This week felt like a very uneventful week, however in hindsight we watched a very long shakespearean play that is reference in many aspects of the world today. Starting off the week we debriefed and finally decided just what exactly each group's critical theory meant. I found it very interesting to see all the variation among the groups. There were three different theories that were picked yet there was a variety of movie choice between the theory, some decided it suit Macbeth better and some decided it fit King Lear better. There was even more variety among what each group interpreted the critical theory to be centered upon so I found that very interesting. After seeing what each group had chosen and splitting up based on our movies things got even more interesting. I had only ever seen glimpses of Macbeth in pop culture today but never actually read the play let alone the synopsis of it. It was very interesting to see it, but I felt that I would have been able to enjoy it more had I read the play prior to watching it just. I would have also been able to differentiate between characters easier. At one point while Mr. Schoenborn was out of the classroom almost half the class was so confused that we had to say who each character was as they popped up on the screen just so we could follow the story line. Other than the it being slightly confusing I found this week to have been very eventful upon looking back, I even was able to figure out the reference to Macbeth that is used in the musical Hamilton.
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This week was a really interesting week. I was in an odd mood at the beginning of the week, questioning the whole reason why we do what we do. Then the two poems that we looked at for the poem of the week, William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 146, and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Ozymandias really put my thoughts into words and echoed my thoughts. Both poems are discussing the impermanence of humans and how really when we die it doesn’t matter what our body looked like or what it did. I found it strangely odd that these poems did reflect my thoughts and while they really did not help to calm my thoughts I did see them as a step towards trying to figure out my thoughts. Another thing this week that I found very thought echoing/provoking was diving into the critical theory that my group chose. It was very interesting seeing how many people had looked at philosophical/existentialism but never labeled it was such. It made me think about how things have been labeled as what they are due to someone naming them so long ago and from them on they have been known as that. It makes me wonder why things have been labeled as that from them on. While this definitely isn’t anything remotely like what those philosophers did I still felt like it was some sort of deep thinking, that deserved to be discussed. This week we were introduced to a lot of new things. The introduction to what we will be doing at the end of the trimester with the Pecha Kucha style presentation was very helpful. With most of the presentations that we have done previously we have really seen an end product or we have seen one once we have started creating our end product, so I appreciated seeing the video of a previous student doing their presentation. Another thing that we were introduced to that I found very helpful was doing a practice AP multiple choice test. I hate doing practice tests, because I often find myself falling asleep during them, but I liked that we started talking about what the test will be like. I have not looked super in depth into what the AP test will be like and we did not really talk about it much first trimester. After taking the practice test I learned that I needed to read the story before answering questions and I have to go back and refresh myself on literary devices used in poetry and other forms of literature. Looking at what the future and what to expect was very helpful this week. Knowing what to expect on the AP test and where I stand right now with it. Having the base line will help to show the growth that I have made this year when it comes to taking the AP test. Also being introduced and have do a new style of presentation will also help me in the future because due to the job field that I will be going into I will be presenting pretty often. This week we focused on looking not at the definition of tragedy, but what it is. Reading different articles and watching different TED Talks, has really helped to dive deep more into what a tragedy is. While looking at the Wikipedia pages tragedy was more of a word that is just thrown around describing what is going on in someone else’s life, now it’s more of a thing that is relatable. Oedipus Rex is exactly that, a relatable thing. Oedipus’s tragedy is not a very relatable thing, but the way that he brings it upon himself. This solidified what a tragedy was.
While reading Oedipus Rex, the Cornell Notes were very helpful. Being able to write down the different quotes that I thought interesting or helped explain what a tragedy is, was very helpful. Having a place to write that down was helpful, but I really liked being able to write what I thought when I wrote down the quotes. Having that written down made it easier to write the blog post later and have my thoughts organized instead of all over the place. I often find my brain all over the place when I am trying to write out of class or picking up from where I left off. So I was only at school for two days this week. On Monday and Tuesday we started the second project that we will be doing this year, “What is Tragedy?”. I understood the partner notes activity, but on with me being gone I didn’t really understand what the blog post should be about, or how it should be formated. Not really understanding that and not having wifi while on the road Wednesday and Friday, I wasn’t really able to figure it out so hopefully on Monday I can clarify what I’m supposed to do. Another thing I was not able to find the Tragedy and the Common Man (there was no link on the lesson plans) so I could not close read that. I did end up find it on Sunday night while I was writing this post (it was on the What is Tragedy? page).
The thing that I did find very helpful this week was highlighting the authorizing, illustrating, and extending on the poem response essay. I often struggle trying to tell if I have written enough of an analysis in my essays, so being able to go through and see the different parts of an essay in color. Freshman year Mrs. Gilbert had us go through one of our essays and highlight the analysis portions, but we didn’t do much beyond that. Being able to go through a whole essay and seeing what makes it a great essay and how I should structure my essay to help make it the best it could be and to completely get my ideas out. Starting off this week with the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder spoken word piece kinda set the stage for this week. When I am doing presentations I really want them to be the best that they could be. I don’t like presenting and not knowing the material I am talking about or having a presentation that is just thrown together. I know it’s not to the point of OCD but I can understand where you want to do something until it feels right, I get that from being a dancer where perfection is something unattainable yet always what is wanted. I do feel happy with how our presentation turned out . I was very appreciative of the time that we were given to work on our presentation. Emmy and I at first had struggled to pull our ideas together, but we did figure out what we wanted to say. During the time we had to spend in class we were able to figure out how we wanted to structure it and then we each chose an element to focus on what exactly we were going to put on the slides to help guide us. Watching the other presentations was really helpful and cool. While people may have had the same element of fiction each group chose to have a different approach of how they looked at the elements themselves and how they went about presenting to the class. I found it very helpful to see others present before Emmy and I did because we were able to see what we liked, didn’t like, and what needed improvement. Being able to hear all the presentations also allowed me to realized that every author has a different approach to creating their literary works as well as how each reader has a different experience while reading said works. I am excited to see how I can look at books differently now, even though I have learned about literary elements before. Well maybe perfection is attainable....
