Sunday, October 7, 2012

Response to Course Material numero dos

     I blink my eyes, and suddenly a month of school has flown by. I can't even describe how busy and hectic it has been. Not only that, but luckily I felt like a sponge with all the new material plus review that has been slowly soaking in.
     As of the first course material response, we came across the difference between analyzing a poem, story, or a play by reading 100 pages in our textbook; we reviewed the different critical lenses in addition with the new ones;  we covered literary movements through different eras; most recently, we discussed even more allusions and comical plays+ terms. Looking back at this list, I really don't think that it will ever leave the AP Lit subject-- that's how important these were. 
     When we were given 100 pages to read in a time span of approximately two weeks, it wasn't as bad as I thought-- not until that quia quiz. I learned that poetry was not even close to everything I knew about poetry. Poetry itself has genres... for instance, elegy is the type of poem that is mournful or of the dead. Moreover, Poems have a reason why they don't have periods at the end of each line; those run-on sentences are called enjambment and are used to emphasize a syntactic point. It's suppose to flow with the iambic meter of the poem. I also learned that when a prompt asks me to analyze an excerpt I just read, the prompt is not only asking for that, but much more. More like, what symbols do I notice? What kind of literary techniques do the authors use to deliver a certain message, and how do they fulfill this? (This is when I yell out DIDLS). Theater art/ plays must focus on tone, props, and setting, rather than the story line. I never understood why plays looked much more dramatic than the story should be-- but I now understand. The purpose is to make it appeal to the eyes before the ears because they have a slight disadvantage of not using texts. There were all these reasons to analyzing each type of literature, I was just not aware of them because new things are unusual and unusual things aren't as comfortable. 
     Critical lens has recently been upgraded in my system as of the day we took rapid notes like no other. Aside from feminist, Marxist, psychoanalytic... etc. lens, there was a day in class where we jotted down about 10 new words with their definition-- soon to find out, they were even more literary lens. Ranging from mimicry to alienation (they were too creative) which each had distinct definitions. These new lenses were branched from post-colonial criticism and they all contain power and authority. Before, I was limited to only certain types of lens. Now, I have a wide spectrum to connect literature with.
     Along with critical lens, literary time periods were also review. Then again, I learned even more; the classical era was all about heroes and that's where Achilles, Odyssey, and all that jazz comes to play. The eras I was always confused about were the medieval, renaissance, and romanticism. I got them all pin pointed down now; medieval era was the christian dominated era while the renaissance sparked the beginning of the modern world. Lastly, the romanticism definitely had nothing to do with romantic--it focused on one's imagination and nature. 
     Allusions, allusions, and even more allusions is what I said. I personally thought I was done with allusions after the Foster presentation, but reviewing it through Greek mythology, or biblical reference greased me back up. I used to think that these allusions were offensive at times, but I learned that that's not usually the case. It's just a reference or representation to literary work just like how stories are formed from other stories. Only sometimes is it meant to be taken satirical. 
     I always seem to say this, but I don't think anyone is ever over-educated. The response to course material is a good way to reflect and review on what I learned even though it's only couple weeks back. The works we read from the American Dream to everyday DIDLS- exercises, I feel like it's sticking to me. Slowly but surely i'll have everything stored for the AP exam. (:

3 comments:

  1. Gloria, this is a very well constructed review of our course materials. It's almost as if you just made yourself a study guide! I agree that the time eras and critical lenses are very important in this class, and they will come up repeatedly. Almost everything we have learned can be applied to any literature. Which is a good and bad thing, mostly good though, but bad because there is just so much information. It seems like you have really started a good review for yourself though, and for me as well!

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  2. From this post it seems like you're really enjoying the class. This is a great overview of everything we've covered in class so far. I like your writing style too; it's opinionated, exactly like a blog is supposed to be. I laughed a few times at comments like "and all that jazz". It's actually surprising how much we've done so far when it's all written out like this. It seems that every day in class we take our time and have a lot of fun with the tone exercises and things, but we are certainly getting a lot done too.

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  3. I like how much voice you have in what is normally a very bland blog post. You really went over everything we did since the last blog cycle, which is really a tremendous achievement in itself since there were so many different things happening in class. One thing to keep an eye on that Ms. Holmes told our class was that she wanted us to try to tie things from our past experiences into what we are learning now. That might be something to add in future posts, but overall this was enjoyable to read and really did a good job summarizing what we did in class.

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