Close of Business

Graduation is tomorrow.  It's a bit surreal, to be honest.  This blog has been fairly quiet for the past month or so, and for good reason.  I've been keeping busy with the 2013 Peer Assessment (to a degree of both success and failure) and our senior project.  Last night I pulled one final all-nighter to close out high school.  This year has been a crazy mess of ups and downs.  Fortunately, for the past few weeks the ups have definitely outnumbered the downs.  For all that's happened, I'll look back on these past four years in a positive light.

So what now?  For me, this blog has rarely transcended its origins as a "simple" course blog.  Because of that, it would be odd to continue it after the year has ended.  Ultimately, the best use of this blog has been as a portfolio of sorts for my work.  That said, I'm not done with blogging altogether.  I intend to continue posting on my second blog, Stilawip now that summer has all but begun.

One last thing:
For my fellow classmates in the graduating class of 2013, thanks for the memories!

My Top 3 Posts

At 442 page views, my 1987 AP Exam practice was by far my most visited page.  Granted, this can probably be attributed more to Google than the quality of the post.

My All the Pretty Horses literature analysis garnered 128 page views, and I think it was actually one of my better posts.

Finally, my essay on performative utterance was one of my favorites.  I think it was one of the few that was both relatively well-written, and completed in a reasonable amount of time.

AP Exam Essay Practice #5

Both "When I Have Fears" by John Keats and "Mezzo Cammin" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow deal with the theme of life's potential.  At first glance, they are extremely similar.  Both seemingly mourn the loss of dreams.  However, careful inspection reveals that the poetic techniques used by both poets points to two distinct messages.  Broadly speaking, the core of these differences is in perspective.  Keats writes of the future, while Longfellow writes of the past.  This relatively small difference cascades into many more

AP Exam Practice Essay #4

Given that The Road by Cormac Mccarthy takes place in a barren wasteland, it is remarkable how richly developed the characters are.  However, this is at the heart of the novel's theme, as McCarthy explores what it takes to cling to humanity in an inhumane world.  With so few characters to work with, he needs to make them count.  He does this by making the two only main characters -- the nameless man and his son -- foils that play off each other and in the process enhance their development.

AP Exam Essay Practice #3

When describing what would initially appear to simply e a windy street, Ann Petry goes to great lengths to craft a vibrant setting in the opening of her novel, The Street.  Despite the introduction of Lutie Johnson taking place only after several paragraphs of exposition, this sequence is instrumental in establishing her relationship to the world around her.  This methodical set up is accomplished through masterful work of both vivid imagery and extended personification.

AP Exam Essay Practice #2

Here's my essay for today (meaning April 30, so yesterday?), in all its flawed glory.  I cleaned up little mistakes as I found them, but I likely created even more with typos.  Admittedly, I was really sleepy today so the essay is a lot less focused than I would have liked.  Regardless, I would appreciate feedback!

AP Exam Essay Practice #1

Part bildungsroman and part allegory, The Poisonwood Bible follows the radical changes a vicious environment inflicts upon young Leah Price.  While the characters are certainly strong and well-developed, the alien jungle the Prices find themselves in is ultimately what drives the plot and theme of disillusionment.  The influence of this powerful setting is seen best through Leah Price.  Her evolution is cleanly broken down into a phase of sheltered idealism and one of bitter cynicism.

Prose and Open Essays

Once again, I'll be imposing a loose time limit on myself, for the sake of both exam practice and my sanity.  I'm aiming for forty minutes, but I'll spend as long as I need to finish the essay.  Pre-writes are on a separate piece of paper.  I'll post them if anyone really wants to see them, but they're mostly incoherent scribbles.  The passage and prompts can be found on the main course blog.

At Least Two Essays

Since time restraints have typically been the most difficult part of AP essays for me, I'm limiting myself to forty minutes per essay.  Otherwise, I'm liable to keep writing for far longer than is possible on the actual exam.  Besides that, I'm honestly not too keen on spending my entire weekend practicing essays.

Pre-writes are included in the forty minutes, although I will be doing them on a separate piece of paper to facilitate my rather haphazard pre-writing method.

Groupthink

Our Groupthink today in class was more helpful than I expected.  I thought I had a decent grasp on the poems already, but the group as a whole brought a lot of insightful thoughts to the table.  In particular, the discussion of "Eldorado" taught me a lot of things that I wouldn't have found otherwise (to be fair to Kris, "Epigram for Wallstreet", which he worked on, was easy enough to understand that there wasn't much room for his own analysis).

The gist of "Eldorado", is fairly easy to grasp.  However, in my individual reading I did not notice the subtleties to the poem.  For one, Poe uses the word "shadow" to shifts in each stanza.  In the first, it is used in the literal sense of a shadow.  In the second, it is used figuratively to represent the growing doubt in the knight's heart.  The third stanza's use becomes even more obscure, as the knight meets a pilgrim's shadow, symbolizing his death.  Finally, the final stanza makes reference to the Valley of the Shadow and Death when describing what it takes to reach Eldorado.

