Reflection For this project we had to choose a book that was banned somewhere in the world. After that we had a research paper that asked us to write about why our book was banned and more. I chose to read Cujo by Stephen King and I got to learn that it got banned because of the violence, profanity and the sexual content. We then had about four weeks to finish our books. Every Friday we had a blog that we had to write that asked a few questions about our book. After we finished our books we had to make a bookmark that showed what our book was and what we felt about the censorship. Finally we had a potluck where we had to bring a food that connected with our book somehow.
This project wasn’t that challenging for me. I used to read a lot when I was younger and now I am remembering why. It so entertaining to get intertwined in a book and then never wanting to stop reading. But, one thing that I spent more time on was my bookmark. I had trouble figuring out a design and then when I finally chose one it was hard getting it how I wanted it to look. I knew I wanted there to be some sort of imagery that connected to a dog and then blood because my book is about a dog that kills people. So I went through many different designs until I chose to have four paws with blood coming down the top.
The easiest part of this project for me was the weekly journal prompts. Even though most of the weeks we the deadline was pushed off to another day I would always get them done on the first set date. Same thing with the comments, we had to get comment on two other peoples post and I would always get them done on time. I really enjoyed these because they helped me stay on track with my book and because I liked writing about what I read and what I thought about it.
I did get some critique for my bookmark, I believe that I got pretty good feedback from my peers. The only problem was that I got critique on my first design. I later on decided to choose something that I enjoyed a little bit better. So when I was working on my second design I still got critique and I got some pointers from my peers which was very helpful.
I believe that I gave some pretty good feedback to my peers on the journal postings. I definitely feel that I could've been a little more specific on certain ones but in the end I feel I did pretty good. I really enjoyed reading how others were doing with there book and what there thought on their books were. I think the average length of our responses were perfect size for people to explain their thoughts and still getting to the point without going on and on.
I did actually read the book that I chose. I had been meaning to read a book by Stephen King for a while so I was very eager to start reading Cujo and finishing it. At the end I did start getting a little lazy and loosing my pace but I then caught up. I would definitely recommend this book to one of my friends. It’s a very interesting and unique book, I have never heard or read a book similar to this one.
I am pretty proud with my bookmark. I really enjoy how it turned out in the end, especially because we didn't have much time to work on it after we finished our books. If we had more time I feel that I would have done a more detailed bookmark, or I would at least have tried to add more detail. I would take time to practice drawing dogs so I maybe would have put a dog on it surrounded by blood.
I got to speak to some parents and some freshmen about my bookmark and the project. When I spoke to one particular parent I gave them a quick summary about my book. I explained that it's about a dog that gets rabies and goes crazy and starts killing people. I then shared why it was banned and some examples of places where it was banned. After that I explained my thoughts on the censorship of the book and how I think that it shouldn't be banned in high schools because high schoolers should be mature enough to read the content inside. I believe that I should get an A for this project. I think that I was really good at trying my best with all the journal prompts and especially with deadlines. I took as much time as I had to try to get my bookmark as praiseworthy as I could. If I could change something about this projects it would definitely be how long we had to read. If we added maybe one or two more weeks I think it would've been better and we would have gotten to do a few more journal prompts.