I remember that the first thing we did was to analyze and compare those two paintings of Madonna with child. At the time I felt annoyed because I thought we were spending way too much time on it, but of course it makes sense now. First of all, that probably means that Ms Holmes wants us to spend a long time on every piece, and not just blast through it with her simply telling us the meaning and significance, like in other lit classes. This requires more effort on our parts, but will certainly make us better readers. I actually already feel like I've improved a lot!
A more personal growth in September is that I finally understand what motifs are. They're not even complicated, either. They also don't have to fit into the theme; they're just patterns. Maybe significant, maybe not.
I don't know about everyone else, but I had never heard of the DIDLS guide for analysis before this class. I've worked with each element individually in other classes (imagery, diction, etc) but have NEVER seen them all squished together into one funny name NOR have I been asked to talk about more than one or two at a time. I'm not sure why my other teachers have never gone here, because it's not especially difficult and I know everyone is getting a lot more out of the texts this way.
One thing that I feel like was a bad lesson idea was when Ms Holmes had us play those games on the board, where we had to identify lit terms. It's a bit emberassing but I didn't know a lot of them! I would have rather we talked about all the terms or were at least given a packet or something. Also, some of you guys read freakishly fast and after only two seconds people are screaming "LITOTES!!" and I have never heard this word and now don't even know the definition it's paired with. So that was a bit frustrating. On Friday (with the sub) we got a packet with some drama/comedy terms. I'd like more of those and then maybe some quizzes where we have to match definitions INDEPENDENTLY so I can have a whole three or four seconds to read and take it all in for myself. On the exam I won't have the benefit of peers yelling out the answer before I even finish reading, so I think we need some quizzes...
As for The American Dream, I really enjoyed it. I think it was a good one to start with because it's short (fewer details to analyze) and yet there are so many different ways we can spin it.I've really liked talking about this play in class, and hearing everyone's ideas! It showed that we don't have to rely on what "They say" books are about, even we high school students can develop our own ideas
So overall, not a bad start. I think this class is going to do a lot more for me than my other lit classes have.
You mentioned the two paintings of Madonna with child and I definitely agree – at first I really was not sure why we were going into such depth with what the painting meant. I also did not think it was possible for a painter to put that much thought into a piece, but it does make sense now. It seems to me like there are two main ways a creator can give a piece meaning: the creator can directly add it, or it can be added subconsciously. I like that you mentioned motifs. I didn’t understand what they were either, no teacher had ever really explained it, but it is super simple to understand since they are just patterns. And I agree about not liking the vocabulary game we do in class. I’m kind of a slow reader and it seems like it is always the same people who are shouting out the answers (the faster readers) and it’s hard to learn the vocab when everyone else is telling you the answers.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually really glad that we spent so much time looking at the paintings. At first it had me kind of worried - I wasn't really excited about another year of overanalyzing something that I couldn't understand. But as our class started discussing, I started being able to see more and more of what they were saying. It really helped that we got the chance to discuss it as opposed to being told what it meant by a teacher. Usually when teachers just tell me what something means in a book without explaining it or giving the class time to come to their own conclusions, I think that they're just making it up or something. I'm really glad you mentioned DIDLS! I felt like I had missed something because I'd never heard of it before, but it seems like it's pretty new for everyone. Why do you think we hadn't learned it before now? It's not a super complicated concept, and it's already helped me a lot.
ReplyDeleteWell to start off I love your writing style, your hilarious. Second I can relate to a lot of what you said, I have definitely improved just from the first couple weeks of class and understand things more in depth. I am too really confused with the terms, I don't know any of them and its really hard to even learn them when everybody reads them so fast. I think that Ms.Holmes is more just wanting us to recognize the terms because we will be talking about them more often in class. I now as well know what the difference between a motif and a theme is, I have never come up with that many motifs in a novel. Usually the lit teacher states one motif and makes you talk about why it is and doesn't give the students the chance to discuss them all. I have noticed for me personally that my idea of theme has also changed, it use to be "freedom" just like most people and I didn't understand the difference but after analyzing the American Dream like we did now I fully understand theme. I wish you elaborated on what we found with the American Dream a bit more but I think you covered some really good points! Nice work!
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