One other thing came up on the subject of Eldorado that I found amazing.  Apparently, Poe chose a poem structure that had stresses imitating the cadence of a horse's gallop.  In this way, he hoped to convey the sense of a journey through both the words and raw sound of the poem.  I enjoyed the poem before learning this, but now it's even more amazing.

Gridlock

Justin Thompson and I will be analyzing "Enigma" by Edgar Allan Poe.  Kris Green is analyzing "Epigram for Wall Street."  Gus Blundell and Jason Reinwald are working on "Eldorado."

"Eldorado" analysis is here.
"Epigram for Wall Street" analysis is here.

Since we were having difficulties understanding "Enigma" at all, we've decided to use the simpler TPCASTT grid.  Once we have a more solid understanding, we may revisit with the vendler grid.

Seventh Reading

Justin Thompson and I chose to read poems only by Edgar Allen Poe.  For one, I usually enjoy Poe's writing.  Additionally, we figured that by choosing three poems by the same poet, we would be able to analyze the differences in prose of each one.  The ones we chose differ in rhyming scheme, theme, or both.  Here's what we read:

"Epigram for Wall Street"

"Eldorado"

"Enigma"

I'll be honest, we didn't read all of them the full seven times, but we did read them out loud several times.  The order I have listed them is more or less in order of comprehension.  "Epigram for Wall Street" was short and straightforward.  There was, to my knowledge, very little room for interpretation.  "Eldorado" was also fairly straightforward, but there were also layers to understanding it (what does Eldorado represent to the main character?).  "Enigma" was extremely difficult to understand, to the point that I have only a very vague idea of what Poe was going for.  We'll make sure to pay more attention to "Enigma" when working more with the poems.

Responses to Lit Circles

100th post!  Well, actually this is post 101, but I still have Pride and Prejudice notes that I haven't published.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

1. D

2. B

3. A

4. D

5. A

6. C

Life of Pi Literary Terms

Here's Jason Reinwald and Gus Blundell's work on lit terms from Life of Pi.


-Epigram
“It's happened to all of us: there's sunlight and shade, spots and patterns of colour, your mind is elsewhere - so you don't make out what is right in front of you.”
Chapter 18
-Metonymy
“Tigers go woof when they are caught unawares, a short, sharp detonation of fury that would instantly make your legs jump up and run away if they weren't frozen to the spot.”

Macbeth Act IV Notes

• "Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble"
• the reader's first introduction to the witch's actual wickedness, if it was not already assumed
• is there any symbolism to the items being placed in the cauldron, or are they there simply for weirdness sake
• also, were these actually things believed to have magical/evil properties?

Jane Eyre Questions

The following answers are in response to this document.  In the spirit of AP test prep, I did my best to move through the passages and questions quickly and didn't look for an answer key.

Macbeth Notes Act II

• Macbeth identifies himself as a friend to Banquo
• does Banquo feel the same way?
• Banquo's dream of "three weird sisters"
• is he talking about the witches here?
• Macbeth's soliloquy
• marvels at how unreal the situation feels
• an indication that this is not something that Macbeth truly feels comfortable doing
• he feels that this is out of character for himself
• many allusions to mythology to enforce the mystical surreal tone
• Why does Shakespeare choose not to show the murder itself?
• too gruesome for the audience?  Or perhaps too offensive to the king?
• the Macbeths have, apparently, fooled everybody
• "Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?" ... "Those that Macbeth hath slain."
• Macduff and Ross are ironically correct here, although they do not know it
• They conclude seconds later that Macbeth is next up for the throne
• how do they not connect Macbeth and his "thriftless ambition" to the crime?
• Macbeth ma have too good of a reputation.  It is stated earlier that he is well liked throughout the land.

"Nature can do that?"

At the beginning of the school year, Justin Thompson started a blog to showcase the various wonders of nature.  Eventually, I joined in and lent a hand with research and writing.  There are some genuinely bizarre things showcased, ranging from trees of dragon blood to fried egg jellyfish.  If you've got some free time and are looking to be amazed, give the blog a look!

Nature Can Do That?

Macbeth Act I: Thoughts and Notes -- Barely Awake Edition

I'm tired right now, so apologies if this post falls short.  And no, this late night (early morning?) post is not because of procrastination for once.  Well, not mostly.

• Macbeth is an interestingly contradictory character
• apparently peerless warrior, but is submissive to his overbearing wife
• has ambitions for the throne, but still has morality (or he at least lacks the disregard for human life of Lady Macbeth)
• Why does he want the throne?  Political?  Egotistical?
• Described as being fearless, but recoils at the witches
• Either Macbeth is not what he appears, or the witches are really just that horrendous
• could be both, obviously
• The witches are certainly not a pretty sight, but are they actively malicious?
• there's allusions to their wicked deeds, but what do they gain from the telling of Macbeth's future?
• Maybe not, could just be a convenient method of both foreshadowing and establishing a context for morality
• Banquo is less disturbed by the witches
• indicates that he is more used to their evil?
• What does Banquo think of Macbeth?
• friendly, rival, etc.
• Lady Macbeth is arguably more evil than the witches
• does Macbeth realize how easily he is goaded and manipulated?

