A Tale about Winter and a Paper

  My paper began with a question: Beginnings of Social Process "Do you think tragedy or comedy is more true to life?"  I'd been musing on The Winter's Tale and thought the question I just asked would be intriguing enough to people (ward members, friends, family) who weren't familiar with it to get them involved in my paper. Social Discovery I'd done some Background Research through the subject guides, which involved the mixing of Stanley Wells' academic world and his charming twitter page, and I'd gone back to the text Refer to the Text, but was still confused about how I could combine my thoughts on tragedy v. comedy in a romance AND the supernatural elements of the play, which is what I'd talked to Dr. Burton about.  Both seemed interesting, but I couldn't see the connection, except that there are supernatural elements in romances.  I was directionless.  And I couldn't seem to find an answer to the question of Hermione's coming to life from being a statue. So in the spirit of more, smaller posts, I vented. Encouragement from Classmates in Comments

    Next came a graph, to figure out my thesis and see how all these good ideas connected. Brain-storming In the process of researching and social proofing, I discovered a blog about Shakespeare set up by an eleventh grade teacher in Canada. Social Proof and Learning I commented on the blog, telling them that what I thought they were doing was awesome, and the teacher and I started corresponding by e-mail after he checked out our blog.  My First Annotated Bibliography helped me figure out different social resources. The Tweethis Thesis let me put into thoughts my ideas about ekphrasis, romance, and supernatural elements, but still felt like it was missing that punch, that "so what."
   While doing more Social Proof on goodreads, I found Martin, who had participated in a long book group discussion on The Winter's Tale.  I asked him about my thesis, and he gave some good advice about ekphrastic elements.  I helped out Mikaela, Paul, and David, reading their papers and commenting, or bouncing ideas off of them in class.  Mikaela pointed out that the idea of unreal elements making something real, or real elements making something unreal, are a big part of her theater study, that you can only create magic on stage with real things, like lighting, sound, etc. The real break-through was Going Back to the Text because I figured out the oracle was a metaphor for romances, for The Winter's Tale, and for their rejection by critics, which helped me base my paper in the text and made it connected.
   Paul mentioned being more connected in my First Rough Draft, and with the Second Annotated Bibliography Assignment, I discovered an ebook (at Dr. Burton's encouragement) by Patricia Tatspaugh all about different performances of The Winter's Tale, which gave me some basis for its reception and background into the history of its performance.  I posted my Thesis Progress to get feedback, and I looked for Potential Venues for Papers, including Blog Venues.  Then, I posted My Final Draft, using this idea of the oracle as a metaphor for romances, but introducing romances first at Mikaela's suggestion.  I Submitted My Paper to the Scholar's Archive and Criterion, the BYU literary criticism magazine. And it was done!