Week 10: "Understanding Tragedy"11/10/2017 Throughout these past few weeks, we have been focusing on the concept of tragedy. When we were beginning this unit, I had an unsure idea of what tragedy was. I figured it had something to do with sad topic and some kind of suffering - which turned out to be true. However, I have since learned that there is much more to tragedy than what I had originally anticipated. Tragedy, in literature, has dealt with human suffering for hundreds of years. Often, there is some kind of tragic flaw that the main character possesses, although they may not necessarily realize it. In regards to tragedy, when we read Oedipus aloud in class, I learned that we may not always understand a character's tragic flaw until the end of a story. Oedipus and his mother had tried their whole lives to avoid letting fate cause him to kill his father and wed his mother. However, they ultimately couldn't avoid the fate that was set out for them. Moreover, I have learned that tragedy does not always have to be a plot twist or a shocking factor in the plot of a story - tragedy exists in everyday life as well. When we watched Dan Ariely's Ted Talk in class, he explained that the human mind has a tragic flaw, which is that it is prone to be duped by options we are given in all aspects of life. We believe that just because we can invent amazing objects and revolutionize technology, that we have minds that can beat all odds. However, whilst listening to Ariely's speech, I realized that this isn't true. Our minds can't cognitively understand that certain options create influences on nearly every decision we make, because those options present consequences that our minds can't pick up. Before having watched this Ted Talk, I would have continued to believe that tragedy only exists in dramatic cases.
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Week 7: "Uphill Battle"10/20/2017 This past week has been a challenging one. The essays - in which we are writing about different elements of literature - have proven to be one of the more difficult things I've had to commit to writing about in an English class. On a usual basis, I can deal with any sort of topic and run with it. Yet, when it was time to actually begin writing our essays, I found myself struggling to stay on track and focus for long periods of time. I do not have a history of struggling with topics for essays in English class - often I have found it easy to write about a topic that is given to me, because it takes the guessing part out of the assignment. For some reason, however, I have found it difficult to write about the point of view of my story - I find myself second guessing what I am trying to interpret and write most of the time. My struggle with writing this essay has continued to remind me of the video we watched at the beginning of the trimester. The video was about college students with many different levels of skill and interest in English, and how they were shocked when they realized that their writing skills were often worse than they had expected once they got to college. This thought has made me glad to have chosen to be struggling with this paper whilst in AP Literature, because I am hoping that once I finish my essay that I will have grown as a writer and will be more prepared for college classes. Ultimately, this paper has presented many difficulties so far, but I am hopeful that the end product will be a positive one. Week 6: "Growth in Painful Memories"10/12/2017 Throughout the duration of this past week, I am continuing to feel that I growing tremendously as a creative writer. I feel like I am rediscovering many characteristics about myself that seem to have been locked away for a very long time. Since we have been working on revising and polishing our creative writing pieces more and for our creative portfolios, I am starting to discover more ways to interpret my feelings and past experiences. Also, I am beginning to feel more comfortable with sharing areas of my past that may have seemed embarrassing or scary to talk about before. I have found that by writing creatively, I am able to write down thoughts that I usually would have tried to forget. This activity has become almost a type of therapy for myself. In this past, I would choose to try to forget difficult thoughts because I did not want to think about memories that I knew I would not feel confident sharing or speaking about. This habit has caused me to harbor many harsh feelings towards others, as well as myself. These harsh feelings would sometimes be taken out on people who did not deserve such a thing, which would make everything worse both internally and externally. Yet, once we began revising our creative writings (of which I have been writing about very personal topics), I have found an outlet that has been benefiting my life in multiple ways. One example as to how this process has helped me grow as an individual is the fact that I am more able to help other people with their issues in life. Writing about personal topics has made it easier to understand how/why they effect me the way they do. As I become more able to understand how these experiences have made me feel overall through my creative writing, I am discovering more ways to be able to use my past to help others with problems they may be having. I think the reason for this is because I am able to not only put myself in someone else's