Last time I posted one of these, we left off with the American Dream. After our initial read, we took a break and annotated HTRLLAP and then went back and annotated The American Dream and had a second discussion. Our discussion of HTRLLAP wasn't great, lots of side stories and irrelevant details, but The American Dream was much better. I think this was because we had already discussed the play so we knew which parts to go back to and discuss. We also had a goal when discussing The American Dream which was to find all the motifs and put them together into a theme. This was new to me because although we discussed motifs all the time with The Great Gatsby and The Crucible, we had never tried to find a theme that embodied all of them. Annotating the play after discussing it in class made it much easier for me to catch important details and words, and reading it again allowed me to find evidence for all the motifs found in class.
Next we read Nuts and Bolts of College Literature. This book was incredibly helpful for class and also for college essays, seeing as it focused on all the mistakes I commonly make. I write in passive voice by mistake often and with NBOCL, I am trying to stop. In class we wrote our first AP writing practice and then used the Nuts and Bolts rules to correct it a few days later. This showed me how much my writing could be improved by being made more clear and concise.
At the beginning of each class we have been doing an exercise with a particular passage. We generally have to identify how form follows function and then model a sentence after it. It has been a lot harder than I would have imagined, but as a class we are getting better at it. We especially have have problems with modeling the sentence, which is odd because you would think that would be the easiest part.
For the last few days we have been watching Death of a Salesman. I think watching it helped a lot with comprehension because there were constant flashbacks that would be difficult to understand without actually seeing them. This play is incredibly sad and reminds me of The American Dream mainly in its criticisms of society.
During your “Response to Course Materials #2” I think you did a great job in incorporating all the things that we did in class, in doing so also connecting things back to each other. But during the piece it did seem that you summarized a lot. I think you could make this writing better by adding in more connections to the outside of the AP Lit class. I agree that the discussion of HTRLLAP could have been better, but I think there were also some great things that came out of it after Ms. Holmes stepped in and helped lead us in the right direction. What kinds of things in “Nuts and Bolts of College Literature” helped you with your writing? Why do you think it has gotten easier to do the exercises in the morning? These are just some things to think about.
ReplyDeleteI agree that our discussion on HTRLLAP wasn't that great, but maybe instead of just stating that it was bad, explain how we could either make our discussions better, or possibly put in one thing that you did learn from that discussion, as there were still great points made. I feel that you did a good job covering all the topics we have covered in class. Great job explaining how you personally have learned from these activities. One thing I do think you could possibly include in this post is what we have learned about theme during our second American Dream discussion. Since you talked about motifs, maybe discuss how motifs relate to theme? Also, it seems that you have forgotten to add a period at the end of your last sentence.
ReplyDeleteHi Alice, this was nicely written and really covered the topics we discussed and learned about in class very well. However, I feel like you should have further explained what you didn't like about the HTRLLAP and discussed what you would have changed to be more beneficial to your learning. Although you did a great job summarizing what we did in class I also feel that you should add in some connections to the outside world or to other pieces so that it isn't simply a summation of what happened in class. You should also mention something about the plagiarism discussion and the lesson on motifs and themes. Overall though, great job, I really liked how you discussed how some of the activities either helped or didn't help you, the main thing you need to work on is bringing in connections to other things.
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