User:JaeRoxx/sandbox

Research Journal Entry # 1

In class today I learned I will be apart of an important project. As a unit the whole class will be conducting research to create a Wikipedia page On Octavia Butler's book Wild Seed.By the end of the semester the website will have accurate resources and data on the works and life of Octavia Butler.We also learned how to properly cite and reference our resources by creating footnotes on the Wikipedia page by editing in our user sandbox.

Research Journal Entry # 2

In class we discussed the proper way to paraphrase, use quotes, and write a summary. We worked in small groups and collaborated on taking important facts from Octavia Butler's biography. This will be important for putting together a short summary about Octavia Butler's life for the research paper.

Research Journal Entry #4

In class we discussed Wiki-project novels and its style guide. We learned the different parts of the style guide which makes the page important. We also examined Kindred Wikipedia page and compared it to Wild Seeds Wikipedia page to explore what is missing/or needed to make the page more accurate and complete.We read Orson Carson's article on Wild Seed in "How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy". After reading the article we were assigned to write a summary about what he liked about Octavia Butler's excellent exposition in "Wild Seed".

Research Journal Entry #5

Today we read two articles from research assignment #3. As a class discussion,we pointed out the main ideas and viewpoints from each authors' articles. We also learned how to search for articles in Laguardia Community college library's databases and how to properly cite sources in MLA format.

Research Journal Entry #6

Today we discussed the two articles from research assignment #4.We discussed the main ideas from the article to help with the assignment. We also continued working on research assignment #3 in class.

Research Journal Entry #7

Today we were separated into groups according to the article we were selected to read. Each group presented the main ideas of the article. Also we went over instructions for our research proposal paper and resources.

Research Journal Entry #8

Today in class we were broken up into teams, each team was given certain sections to start working on for the first draft for the article on Wild Seed Wikipedia page. Also instructions for the research paper and how to revise our research proposal was discussed.

Research Journal Entry #9

Today we continued working in our designated groups and continued editing the second draft for the article on Wild Seed. We also went over our research proposals and submitted our working thesis statement online.

Research Journal Entry #10

In class we continued working in our assigned groups. My group revised and edited our plot on Wild Seed. Professor X also helped us get a better understanding of what is require for the first draft of the research paper.

"Orson Scott Card on Butler's craft in Wild Seed"

Card is praising Wild Seed's opening by

• pointing out the viewpoint is constantly changed by bad writers
• rectifies Butler’s use of the woman in the opening sequence of the book Wild Seed
• Butler chose the term “seed village” making it evocative and interesting
• The exposition is clear and powerful
• Butler’s ability to not introduce the character in the beginning of the novel.
• The character is referred to as the woman;the reader later on learns by the change of point that the view we now see what is going on through the eyes of that mysterious character. A good writer will soon determine this character to be Anyanwu

Research Assignment #2

Vampires, Aliens, and Dodos: by Elizabeth A. Lynn

 Main Idea:

• compares and contrast Anyanwu's strengths to Doro's own abilities
• Describes Butler's writing as a historical composition with realism context
• Immortality vs Power

"Immortality, shape-changing, psychic powers, the passing of one mind into many bodies: these are not new ideas to the science fiction canon, and the theme of what it means to be human has fascinated SF writers since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein." this quote fits in the reception section because it states a clear understanding of the novel's position and commented by a professional reviewer.

"Butler's prose is spare and sure, and even in moments of great tension she never loses control over her pacing or over her sense of story." this quote can go in the Style section because it describes Butler's writing style is described by a literary critic.

Wild Seed: by Michael Bishop

 Main Idea:

• Describes Doro and Anyanwu's characters as enduring conflict between duty,desire,conscience,and expediency
• Bishop expresses his love for Butler's writing style, how she manages to keep the realism in an unlikely love story
• praises Butler's writing skills as story teller and psychologist
• responds Cherry Wilder review "Survivor" Bishop objects his criticism

"Indeed, the most remarkable accomplishment of Wild Seed may be that Butler leads us to believe in humanity of two terribly unlikely near-immortals, both Africans, both apparently figures from Igbo mythology." i think this would work well in Reception section because he critiques the characters of the novel.

"The first,Doro, is an ogbanje, an evil spirit who has survived for thirty-seven hundred years by periodically discarding one borrowed human body for another, like a snake littering the landscape with ecdysial shells, each shed skin a corpse.The second, Anyanwu- or,as Doro the Nubian calls her, "Sun Woman"- is a some what less ancient near-immortal, an Onitsha healer who, at will, can become leopard,dolphin,eagle,werewolf, or a younger version of herself." this quote can go in the characters section because it gives a brief description of the characters in Wild Seed.

Octavia Estelle Butler: by Pfeiffer

 Main Idea:

• gender and race
• Doro symbolizes Male dominance in human society
• Doro and Anyanwu seems like their made to be together yet never flourish
• Anayanwu is a powerful black woman, a survivor, is a fighter
• slavery

"Butler said that in Kindred she "couldn't change history-at least not in the kind of book i had chosen to write.so my characters couldn't realistically win much more than their lives. But in Wild Seed, a different sort of book, my characters could be more powerful enough to move somewhat outside the ugliness of antebellum U.S. history even though they live through it." it would fit in the background section because it is Butler's motivation to write Wild Seed.

"Wild Seed is a combination of Butler's brilliant fable and real history." this quote can go in reception section because it is critiqued and reviewed by a critic.

Research Assignment # 5

Alaimo, S. “Skin Dreaming”: The Bodily Transgressions of Fielding Burke, Octavia Butler, and Linda Hogan,”

  Main Idea

• Cyborg
• Eco-feminism
• Social Darwinism
• Survival of the fittest
• Bodily transgressions
• Romance
• Nature
• Animality
• Anyanwu body cannot be read when she transitions into an animal
• Mind and body

" Butler casts off the body as a mere vestment or investment and transforms it into a liminal space that blurs the divisions between humans and animals, subjects and objects, nature and culture." - this quote can go in the reception section because its describes Butler's ability to go beyond the norms of human nature in her book Wild Seed through the characters Anyanwu and Doro.

"Romantic conceptions of nature, on the other hand, invoke nature as a disembodied space, a place in which the individual can mentally or spiritually find respite, a place to feel that " unity with nature"- this quote describes Anyanwu transformation into different animals and how she connected and felt as one with nature. I think this quote will give the reader a better understanding of why she made these transitions from human to animal.

Citation Practice

Octavia Butler was shy as a child.