This week in Ap Lit we spend a lot of time focusing on tragedy and revising our poem of the week essays. This week I think reflecting on our reading of oedipus was really helpful in understanding tragedy. I felt that oedipus had good examples of what we had previously learned about tragedy, creating a clear visual of what tragedy is and what causes it. Reflecting back on my poem of the week essays and revising my essay on my “Papas Waltz” I realized that even if I did not like the way I wrote something it does not mean that the points in it are not of value. I realized that I had a good understanding of the point of the assignment and was able to identify the elements of poetry that helped the author get their argument across.When I went back to revise my paper I realized that I needed to do a better job proving why my examples fit my argument. I think my main issue with my poem of the week essay was figuring out how to effectively structure my ideas into the my essay. The ideas were there but the way I approached the ideas was confusing to read. I also felt that another problem I had with my poem of the week essay was my conclusion however, after having a peer edit my paper I believe that I have a better understanding of how to write a conclusion for poem of the week essays. Overall this week I think I learned a lot of ways to improve my writing .
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This week in ap lit I learned how difficult teamwork can be sometimes. When doing the what is literature project I found myself having a lot of frustration with my group mates cause our work ethics and time management are very different. I found that I am someone who likes to use my time in class and get as much done in class as possible because I would rather use my time in class then my own time out of class. I learned that other people procrastinate, which don't get me wrong I do my fair share of procrastinating however I tend to procrastinate until the stress is too much and then I end up getting it done either early or on time. I also found it very annoying when I had my part done but I could not move on to the next step due to the fact that my group mates had not been working on doing their part. Although, this situation really sucked I learned that if you are dedicated to your school work and projects you end up learning a lot more. For example I ended up writing the majority if not all of both of our papers, however I learned a lot more because I was forced to know the material of both in order to be able to write an essay on both topics. Although I wanted to let my partners do some of the work I felt as though I had to do it all because it was not getting worked on even though it was due in two hours. So even though I was awfully frustrated and annoyed with this project I learned to take control and earn my own grade and take control of my own future because i'm not gonna let other people ruin my grade or my learning. This week in AP Lit we worked on our revising our creative writing. This week while working in my creative writing and listening to the sci-fi reader talk about his process for writing I learned a lot about myself as a writer. I learned that a lot of times I do not write because I feel that what I write is not good. However, this week I learned that even if I don't think it’s good I need to write it anyway because you never know what can be formed from what you think is rubbish. This was an interesting concept to me because it made me think about my creative writing this tri. The creative writing I have written this tri allowed me to just put thoughts down on the page and not worry about the quality of the work because it was not gonna be graded unless, I chose to focus on that piece of writing. I also learned from the speaker that true writers will set aside time in their daily lives to get words down on paper. I also learned that you should never delete your writing because you never know when you might want to come back to a previously written piece of writing.
In the future in order to improve my writing, I’m going to try to set aside time to write more and not delete my writing all the time. I’m really bad about deleting what I write all the time and probably lose some really good ideas that I could have used. I think keeping my writing will help me find ideas to build off of when I’m having writers block. Overall I believe what I have learned this week will help me become a better and more productive writer. This week in Ap lit we learned about revising. In the years past when I revised my writing I would just go in and make grammatical changes and then the night before the paper was due I ended up rewriting most of my paper because I did not like the way it sounded. I would go through and rewrite each paragraph piece by piece to help narrow in on the focus of the writing. Earlier this week when we revised our poem of the week essays we learned to comment on our writing and then go back and make changes. The most important thing I learned about commenting was to comment about the draft and not about you as the writer. I also learned that it is important to have a positive comment for every negative comment, so that you know what was written well and should be kept in the writing and what needs some improvements. We also began to revise our creative writing pieces, using the same process. I think the comment process will be really helpful for my creative writing pieces because my creative writing was just me writing whatever came to mind and, did not focus on concision or grammar, so I think it will help me narrow and focus my writing. Overall I think the new process of revising I learned this week will save me time and stress in the long run when it comes to editing my writing. I also think it will help improve my writing because I will be focusing more on the draft instead of beating myself up for the way I wrote it. I also look forward to working with the comment process because this is the first time I have had structure during my revising. Overall this is the first time in my writing education that I have been properly taught how to revise