John,
I liked your idea of going to a funeral and observing the process of mourning and consoling. I would have liked to read more than just an analysis of how people usually console those who are grieving. If you were unable to stay for more time than it took to see someone say “I’m sorry for your loss”, then what was the cause? Were you kicked out? Did someone give you a look that made you nervous? Was there food? Did you get bored? I think you could analyze these unsaid experiences as well. You said in your speech that people asked you weird questions, but it looks like no one spoke to you at all.
http://weirdisweirdtoo.wordpress.com/
Bianca,
I thought this project visually touched upon a very important idea: the funeral industry sells objects that are rather falsely advertised as givers of closure and a memory picture. I thought your art was beautiful albeit appropriately morbid, and I liked that the man standing in the picture was headless. I felt that this was an indication of the lack of original, genuine humanity and emotion in the funeral industry. I also enjoyed that you used rope to enclose the various ideas attached to the products, because it made me think of funeral businesses attempting to lasso the circumstances and emotional state of their customers to gain a profit.
http://eccentricbianca.blogspot.com/
Chris,
I'm sorry that your project did not go very well. It was good of you to admit that it could have been more successful, and I enjoyed your detailed narrative of the various interactions at the funeral home. However, you could have analyzed the experiences you did have a bit more. For example, what do the magazine options in the home reveal about their expecations of who they will be serving? How did the behavior of the employees there compare to your expectations and what did the dialoge reveal about their goals in their daily work? The fact that the funeral director would not let you in to view the wake because it was an invasion of privacy was interesting to me; it was a unique idea that I had not before considered, yet it reveals that he was most concerned with the grieving family under his care.
http://normalisweirdchrisr.blogspot.com/
Eloise,
I think this is a great idea! How brave of you to look at something that is a source of fear and has a negative connotation for most people and to literally and figuratively look it straight in the face. I appreciate your tenacity in the pursuit of this endeavor, and I wish there was some way for me to help you. It seems odd that a dead body could be so taboo and difficult to see in our society...especially for educational purposes. C'est la vie!
http://ellof.blogspot.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Bianca:
Casey,
I really appreciate the amount of effort you put into your project. I admire your ability to think of excellent goals and execute them well. I think that it is incredibly daring of you to have made a mini casket. If I were you, I probably would've been terrified in fear that I'd have to do the same for my family members one day. Your research exhibits your extreme dedication to making care of the dead as much of a personal experience as possible. I realize that you may be correct when you say that using a homemade coffin is much more rewarding because the hard work pays off. And certainly, the effort put into making the casket was mixed with feelings of love and loss. This experience of making a casket should be a part of grieving now that I've read your process.
Your writing, although a narrative, seemed very formal. When i say formal, I mean to say that I just found you describing what you did - the steps. I know your very capable of writing beautifully and I wish you had prioritized that more in this piece of writing. Also, you could have talked about what your family members thought about your making of the casket. I wanted to know more - ie why do you think your sister wouldn't take you seriously if you told her you were making a casket for her fish?
Your work was engaging. I've even asked my parents what they think of maybe making their cofifins and caskets one day. Your work is always a pleasure to read.
From Protege:
Casey,
I rather liked this post. I imagine beyond the morbidity of the project, there was quite an educational factor involved in the fabrication of your little balsa wood casket. (I will forever find it amusing that rather than using a sort of x-acto nice, you preferred to make use of a meat cleaver. What I would give to see precision wood cutting...with a meat cleaver.) You have clearly put a lot of effort into this particular unit, and it shows through in this assignment; it really does. There's alot of eloquently noted information here, which is commendable; often it's difficult to synthesize such vast quantities of data into comprehensible english
From Mentor:
Casey,
I love all the information here! I didn't even know the difference between a coffin and a casket. Fantastic.
One nit-picky point on the citation. Your methodology may prescribe a different method, but I would have really liked a small note of citation next to each piece of information. So, basically, a parenthetical, "(History of Caskets, page 54)". That way, readers would understand that this is cited material, and they can go to your Sources section at the end to look further into the publication or site you drew from.
As it stands, I wondered if there would be any sources mentioned until I skipped all the way to the end and saw your sources.
Of course, I'm saying this for an academic paper, but I think a lot of web sites that are trying to have journalistic rigor will also site immediately in the body of the article (and sometimes make it a hyperlink to the source itself, which I love).
From Martyna:
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.
From Jasper:
I liked this post because you had very good research and you gave a detailed timeline of how the coffin/casket has changed over time and why it did. Then I also like how you talked about why making your own coffin/casket is good. By talking about your experience making your own (even though yours was a mini one) it showed kind of like what the experience of making your own casket would be like. Creative idea!
