This was done much more recently during the summer semester of 2021. This piece deals with two films and puts them in close proximity in order to argue that public housing is necessary, and to dispel the myth that public housing fails because of its inhabitants. For this piece I was asked to close read various scenes to find compelling evidence for my argument. I was dealing with theories and terms that were alien to me, looking up the definitions and real-world applications of Neoliberalism, trying to figure out the implications of unchecked capitalism on the public sector, and ultimately applying what I learned to these two movies.

This was definitely not some of my best work, but learning from my mistakes is also a lesson I was taught here at TAMUCC. You can see the immense amount of highlighting in this piece, and each of these highlighted sections was accompanied by comments by Dr. Zeman teaching me why they were problematic and how to fix them. If it weren't for comments like those, and essays like this one, I would have continued to write deeply flawed pieces without learning how to improve them. In this piece I was attempting to display Chaucer's critique of the British aristocracy by using The Knight's Tale, exploring Chaucer's use of English, the Epic genre, and the difference in language used to describe the various characters. For this piece, I did extensive research into the language used and the different meanings those words could have harbored throughout history. Additionally, I spent a lot of time researching Chaucer's life and the culture of fifteenth century England to understand all the implications of Chaucer's use of English (as opposed to Latin or Italian), and the various allusions made to further his critique of the aristocracy.

This piece was written during my second semester at TAMUCC. I was so excited to be taking a course that focused on the horror genre, both in literature and film, and when I realized one of my personal favorites was on the syllabus, I jumped at the opportunity to use it in a major writing assignment. This assignment required me to not only address the cultural context at the time of publishing, but also to decipher the author's intent for certain filmic strategies used in Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. I used my knowledge of Hollywood's seedy past, as well as my enthusiasm for 70's exploitation films, to bring forward some of the hidden meanings behind Tarantino's filmic choices. This assignment really drove home the importance of author intent, cultural context, and close reading, since there were so many things I had missed even after watching this movie so many times before taking this class.