Lit Circles: Life of Pi Prose Essay Prompts

The following AP style essay prompts are made for Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

1. Authors often use unusual plot structures to draw attention to important story elements.  In Life of Pi, Yann Martel inserts short italicized chapters written from his point of view.  What literary techniques within these chapters contribute to the overall theme of the novel?

2. Life of Pi is a story as much about the psychological and spiritual aspects of Pi as it is about his worldly struggles.  Analyze the literary devices that Martel uses to separate the physical and the metaphysical.

3. Stylistically, Life of Pi has characteristics of both a fable and a biography.  What devices does Martel use to create this effect?

Literature Analysis: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Once again, Justin Thompson and I worked on a Prezi for March's literature analysis on Crime and Punishment.

If the Prezi isn't showing up for anyone, click here.

AP Resources

College Board AP Central

Why not just go straight to the source?  The College Board actually has quite a few informative resources ranging from scoring guides to tips and practice.

Funnel Brain

Here's a bunch of user made flashcards.  Given that they are not "official" the quality may vary.  However, there is a decent selection to choose from -- just make sure to do a little fact checking.

AP Pass

This is a calculator to figure out your AP score.  It's a pretty neat way to visualize how exam scoring is done.

Bench Prep

This blog is orientated for long term preparation, so it may be a bit late at this point.  Regardless, there are a few useful things that can be gleaned from it still.

AP Study Notes

This website has a massive collection of examples and study topics.  It's hard to do better than this if you're going for the classic "study 'til you drop" method.

Brave New World Essay Draft 1

Loneliness is among the most potent of human conditions.  From it stems sadness, bitterness, and all manner of melancholy temperaments.  However, it can also bring enlightenment.  This is the case of John, "the Savage", from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.  As an outsider in every culture he encounters, John has a unique perspective of the world he lives in.  This position allows for a brutally honest assessment of societies' customs.  It is only though the eyes of an exile that the world's madness is fully revealed.

Brave New World Notes (Ch. 8)

• Memories of Linda trying to assimilate to the new culture, John trying to understand the unfairness of the world
• Huxley directly connects alcohol to soma
• Linda's treatment of John is a contradiction
• Part BNW, part "savage"
• Nature vs. nurture?
• Her instinct is to care for John, but her hypnopaedic-twisted mind hates him for what he "made" her
• Linda's stories build up what the BNW is like
• John calls his mother by her first name
• Linda does not want to be called "mother" because she has come to think of it as an insult, or at least an embarrassing phrase
• "A man can smile and smile and be a villain."
• Huxley links the scene back to the theme that happiness is not everything
• "If one's different, one's bound to be lonely."
• thematic isolation an conformity
• John shows a propensity for self-punishment, not unlike Berard's enjoyment of persecution
• "O brave new world," he repeated. "O brave new world that has such people in it. Let's start at once."

March Literature Analysis Choice

I am reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky for March's literature analysis.  I'll be doing another collaborative analysis with Justin Thompson.  Generally, I prefer to read novels that I will enjoy for literature analyses, while Justin would rather read one that maximizes AP test preparation.  Last time, we went with my choice of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, so Justin got to choose this time (for the sake of fairness; there wasn't really any formal agreement).  Crime and Punishment appeared on many exams, and the story seemed interesting enough to me.

I'll admit that I haven't started reading yet.  My expectations as far as raw entertainment go are not terribly high, but I'm hoping it'll surprise me.  If nothing else, I hope it will be thought provoking.  There a few things worse than a book that neither entertains nor educates.

Brave New World Notes (Ch. 7)

• Lenina complaining about the reservation isn't just normal aversion to nature, it's the hypnopaedic conditioning at work
• "I wish we could have brought the plane"
• Emphasis on consumerism, like with their equipment dependent sports
• "Yes, and civilization is sterilization"
• Bernard obviously does not mean this in a positive sense
• Bernard goes out of his way to make controversial statements
• Lenina finds the "remorseless persistence of the drums" appealing, why?
• Drum beats provide structure and order through repetition, much like the BNW
• The ritual Bernard and Lenina witness is traumatic even by today's standards
• Represents the polar opposite of life in the BNW
• deliberate self-punishment, rather than forced self-indulgence
• Linda is an interesting character
• Even after all those years, she still retains habits from the BNW
• Testament to the power of conditioning?  Or is it natural to cling to the beliefs one had when growing up?

Brave New World Active Reading Notes (Ch. 4 part II, Ch. 5)

Chapter 4 Part II

• Simile: "He was like a man pursued..."
• Aphorism: "Those who meant well behaved the same way as those who meant badly."
• Direct Characterization:  "He stood eight centimeters short of the standard Alpha height."
• Foil: Hemholtz Watson to Bernard (in a way, although they are also very similar)
• Foreshadowing: "I feel I could do something much more important.  Yes, and more intense, more violent."
• Indirect Characterization:  "But at the same time he felt rather ashamed for his friend.  He wished Bernard would show a little more pride."