From John:
Casey,
You clearly and concisely presented a timeline that was easy to read and follow. It quickly answered specific questions about coffins I wanted answered that would have taken me tedious research to find. I liked how you mentioned that piece about “General Ulesses S. Grant was buried in a metal casket with a full plate glass top”, with it I was able to come to my own assumptions of the significance, mainly connecting to Lincoln’s embalming which popularized the practice in America. I think you did a superb job, and rather say what needs work, I recommend furthering your project (if you are interested) by analyzing why each event happened and its impact (assuming you didn’t already see this in your research). Great job, I enjoyed reading the post,
john
I liked your idea of going to a funeral and observing the process of mourning and consoling. I would have liked to read more than just an analysis of how people usually console those who are grieving. If you were unable to stay for more time than it took to see someone say “I’m sorry for your loss”, then what was the cause? Were you kicked out? Did someone give you a look that made you nervous? Was there food? Did you get bored? I think you could analyze these unsaid experiences as well. You said in your speech that people asked you weird questions, but it looks like no one spoke to you at all.
http://weirdisweirdtoo.wordpress.com/
Bianca,
I thought this project visually touched upon a very important idea: the funeral industry sells objects that are rather falsely advertised as givers of closure and a memory picture. I thought your art was beautiful albeit appropriately morbid, and I liked that the man standing in the picture was headless. I felt that this was an indication of the lack of original, genuine humanity and emotion in the funeral industry. I also enjoyed that you used rope to enclose the various ideas attached to the products, because it made me think of funeral businesses attempting to lasso the circumstances and emotional state of their customers to gain a profit.
http://eccentricbianca.blogspot.com/
Chris,
I'm sorry that your project did not go very well. It was good of you to admit that it could have been more successful, and I enjoyed your detailed narrative of the various interactions at the funeral home. However, you could have analyzed the experiences you did have a bit more. For example, what do the magazine options in the home reveal about their expecations of who they will be serving? How did the behavior of the employees there compare to your expectations and what did the dialoge reveal about their goals in their daily work? The fact that the funeral director would not let you in to view the wake because it was an invasion of privacy was interesting to me; it was a unique idea that I had not before considered, yet it reveals that he was most concerned with the grieving family under his care.
http://normalisweirdchrisr.blogspot.com/
Eloise,
I think this is a great idea! How brave of you to look at something that is a source of fear and has a negative connotation for most people and to literally and figuratively look it straight in the face. I appreciate your tenacity in the pursuit of this endeavor, and I wish there was some way for me to help you. It seems odd that a dead body could be so taboo and difficult to see in our society...especially for educational purposes. C'est la vie!
http://ellof.blogspot.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Bianca:
Casey,
I really appreciate the amount of effort you put into your project. I admire your ability to think of excellent goals and execute them well. I think that it is incredibly daring of you to have made a mini casket. If I were you, I probably would've been terrified in fear that I'd have to do the same for my family members one day. Your research exhibits your extreme dedication to making care of the dead as much of a personal experience as possible. I realize that you may be correct when you say that using a homemade coffin is much more rewarding because the hard work pays off. And certainly, the effort put into making the casket was mixed with feelings of love and loss. This experience of making a casket should be a part of grieving now that I've read your process.
Your writing, although a narrative, seemed very formal. When i say formal, I mean to say that I just found you describing what you did - the steps. I know your very capable of writing beautifully and I wish you had prioritized that more in this piece of writing. Also, you could have talked about what your family members thought about your making of the casket. I wanted to know more - ie why do you think your sister wouldn't take you seriously if you told her you were making a casket for her fish?
Your work was engaging. I've even asked my parents what they think of maybe making their cofifins and caskets one day. Your work is always a pleasure to read.
From Protege:
Casey,
I rather liked this post. I imagine beyond the morbidity of the project, there was quite an educational factor involved in the fabrication of your little balsa wood casket. (I will forever find it amusing that rather than using a sort of x-acto nice, you preferred to make use of a meat cleaver. What I would give to see precision wood cutting...with a meat cleaver.) You have clearly put a lot of effort into this particular unit, and it shows through in this assignment; it really does. There's alot of eloquently noted information here, which is commendable; often it's difficult to synthesize such vast quantities of data into comprehensible english
From Mentor:
Casey,
I love all the information here! I didn't even know the difference between a coffin and a casket. Fantastic.
One nit-picky point on the citation. Your methodology may prescribe a different method, but I would have really liked a small note of citation next to each piece of information. So, basically, a parenthetical, "(History of Caskets, page 54)". That way, readers would understand that this is cited material, and they can go to your Sources section at the end to look further into the publication or site you drew from.
As it stands, I wondered if there would be any sources mentioned until I skipped all the way to the end and saw your sources.
Of course, I'm saying this for an academic paper, but I think a lot of web sites that are trying to have journalistic rigor will also site immediately in the body of the article (and sometimes make it a hyperlink to the source itself, which I love).
From Martyna:
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.
From Jasper:
I liked this post because you had very good research and you gave a detailed timeline of how the coffin/casket has changed over time and why it did. Then I also like how you talked about why making your own coffin/casket is good. By talking about your experience making your own (even though yours was a mini one) it showed kind of like what the experience of making your own casket would be like. Creative idea!
From John:
Casey,
You clearly and concisely presented a timeline that was easy to read and follow. It quickly answered specific questions about coffins I wanted answered that would have taken me tedious research to find. I liked how you mentioned that piece about “General Ulesses S. Grant was buried in a metal casket with a full plate glass top”, with it I was able to come to my own assumptions of the significance, mainly connecting to Lincoln’s embalming which popularized the practice in America. I think you did a superb job, and rather say what needs work, I recommend furthering your project (if you are interested) by analyzing why each event happened and its impact (assuming you didn’t already see this in your research). Great job, I enjoyed reading the post,
john