Blogging around once more

So... I read Stephanie's and Dylan's blogs...

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Hey Stephers,

i agree that the blogs could have been more personal, too! I always found myself completely straying away from anything english-related in my posts, but you brought up a good point: that these are public, and he has to make sure everyone is comfortable doing the assignments, which means nothing tooo personal. ALso, I like the prompts. They're pretty easy to follow because they give us an approach from which to write, but we can literally write about almost anything. Blogging has gotten easier for me with every post... I had no idea what to do at the beginning of the year, and now the posts are nearly effortless... It's weird that the year is coming to a close.

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Hey Dylan,

Whoaa what a long post... anyways...
I definitely agree with most of the points you've brought up. Essays are okay, but there are so many restrictions and grading and expectations that so often just cause me to come to complete halts in my writing and my thoughts. With blogging, I never have to worry about sounding eloquent and making sure my sentences flow and have the proper length in comparison to the surrounding sentences... You get it.. I blog how I talk, because I'm really just being me, Melanie, the uneloquent student, and it's been easy to blog about these open topics because anything I need to write is already in my head. No outside research required!

Metacognition: The Year

So hard to believe that this year is almost over... i can't possibly remember everything we've done this year, but I can definitely name a few things I didn't like about this year:
- Writing my own short story
- The first vocab test
- King Lear Reading Quizzes
- Reading Heart of Darkness
- Watching Michael K mess things up... I just feel really bad for the guy.
- Only being able to talk when we are jumping for "brass rings" rather than being allowed to have an organic, flowing discussion.

However, the brass ring problem is relatively new. So we did have most of the year for absolutely wonderful discussions... and to be honest, for every thing I didn't like I could probably name two things i did:
- All the vocab tests after the first one
- Reading "The Kite Runner"
- Seeing "Amadeus" (the bus rides were pretty awesome, too)
- When the homework is to get 45 extra minutes of sleep
- Same Scene, Different Setting
- Finishing the Poem
- Thinking about Sophie's World
- Reading Short Stories
- Reading "Jane Eyre"
- Reading "Michael K"
- Watching "Once"
- Planning a Service Project
What I really like is that neither list looks like a normal list of things one does in an ENglish class. My entire elementary school and junior high English education consisted of reading. When I was young it was short stories that were written for that level of reading. In junior high we had the same routine: Read a novel, take a multiple choice test on what happened, and write an in-class essay (usually on the themes of the book). Yeah, for three years. The only movie-watching we did was the film version of the novel we just read, and it only happened as a time-filler if we were ahead of the other class. No analytical thinking. No form-is-content. THis class was so interesting for me because we discussed all kinds of literature: poems, short stories, short novels, long novels, plays, and even movies. Everything has importamce, too. WHy a story was told in a certain form. WHY a write use this word or put a colon instead of a comma here. Things I never would have even considered looking twice at are significant pieces of evidence. I also really like that movies aren't just pictures flashing in front of your face and killing brain cells like my parents tell me. It's another form of storytelling, or ART, like literature. THere are levels of meaning or emotion that only film can capture. Like the Vermeer reference at the end of ONCE... no way literature could capture that. ANd Tsotsi vs. Michael K. Both characters are solitary. They're vaults. You see what they do and you can't see why. But it's shown in different ways. in general, this year's class has taught me how to see in different ways and think in different ways. More little things provoke big thoughts in me. I've become more awake and more aware of meaning.

Captured Thought: AP

IT'S OVER!!!!! Oh my goodness... Every day i mantally go over what my homework is for the day, and i think to myself, "I haven't done any Bentley notes in a while...I bet a set is due soon." Then the events of Thursday morning pop back into my head. But mostly the undebatably positive events... like turning in the multiple choice section... or writing a note to the AP reader because I finished my essays before time was up. However, as relieved as I was to be finished with the test, I almost wanted it to NOT end... I've taken this course for two years, and I felt as though everything I had learned was being assessed by this 3-hour-ten-minute exam. Really, I'm being rated on how well I've memorized thousands of years of history in virtually every region of the world by one integer. That just doesn't seem fair. But to be a nice little postmodernist here, I'll admit i still DO care about the integer printed on a piece of paper they'll send me in a couple months, and i still want to be a 5 more than anything, and I'll still setlle for a 4, and not be depressed over a 3, and not be surprised by a 2 or a 1... I'm not even really sure how I placed. The essay writing was a blur. I think I did best on the DBQ, well on the C/C and not on the CCOT. I didn't bother remembering or looking up things from the multiple choice, so that's up in the air. But I remember feeling so attached to my essay writing booklet when they were collecting it. "THis is all my hard work. This was the single chance I had to prove to you what I know. It might not be good, but I'm proud of it. And you're just gonna take it away and give it a NUMBER. grrrrrrrr." I feel like I could have proved so much more... but still... IT IS OVER. THE AP WORLD HISTORY TEST IS OUT OF MY HANDS AND NOW SOME POOR READER'S PROBLEM!

P.S.
Mr. Allen, I took your advice and wore my 2006 Catholic High Schools Quiz Bowl Finalist T-shirt. I thought of all the hilarious things my fellow quizbowlers wrote on it, and I thought to myself, "I was smart enough to win a middle school quiz bowl competition 3 years ago. Of COURSE I'm smart enough to be taking this test now."

Best of Week: Unlikely Narrator

I don't remember exactly who said this, or when... but it was definitely one of the best things i heard this week. Michael K is not someone who should narrate a book. We have been discussing who has narrated in Michael K. There was the unknown 3rd person, from which we only saw a few little thoughts. Then there was the doctor, who did not know Michael, who thought he was MichalS, reported on the intriguing character. Part 3, back to the unknown 3rd person, reporting on Michael's actions. But once the action stopped, when Michael was left alone with his thoughts, we saw them, we heard K narrate what he wanted. He told his story of how he would want to live. He had his narrative, his emotional fulfillment. But why didn't he narrate the whole time? We heard he had holes in his story... that's why. He wasn't suited to narrate. He was unfulfilled and unsure, and he couldn't truly share his story himself, because he did not know what was important or why. But finally, once this nonstereotypical "hero" figured out what he wanted, we heard.

Best of Week: Unexpected Narrator

Metacognition: Readin Michael K

The first sentence grabbed me right away. It established how we perceive his face for the rest of the novel. No matter how anybody imagines how K looks, everyone will see him with the harelip. Moving on... everything seems to hold the same value or importance to the narrator, to Michael, and to the reader. "His mother is sick." Mkay. "The house is devastated." Mkay. "He wanted a permit." Mkay. It's hard to find out what is significant and what is not... but the story is easy to retain, so I feel as though I can just hold on to thoughts and organize them and decide later. Also, we don't see a whole lot of Michael K's thinking. We see what he does, what he sees and hears and smells and tastes, but not how he feels about it. Or at least not yet. But even though we have not yet peered into the Mind of Michael K, we can still learn so much about him from what we are told... There's just more "figuring out" to do. I like this book so far.

Metacognition: FInishing a Short Story

Thursday Night... I knew what I wanted to happen in my short story next... I even had some idea of what I wanted to happen after that. I knew exactly what my characters would think of the situation i throw them into, so I started typing. Soon, however, I just found myself typing, "Mollie did this, and that's how she felt about it." I've never read a short story that just told me everything that went on, action and emotion both. So, reading my story, I thought, Is there anything to discuss about the story? ANd I decided I needed to make it less final, less literal. I need to make sure the story can continue after the text stops. There needs to be some feeling to leave with the reader, not just a "That's all, folks." I'm getting there, it just needs a little more work.