Chapter 5

• Repetition: "...and then, under the influence of those endless repetitions, the gradual soothing of her mind, the soothing, the smoothing, the stealthy creeping of sleep."
• Juxtaposition:  "'Do you know what that switchback was?  It was some human being finally and definitely disappearing.  Going up in a squirt of hot gas...Everybody's happy now."
• Refrain:  the song by "Calvin Stopes and his Sixteen Sexophonists"
• Mood:  "Eyes shone, cheeks were flushed, the inner light of the universal benevolence broke out on every face in happy, friendly smiles."
• Note the slightly truncated phrases and emphasis on sensation rather than thought
• Irony:  "She looked at Bernard with an expression of rapture, but of apture in which there was no trace of agitation or excitement-for to be excited is still to be unsatisfied."
• Motif: the number 12

Literature Analysis: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

Here's the literature analysis I worked on with Justin Thompson and Kris Green.  If, for whatever reason the Prezi isn't working for you, here's a link.

Brave New World II (Chapters 2-3)

Following the structure of society laid down in the first chapter is a description of the children's indoctrination.  Coupled in stark contrast with "erotic play", it makes for two shocking chapters.  As with the setup of genetic engineering, Huxley's goal here is to create a seemingly ludicrous scenario (in this case, one that most readers would presumably find disgusting) that seems completely fabricated.  Then, he seeks to reveal over the course of the rest of the novel that these abominations are not so far-fetched after all.

This is also mirrored in the dialog, which jumps between characters in different conversations.  The jumps become increasingly rapid until eventually it is just flashed snippets of each line.  The dual conversation reveals an anomaly in the system -- Bernard.  As one group talks about the virtues of everybody belonging to each other, Bernard is painted very clearly as an outsider in another.  A few important things can be gleaned from this.  For one, the society is not "perfect".  There are, for whatever reasons, people that do not quite fit in.  Subsequently this also introduces conflict for the first time.  In a way, this marks the beginning of the plot.

writingas5pectatorsport

 I found a bunch of these on Christa Weston's blog (good job getting so many people to write!).  Take a look at her blog if you've got a shortage of essays.

Conor McNamara
Conor has an extremely..."intense" writing style.  From the occasionally coarse language to the scathingly caustic pop-culture references, it's pretty easy to pick out Conor's writing from a group.  With that in mind, I would advise keeping the audience in mind.  Practicing a little more moderation would probably be wise for something like the AP exam (I have no idea if he typically does).  That said, Conor's violent style is also one of his strengths -- the essay certainly has character.  It would be a shame to lose that to an AP grading rubric.

Hayden Robel
I'll be honest, I couldn't really read all of the essay.  By that I mean I could really only see the pre-write structure.  Regardless, the structure looks fine for the restricted amount of time it was done in.  It's certainly more elaborate than my "two word phrases and arrows" strategy.  Also, it seems like Hayden got a lot of writing done in such a short amount of time.  I personally find the time constraints to be the hardest part of essay exams, so being a quick thinker is certainly beneficial.

Alex Lane (blog)
Call of the Wild was an unexpected but extremely appropriate choice for the prompt.  I like the ideas that Alex got down onto paper, and there's plenty of depth in the novel he chose to support a full length essay.  The pre-write leaves a bit to be desired, but it's not like mine was any more extensive.

Bernardo Gonzalez (blog)
I can see pretty clearly where Bernardo was going with his ideas, but unfortunately the essay never really got started.  I'm guessing this can be attributed mostly to the pre-write taking too long.  In that case, simply keeping an eye on the clock would do wonders.  It seems like Bernardo had all the right ideas, but just didn't have enough time to get them onto paper.

William Boerger (blog)
Given the time limit, Will got a lot of content down on the paper, both in terms of pre-writing and the essay itself.  The introduction sets up a clear stance, and I like where the essay was headed.  There were a few nit-picky grammar errors, but I'm pretty sure everybody makes those with so little time to write.

"Sphinx Says Write"

Actually, when I was essay ambushed (by Kris and Justin), they didn't even say "Sphinx Says Write."  I did it anyway.  Because of the time restraint, I essentially just rehashed my A Tale of Two Cities essay.  Also, I wrote this before finding out we would be reading Brave New World in class.  Happy coincidence, I guess.  I left all my bizarre grammatical errors in for your enjoyment.

I was filmed writing this, but Kris and Justin haven't gotten around to editing it or doing commentary.  I'll make sure to post a link once they do.

Edit (4/18/13):  So, they never got around to it.  Oh well.

Prompt:

(1971) The significance of a title such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is easy to discover.  However, in other works the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only gradually.  Choose two works and show how the significance of their respective titles is developed through the author's use of devices such as contrast, repetition, allusion, and point of view.

Pre-write:

Para 1 --> Brave New World --> Sarcastic, ironic/satirical look at future

Para 2 --> A Tale of Two Cities --> duality themes, etc.

Essay:

Sometimes, despite what is always taught, people judge books by their cover.  Before the reader knows anything of a story, there is an initial impression given by the title.  Often the title provides a surprisingly in depth look at the novel's theme.  Both A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley have titles applicable in this way.

A huge theme of A Tale of Two Cities is duality -- the concept of disparate pairings existing alongside of each other, and through their contrast, elevate each others.  In its most fundamental form, this theme can be boiled down into the title.  There are two cities, each one contains a different type of people.  Similarly, there are foils strewn throughout the novel that expand on this (Darnay and Carton, for example).

