Responses to Course Material

Dec.11th
Well I'm just going to come out and say this one- I hate Ceremony. Absolutely hate it. I think over half of people in this class can sympathize with me on that one. Every time I try to annotate it I either end up frustrated, brain dead, or asleep. I get it's a hard book to fully understand, but that doesn't make the discussion and annotation process any more bearable; my least favorite book to date in this class by far.
On a more uplifting note, I felt the articles we've read for the book have been incredibly interesting and insightful. I had the articles dealing with Pueblo Culture and Analysis of the book Ceremony. The cultural article was much more straightforward, however I felt I gained a great amount of knowledge trying to break apart the analysis to find key details that helped me overall understand the purpose and meaning of Leslie Marmon Silko's book.
I notice i didn't put much detail into what I learned in the articles, or for that matter what I've "learned" in my annotations. For that you can go under forums and read my analysis if you're really so inclined, or hit me up to look through my immensely vague and unsatisfying annotations. I think everyone's ready for a much needed break, even if that does involve some work with Ceremony.

Nov.20th

Since the last response we have covered the book Death of a Salesman in class, and wrote another practice essay for the AP English test. About the play- it was awesome. I thought it was so much better than The American Dream. The reason I thought this was because Arthur Miller created an entire plot with his characters where their inner feelings towards one another really showed through and created an interesting read. I felt that with Albee, one scene just didn't cut it. I actually enjoyed reading and annotating Death of a Salesman and trying to piece together the deeper meanings.
The practice for the AP essays were a little less enjoyable. I don't really know how I'm going to get good enough at finding all these literature patterns and DIDLS in poems and such to be able to get a seven essay by the time testing comes around. I did find it incredible though that there was so much deeper meaning behind the two poems we compared and contrasted, especial all the stuff I didn't find (which may have been a lot...). I'll be excited to keep practicing those essays though and hopefully watch my scores creep up the scale during the school year.

Oct. 21st

Yep, I missed the entire deeper meaning to The American Dream; as I figured. There are so many thoughts about that play just lurking in the back of my mind that I'd like to set on the table, so to speak. First, Mommy's a *insert spicy language here*. Second, Daddy needs to grow a pair, and I'm not trying to be ironic.
Aside from those two very dominant thoughts I get well annotating, there is some serious DIDLS at play in Edward Albee's work. I often feel as though we're reading too far into the text, but then I step back and think "nah, Albee probably did mean that, his brain is just far more matured than mine". He created a play characterizing the American Dream as a Grandma (the old dream), and a Young Man (the new dream). Let's be honest, if I ever think of something that deep, and I mean just that, not the whole diction and syntax and all that other junk he used, I mean JUST the concept of personifying a dream; I'm going to be a millionaire.
One last big thing that was like my own "wah-lah!" moment this week was when my group found out that Mommy and Daddy basically just complain the entire play, and these complaints signify their utter oblivion to anyone aside from themselves, namely Mommy. Consequently, Mrs. Barker is just someone there to fix their complaints. It's odd that Albee even decided to give her a specific name in the text at all, as she is just another woman who is too busy with her insignificant task to be noticed by anyone but Grandma.
That about wraps up my thoughts as of now on The American Dream. I give Edward Albee props for shoving so much deeper meaning into such a short play, thanks for giving me something to frustrated about.

Oct. 6th

Before I went into AP English I would never have been able to tell you what syntax is, let alone how to find it in a piece of literature. Now not only can I find it (sometimes...) but I can also tell you why the author did it (normally my answer is something like "uh, to enhance the meaning by *insert literature term*...). So maybe I'm not the best at finding and making sense of syntax yet, but we're working on it, and the sheets that had us try to pull meanings from different examples using syntax really helped.
If I had to compare the writing part of this class to the reading part so far, I'm going to be honest- the writing part's killing me! I feel like all those obnoxiously over thought intros we worked on are going to get easier as the year goes on; but that in no way means they're coming easy to me right now! Hopefully by the time the AP exam rolls around I'll have gotten the hang of the writing process and will be able to write one (more like three) of those babies on my own. The reading part, that's going a whole lot smoother. The American Dream was a nice first time read, but I feel like as soon as we discuss it I'm going to be like "no way- I missed the entire deeper meaning to this piece?" because you can't read that book and then in the back of your mind not be wondering "oh my gosh, what in the word does this writer mean by all of this?" Talk about a real life deeper meaning question. Alas, I'm sure well get to it in time.

Sept. 22nd

In Lit. class we've talked a lot so far about creating a thesis statement. I never really knew there was so much you had to consider before you said what the paper you're going to write is about. Apparently you need to emphasize such things as goal, technique, effect, and meaning (also known as that darn awful stupid "so what?" question I can never seem to find and address that's hidden in the prompts).
I never knew the difference between techniques (something you can physically point to on the page, such as diction) and effect (something you cant physically point to in a writing, such as tone) until this week.
A couple things on poetry. One: since when has Dr. Seuss not been poetry? Mrs. Holmes would answer forever, that he writes something called Doggerel (rhymed rhythmic PROSE), and that anything prose is not poetry. Two: Something to reflect on; good job Mrs. Holmes on picking probably the best example of all time for how poetry takes longer to explain than to read. I've read the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" my William Carlos Williams last year and I'm pretty sure I said something rude along the lines of "wow, people consider anything poetry." Maybe I should just shut my big trap sometimes; after hearing the roughly five minute explanation and background information on that poem I was like "alright, alright, time for a standing O'!" Like dang, talk about a deeper meaning...
Just so I can use this to look back, I'd like to place in here that TAP stands for Thesis Answers the Prompt, and also DIDLS stands for diction, imagery, detail, language, and syntax (though if Mrs. Holmes actually reads this she'll be shaking her head over because we use those acronyms literally everyday...).
On Chapter 3, I wanted to put my thoughts into words that stream of consciousness narratives can be used in both first and third person point of view, something that I found confusing when reading the text book because I was like "oh my gosh, then what in the world are books like Catcher in the Rye?" Yes indeed, stream of consciousness is a sub-category of the larger 1st, 2nd, and 3rd point of views, just like omniscient and objective narrator. I'd also like to say just how much I personally disapprove of layered and 2nd point of view; no explanation required.
In other news- This Is Sparta!