It's been almost a month since my last Response to Course Material blog and in that time we've done quite a bit.
First, we finished Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and did a summary and analysis blog. It was easier to create a theme statement for DOS than for The American Dream, not because we've done it before, but because I feel I understood DOS better. There were a couple things in this play that I could really relate to like all of the expectations placed on the first born child and knowing someone who was fired from their job after 30+ years of hard work (this I can relate to because this is exactly what happened to my grandpa). The discussions that we did in class were great, but I especially liked the fish-bowl discussions. In past lit classes when we've done discussions, I've always found that there are a few people who dominate the conversation, so by having only 4 people able to discuss at a time was a great way to have other people contribute. I hope we get to do more fish-bowl discussions over future works.
Second, we've done a few mood and atmosphere exercises. While I love what they are getting at and trying to teach us, I don't always like doing them as a whole class. The exercises describing a picture without using a certain word are the ones that really annoy me. Often I disagree with my classmates on these; the phrasing, the diction, sometimes even the word we've chosen that describes the picture. I also get frustrated with how long it takes our class to do these exercises and how much debate there is over wording and who likes the sound of what. This is to be expected as we're trying to fit approximately 18 peoples' thoughts into a few sentences, which is made even harder when multiple people are trying to get it done their way. Despite my frustrations with these exercises, I do like them and how they challenge me to look at the aspects of writing more closely.
Third on my list of things is the reading of "The Century Quilt". First of all, can I just say that I loved this poem and how there were so many layers to it? I loved how every time I go back and read it I get something new from it and how if I were to read it again in 5 years it would mean something different. That said, I felt I did a pretty good job picking up on a lot of the meanings hidden in the piece and when Ms. Holmes did her "graduate-level analysis" of the piece, there were only one or two things I was missing. As much as I loved the poem, having to write an essay about it using the past AP prompt was difficult. One big problem I have, and have had in past years, is that it takes me a while to get my thoughts together and figure out what I want to say. I know I spent about half the time for writing the essay just staring at the paper trying to figure out how to start the essay. In APUSH last year I had a similar problem in not knowing how to start the essay. The body paragraphs and conclusion I don't have problems with, but when it comes to the introduction I'm on the struggle bus. Part my struggle is something that I was taught in Brit Lit last year where my teacher told us to start very broad in the beginning of the introduction and then proceed to narrow it down until you reached the thesis statement. That's great and all, but my mind doesn't see introduction paragraphs that way; it sees them as a way to introduce the essay and indicate what would be addressed in paragraphs to follow. Hopefully through more practice essays I will be able to get passed this and not have to spend 20-30 minutes figuring out how to start an essay.
And finally, we have started (and finished) Hamlet. While I have never had a great love for Shakespeare plays in past classes (i.e. Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth), I did enjoy this one. Don't ask me why I liked this one because I can't quite put my finger on it. It's not the characters, I feel like I have seen many of them before, or characters very similar to them before. It's not the plot for I was able to predict everything that happened except Hamlet giving Denmark over to Fortinbras in his dying breath. Maybe it is everything that is buried in the words, the deeper meanings and the things that can only be found if one reads between the lines. All the hidden aspects of the play, the deeper issues beneath the surface of the play, are intriguing to me, and this is something I didn't expect from Shakespeare (mainly because I've never come across it before). As we read this play in class I did make some notes in my book, but going through and annotating this book will be difficult. Annotation wise, I believe this will be my biggest challenge yet. I can't wait to discuss this play in class and to watch clips of the play's production.
I can't believe how much I'm learning in this class, not so much by being directly taught it but my discussing with my classmates and doing close readings. I'm interested to see what else we do in this class and I'm excited for what other things I will learn. Hopefully everything we are learning will not escape me when I go to take the AP test in May.
Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteThis was a thorough and comprehensive post over the material we have covered the past month. Awesome job on this! You also did a great job with giving your own input on the course material rather than just summarizing what we have done in class. I find myself agreeing with you on most of your opinions, actually. The fish bowl was great in forcing everybody to lay out their opinion in discussion, certainly something that would great to do at least a couple days every discussion on our major literary works. Your problem with AP Lit essays (as well as APUSH essays) will probably fixed with practice. Also, you don't need to stress too much with the introduction - the evidence and analysis you provide in your supporting paragraphs are more important. I also enjoyed Hamlet. Personally, my enjoyment came from Ms. Holme's commentary that really brought insight and cleared up plot confusion. I can't wait for further steps in our analysis of Hamlet.
Great job, Caitlin!
This another very thorough job, Caitlin! You are very consistent in your blog posts, which I appreciate. I, too, wrote about how I liked that the fish bowl discussion made everyone share their ideas, and I also dislike the way that it takes our class the entire class period to finish those mood and exercise pieces. I have learned to relinquish what I want the sentence to look like (because I normally have a sentence written all on my own ) in exchange for trying to help the class achieve what the majority of them think will look and sound best. And once more, I relate to the difficulty you feel when beginning an essay. It's very surprising to me that you were able to predict everything in Hamlet besides that one part, but very understandable that you think you have heard of these characters before because there are many, many works that are based on Hamlet. I would suggest you look up works based on Hamlet on Wikipedia and try to track down the one (or many) that you have seen prior to your reading!
ReplyDelete*This IS another (sometimes verbs are helpful)
DeleteCaitlin,
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to hear your thoughts on what we covered. It was quite a bit, wasn't it?
I'm surprised that you had such an easy time with writing the theme for Death of a Salesman. Even though I felt like I knew all the parts for the play, I had difficulty trying to tie them all in together in a single thesis. I did find the fish-bowl discussions helpful in engaging other students around the classroom, but I found the discussions immensely frustrating when the fish where grappling over a particular issue when I felt I had the answer to their problems.
I understand the frustration you have with the atmosphere exercises. Many times I feel that the other students don't understand the atmosphere as I do personally or are losing focus during the writing of the sentence summarizing the picture. Perhaps a more personal exercise would be better.
I also had trouble writing the essay for "The Century Quilt". The beginning is the hardest part. Perhaps you could just write down anything that pops into your head and modify it as you go along?
Your comments on Hamlet are most interesting. The depth and the intricate writing that Shakespeare does truly justify his reputation. Hamlet does have the reputation of being perhaps Shakespeare's greatest, so that may be an explanation to your liking of this particular text?