In the dystopian classic Brave New World, the title has a completely opposite m

Brave New World I

I was excited to learn that we would be studying Brave New World.  Because I had enjoyed 1984, I was looking forward to reading the book before this year even started (in fact, it was my first literature analysis).

The first chapter does a very good job of setting up the general mood of the story, even if it does seem a bit confusing at first.  It is instantly evident that Huxley writes of an ambiguously future society (zeitgeist!).  Besides this there is some early characterization of the population's general attitude.  Most importantly, the students are portrayed more or less blindly copying down the information told to them. The adults take a distinctly mechanistic approach to life.  Everything is reduced to the numbers of a highly refined scientific process.  The brief glimpse of the caste system is perhaps the most important introduction of the chapter.  Knowing how the story develops (I'll admit, I didn't fully reread the chapter, I just skimmed) is interesting.  Compared to the rest of the story, the first chapter is pretty impersonal.  Most likely this is just because Huxley is establishing the setting.

First Quarter Review

The main focus of this quarter for me has been the senior project.  Once in a while, I get "assigned" projects and ideas instantly start flowing.  This is one of them.  A number of different concepts (both from me and my friends) have been flying around for the past few weeks.  Already, we are more organized and more prepared than for any other group project we've done together.  If we don't burn out by the end (which is actually very likely) I have tentatively high hopes for what we can do.  As far as required assignments go, I'm pretty sure I have them all done.  I have been essay ambushed already, we just need to put the video together.

Next quarter, I hope to start putting the pieces together on our project.  We're at a tentative stage right now between concept and production.  Once we take the plunge and start getting content done, I'll feel more confident in our ability to follow through.  My goal, more succinctly, is to finish the senior project with quality -- not a last minute rush job edited at 4:00 AM.  It'll be the last big endeavor of high school for me, and I want to make it count.

I have a small suggestion for the course:

Take away "close of business" as a due date.  I very rarely actually get my assignments posted at a reasonable time, but it is almost always before class the next day.  I feel like COB adds unneeded stress.  There's a bizarre sort of security in knowing that if worse comes to worse, I can always pull an all-nighter.

Also, I like seeing my classmate's blogs featured on the main course blog.  I don't regularly check up on everybody's blogs, so it's cool to see the highlights.

BOB I (Best of Blogs)

Most of these ratings were made by snap decisions and first impressions; feel free to argue your case! Also, it's important to note that three different people did the ratings. While we tried to judge on about the same level, standards may vary slightly.

The following was done by Justin Thompson, Kris Green, and Joshua Ng.  We looked through the blogs and rated them from 0-10 rather than do individual ratings (we assumed a lot of the rationalization would be similar).

A score of 0 indicates that there is essentially no work done for the class.

A score of 5 indicates that the person has done some work, but is missing major parts, or the work done looks particularly rushed.

A score of 7 indicates that the blog contains almost all the work assigned, but really not much more.

A score of 8-9 indicates that the blog has everything required, but also has additional content (or the content is especially well done).

A score of 10 indicates that the blog is near perfection.  There is additional content, and it all done with very high quality.

Lit Terms: 109-End

Justin, Kris, and I finished our Prezi (finally).  Check it out!

Rising Action:  plot build up, caused by conflict and complications, advancement towards climax
The heroes walked...and they walked some more...then suddenly, a battle!

Romanticism:  movement in western culture beginning in the eighteenth and peaking in the nineteenth century as a revolt against Classicism; imagination was valued over reason and fact
Revolutionary idea: there's no gravity!  Wait, no.  We're not on Earth!  Yes!

Satire:  ridicules or condemns the weakness and wrong doings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general
Animal Farm by George Orwell

Scansion:  the analysis of verse in terms of meter
Since meter is a system of binary oppositions in which syllables are either marked or unmarked (long or short; stressed or unstressed), a binary code is all that is necessary to transcribe it... --T.V.F. Brogan

Setting:  the time and place in which events in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem occur
It was a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

I Am Here

I haven't actually progressed with my specific senior goal, but I have done things in a similar light.  Although we haven't made much progress on the Project Greymatter game, I have started work on our Senior Project, which fulfills the "big project" that I wanted to do.  Whenever we do video projects for school, it always ends up being haphazard improvisation.  For the final one of the high school, we wanted to change that.  We're starting a couple months early and actually planning out the scenes, for once.  So far, the project has sated my appetite for a large collaborative endeavor.

Regarding the course as a whole, I still feel like I'm pulling off some high-wire balancing act.  There's a lot of facets to the class.  All of these, plus responsibilities from other classes and recreational activities have me constantly switching modes.  However, the pace has been more relaxed overall, and I think I've recovered enough from last semester's stumbling to move on full-force.

Lit Terms 83-108

I think the lit term numbers got mixed up somewhere along the way, so the first/last couple words may be not for this week, sorry.
Here's this week's Prezi that Justin Thompson and I made!

Onomatopoeia: use of a word whose sound in some degree imitates or suggests its meaning.
BOOM!