my writing. Some may say that art and literature have absolutely no connection at all. Up until this week I believed that too. This week we watched a Ted talk and in the ted talk the lady started by talking about how when she goes to an art gallery she walks around and just looks at the paintings instead of analyzing the paintings and just walks away..This may seem like a useless piece of information, however when she said that, I thought about how many times I have read a book and just read the words and not thought about the story and overall theme. The lady in the Ted talk then talked about a painting she had analyzed. The experience was completely different the painting she had analyzed had a story and feelings and emotion. She talked about how the angel of the lady’s face in the painting helped get the point across and how the colors showed the emotion of the painting. After we watched the ted talk we looked at a painting and analyzed the painting, and came up with a story behind the painting. Now when I read books I am going to try to look at the book as a painting, not a painting that I just walk by in a gallery but a painting that has a story and meaning behind it. I’m gonna think about the text and what it says about the story. When it says the day was gloomy I’m gonna think about how to the day was rough and dark for the character not just that the sky was gray. Overall I found great value in the art activity in class this week and will be applying it to my reading. This week in Ap lit I gained a better understanding of literature. Up until this week in my learning experience I thought a story and literature were the same thing. I thought people just used the terms interchangeably unaware of their differences. This week my eyes were opened to the fact that the two words mean very different things. A story is more focused on the plot. However, Literature tells you the plot as well as the feelings and emotions of the characters, and the background of the character. One thing that really stands out in literature is perspective. Perspective plays a key opponent in literature because the perspective limits or extends how much the reader can know. For example in my SSR book Ordinary Love and Good Will by Jane Smith the novel is in a first person perspective. The only character you get in depth detail of where they have been and how they feel is the father. Since the book is told from the father's perspective, the only thing the reader is able to identify about his kid Tom is whatever the father says about him. One thing that really helped me understand the difference between literature and a story was the comparison using a movie and a book. Movies are not often literature because it is hard to show a person's thoughts and feelings and background in a film due to the limited amount of time available. I think knowing the difference between literature and a story will help me better understand this class the rest of the trimester. This week, in AP Lit I learned quite about writing. We watched a video of college students reflecting their writing experience in college. In the video the professors gave advice to college students on how to make their writing better. Even as a high school student, I found great value in their advice. The piece of evidence that stuck with me the most was to make your writing your own. The professor said to write what you think and with your own voice , not what what you believe the professor wants to hear in the paper. Another key to making your writing your own is to make sure you are not repeating the same information that is already known. Another thing that makes writing your own is if you write about a topic you're interested in, cause if you're interested in it it's more interesting for the reader to read it. The topic you choose does not have to be something that interests everyone, however it should be something that you’re really passionate about. Another key thing I learned from the video is when researching a topic focus on one thing, ask a question and then research many sources to find the answer to the question. This week in Ap lit I also learned more about writing when we worked on creative writing. The main focus that stuck out to me was how to make your writing more intriguing to the author. The key to making your writing more intriguing is to be vulnerable in your writing. When you share emotion and detail in your writing its more fun for the reader. Going into the future I hope to improve my writing skills focusing on the new things I learned this week. Figuring out what we learned at this week at first seemed kind of difficult due to the fact that it has only been the first four days of class. However after the class discussion I have realized I learned more than I thought. When writing the me as a reader and writer introduction I learned that introduction pages in blogs should be written in first person. It's important to write introduction pages in third person because it fills the gap between the reading and the author. If you write in first person using pronouns such as I, and we the reading may feel a disconnect between them and the author because they may not know the individual that is speaking. Knowing this information will help me think about the connection between the reader and author in all my writing pieces.
This week I also learned some things that will help me grow as a reader. For example I learned about the process of becoming a better reading and how to figure out my reading rate. This week we talked about how in order to become a better reader we should read at least two hours a week by establishing a reading routine and in order to keep ourselves accountable we must calculate our reading rate. To calculate your reading rate whenever you start a new book read for ten minutes and then figure out how many pages your read. Multiply the number of pages by twelve to figure out how many pages you should be able to read in a week. I think this will help me motivate myself to read more. As the year goes on I hope to improve both as a reader and a writer. |
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