shoes (depending on the situation), but I am also able to give examples as to how I was able to overcome similar difficulties. This has proven to not only help the people whom I am giving advice to, but it has helped me because I am voicing hardships that I have faced, am dealing with, or have overcame. In all honesty, it was odd accepting the idea that something as simple as writing creatively could have possibly helped me in such a personal way; but, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how true this was. I am now able to let myself think about think about experiences with a more in-depth persona, which feels great. This has also helped to build my skills as a writer overall, which I am very grateful for. Week 5: And I was Running10/6/2017 This past week has given me a reborn passion for writing. I used to write quite often, but I haven't taken the time to creatively write something that I truly enjoy in many years. However, when we did the creative writing this week, some type of switch that has been turned off for a very long time was finally turned back on. When Ben told us about possibly attempting the "I remember" prompt for our creative writings, I thought I would give it a try just to see what happens. I did not have a strong topic to write about prior to starting, so I was open to writing about things I remember from my life. Yet, as soon as we started, I took the prompt into a new direction and began to write feverishly. I started my first sentence off by writing "I remember," and soon I was writing about my love for running. I was not expecting this, but I was very happy about it. In fact, rather than strictly following the prompt, I went off in my own direction and began to write "I was running" over and over in between the specific points of my piece. Soonafter, I realized that I wanted this piece to be a poem - of which I have not committed myself to writing since I was in the sixth grade. In the past, poems did not always come easy to me. They were always difficult to understand - the constant sudden changes in the dramatic effects and the deeper meanings always threw me off. However, there was something about this specific style or the topic that I had chosen that caused me to not want to stop writing. I wanted to elaborate more, and breathe more life into the poem I was quickly constructing. I am very glad that I was given the prompt that Ben presented, because I was able to rediscover a passion for a topic that I have not written about in a very long time. Week 4: The Sporadic Art of Loss9/29/2017 Throughout this past week, we have discussed the poem "Elegy in X Parts" quite often. This poem, written by Matt Rasmussen, depicts the often forgotten truth when it comes to how we react after losing someone that was close to us. Rasmussen shows his feelings and thoughts in every aspect of this poem, from the literal structure, to the dramatic changes of topics. This poem has helped me to gain a much stronger understanding of something that everyone goes through: loss. Before having read this poem, I thought that losing someone just made us sad for a while. However, after constantly having to analyze this poem for the past week, I realized that there is a much deeper internal transformation that we go through as we make our way through the stages of grief. For example, in Rasmussen's poem, he mentiones how his memory of the person who has died has become construed by the false memories he has subconsciously conjured up as he grieves. Before having read this story, I never would have realized that we as humans do this many times when someone has left our lives. Yet, as I thought back to a time last year when I had lost someone close to me, I could not help but realize that I had done the exact same thing without meaning to. I'm glad that I learned this, because it may be something for me to remember in the future, should I or anyone close to me lose someone they care about and need help coping with understanding why we have certain thought processes during our grieving stages. Moreover, I learned a lot about gaining a deeper understanding of the structure of poems and how they can relate back to the literal words being used in pieces of literature. In this poem, the set up is very sporadic and all over the place as the speaker tries to explain his thoughts. He changes topics very abruptly, and does not match the poem's structure to the placement of the punctuation in his sentences. This also presented a deeper understanding of poems to me as I tried to figure out why this was done. I realized that the speaker may have done this om purpose, to show how clouded and frantic our thoughts can become when we think about someone who is gone. The lack of matching the punctuation to the ends of the couplets shows that sometimes we speed through some thoughts, while emphasizing certain parts of other thoughts. I enjoyed being able to understand the deeper meaning that this presented. Overall, I learned a lot this week; both in regards to literature, as well as a very serious topic that we all have some sort of experience with. Week 3: Everything is a Symbol9/22/2017 Throughout this past week, I have learned about some very valuable perspectives on life in correlation to literature. Specifically, I have learned that as we become stronger writers and readers, we begin to see the world differently. We begin to use