Oxymoron: a figure of speech in which two contradicting words or phrases are combined to produce a rhetorical effect by means of a concise paradox
Pretty Ugly

Pacing: rate of movement; tempo
Some books are over so fast the reader is left dumbfounded.  Others...are like Grapes of Wrath.

Parable: a story designed to convey some religious principle, moral lesson, or general truth
The parable of the Good Samaritan

Paradox: a statement apparently self-contradictory or absurd but really containing a possible truth; an opinion contrary to generally accepted ideas.
If I went back in time and killed one of my direct ancestors...then what?

Lit Terms 56-81

Here's the vocab Prezi Justin Thompson and I made.

Genre:  a category or class of artistic endeavor having a particular form, technique, or content

Gothic Tale:  a style in literature characterized by gloomy settings, violent grotesque action, and a mood of decay, degeneration, and decadence

Hyperbole:  an exaggerate statement often used as a figure of speech or to prove a point

Imagery:  figure of speech or vivid description, conveying images through any of the sense

Implication:  a meaning or understanding that is to be arrived at by the reader but that is not fully and explicitly stated by the author

Collaborative Literature Analysis: A Tale of Two Cities

Here's a Collaborative Literature Analysis I did with Justin Thompson. Let us know if there's any holes to fill!

Summary:
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens is difficult to summarize without trivializing it.  Speaking in very general terms, it is a story of love -- whether it is between lovers, family, or friends.  The story takes place in the late 18th Century, a time when fear of revolutionaries was at an all time high.  Within this social conflict, Lucie Manette attempts to revive her father after his years of unjust imprisonment.  Along the way, the lives of several individuals become complexly intertwined.  With revolution erupting and old secrets coming to light, "friendships" become tested and the happy band of protagonists become splintered by the destructive force of mob rule.

The Time of My Life

I wrote on Friday's journal topic (which I forgot to turn in, again...) that I planned to pursue discussion of my SMART goal during the class "Free Play".  Predictably, my plans got hijacked.  Luckily, it was still a somewhat productive discussion.  We ended up discussing Justin Thompson's nature blog, which I am a co-author and sorta-editor for (I just do superficial grammar checks at my discretion).  The bulk of what we talked about was publicity.  What direction did Justin want to take the blog?  He expressed a desire to make the blog more professional before sharing it.

A couple ideas were thrown around regarding publicity, from Facebook sharing to Reddit posts.  As far as content goes, we also mulled on the idea of theme weeks.  Early in the year Justin covered a number of snails over the course of the week, included the scaly foot gastropod, a personal favorite of mine.  From this spawned a running joke of the blog's "Snail Week", analogous to Discovery Channel's Shark Week.  Given that one of the difficulties of writing for the blog is deciding on a research topic, we figured that themed weeks would be doubly useful.

We also considered branching out the blog to cover other topics, such as biology and genetics, rather than just unique lifeforms.

Literature Analysis: Three A.M.

Summary:  Three A.M. by Steven John takes place in a city of an indeterminable time near our own.  Following a lethal pandemic that killed a majority of the population, a dense mist has descended on the city.  This mist is nearly impenetrable, and quickly warps society.  The result is a world characterized primarily by its grayness.  Citizens keep to themselves, and all quietly fear what lies in the mist.  Thomas Vale, the protagonist, is a private detective that takes the stereotype to the extreme.  At the story's start, he is characterized mostly by his cynical gruffness, as well as frequent abuse of alcohol and pills.  For some reason unbeknownst to him, he wakes up at 3:00 A.M. almost every night.  The story is centered around a case given to him by a woman named Rebecca Ayers.  While the details are slim, and he rightfully has suspicions, the pay is good enough that he doesn't care.  Vale is quickly finds himself entangled in a complex conspiracy far bigger than him.

What's the Story?

A Tale of Two Cities has a strong sense of duality.  This is a quality that it shares with Great Expectations, according to the lecture in class today.  The key opening lines ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...") are some of the most memorable in literature.  From the start, Dickens primes the reader for what is to come.  There are two cities, two time periods (Dickens's present, and the historical time frame of the story), and a multitude of comparisons between these pairs.

So, what does this say about what the story is?  Why did Dickens write it?  There is strong indication that Dickens saw parallels between 1775 and his own time, particularly when it comes to the subject of revolution and "mob rule", as pointed out in the lecture previous to this post.  These contrasting elements serve multiple purposes.  On one level, it allows Dickens to easily relate a historical story to modern readers.  On another, it provides him with a structure through which he can highlight specific aspects of society (the disparity between the wealthy and the poor is a major one).

A particularly striking example is in chapter five, "The Wine-Shop".  The chapter opens with a cask of wine breaking open in the streets.  For a few precious moments, the crowd is overcome in manic joy.  However, once all the wine is lapped up and only mud is left, the citizens retreat back to their dreary, depressing lives.  As far as the core of the plot goes, this adds very little.  Its sole purpose is the establish an environment in which both extreme joy and sadness can exist closely together.

Further support comes in the form of Lucie's relationship to her father.  In many ways, Lucie is a foil for Dr. Manette, at least upon their introduction.  While Lucie is described as an embodiment of youthful beauty, her father is a decrepit shell.  One is full of life, the other drained of it.  And yet, despite their differences, they are brought to an emotional level upon meeting each other -- there is much sobbing and confusion to be had.

