HW 56 - Culminating Project Comments

To Casey:

You definitely spent a lot of time on research and included a lot of interesting information in your work. You wrote about the history of coffins/caskets and explained how they changed over time. 
I love your idea of making your own little model of a casket. You managed to build it despite many problems you encountered. 
It would be great if all caskets were biodegradable like yours - they would be much better for our environment.

http://normalisweirdbycaseys.blogspot.com/2011/05/hw-55-culminating-project-care-of-dead.html?showComment=1305682666081#c8641224164777390356

To John:

I really enjoyed and agree with your theory about people comforting each other. I would never have thought of that but it makes complete sense and now seems even obvious.

I admire your courage to go to a funeral, especially of someone you didn’t know. I have been to one funeral ceremony. It wasn’t an easy experience and I hope I won’t have to attend another one for a while.
I wish you had written a bit more about your experience at the funeral. I was very curious to find out what people asked you when you were there.

http://weirdisweirdtoo.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/witnessing-a-strangers-funeral/

To Kevin:

You summarized the process of embalming and presented an overview of the industry around it. Your work is very clear and to the point in a way which keeps the reader interested.
Its great that you actually decided to write a paper (against your own will) after your original plan didn't work out. I think you did a good job with your research, bearing in mind this was a last minute idea.
What shocked me most was that some people consider embalming an art. In my opinion, thats taking it all a bit too far. But still, people can have many different views...

http://normalisweirdkevinw.blogspot.com/2011/05/homework-55-cumulative-project-part-2.html

~o~o~o~o ~o~o~o~o ~o~o~o~o ~o~o~o~o ~o~o~o~o ~o~o~o~o ~o~o~o~o


From Eloise:


I think in your prokect you tried to summarize the 7 stages of greif and how they usually happen for most people and how it effects their daily life and the importance of such feelings. You then represented this with a visual.

I thought that your visual was very powerful and the colors you choose and how you faded them made me really feel a surge of emotions that for me were warm positive STRONG overwhelming feelings. I really value how connected I felt to your artwork. I also really value that you have concluded that death ironically, is important for us living to live through.

My only advice that I could give you is that your stages of greif seem kind of narrow and try and place evryone in a certain order and I think that emotions like this are hard to make a specific "lay out for" When you said you put them in your own order, i think this would have been more powerful (if you have greived a death) to discuss your own stages.

I did think this was nice though because we did not really discuss emotional connections that much and this is definatley an automatic ritual.

GREAT JOB MARTYNA, I loved your art work and the flow of ideas you represented your thoughts well. BE PROUD !


From Bianca:


You present to us the seven stages of grief. You make it clear that these stages are important if a person if to move on from mourning and perhaps let go of their emotional turmoil. I'm glad that you chose to do your project on thr stages if grief because in this unit we didn't focus much on it. I've never grieved yet. Reading your post makes me realize that it's easy to put the steps and guidelines to follow in order to control our hurt and guilt but, it's probably much harder to follow through on these steps easily. Yout visual is truly beautiful. It really contrasts with the idea of death because usually we associate death with dark colors, not so much warm colors. One thing you should've done was cite your sources that listed the different steps. It would've been interesting to read more in depth. Also, instead of just writing out the steps, try to analyze them more. Nonetheless, great work!


From Kevin:


I thought your project is maybe the most interesting in the grade.

You took something that we haven't even discussed in class. I think that the steps you made are understandable and logical.

What this project is lacking is analysis. You could have analyzed each step and given examples for everything.
The illustration that you included also adds to the project because it interests the reader. I know it interested me.
I'd say overall this is a very interesting, well written project. It included concise explanations and was easy to read. Good work.


From Amber:


I was interested in reading about the different stages that one experiences when they lose their loved one. Everyone approaches death differently and they may approach these steps differently as well. I feel like it depends on the person and how close they were to their loved one. The closer they were, the longer it will take for them to finally accept the death of their loved one. I didn’t know that there were so many steps involved within grieving for a loss. When I think about people who recently lost their loved one, I think of them crying for a couple of days then going back to their normal routine. After reading this, I was able to figure out that this is not the case. The grieving period is much more longer than I thought it would be. Now I realize that one cannot go straight to accepting the death of their loved one. They had probably spent a great amount of time with them; they shouldn’t be expected to move on with their lives right after a great loss. I think it would have been nice if you had added your own thoughts or personal experiences to the seven stages of grief. Otherwise good job.



From John:


You analyze death in a perspective previously not explored in the unit - that in it of itself shows creativity and determination (not to mention the art to go along with it). Your project topic is very interesting; going through each step for me was very visual, bringing to mind memories and feelings of death and how I coped with my own grief. What I would have liked to see more is your own opinion on the step by step process, rather than giving a summary of your research. I know that I for one, agree with several of the steps but not others (now that of course is my own experience with grief). I also think that it’s not necessarily steps like baking a cake or a caterpillar turning into a cocoon, but a mix of many at once with a dominant feeling or perspective, and how you deal with that feeling (which you may not) the minor feeling develops into the next dominating feeling. But that’s just my opinion, you have done more research than me on this topic. I am now more inspired to research this myself. The post was revealing and even helpful in my own personal life.


From my Mom:

I think that the subject you chose for your final project is a good conclusion of the topic of  “Care of the dead”. Everybody has or will have to deal with the death of their loved ones sooner or later. This helps to understand how the mourning process must go. It is also very helpful if someone knows that he or she has a right to be angry and sad, and that this is a normal process. I remember that, before she died, my grandmother told everybody not to cry at her funeral. This was, of course, impossible and, along with sorrow, we felt guilty that we were not fulfilling her last wish. If she had known that sadness is natural maybe she would never have asked us for the impossible. I like your visualization although I think that the stages should be put in a kind of graphical order, not only numbered. I am glad that the subject of death is finished and I hope to discuss and comment]on more pleasant topics in the future.