session 1: "A Research Identity: Four Fictional Females"
The first presenter Megan Marshall discussed the character, Seely in The Color Purple. Megan discussed the effects that trauma has on the character. She also discussed the sexual abuse that Seely had to experience and how it changed her. During her reading she also stated things that she could have done better in her paper. She listed several things. One which was making her paper more cohesive. She wanted to figure out how to combine the information that she received while researching and her own ideas and opinions without overwhelming the paper with her own views. The second presenter Julia McEvoy researched the symbolism of the Rose in Beauty and the Beast. She also researched the meaning it had to the main character. Julia stated that she had difficulty find good research tools gain knowledge and the rose. She stated that she thought it was harder to find reliable information about the stories because the fairy tale is so old. Everything she read stated that the rose symbolized sex. However, Julia believes something different. She believes that there are layers to a rose. The layers being beauty, love, sex, death. She also researched the effect that the rose has on family and marriage. Julia also discussed the ways that she could better her paper. Her main problem with her paper, from her perspective, were her transitions from paragraph to paragraph. The third reader, Sarah Daxton, discussed Kate Chopen and her novel The Awakening". Sarah reflected on the various ways that Edna defied the common myth that women were to not be independent during that time period. At the end of the story Edna commits suicide and Sarah decided to explore the reasons behind it. One reason is depression which may have been caused by her environment and the pressures of society. Sarah said that one of the main things that helped her write a successful paper was peer editing. She said even though a lot of students are afraid to let their peers read their paper it opens the door to so many more ideas. The last reader, Aaron Marshall, wrote a paper on Hal's Moving Castle. He wrote about how outer beauty was not important in this story, but rather her personality. He then talked about how time management was so vital in writing this paper. He also talked about the excessive amount of research he had and had to cut out to main ideas in order to meet the papers length requirement. He recommended that when writing the paper try to narrow it down to one main idea and focus on that.

Session 2
The first reader Kara Arndt presented a paper on the women of Desperate Housewives. She gave various depictions of American women from 1950s compared to the women of the TV show. She argued that the show still labeled the women as the typical stay at home mom, everything is perfect type of woman. One woman from the show however stood out from the crowd. Lynette is strong willed, she has misbehaved children, and eventually goes back to work. Her husband once told her in the episode "Come in Stranger", that you are the perfect mother because you aren't perfect. The second reader, Erica Ritenour, talked about Fan-Fiction. For about the past 8 years she has been writing and blogging based on Pirate Jack Sparrow. It helped her to develop her writing skills and she was able to express her views and gain valuable feedback. Other fan fiction writers served as "baitors". You would send your blog to another person (a.k.a baitor) and he/she would revise the paper and give feedback. This not only helped in submitting a good blog, but also allowed to Erica to gain experience in peer editing. It was then when she realized the importance of it. She also talked about how she want to major in music-education, but did not get accepted and that's when she knew and English-education major was the right choice for her. The third reader, Cindy Brown, discussed the poem "Blackberry Picking". The poem is about the secret desires of women and as the develop they become harder to resist. Cindy stated the quote, "whether it is a fruit or a woman it is hard to desire". She also said that the author talks about living in the moment before you rot. This is in regards to the fruit and before a woman ages. At the end of paper she said it felt disheartening to read that the woman's desires have been met. This meaning that a woman is needy
Throughout these three stories there was a clear idea that somewhere in each of these stories the idea of desire was being represented.