This week, we made attempts to edit the poem of the week essays we wrote. The essays that we took 40 minutes in class to write was very unfinished, but I still struggle to edit. I think my problem with editing is that I don't want to delete from what I have been saying, but I also know I could say it better. The solution seems to be to attempt a rewrite of the part, keeping it there, and deleting the one I like more however, this strategy feels much like rewriting a first draft rather than revising for a final draft. In the end, I didn't really make many edits to my piece at all. Recently, in class we have been focusing on writing tragedy blogs, and haven't done these reflective blogs because of that. This week I was only in class for three days, so rather than talk about just this week, I can reflect on the unit that we are doing on tragedy as a whole. Initially, I thought that a unit on tragedy would be too basic; that I already had an idea of what made a tragedy, and to an extent, I think that my original idea is still true. We have defined specific archetypes that occur to make a tragedy relatable, and read a few examples of stories that follow these archetypes. Working with these texts have been interesting, but I don't think the idea of what a tragedy is was new to me. The amount of revisions I have made so far... :(
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This week, a rough draft was due for the elements of fiction project. My group chose characterization, and symbolism as the elements of fiction to study. I was absent on Friday, which made organization of the project with my group a bit of a struggle considering we had not started the essays yet. I know a weakness of mine is group work, as I am used to doing all my work independently, not talking to anyone. I hope these kinds of assignments will help with my inexperience with group projects, and all the aspects of work that come with that. Creating an essay as a group is especially difficult because an essay needs a strong purpose, and if not everyone is in full agreement of that purpose, the essay will feel disconnected. I'm not sure how much time will be given this coming week for revisions, but I ended up leaving my part of the essay with lots of comments with potential for edits because I remember Ben saying that only a rough draft was the goal for this week. I also found that the argument planner (see image) did not help all that much other than to figure out what symbols I wanted to focus on. Not related to this week specifically, but I have noticed a gradual decline in the quality of my blog posts, and I believe much of the class would agree. I think this is due to lack of content. I really enjoy the idea of forcing meta cognitive thinking with these blog posts, but one week seems too short a time frame. I feel that not enough happens to warrant a post for every week. However, there is also the problem of remembering. If blog posts were due with longer gaps, maybe every month, than remembering what happened that long ago would be a struggle, and much of it would probably be lost. Compression with symbolism
Editing This week, we turned in our creative writing that we had been working on the whole year so far. I had a lot of garbage, and not a lot of writing I was happy with. It is quite difficult for me to come up with interesting ideas for stories, or how to use the prompts well. In the literature aspects project, I have read the tell tale heart, and have begun working on a big question of sorts. I feel like this project is moving extremely slowly, as we only get a little bit of time per class to work on it. I mentioned this in my creative writing also, but maybe we should devote more time to the project in class. PoW revisions.
Editing creative writing. Most of this week was focusing on revisions. One thing we tried to make better in class was the Poem of the Week essays we wrote last week. Looking at them as a reader, making comments, and generally thinking of ways to better them. Another thing we revised this week in class were the creative writings we have been doing since the start of the year. Instead of writing, we did editing. We were to chose a piece to focus on and edit it. I chose the one syllable writing prompt I had done. Most of my edits were making small sentence changes. I did a lot of switching word choice, including a lot of synonym searches. We also began a project connecting pieces of literature such as characterization, symbolism, humor etc. Choosing 2 topics, groups read related short stories and compare how each short story used the element of literature differently, or similarly. Specifically, this week I read "A tell tale heart" as an example of symbolism. I had read this before, but so long ago that I didn't realize that I had. It was defiantly worth reading again, as it a great short story, and a great example of symbolism. The poem of the week was titled "Elegy". In class we took a lot of time to discuss this poem in groups. Discussing the aspects of it, and how the aspect influence the big picture of what the poem is trying to portrait. We also wrote our practice essay which will be graded on the 9 point scale. Same as the AP exam. It is good practice, and I appreciate the opportunity for this practice. This week's poem essay was considerably better than last week's I think. I actually had a surprising amount of points to make about the poem, however, my organization was most defiantly a fault in the piece, as always. I separated the essay into the shifts that take place in the piece, having one paragraph for the first part, then a second for the last part of the poem. Once I began writing in this way, I could see it was not the best way to break up the essay. I feel I articulated my points well enough individually, but they seem fragmented when reading them together. Like I had attempted to perfect each sentence individually and ignored the big picture.
