Week 13 was mainly just used to kick things off for the second trimester. We had our first look at the big project for this trimester, a presentation over a topic of our choice. For the project, we had to pick two novels that we can connect to our topic. The topic I chose is politics because that is one of my biggest interests. The novels I chose to connect to politics are Brave New World and The Jungle. I am actually very excited to do this project, and I think my presentation will be very good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PechaKucha
We also took a practice AP test this week. To be perfectly honest, I did not think the test was overly difficult. There were a few questions I had difficulty with mainly due to vocabulary that I was not familiar with, but for the most part, I understood the questions and the prompts with ease. I am grateful for this first look at the AP test, as it will help me prepare and know what to expect when I actually take it. Overall, this week was pretty good. It was not a super busy week, but I think we still covered a lot. I am looking forward to the rest of this trimester with the first hour class.
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My tenth week of AP Lit was not a memorable one, in that I was only there for two days. With school off on election day, a field trip the day after, and sickness keeping me home the day after that, I did not get to experience my usual weekly dose of learning. That being said, with good friends in the class, I was able to get caught up fairly quickly. Yet, even though I wasn't in the class, I still felt that I learned quite a bit about tragedy. After all, I am a die hard liberal who just watched as the guy whom I called insane beat the odds and win the presidency.
Tragedy is very intertwined with expectations of success and failure, and I cannot help but feeling that it is a tragedy because my nation did not meet my expectations. That being said, I firmly believe that it is important to try to learn from tragedies, and I think I did learn an important lesson. I learned that even when the person we hated wins, it is more important to try to work together than stay divided. I learned that when one side spews hate, it is always important to shout back love. I learned that no matter what, the sun will always rise in the morning, and it is up to us to determine our own futures and to fight for what we believe is right. I was not at school much this week, but this certainly one of the most self-discovering weeks of my life. I experienced a tragedy this week, and now I will embrace the future and do everything I can to embrace the lessons I learned from that tragedy. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-president.html?_r=0 Week 8 was the week of presentations. My group was the first to present, and I have to admit, I was nervous. I was completely freaking out that when I got up in front of the classroom, I would forget everything I wanted to say and sound like a complete idiot. Of course, I knew that this was irrational. I have spoken in public dozens of times, even hundreds of times. I knew that when the time came, I would my voice and would speak well. This thought gave me confidence as I stepped up in front of the class. Fortunately, my fellow group members spoke well with confidence and I was able to follow them up with similar abilities.
Afterwards, we were praised heavily and I entered the classroom proud of myself and my group. Throughout the rest of the day and the rest of the week, the other groups presented. I was very impressed with just about every group I saw, and I was even surprised by some of my classmate's very capable public speaking skills. I found that I was learning quite a bit about literature, and I was captivated by the examples the other groups used. Overall, this was a very fun week. I was happy with my presentation, and I was glad to see all of my other classmates succeed as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_speaking Week 7 was entirely focused on working on our presentations and finishing them. My group, which consisted of Peter, Ally, and I, worked hard and efficiently, and before long we had our presentation exactly where we wanted it. With many of our ideas put down into the powerpoint, the only thing we had left to do was to clean it up and make it look pretty. This basically meant that we chopped away a few of our bullet points and expanded a couple of pictures. No big deal, and without too much effort, we had a crisp, clean looking presentation that we were proud of. http://www.skillsyouneed.com/present/presentation-tips.html
Other than working on the presentation, we did some creative writing and I tried to read some more of my book, Invisible Man. Invisible Man, so far, is very interesting and pretty strange. A clear look at the racism of the earlier part of the 20th century, it's unique in that the main character has no name, and claims that he's invisible. With such a unique and intriguing style, I'm very excited to read more. Overall, week 7 was nothing too exciting. It was just a lot of refining details and finishing up things. However, I am thankful for the work opportunities we received, because our presentation is looking very good. Week 6 of class dedicated to finishing up our work for the marking period. Throughout the week, I spent quite a bit of time reading, trying to finish my independent reading book, Catch-22, so that I could write a good essay over it. I also spent much of the week working with my small group to create our presentation over humor and fantasy. We worked very efficiently, and in no time at all, we have already finished most of our presentation. While working on that, I began to realize how lucky it was that I decided to read Catch-22. After all, Catch-22 is basically just 460 pages of humor used to look at World War 2. Reading a novel focused mainly on humor really helped me in being able to analyze humor and analyze other stories to look for humor. http://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/david.james/engl2328/humorous-purposes-sources-and-methods/humorous-purposes-sources-and-methods
Aside from working and reading, we also focused on finishing our creative writing works. This turned out to be quite a bit of fun, as it allowed me to express my own ideas and opinions without worrying about some prompt. It was fairly easy for me to identify which of my creative pieces I wanted to choose. I just picked the two pieces that focused on what I am most passionate about; family and politics. To conclude, the last week of the marking period was pretty good. I worked hard, and I am happy to see that my efforts did not go without reward. Week 5 was another week consisting mainly of working and analyzing. Our poem this week was Bright Star, a beautiful love poem by John Keats. I was very struck by the sheer love radiating from the words in the poem. I loved how the speaker compared the beauty of the Earth to his lover. So far, this was my favorite poem we have analyzed in class. Usually, I am not a romantic sort of person, but I truly felt touched by the love conveyed in Bright Star. I am even somewhat sad that, because of the fog day, we could not take another day to look at the poem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_poetry
The other part of the week was dedicated to working. My group and I spent most of the week simply figuring things out, plotting how our presentation will go. The themes we picked, fantasy and humor, are very much different than how we normally perceive them. Humor, for instance, is mainly a tool used to convey emotion more powerful than what could be conveyed using direct wording. We also discovered that humor and irony tend to go hand in hand. I enjoyed working with my group, and I am glad that we were able to have fun while at the same time get work done. Overall, this was a decent week. The best part was analyzing Bright Star, because in doing so, I felt myself thinking deeper, while also reading a poem I truly enjoyed. Our week was shortened by the fog day, but I still feel that we accomplished quite a bit. Our fourth week of class was dedicated to the analysis of works of art. We spent the week picking through and searching for a deeper understanding of Emily Dickinson's poem, I Felt a Funeral in My Brain. After our poetry analysis of The Eagle, I found it easier to read through Dickinson's poem. As soon as I started to read it, I found myself searching for the true meaning fo the text, and what Dickinson was trying to convey. I soon discovered that I was deeply moved by my own interpretation of the poem, as a look into the life of someone struggling with depression. As depression has played a major role in my family's life, I felt a deep connection to the poem, and I very much enjoyed reading through it everyday, and hearing my classmate's own interpretations of it.
