Okay, I knew I had to do more than just show up to do well in this class. The title is more in reference to my realization that I actually have to think to do well in this class. It's not a math class where there's lots of "plug and chug" situations, or history where it's just fact after fact. I actually have to think about what we're doing and how I can better understand it. Which I think is a great idea and might actually make the class meaningful, not just another AP on my college applications.
Now for the actual assignment. I've known kids in AP Lit for a few years now, and they always said "I analyze everything now." I never fully believed them. I mean, how could someone watch a movie and only see the underlying meaning of the red shirt the boy is wearing or the sudden rain storm? After reading Foster's book, I completely understand. I can remember reading the chapter "Marked For Greatness" and thinking back to sophomore year in American Lit. One of my favorite books from that year was A Prayer for Owen Meany, who was definitely marked for greatness. Throughout the book, Owen has his own ideas on why he's small, but I kept wondering if it was really necessary. Foster mentioned people like Harry Potter and his scar, and how his scar tells us he's important and will do great things. Making Owen Meany a midget did much the same thing, forcing me to pay attention to everything he did right up to the end of the book.
The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing was an eye-opener as well. I'd heard some of the tips before, like avoiding passive voice and unnecessary adverbs (something I still need to work on), but I found myself guilty of using the pompous style Harvey describes at the beginning of his book. I have a decent vocabulary and I always wanted to use my most impressive (at least as I saw them) words in my formal writing. After reading Harvey's book, I realized that those who read my college essays, or even my high school essay, don't want to know how many big words I know how to use. Writing an essay so that my real voice comes through is much more important than showing off my vocabulary.
The forum posts and diagnostic/poetry tests we had to take were frustrating, but helpful. Poetry has never been my strong suit in English classes, so I didn't do well on the poetry test and thinking of something to post about "The Mexicans Begin Jogging" and "The Terrorist He Watches" took what seemed like hours. But after doing them, I found that posting replies and rethinking about the poems was much easier. I know I'm going to have to read a lot more poetry to consider myself good at analyzing it, but doing the assignments and reading other students' work definitely helped me improve over the summer.
I think you did a great job on hitting important goals of this class. I particularly liked that you thought about how the assignments can be used in your life outside of class when you talked about Foster. I think you could have used to quotes from the Nuts and Bolts or from the poetry for the forums. If you had used quotes I think it would have added to your writing. I like that you have realized your weakness and found ways that this class has already helped get better.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you noticed the difference between a math class, a history class, and a literature class. It is so true that each academic requires different ways of thinking. How was the diagnostic test frustrating? Were the questions confusing, did you feel the questions were irrelevant? In addition, what is it about poetry that is difficult for you and how did the summer work help you? I like that you have already noticed an improvement though.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you on analyzing everything now. After reading Foster I find myself analyzing everything too, making enjoying movies more difficult now. I liked how you used what you learned from Foster and applied it to what you read in the past in American Lit. And I agree with what you say about because I too am guilty of trying to sound like I know everything and talk all pretty-like, when really I just sound like I'm trying to hard and not human-like. I think examples to support the poetry analysis paragraph as well as the analysis paragraph would make this even stronger, but overall, good work. I enjoyed reading this.
ReplyDelete