Emma Merritt-Cuneo

My digital portfolio for English 104.06
~ Saturday, December 11 ~
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Welcome

This is my portfolio for my work in English 104.06. At the top there are links to my essays that I wrote for this class. The posts below correspond to each essay to help illustrate the points being made to support my conclusions.

I feel that this portfolio shows my progress as an analytical thinker. We started out the semester looking at The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, then Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors By Susan Sontag, and we finished up with Blindness by Jose Saramago. Along with these works we watched films that were related to a work (like Philadelphia was to Susan Sontag) or the film adaption of the novel (like Blindness). Before this class I never had to connect books and film other. The only experience I had in this analysis was which one did I think was better. I feel that through each work of literature that we read and films that we watch my skills as a analytical thinker and my abilities to make connections became stronger. I hope that in each section of this blog it shows more layers in analysis.

In this class we used the ipad. I found that the ipad in terms of school work is not as productive as it should be. It seems like the ideal small computer to take to class, but it is not. I found it hard to do type, edit papers, and use the touch screen to click on small icons.


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Rebecca Skloot interview with the Smithsonian

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  • Deborah: And who was my mother? What happened to her?
  • Day: Her name was Henrietta Lacks, and she died when you was too young to remember.

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“ What do you mean, ‘everybody else?! What supplier? Who’s got cells from my mother-in-law?
— Bobbette Lacks

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Rebecca Skloot on NPR's "Fresh Air"

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In the cell lab

  • Christoph: This is where we keep all the cells. Don't worry it's not dangerous, it's just cold.
  • Deborah: It's all full of her cells. Oh God! I can't believe all that's my mother.
  • Christoph: There are millions and millions of her cells in there, maybe billions. You can keep them here forever. Fifty years, a hundred years, even more - then you just thaw them out and they grow. We have an extra room just for the cells, That's important. Because if you contaminate them with anything, you can't really use them anymore. And you don't want HeLa cells to contaminate other cultures in a lab.
  • Deborah: That's what happened over in Russia,right?
  • Christoph: Yes, Exactly. It's great you know about that.
  • Deborah: My mother was just getting back at scientists for keepin all them secrets from the family, you don't mess with Henrietta - she'll sic HeLa on your ass! (holding a vial of HeLa) You're famous, just nobody knows it.

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“ Everybody always yellin, “Racism! Racism! That white man stole that black woman’s cells! That white man killed that black woman!’ That’s crazy talk, we all black and white and everything else - this isn’t a race thing. There’s two sides to the story, and that’s what we want to bring out.
— Deborah Lacks

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Movie?

Click here to read a little bit about the new HBO film