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.
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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. |