Kendall Henderson

By -
I'm Kendall and I'm a senior English major from Greenville. I don't really like to talk about myself but I like to make lists so here are the things I am mainly into: music, movies, tv, books, art, plants, astrology, the beauty and fashion industries, learning, writing, reading.  I like to read novels, nonfiction books, personal essays, poetry, the news, film and tv reviews, interviews, graphic novels, and magazines. I don't particularly like the classics. I can appreciate why we study them but feel no personal connection to them or inspiration from them. I like to learn about new ideas or techniques or concepts that are emerging in the world but I know at the same time you need an appreciation of history to fully understand them, so I try to get some of that understanding from my English classes. I honestly care more about my creative writing minor, though. My favorite author is Curtis Sittenfeld and my favorite book is Prep (which she wrote). I also love her book The Man of My Dreams. Most of my favorite books are about unlikable women and women who feel lost/ostracized/self-conscious/curious about the world. I love Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky and The Circle by Dave Eggers. I also really love young adult fiction in general. Maybe because I still feel like a teenager or because I think the feelings of teenagers/adolescents continue well on into adulthood and are just better masked and adolescent emotions are somehow purer because they haven't been skewed by the weird falseness expected of you as an adult. However, I mostly hate young adult fiction with premises like "Jane lived a humdrum life until suddenly hot, mysterious John moved in across the street and made eye contact with her..." I would really rather read about anything else than the melodrama of suburban teenage heterosexual dating. Hopefully in the future I will write anything but that.

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 25, 2016 at 10:47 PM

    I agree with you about melodramatic books. I would like to read any books you write in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownAugust 26, 2016 at 7:31 AM

    I think you make a great point about appreciating "the Classics" but not really feeling a connection to them. I believe that might be why so many young people stop reading or lose their love for reading in Middle and High school. We hand them a 200 year old book and say, "Here. Read this. It's the best thing ever written." But there's no connection for them. One of my goals for this class is to learn about new titles (from the class and everyone's great suggestions) that I can offer in my classroom.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownAugust 26, 2016 at 7:31 AM

    I think you make a great point about appreciating "the Classics" but not really feeling a connection to them. I believe that might be why so many young people stop reading or lose their love for reading in Middle and High school. We hand them a 200 year old book and say, "Here. Read this. It's the best thing ever written." But there's no connection for them. One of my goals for this class is to learn about new titles (from the class and everyone's great suggestions) that I can offer in my classroom.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownAugust 26, 2016 at 8:31 AM

    I also have a hard time connecting with the classics but I usually find that it can be done. It just takes time. Sometimes more than we can afford.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Postmodernism in Curious Incident

By -
Before I start writing, I first want to acknowledge that I just really loved this book! It seemed like a lot of the class had trouble enjoying or appreciating the novel because it's so different stylistically, which is understandable, but all of those unique elements helped make the novel more authentic. The main topic I want to focus on (also what I'm writing my paper on) is how a lot of postmodernist elements were used in the novel to make Christopher come to life. While obviously not every postmodern novel is about an autistic kid, I think Haddon really used a lot of these elements to his advantage and they ended up working out really well to characterize Christopher. One of the major postmodern elements which helps this book really craft an authentic portrayal of autism is the fact that it's metafictive. Basically, this means it's a "story within a story." Readers would be extremely limited just reading the parts of the novel which are meant to be C
Read more