A Tale of Two Cities: Lecture Notes

These notes are on this lecture by Dr. Tony Williams.

• Personal significance to Dickens
• The Frozen Deep, amateur production by Dickens and friend
• Dickens returns to themes of self-sacrifice in A Tale of Two Cities
• Lucie a reference to Lucy, a woman he fell in love with
• Dickens's Crisis
• Publications, public readings for profit, tours, etc.
• 1868 separated from his wife
• London
• Both a source of revulsion and inspiration for Dickens
• City of extremes in wealth
• Paris
• Made a huge impression on Dickens
• "The most extraordinary place in the world"
• Awed by the novelty and character
• Not as sprawling or uncontrolled as London
• The Opening
• Dickens emphasizes the similarities between the two cities
• Duality of the introduction
• Sets the reader back in time, but also parallels modern times
• Published 1859, refers to events in 1775
• Revolution
• Dickens feared mob rule, like many people of the age
• Hence, the theme of revolution in A Tale of Two Cities
• Written in installments for publication
• Episodic
• Dickens wrote as he went, and wrote in response to reader reactions
• Cliffhangers
• The Personal Story
• Beginning of Chapter 3 contains an uncharacteristic narration from Dickens
• personal intensity

I didn't finish the last three minutes of the lecture.  The speaker was indicating that he was about to discuss the end, and I heard the word "guillotine" before I closed the tab.  I'm not sure if he was speaking figuratively or not, but I did not stick around to find out.  A Tale of Two Cities may be a well known story, but I still don't know how it ends.  I'd prefer to keep it that way, at least until I get around to finishing the book.

Dickens Map

Reading Schedule

I have about 250 pages left to read of A Tale of Two Cities (yeah, I know; blame AP Gov) so I plan on reading 30-40 pages a night for the rest of this school week, then getting any pages leftover done during the weekend.

AP Questions

The following are five AP Questions that I hope to be able to answer after finishing the book.  They're from Oprah's website, but "developed" by Penguin Books, so I'll accept that as enough validity for me.  The questions seem fairly in depth.

1.  A Tale of Two Cities opens with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." one of the best-known passages in English literature. What does Dickens mean by setting the stage with such polarities? For whom was it the best and the worst of times? Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities in the late 1850s. Why does this passage continue to be quoted today? In what ways does our own present period merit such an assessment?

2.  The novel takes place, as its title suggests, in two cities: London and Paris. What are some of the differences between these two cities? Between their denizens? What about characters who travel—or move residence—from one to another? How are the cities themselves divided in two?

3.  Dickens seems to have great sympathy for the poor, the sick and the powerless, but not all such characters are portrayed sympathetically. What does that say about his sympathies? Where does he intend our sympathies as readers to lie?

4.  Why was Charles Darnay able to see the unfairness of the class structure that benefited him and then able to extricate himself from it? Are there other characters as capable of seeing beyond their own circumstances?

5.  Sydney Carton's background is alluded to, though we never quite learn the source(s) of his disappointment and degeneracy. What might have happened in his past?

Evaluation

I don't see any reason not to test my understanding of the book by simply revisiting these questions.  As far as class evaluation goes, I think a Socratic seminar in which people present their best discussion question (and answers!) would be beneficial.  A post-discussion write up should aptly demonstrate expertise.

LIterary Terms 31-56

Here's the Prezi that Justin Thompson and I made for this week's words.

Dialect: the language of a particular district, class or group of persons; the sounds, grammar, and diction employed by people distinguished from others

Dialectics: formal debates usually over the nature of truth

Dichotomy: split or break between two opposing things

Diction: the style of speaking or writing as reflected in the choice and use of words

Didactic: having to do with the transmission of information; education

Literature Terms 6-30

Justin Thompson and I created a Prezi for these.  Check it out!

Analogy: a comparison made between two things to show the similarities between them

Analysis: a method in which a work or idea is separated into its parts, and those parts given rigorous and detailed scrutiny

Anaphora: a device or repetition in which a word or words are repeated at the begining of two or more lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences

Anecdote: a very short story used to illustrate a point

Antagonists: a person or force opposing the protagonist in a drama or narrative

Poetry Analysis

1.  "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.

This particular poem was striking both in terms of visuals and theme.  The poet accomplishes a complex mixture of morose humor and tragic mourning in remarkably few words.  At the poem's end, the reader appropriately feels left hanging due to the lack of an end-of-line "we".  In just two words, the poet abruptly switches the entire tone of the poem.  Going back and re-reading in the context of the end is surprisingly morbid.

Saint Crispin's Day Sonnet: Video

Here's our "performance" of the sonnet/dialogue we wrote, complete with realistic props and professional acting.

Making a Case for Memorization Alternatives

When Kris and I pitched our idea to Dr. Preston (admittedly, it was on the day of presentations, after we had gone through with it...) his main concern was that although it adhered to the idea designing our own course, our method could potentially set a dangerous precedent for short-cutting.  This post is an attempt to alleviate some of those concerns, as well as explain how we came up with our solution.

