As the Anthology Project comes to a close, I find myself appreciating the aspects of the project more and more. The project, while overwhelming at times, proved very interesting in many ways. From searching databases to find documents to visiting the South Carolina Historical Society, this project was enjoyable in the material we were focusing on. It was a great way to learn a large amount of information in rather short amount of time. The work load of this project as a whole was at times intense, but I feel was well worth it considering the information we obtained. I enjoyed looking through the resources at the library and the SCHS, in search for my two documents.
While I enjoyed the archival research, however, I believe the project could have been organized better, including on my own behalf. I found there was an extensive amount of time allotted to finding the document, and maybe not enough time provided for organizing, transcribing, etc. The extensiveness of the project is great and allowing for more time (or delegating the time better for each section) for each section of the project would have been beneficial. However, the first half of the semester, which we dedicated to studying colonial history, was very beneficial in researching, understanding, classifying (etc.) our archival research for the project. Had we not studied what we did in the first semester, the beginnings of the project would have been much more difficult.
I enjoyed the Anthology project because it not only allowed for a more interesting and thought provoking form of research, but allowed students to research what was interesting to us. More often than not in English classes we are forced to research something that is…less than exciting, but with this project I was glad to have the opportunity to research on my own interests and discover new interests. I chose to research medical issues and diseases in Colonial South Carolina because I was interested to see how dominant certain diseases were over others, what the symptoms were of these diseases, and common cures or remedies for the illnesses. I found it very interesting to learn how many epidemics colonial South Carolina experienced during this time period.
If I were to change aspects of this assignment I would create a more organized timeline for each section of the project. I think that two documents is plenty, and transcribing, organizing (etc.) the documents takes a lot of time (as well as finding the documents themselves). I also think that having an example headnote to look at, and follow the format of, would have provided a great deal of help in completing the project. I think that some of us were slightly confused on the layout of the final project.
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