This week we started off with a really cool spoken word poem called Heaven or Whatever. This was such a cool spoken word piece, and it made me realize just how much something you say can have an impact on another person. I don’t usually like listening to things because I have difficulty processing things fast enough to realize the weight of their words. When there is a visual component it is a lot easier to feel the weight of the speaker’s words. Moving on in the week we were focused on our ‘What is Literature?’ project. While most of the week was spent getting our thoughts together, but we did have questions about how we should format our presentations. After it was explained, I feel like what we are saying can have so much more impact than when we first started the project. It is not just what we say but how we choose to say it, and the formatting that is used. You do not want to just have the information spewed at you without any thing that would engage you. Next week we are going to watch a TED Talk about how to present in a way that engages our audience. I am really excited to work on presentation skills because they are very valuable for life. Watching the TED Talk will also be very helpful because TED Talk speakers always engage their audience. I’m looking forward to being able to present next week and see others present. Don't underestimate the power of words!
This week we spent the majority of our class time workshopping for our ‘What is Literature?’ projects. I am working with Emmy and we chose to look at characterization and symbolism. The characterization paper I found very interesting being able to learn about the different ways authors chose to present information about characters. Most likely you are going to learn character traits and such information from an indirect presentation, allowing us to see their traits through their actions. A direct presentation is useful, but it does not make the piece of literature very interesting. When I was reading my SSR book, A Clockwork Orange, I did notice that Alex does not explicitly say that he is a bad malchick or that he was a changed malchick after he was released from jail. Once you start reading and get farther into the book you begin to see that Alex and his droogs doing horrendous activities. By seeing his actions, and not reading he “was a bad boy” or “he was a good boy,” I was able to infer that Anthony Burgess-the author-used direct presentation. The symbolism portion of the project is a little more difficult to grasp. I don’t want to go overboard when I’m looking for symbolism, but I also don’t want to go under board. I think the problem that I’m having is that I am afraid that I am going to find too many symbols so I just take everything literally. Hopefully when we are done with the project, I will be better at finding symbols and not scared of them, but as of right now I am still slightly scared of them. This is an accurate depiction of me looking for symbolism.
I feel like we really didn’t do much this week just because of the 2 hour delay on Tuesday and no school of Thursday. I know that we did do a lot during the four times we met for class, but the nine hours of lazing around completely overshadowed over the 28 hours of actual learning done this week. The things that I did learn about while analyzing the poem Bright Star we focused a lot on perspective. When you are reading something the point of view of the speaker really allows you to see what the author wants you to see. The book can be first person or third person, it could offer you a biased, limited view-point or an unbiased, all-knowing view-point. While reading A Clockwork Orange, I was able to notice that the book is told from Alex’s perspective so you see these horrible acts being committed by a young person and you are reminded by the slang that this story is coming from a young person’s mind. Another thing that really helped me see perspective in a different way is finding what person in the story you connect with. There are three different people in the Bright Star, trying to figure out where I fit into the three people (the star, the speaker, or the speaker’s love) really helped to put things into perspective. Usually I will look for qualities in character I like to equate them to myself because I desperately want to be like them, but now I can find exactly what qualities I have that make me an active player in the story. So I guess that in starting I was not correct in saying we did nothing, but it just felt like we did nothing. I was really grateful for the fog, but I think that it stuck around in my brain. Hopefully the fogginess will disperse so next week I can feel like we actually did stuff in school. This week was really focused on being selective. The Poem of the Week being one by Emily DIckinson entitled I felt a Funeral, in my Brain. While we were analyzing the poem we focused one day completely on imagery. There are so many types of imagery-auditory, olfactory, gustatory, internal, tactile, kinesthetic, and visual-that I never really had focused on one type of imagery before. When you actually look at every type of imagery you start to realize that poets and authors alike use only selective types to help convey to the reader what the speaker is saying.
In my past reading choices I have always preferred to read books that are full of visual and auditory imagery; however, I am very selective in what I choose to acknowledge from the imagery that is given to me. I usually have visuals in my head of a scene location or a character, so when the author describes something contradictory I will ignore it. After paying attention to the specific types of imagery, I have come to realize that I should not selectively choose to pay attention to. Each piece of imagery is placed to have a meaning and if I ignore pieces that do not match in my mind I am ignoring the speaker and changing the story. Being selective is usually seen as being picky in today’s world, but after being selective in what I was reading/looking for today really allowed me to gain new knowledge. Each piece of writing has specific literary devices that work together to create a piece of Literature and when authors are selective in what they choose to include and exclude there is a reason they did so. In looking at the selectiveness of a piece and then forcing myself to be selective in what I looked at, I was able to see that being selective does not always mean being picky. |
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March 2017
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