Yesterday afternoon, Kris Green and I came up with an alternative to memorizing the Saint Crispin's day speech.  This was the result of a conversation we were having about whether memorizing poems was an effective learning strategy.  It started out as us complaining about it, but it eventually turned into a legitimate assessment.

Before going any further, I'll be frank.  Time saving was definitely the primary motivation for our decision to seek an alternative.  However, it was not a matter of laziness or an unwillingness to do work.  By the time we came up with the idea, I had memorized almost half of the speech.  Granted, having half of the poem memorized the day before is not an ideal spot to be, but rest assured that I would have pulled the late-night memorization spree if I thought it was necessary (this is what I did for To Be or Not To Be, after all).

Saint Crispin's Day Sonnet Dialogue

This is a sonnet that Kris Green and I wrote. We decided to do something different and follow the sonnet structure while making it into a dialogue. This is a hypothetical conversation between Westmoreland and the King. Obviously, this is not word-for-word what happens in the play, but we did our best to capture the essence of the speech.

W: O that we had but one ten thousand more.
K: For what need have we for that kind of man?
W: We are outnumbered, almost ten to four!
K: No matter, they are not of our brave clan.
W:  Some say it be sin to covet honour.
K: Better honour than avarice and gold.
W: Despite this, it doth make my gut feel sour.
K: Die for glory now, or wait till you're old.
W: Right, now.  Let us write a tale for the ages.
K: Our men shall bear these honourable scars,
W: It is with blood that we will ink the pages,
K:The myth shall be told in lyrics of bards
K: A tale of we few, we happy few, away
K: Fighting for glory on Saint Crispin’s Day!

W = Westmoreland
K = King


Check out the video here.

Literature Terms 1-5

Allegory: a tale in prose or verse in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities; a story that uses symbols to make a point
And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened.

Alliteration: the repetition of similar initial sounds, usually consonants, in a group of words
Dastardly definitions and sordid sentences.

Allusion:  a reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects a reader to recognize
[see "anachronism"]

Ambiguity: something uncertain as to interpretation
"Wow, so annoyed right now..."

Anachroism:  something that shows up in the wrong place or the wrong time
Dinosaurs on a spaceship!

Spring Semester Plan 1

When making goals for this semester, I was mistaken about the point (as were some others, apparently).  While doing more work for the Collaborative Working Groups is genuinely something that I want to accomplish this semester, it is hardly the type "dream big" goal that we discussed in class.  Besides that, it wasn't very specific.  So, here's my revised goal.

A year ago, I started working on a small computer game with a group of people.  Mechanically, it wasn't terribly complicated (meaning that it is certainly feasible).  We slung around some neat ideas and laid down the groundwork for it, but school became problematic near the end of the semester and work petered off.  I'd like to finish it.  Although not all of the group is available, Justin Thompson also plans to work on it.  Funnily enough, it seems that he has a similar goal for the semester, so perhaps that is where the Accountability of this S.M.A.R.T. goal will come from.

AP Prep Post 1: Siddhartha

1.  In the novel, Siddhartha encounters several people who aid him in one way or another toward achieving enlightenment.  Can you discuss at least one important person on Siddhartha's journey who aids in his self-discovery?
(Source -- Mrs. Armstrong and Mrs. Braasch)

I don't have the answer to this one, despite having read the novel before.  Obviously, it requires some more knowledge of the characters.  I decided to include it anyway because it provides an interesting foil to our in class discussion.  The moment of Siddhartha's awakening is accompanied by the realization that he is completely alone.  Analyzing the people that used to be part of his life and why they are no longer there is a potentially enlightening (pun entirely intended) discussion.

The following questions are taken from here.  They're (AP) student made, and there's a ton of them.

What's In This For Me?

With the new year and the new semester, it is time to set some goals.  In the few years that I have made a New Year's resolution, I have been notoriously bad at following through for more than a few weeks.  The problem, I found, was associating the goal with New Year's day.  After that holiday spirit wore off and I was back at school, I was back into my daily schedule and quickly lost interest in the resolution.  So, I'll be writing goals for the year of 2013, even after it's not exactly a "new" year anymore.

I've said on other occasions that I particularly enjoyed the collaborative working groups in this course. Consequently, I have "joined" a small handful of them.  Unfortunately, I have not been nearly as active in them as I would like (which is entirely my fault).  This is not for lack of interest.  My problem is that there is a fairly wide variety of things I am interested in, so when I am confronted with the opportunity to join a relevant group, I am quick to accept.  Because of this, I can't devote as much time as I would like to them.  I am sure other members of the groups have become irked with my deadline issues.

This can be solved in two ways.  The first is to simply cut down the number of groups I participate in.  Theoretically, this should free up more time.  However, my time management (or rather, my lack of it) is probably a more significant issue.  The more responsible solution would be to stop procrastinating on things.

I'm pretty sure this has been my New Year's resolution for the past couple years, which is incredibly ironic.  Also, the fact that I am posting this at 10:00 PM on the last day of break does not bode well (but it could be worse!).  Regardless, I'll do my best to get out of such bad habits, as they are clearly detrimental.