Throughout much of the week, we also took an in-depth look at literature as artwork. We analyzed literature as a whole and picked apart what is the "story" part of novels, and what is the "literature" part. I had never thought of literature in that way before, and I enjoyed looking at it through a new perspective. We also looked at several paintings and analyzed them much in the same fashion that we analyze literature. As we looked at the paintings and told stories of them and their backgrounds, I began to appreciate the artwork more, and I began to add my own made-up stories to them. Throughout the week, we also had several chances to read as well as write creatively. I appreciate this because I often feel that I need to get my thoughts in order, and creative writing is just the way to do it. I also appreciate the chance to read, as I've begun to be completely ensnared by my book, Catch-22. At first, I was not sure of it, but as I've read on, it has grown on me as a hilarious look at World War 2, or at least as hilarious as that period of history can be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22 Overall, it was a very good week, and I happy for the many chances given in class that are already helping me grow as a writer as well as a reader. Week 3 of class was all about getting work done. Every day, we planned and wrote our comparative essays, brainstorming at first, and then putting all of our thoughts into the essay. For the first few days, writing the essay was not an easy task. All three of us in the group had our ideas for the essay, as well as our own way of writing. This led to a prolonged period of planning and brainstorming, as we tried to sort out the mass of ideas and thoughts that were flowing from us. I felt worried that this would cause our essay to suffer, as it might have ended up appearing as though it were disorganized and incoherent.
Ultimately, however, I am grateful we all worked together to write the essay. All three of us brought in different points of view and different thoughts on different subjects. This led to our essay being comprehensive and hosting a large number of different ideas. Although I was hesitant at first about writing with others, I believe that our final product really was a showcase of each of our best ideas and thoughts. In the end, this week was all about writing and learning to write with others. I am glad I had the chance to work with my classmates and learn their views on our novels. http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/group-writing/ I entered week two of class excited. I was looking forward to the chance to work on more creative writing pieces as well as reading the novel, Catch-22. However, I have to admit that there was one thing I was not looking forward to: poetry. I have never considered myself a lover of poetry. I can appreciate it, but when it comes to picking through a poem and analyzing it, I am no fan. So, when The Eagle was passed around the class, I was less than thrilled. But as the week wore on, and we discussed the poem more and more, delving deeper and deeper, I found it was becoming quite enjoyable. I was proud of analysis of the poem and the ideas I discovered as I talked it over with the others in my desk clump. More so that, I found that analyzing The Eagle helped me tremendously while analyzing my two summer read books as my group and I prepare to write an essay over them.
The other major part of this week was our preparation for writing about our summer reading books. Although I was excited for this and to share my thoughts and ideas about the books with other people, I was also a little hesitant. After all, I read my summer reading books back in June, and it felt as though many of the ideas within the books have escaped my mind. Fortunately, however, I quickly discovered that the ideas never really left, and as my group and I worked, they came flowing back in like a waterfall. It also helped to use, http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/waves/, as a reference as we worked on the essay. Overall, this was an interesting and fun week, and I hope the mood of the week continues into our third week. I entered the first week of AP Lit uncertain. I was worried that it would be just like every other English class I've ever had, with major limits on creativity and expression, but I was honestly just not sure of what to expect. It is because of this, during our first class, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there would not be the normal creative shackles that had encumbered me in my previous English classes.
Throughout the week, we mainly discussed what we would be doing for the rest of the year. We set up our Weebly accounts and we wrote a small biography of ourselves as readers and writers. I found this to be fun, as it was a way for me to go into detail of how I reached this point in reading and writing life, which is a chance I rarely get. After that, we were given a list of books that, at first glance, looks very daunting. The books and their authors were not the typical high school books. They were the real deal. However, I am quite looking forward to diving into them. My favorite part of AP Lit so far, however, was our chance to simply write for a few minutes. There were no restrictions or limits on what we could write about; we could simply put any and every thought we had onto paper. That has always been my favorite part of writing; the chance to express myself in any way I please. I believe that creative writing is an extremely important part of writing, and I am glad that I have a class that will allow me to write creatively. I also found a website that I think will prove useful in the future for creative writing in AP Lit: https://www.writingforward.com/category/creative-writing Overall, I had a great time in my first week of AP Lit, and I look forward to the many weeks to come! |
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December 2016
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