This week started off rough for me. After spending two days at home suffering due to a pretty gnar sinus infection I returned to class right in the middle of a group project.This week was all about looking at what makes literature literature, and how we can find the story in things other than literature, in things like paintings and other forms of art. One activity I enjoyed doing as a part of this lesson this week was finding the story in a famous painting. My group chose look at Guernica by Picasso. While also enlightening it was very entertaining to pick out little pieces of the painting and try to say what they might represent and what that adds to the message of the whole piece.
This week we also received a new poem. “Elegy in X Parts” by Matt Rasmussen shows the broken and reeling thoughts of someone who’s had someone close to them commit suicide. In our table groups we spent time breaking apart each little piece of the poem in order to put together what is going through the writer's head. As usual with a weekly poem we took the time to write a timed essay. This week I found it incredibly challenging as timed writings often give me a severe sense of anxiety. The work I produced was not good quality at all and I hope to improve on this difficulty as the year goes on.
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This week in class we discussed the summer reading homework and talked about what kind of metaphors we can find in literature. To explore this topic we broke up into groups and reflected on our chosen books and the one required book, and had to create a visual metaphor to show our ideas.Well I personally only read How to Read Literature Like a Professor and had not read my summer reading picks, I did read a plethora of other literature books for my own entertainment this summer. My partner, on the other hand, had not read the required piece, so we spent time explaining the other books to one another and sharing our thoughts about certain pieces and how they might interact with the other books. Matt and I were both very connected to the statement that “ all stories come from other stories, and all these stories are apart of just one big story” from How to Read Literature Like a Professor. To illustrate this we used a clump of vines growing from a tree. Well this week was entertaining, I feel like I did not learn so much as I revisited things that have been apart of my english education since later elementary. Looking at stories beyond surface level to find what the author is really trying to say is an integral part of the class, but I feel like the activity was a bit shallow, but I suppose that’s really up to us as the students to see it as more than just words and coloring. This week I learned two new things about myself. First, I actually very much enjoy creative writing. I haven’t been forced (I guess politely asked and compelled by responsibility is a better way to say it) to sit and write about whatever in a very long time. Timed writing has always been a very common thing for me to do in english class but there has always been some sort of prompt. There was something freeing about the experience of just being told to write, about whatever I want, keep writing, keep my hands moving, keep information flowing because you are not done till you need to stop. Beforehand I decided I wanted to write about what was the most fresh in my mind: a long, transformative summer. Being able to reflect on all those things in anyway I wanted was nearly cathartic, it made me more at peace and ready for school. I used as much flowery language and morbid sarcasm as i wanted.
On the other hand I also found that I and many others in my class have a very closed mind when exposed to poetry. This week we read “The Eagle” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and were asked to reflect and analyze the poem. Often, nearly in every mention of the poem we’d say “Dude, it’s 30 words about an eagle, I don’t know what you want me to do with this.”, But by the end of the week, through tpcast and group discussion I had realized that even if it sounds stupid or tired any thoughts about what something might stand for that changes the meaning of the poem is worth looking at. This week started the beginning of my senior year of highschool, which is supposed to be a special year in itself, but this year I made a promise to myself. This year I want to get over my performance anxiety. However, this goes for more than my performing arts involvements. This year I’m going to get over my fears of academic judgment, especially in terms of my academic writing.
During this week we set up classroom blogs and talked about the year ahead. While setting up my classroom website I came to the realization that I would be doing a lot of writing in this class. I mean, I knew the class was going to contain a lot of writing when I signed up for it, but the amount of writing seemed abstract and unimportant at that time. Now, however, it seems abundantly clear that I will be quite comfortable with expressing my thoughts by the end of the year. I thought this would bother me or even scare me, but after thinking about my goals for the year I am actually quite excited at the idea of writing often. During the week Mr.Schoenborn made a point that has stuck with me and will continue to motivate me to maintain my goal, and that is that no matter what I do in life I will have to write, I will have to be comfortable expressing my ideas, and I will have to be able to do it in a somewhat timely manner. http://www.true-ink.org/why-writing-is-important.html |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
November 2017
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