What was the hardest part of the task?
• The hardest part of the task was keeping to the time and making sure that I didn’t ramble as at some points
• keeping on track onto the topic
• saying “um” or “uh” all the time and making sure not to end in an awkward way like “so… yeah”
• even while writing my interpretation of the two pieces i found it hard to explain the complexity of emotions that Sappho has felt. In single lines of the poem there is so much emotion packed in that it is not only difficult to unpack but it difficult to express it in words and do so in a short period of time. Since the IO was limited to 8-10 minutes.
• it was also the first time i have compared texts or different genres
What do you feel was the most successful part of your effort?
• while I was talking about the topic (the last point, my conclusion) I realized that I never made the connection between the deaths of all three characters – echo, Sappho and bruce who eventually killed themselves for the same reason – unrequited love a point which I never wrote in my outline but mentioned in my recording.
In what ways was your outline incomplete? What did it leave you to keep track of in your head?
• At first, it was too text-heavy and I placed all my notes in the same area so that it read like a fragmented essay – so that made sense to me
• However, when I had to take the text out of the outline, it became to skeletal and there was very little for me to base my talking off of, I had to base a majority of what I said on what I remembered.
What did you “leave out” that you wanted to say (or wish you’d said)?
• I could have connected Sappho and fun home more and in a better way
• the second point that I had of having multiple identities – which I tried to show through the first sentence of the poem wasn’t explained well enough and I left it very dry so there wasn’t any in-depth explanation of why I chose that line and what it represented.
• I also didn’t explain the idea of jealousy that was in the poem which was actually a case which happened to Sappho in real life – if had I had more time I could have done so by quoting other poems by Sappho which expressed her jealousy towards men who stole the women of her affection away from her.