Another thing we did in class, was looking at "art as a window into literature". Which is just relating visual art to literature. Starting with the "story vs literature" concept, where we read an article that discusses the differences. It stated 'story' is the events as they happen, while 'literature' is the way the author uses words to convey meaning. For example, the omniscient narrator who sees every small detail. They see the small emotions on character's faces. Things that if you were to look at the character, you would not notice, but things the reader can relate to. This week, was mostly working to create a visual metaphor and connecting it to a chapter in the "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" book. For example, my group did a metaphor involving a suspension bridge, and how archetypes hold up and support a story much like the suspensions on a bridge do, with the road underneath being the author's discretion on how to use the archetypes to get to one place to another. Thinking through the archetypes that authors use actually helped understand how an author thinks through writing a novel. How they get from plot point to plot point. How they create characters to support their hero.
Another thing I thought about this week was the differences between aspects of story verses aspects of literature in novels. In class we read a newspaper article of Pullman discussing this. He talks of story as a idea of action. Action that He also talked about the importance of perspective in the newspaper article. We all took a part of the writing and highlighted it as a main point within the piece. The last thing we did in Literature, was looking at the timed poem analysis and looking at examples of successful and unsuccessful submissions. Then we were told to find a specific part of a successful piece and why it was successful. I noticed it used many quotes of descriptions directly from the poem. They would use it to describe a meaningful part, then describes why this is important/ why the author does this. This seemed to be the formula for each paragraph. Describe a thing the author did, use quotes exemplifying it, then close with why it mattered. This week in lit was full of reflections on things we had already read. We read "The Eagle" in class, and heavily focused on looking at it from many perspectives. This meant discussing it with classmates with prompts such as "what change occurs between the first and second stanza?". I was surprised at some of the ways people saw the poem, and even began to see it in different ways myself the more I looked at it. Another way the teacher prompted reflection this week was looking back at the summer reading, and relating it to chapters from the "how to read literature like a professor" book. It was a surprisingly good way of making us look at our books not as a story, but how the author may have gone about getting ideas, and creating the story. We also set aside some time to have a sustained creative writing time, where we were prompted to just keep writing even if there were many errors. I have the problem of over thinking each sentence individually, attempting to get it worded just right, then move on to the next sentence and individually get that sentence just right. However, once I get to the end of a paragraph, I notice that what I have written sounds awkward and does not flow correctly. However when I force myself to just keep writing, not worrying about if that is the best possible way of saying what I want to say, it feels more connected. I end up thinking in a more connected way as well, and it is easier to see my point/end goal. Plus I end up writing more. This week in Lit, I learned how we will learn in this class. Mr Schoenborn talked of the importance of Metacognitive thinking and reflection and ironically, it looks as though I am currently doing exactly that. Although not directly in the classroom, the next thing I learned is directly a result of the class. I was reading at home and relating my book to other books/media I had experienced in the past and realized just how often authors take directly from other books situations / settings of others. For example in "The Island of Doctor Moreau", the intro scene reminded me of the intro scene of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". They both begin in much the same matter, picked up by a passing boat and nursed to health. This also reminded me that I had read the exact same thing in the book "How To Read Literature Like a Professor" that we read over the summer about how authors recycle other authors ideas and create their own spin on them. It was a very rewarding feeling to connect this without knowing it at the time. Another thing I thought about was how important having routines are. I have never been one to stick to routines ever, and will probably slack off on any attempts this year, but I will try my best. |