simple, everyday objects in our lives and meanings of important symbols. This was made apparent to me when Ben explained his unfortunate story of the grease fire in his apartment. At first, I thought that the story was only being told to us for humor, or as a way to fill time. But, as he explained the meaning behind the mint plant that was destroyed in the fire, I began to understand just how much we grow as writers and readers, and how that transfers into our mindsets in life. When he explained the symbolic meaning behind his mint plant, and how he had a strong connection to it because it was a way for him to spend the little amounts of available time with his girlfriend, I began to understand that there are many different ways we view the important things in our lives. So, after Ben told us the story of the grease fire and his mint plant, I began to think about the things in my life that I have unknowingly began to see as important symbols. For example, my track spikes are a very important symbol to me. Every time I look at my spikes, I begin to think about my grandfather and my experiences with the sport that I love the most. My spikes have helped to give me a strong connection to not only my grandfather, but also my love for being athletic. They've helped me with being able to let go of the stresses that I face on a daily basis - whenever I put them on, I get this surge of adrenaline and excitement for this challenges that I know are about to come when I race. This feeling had helped me to stay grounded and keep my eye on my goals in every aspect of my life. I'm very thankful for Ben having shared that story, because it has helped me to see the importance of many things in my life. I feel that the idea of symbolism in life is a very important quality to obtain, because they can be the reasons that we continue to push ourselves to stay focused on improving ourselves. Outside source: prezi.com/yvctk29o4so2/the-symbols-of-everyday-life/
Week 2 - Baby Steps9/15/2017 Throughout the past week, I have learned a multitude of new things, particularly in regards to becoming a stronger writer. As we watched the video that had to do with different college student's experiences in English classes, I began to realize that I may not be as strong of a writer as I had once given myself the credit for being. However, I did not take this as a bad thing. Rather, I was glad to have realized it now, so that I would not feel caught off guard when I began college English classes, as those in the video had felt. Moreover, I learned that there were many things in the world of writing that I agreed with that had not been said aloud before having watched that video. An example of this is when one of the students began to talk about how difficult it is to grow as a writer in a school classroom because many times our peers are afraid to thoroughly critique our writing. This thought helped me to realize why I had previously thought I was such a well-rounded writer - because the people around me never took the time to actually find errors in my work. The article that I found (located underneath the lower picture) has also helped to give me an insight as to how to grow as a writer. I have given myself the personal goal to ensure that I ask for specific critiques for upcoming assignments to ensure that I improve as a writer. Also, I learned more about myself as a writer throughout this past week. When we were given the reading assignment and our reading rates, I thought that mine was going to be easy to achieve - 48 pages a week did not seem very challenging at the time. However, shortly after we were assigned this task, I quickly realized how honest Mr. Schoenborn had been when he explained all of the personal excuses we often make as readers. I constantly found myself subconsciously making excuses as to why I had other priorities to get done before focusing on my writing. This ended up hurting my goals to meet my reading rate, which was very disappointing. Yet, I plan to do better next week to ensure that I get my book ready efficiently. I have found that as long as I make the plan to do better (and often times share it with no one, oddly enough) I am much more likely to get it done. Outside source: www.eadeverell.com/grow/
Week 1 - And so it Begins9/8/2017 Throughout this past first week of my Senior year, I was not expecting to learn much with it being the very beginning of the school year. However, I was pleasantly proven wrong in regards to AP Literature.
This past week, I learned that reading, writing, and critical thinking are all interdependent variables. At first, I thought that it was acceptable to only excel at one of these traits; specifically, I excelled at writing. However, thanks to our classroom discussions, I have found that we must be able to perform all of these skills effectively and with all three factors in mind in order to be strong English students. These discussions have helped me to reach a point of determination in regards to strengthening myself, specifically when it comes to my consistency in reading. I have come to the self-realization that I need to stop making excuses for why I do not have the time to read outside of school. I have continued to tell myself that I want to get back into reading, but have used my other commitments in life to constantly push this desire to the backburner of my responsibilities. AuthorKennedy Griffin. Categories |