Preview: The Elephant Man Cometh

This week's post is very different, since the object is to blog about my participation/contribution to the upcoming presentation. The first item that I would like to address is the group itself. Each member of our group brought an attitude of responsibility, cooperation, and enthusiasm to each meeting. We met during class time, but we also met an hour before class for three weeks. One thing was obvious throughout each meeting: this group understood how to work effectively. There were no egos, and every time we met, we brainstormed easily and consistently. In addition, we all did our homework. Each of us worked to secure the movie, so that we could watch it. Larry even bought the play,read it, referenced it during our meetings to help us understand the nuances of difference, and brought it to our Friday night meeting in case there was any way that it could be used. We had arranged to meet the week before, but I needed to cancel, due to an obligation at work that came up unexpectedly.
We met on Friday night before the presentation, and I opened up my home for the occasion. I also brought different videos, as did Tiffany, although I felt very confident about the video that I had previously mentioned to the group. I would rather not mention the video title, since I think the element of surprise will make our presentation more effective.
We all brainstormed, bouncing ideas off each other, inspiring each other. The finished product is a collaborative effort. I know that I am supposed to defend my participation, but I don't feel comfortable singling myself out, since our strength came from the cooperative environment. Many ideas were presented, and many fell by the wayside, but everyone just accepted what was good for the final product.
Early in our meetings, I offered to look up New Historicism, and I ran copies for each of us. However, the readings that we did, as well as our prior knowledge of theory, helped us to decide the direction. I will say that Dylan was our resident theory expert, but we all read in order to try to contribute.
When we watched the videos at my home: we re-watched key scenes that we had all decided were most appropriate for our purposes, compared the videos for continuity, and set up our last meeting. Of course, I don't know how well the presentation will be received, but we left feeling good about the ideas we approved. We decided that we wanted to go back to simplicity and purity of content. We feel that the videos are strong, and the way that we are presenting them seems as though it adds to comprehension and retention of the material.