For this assignment, being split up into groups to analyse a text, near the beginning of the assignment there was a lot of confusion about group organisation, but when we were past that and finally knew our final groups, we were able to unanimously agree on one article we all were interested in and one which structure and topic worked the best for us.

This was a good hopeful start to the work as we all got together and read through the article breaking down the confusing and convoluted writing the author provided. We chose an article that dissected three Studio Ghibli films and their shared techniques and themes.

The article was written by Cheng-Ing Wu, who was a graduate student of Literature and Media Studies at the Department of English at National Dong-Hwa University in Hualien, Taiwan. The article was written by him, developed in parts from his MA thesis. This context to the article comes across clear, with heavy use of important and very well explained and used theories likely to be taught to a student of Media Studies, but also with its flaws and mistakes at times.

One great aspect to the article was how it was split up. Because at this time we were looking at how to split the article into four parts for each team member to focus on in the presentation, it came easily to split it up by the three clear sections on the three movies talked about in the article, and finally, the introduction and conclusion sections of the article. We read through the whole article for full context and researched into the different theories and terms the author spoke of, before splitting up and taking the most useful key information from each of our respective sections, with myself taking the introduction and conclusions sections.

When we read over the article we all agreed there were major flaws in the text, such as:

-an overreliance on recapping the movies, often feeling like useless information.

-confusing word choice and convoluted loaded sentences that take multiple google searches to dissect the meaning of, making the whole reading process unnecessarily reliant on guess-work.

-random points brought up with little to add to the overall argument or analysis, I especially noticed and brought this up in relation to the concluding sentences of the text.

 

Getting into my own personal work and analysis of the article, my process started with, once I had then fully read and took notes on the article with my group, I began highlighting the most important points, quotes, references within my designated part of the article. Below is my research into the article in this regard.

Once I was able to focus on the most key information in my sections, I could then further break it down into a few key bullet points on what my takeaway from what the author was trying to establish in the introduction about the article and what their concluding thoughts were at the end.

Below is my slide in the presentation on the introduction section and my main bullet pointed understanding of the article at this point.

My understanding of the article was easy to come to as I did recognise some ideas and theories referenced in the article like the idea of a typical hero’s journey or the theories around what a viewer wants and gets from a particular text, like, most importantly in regards to this article and the three Ghibli films, giving the viewer escapism from everyday life into fantastical worlds, but then also providing them with a chance to look inward and take something deeper from the film. I agree with the author in this regard and did enjoy and get something out of this article myself, especially having watched a lot of these Ghibli films for the first time recently, it very efficiently laid out ideas about the films which I agreed with, but again I had certain problems and points of criticism about how these points are delivered.

I actively spoke with team members about my main takeaways of the article and what I didn’t enjoy, and I believe we came to similar ideas as well about our separate sections of the article, especially the section Orlaigh took about Ponyo.

Moving on from the introduction, I took charge of the conclusion of the article and then the groups overall conclusions about the article with two more slides in the presentation.

Here is where I laid out more of my critiques on the article. I believe it was important to this assignment to be just as critical as you are analytical about the article and I believe it was taken well when the presentation was delivered in class.

I chose to also closely reference some of the resources we were given close to the end of the deadline, like the previous year’s presentations to gage an idea of length or detail and how text heavy it is, and the bullet points on what to focus on in analysis. So for the conclusion slide, I directly answered the questions posed by the teacher with these bullet points given to us:

On the day of presenting, Rae was sick so I offered to talk over her slide. So in that morning I spoke with my teammates and timed myself on how long it took to deliver each of my slides. I shortened some points or took out unimportant details to cut on time and fit within ten minutes and give my other two presenting peers enough space to talk through their slides and pretty well fitting within the guidelines set.

In conclusion, I believe our team worked effectively to dissect the article and go beyond to look at the text in a critical light and effectively convey these findings in our presentation, all the while communicating frequently to work as an effective group.