November is my favorite month, because it is officially sweater weather and that holiday feeling is starting to spread, but hasn't gotten out of control and obnoxious yet. This month we also got to read Hamlet, which was pretty cool. I had always waned to read that play, so I'm glad to be able to cross that off my literary to-do list.
We did a second attempt at an essay about "The Century Quilt", except that I was absent for the first one so I actually only wrote one... But yes, we practiced essaying. We did not get them back however, and I would like to see some feedback from Ms. Holmes... Hopefully we write more essays because I need the practice. AP Lit essays seem quite different from other AP essays, such as History or Biology themed ones. Unfortunately we can't just rattle off facts; we have to write well and know all the terminology too. With practice we will get it!
Even after wrapping up DOS, there were still some loose ends. I feel like there is much more to the story than what we uncovered, but in general we did pretty well explaining things. The goldfish bowl was neat, but I think I prefer working together as a whole class, where we can shout out our ideas as they come. When it came to our theme statement discussion, everyone was going back and forth between ideas that I didn't like, so I just wrote my own and read it to the class and they loved it! That made me happy. I don't usually single-handedly win over the class that way so it was nice to contribute! I think we sometimes forget to think individually and only think collectively.
Those exercises we have started to do regarding mood and diction and such are pretty hard! We always take forever and it's grueling work. I'm sure that they will pay off though. I trust Ms. Holmes' lesson planning. I remember a certain American Lit teacher I had who made us write "journals" as a warm up activity and there was NO benefit from them and she collected them and read each one carefully and half the time the prompt was basically "write whatever you want" or else it was something difficult like "What is your definition of happiness? Please write two pages on this." I am certain all the journals were was wasted time. So the AP environment is a nice change.
And, of course, Hamlet. I think this is my new favorite Shakespeare play, after Julius Caesar. I love the witty dialogue! Hamlet is such a cool protagonist, and I'm looking forward to going back through everything for a close reading. I haven't synthesized any theories yet, but I'm pretty sure I do not like the way women and gender role are portrayed in this piece. My close reading should clarify this for me.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteVery nice job reviewing the stuff we have done in class. I enjoyed reading your thoughts on all the activities we have done. I agree with you about doing fishbowl discussions versus whole class discussions. I think the whole class contributing at once allowed for more ideas to be shared. It also made topics flow a little more easily. However, I can see the benefit in that it forces everyone to participate. I also agree with your comments on only doing work that will pay off in the future. I also had the teacher with the meaningless journals and they frustrated me as well. Overall, great job with this!
Avery
Mary,
ReplyDeleteYou've done a great job here hitting everything we did this month. I agree with you that the goldfish bowl was "neat," and that whole class discussions are far more efficient. I disliked the goldfish bowl because the topics of discussion were fixed and only a few people could talk at once. I have also noticed that AP Lit writing is more specific and refined than other AP essays. I liked this cross comparison and understand why journal entries can be frustrating. This is one of the things I like best about AP Lit; that all work we do will help us out in the end. I agree that Hamlet is a witty book, but you might want to reference it or compare it to another book you've read. I know there are few Hamlet knockoffs out there. I liked how your post was straight to the point and concise! I'm a little jealous mine aren't as concise.