"We've had this date with each other from the beginning!"

This evening my group did our presentation/discussion to the class on A Streetcar Named Desire.  I absolutely love this play and film.  I do not, however, love that we had to present during the fourth week of class.  All in all, however, I think we did a pretty good job as long as we neglect our inability to stay within the suggested time frame of 30 minutes.  Our group knew this was not enough time to cover all the topics we wanted.  In fact, we even had to throw a few topics out to allow more time and in-depth analysis for the topics we did cover.  

Since we did not have much time and starling different schedules, we did most of our correspondence and planning via e-mail.  I took a firm role in organizing and would like to think that I played a role in leadership, as well.  I made sure that we stayed in constant contact over the past week on our assignment.  I ensured that the topics we thought were most important were covered by someone and that everyone was pulling their weight.  We all maintained a good sense of teamwork while also doing work individually. Luckily for us, all of our themes and ideas intermingled in some way so we were able to act as a support system.  For the actual presentation, I helped pick out two clips that we would use.  I also organized the structure of the presentation, timing, order, ect, prep work, if you will.  

One of the requirements of the assignment was to create a class activity.  I wanted to make sure there was a little something extra, besides our discussion, to add to our presentation and the class's participation.  Although a bit immature and certainly lacking scholarly appeal, I thought the "Who would you rather do" game would be a great tie in of pop culture, the play, and the real personality battle of Stanley vs. Mitch, which is a major and thought provoking theme.  It seemed to be a great way of illustrating the theme among the students as to what sort of personality they prefer in a partner and really give a sense as to why this brute of a leading man works so well.  We were only so lucky as to get the opportunity to be able to "act out" a scene in the play.  I think it was utterly essential in the remembrance of the reenactment that Blanche be played by a boy.  Perhaps the gender-neutrality was not quite represented as I would have liked, nor did it add depth to the character of Blanche, also as I would have liked to be illustrated, but nevertheless it was certainly entertaining. 

I am thrilled that I was able to be a part of the A Streetcar Named Desire group and presenting was an immense amount of fun!  At the same time, I am thrilled I do not have to prepare for it any longer!