Mid Term Assessment.

For my English 1101 midterm we did something unusual but at the same time interesting.  Class was canceled that day and we had to meet up with our group members to complete the assignment.  We all met up in the Atkins building, on the 2nd floor near the couches and sofas.  At first I was not sure if my team members were going to be there.  I thought that I was the first one to arrive but one of them had beaten me to the destination.  I was relieved to know that some one else was there and not just me by myself.  Soon afterwards our missing group members arrived.  We all sat down and tried to figure out what we were suppose to do.  For the most part I was lost.  But we eventually solved the enigma.  We had to find a mentors text and document how we found it and than do what I'm doing right now (blogging).  As already stated, our journey began on the second floor of the Atkins building.  Our first strategy, well we didn't really have one but.... we just went to the closest book shelf and started picking random books.  We soon realized that, that was not good and we were not going anywhere.  So we than tried to get on one of the computers and find the Atkins catalogue (database where all the books are stored I think).  Then we tried to search for "mentors text", and what ever came up first was our next object on the "search and retrieve list".   This lead us all the way to the 6th floor ( I think).  Once we got to the level we started searching for the book.  One of our group member forgot to write down the whole id number, so we were wandering around aimlessly again.  Eventually we found the book and saw that it was not what we were looking for.  Than we repeated the process of finding mentors text.  Except this time we searched popular mentor texts on google and saw one named "Owl Moon".  We than searched for it in theAtkins catalogue.  We got recorded all the values and the location of the book and started once again to find the mentor text.  I t was located on the 5th floor.  Finally we found it and got together to discuss what to do next.  Some of the group members took pictures of the book.  we than started to skim through the book and it was similar to a children's book.  I quoted one thing that caught my attention. "When you go owling you don’t need words or warm or anything but hope".  I chose this quote because I thought that it was unique and I never heard it before.  That was our journey to finding the mystery book and the midterm.

After looking back on this experience.  I thought that it was interesting and different.  It was a nice turn over from doing the usual "write a paper" type of work.  From the very beginning of the assignment it felt as we were on a quest or journey.  I'd compare it to an adventurer seeking something relatively hard to find (since we'er searching for a book in a place with millions of other books).  All in all this assignment was a highlight in the course.