English Senior Integrated Projects

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This collection includes Senior Integrated Projects (SIP's, formerly known as Senior Individualized Projects) completed in the English Department. Abstracts are generally available to the public, but PDF files are available only to current Kalamazoo College students, faculty, and staff. If you are not a current K College student, faculty, or staff member, email us at dspace@kzoo.edu to request access to this material.

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    Chevy Chase Blvd. : A Collection of Essays
    (2024-09-01) Lepley, Ellie; Heinritz, Marin L., 1976-
    In this collection, I focused on eight specific memories that span my childhood to the present. These moments stood out to me because they show how loving and nurturing the bonds we have built are. You’ll meet my grandparents, neighbors, and friends throughout the collection. I showcase both the small and big moments throughout my life living on Chevy Chase Blvd. Writing this collection and discovering how the community has grown and largely shaped me was a joy.
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    “Doing Good Things” : A Poetry Collection based on the Insights of Interview Subjects Working at the Kalamazoo Defender
    (2023-09-01) Bell, Curtis Jason, Jr.; Mills, Bruce, 1958-
    When I began my Senior Independent Project in April of 2023, my plan was to crank out as many poems about the Kalamazoo Defender as I could. These poems would be formed from the experiences I had as an intern, as well as informal chit-chat between myself and members of the team from which I could glean quotes and concepts. I explained my plan to a close friend soon after I started my project. They asked “So, your SIP is about working in an office?” And in that moment I realized that my plan would need some revising. The impromptu restructuring of my project so early on was an exercise in creative problem solving, abstract research methodology, and, at times, tumultuous forced development of my own skills as a writer and researcher. The bulk of the sources for my poetry, being interviews conducted with staff members at the Kalamazoo Defender, was a constant work-in-process in terms of honing my skills as an interviewer. Taking excerpts from these conversations and converting them into prose and poetry which spoke to the talent of the personnel working at the Kalamazoo Defender was a learning process as well. Capturing the battle for universal human worth through the legal representation of the indigent population of Kalamazoo , as well as the many differing views on how to accomplish this mission, was one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced as a writer. Meeting these challenges head-on, constantly discussing the work with my SIP advisor, and continual workshopping were all key in moving forward in the process. With all this being said, my experiences during my summer internship at the Kalamazoo Defender, the interview process with staff members, and actually crafting the body of my SIP, has been the most rewarding experience in my career as a writer. I am grateful to have worked with and interviewed all who were willing at the Kalamazoo Defender. My SIP is dedicated to the team and their continued efforts in bettering the City of Kalamazoo.
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    Environmental Stewardship in Michigan : Trials and Tribulations of the Fight to Protect our State’s Natural Features
    (2023-11-01) Brent, Finn; Mills, Bruce, 1958-
    My Senior Integrated project centers around environmentalism in both Kalamazoo and Michigan as a whole. I conducted some interviews, but also scoured the archives of Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo College and the Kalamazoo Public Library to gather information. I wrote three pieces of writing. One is about historic preservation in Kalamazoo and how it factors into establishing a sustainable culture. To write this I interviewed Kalamazoo’s Historic Preservation Coordinator Luis Pena. I also wrote a longer article using archival research and an interview with Kalamazoo River Watershed Council Director Doug Mclaughlin. This article is about the long history of pollution in the Kalamazoo River, and what has been done to remedy this continuing issue. Finally, I wrote an article about the difference between Indigenous attitudes toward nature and settler attitudes, using the Potawatomi re-meandering project of the Dowagiac River.
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    Prattle
    (2023-11-01) Chiang, Isabel; Kingsley, Benjamin Naka-Hasebe
    One of the big uniting spirits of the collection is the idea of preservation, whether it be preserving honor, youth, or self-preservation. This idea of protecting something stems from my own future worries as well as observing those around me. It's no secret that people fear aging or change, and it's only natural to want to conserve as much as possible. Another major concept used in the poems is death. Whether it be confronting one's own mortality, witnessing death, or finding decay. During the time I was writing my SIP, I spent a considerable amount of time watching true crime documentaries. Hearing about the horrors of what other people could do to another. Another moment that inspired this fascination with death was when I worked on my first cadaver. The smell of decay, the feeling of grey skin, the empty cavity after I took their organs out. It's something that doesn't leave you. Lastly, the final piece connecting my poems together stems from depression.
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    “The Making of a Mad Woman”: A Collection of Poems
    (2023-11-01) Curcuru, Emma; Kingsley, Benjamin Naka-Hasebe
    In truth, if someone had told me three years ago when I started my English major journey here at Kalamazoo College, I would be writing a preface for my poetry sip made up of almost thirty poems, written about me, my life, my feelings, and my experiences, I simply would not have believed them. I had always seen poetry and specifically my poetry as one of two things: not good enough or way too intensely deep and personal to ever share. Unable to handle the sting of rejection, I tucked the vulnerability that poetry brought out into my back pocket like a half-used tube of my favorite ChapStick. Looking back, I’m not sure what pushed me to reach back and pull out my favorite tube of ChapStick, called poetry, and apply it on my lips once more. If I had to guess, it came down to me feeling emotions that were too big, intense, and confusing for me to do anything but write them down to make any sense of how I felt. Those writings turned into poems before my very eyes. All of these poems began the same way, a feeling that led to an overwhelming compulsion to write, as if the only thing my mind and hands could do at that exact moment, was to put pen to paper.
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