Masterpiece Academy Essay

Montaigne ended his essay "Of The Education of Children" this way:

To return to my subject, there is nothing like alluring the appetite and affections; otherwise you make nothing but so many asses laden with books; by dint of the lash, you give them their pocketful of learning to keep; whereas, to do well you should not only lodge it with them, but make them espouse it. (1580)

The word espouse originally meant "to marry" and took on connotations like "embrace," "love," and "advocate."  Have you espoused learning?  Explain your growth in this course via a narrative that portrays you as the dynamic protagonist in your own bildungsroman.  Please include the following elements.

ELEMENT 1: You have been treated as colleagues and you have been given a great deal of choice in this course; this represents a high level of trust.  Did you and the others deserve it?  Earn it?  Honor it? 

ELEMENT 2: Fiction has been called "the lie that tells the truth."  Which works, authors, or characters rang true enough to make you feel like they described parts of you and/or your journey? (Please mention at least three.  It makes them sad when we forget them.)

ELEMENT 3: Have you re/connected with a passion that drives you?  If so, how will you continue your learning?  If not, how will you proceed?

ELEMENT 4: [Something about literature or this course that made you laugh out loud.]

ELEMENT 5: [A unifying theme that runs through a minimum of five (5) presentations; a quality of the content, or the speakers, or their communication techniques that strikes you as something important that we have in common.]  Please illustrate/support your point with specific examples from the presentations.

ELEMENT 6: Evaluate whether you completed the hero's journey.  Are you a hero?  To what extent did you respond to the call of adventure?  Did you find a mentor, conquer a challenge, and return enlightened?

ELEMENT 7: For old time's sake, sneak in a literary technique.  Don't make a big deal out of it.  I'll know it's there

   I could write an essay, but that would not accurately depict the course of the year in this class. I am completely remixing this essay, by using my blog as my outlet. Through every post and picture you will find everything you need to know about this class and my assignments.

Macbeth Act V Notes

• Lady Macbeth has become sick from her guilt. Making her go insane.
• Macduff and Malcolm are coming towards Macbeth's kingdom.
• A cry is heard and Lady Macbeth has died.
• Young Siward tries to kill Macbeth
• Macbeth and Macduff fight
• Ross delivers the news to Siward that Siward's one was killed during battle
• Macduff walks in with Macbeth's head. Macbeth is dead.

Macbeth Notes

Scene 2

• Lady Macbeth doesn't want Macbeth to feel sorry or anything weak.

• Macbeth is starting to feel guilty. The audience has a strong notion on the nature of good and bad.

• Glamis is the last title Macbeth earned rightly.

• Forgot to leave the dagger in the drunk guards hands.

• Lady Macbeth didn't want to kill the king because he reminds her of her father, but she encourages Macbeth too.

• Lady Macbeth says Macbeth is not constant, but riding the waves of adrenalin. 

• Shakespeare uses the knocking as a distraction, or sense of guilt. Inescapable reality.

• The Gorgon is like looking at Medusa, it is paralyzing.

• Now that Duncan is dead, everything is going crazy. The birds are prey, the horses are eating each other. Everything in nature is being disrupted.

Act 3

• Malcom and Donalbin left to find safety and figure things out.

• Don't know why Duncan's sons don't take his place as king.

• Murder happened at night, in the morning everything was discovered.

• References Brutus and Caesar. 

What About My Masterpiece?

Shakespeare had all day every to write but my colleagues and I have to work with ours in between our other endeavors. Breanna, Eli and I have been watching movies and discussing how they really appear. We will begin putting more posts to our movie blog soon!

Love is Blind

Macbeth sees Lady Macbeth differently then how the audience sees Lady Macbeth. He listens to her and takes in her words even though they sound like madness to us. Lady Macbeth tells him to look cool and calm on the outside, but on the inside to continue to be evil and plot the kings murder. I guess you could say love is truly blind and Macbeth might as well have been born without eyes.

Literature Analysis

1.The Great Gatsby is focused around Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, who moves to New York in the summer of 1922. He finds himself in West Egg, an area that is populated by the rich. Nick Carraway's neighbor is Jay Gatsby, a rich, highly mysterious man, who throws lavish over the top parties every weekend. Nick gets invited to one of Gatsby's parties, and through Nick's newfound love interest, Jordan, Nick is able to learn a bit about Gatsby. He founds out Gatsby is madly in love with a woman named Daisy, who he has not spoken to in years. Daisy happens to be Nick's cousin and married to a man name Tom. Regardless of this marriage, Gatsby and Daisy start a love affair. Things turn awry when Tom confronts Gatsby. This confrontation leads to a distressed Daisy taking Gatsby's car and driving off. In the midst of all this chaos Daisy ends up hitting and killing a woman named Myrtle. Myrtle's husband thinking Gatsby was driving the car ends up shooting Gatsby and killing him. Nick throws a funeral for Gatsby where there is little attendance. Nick then ends up cutting off all relationships he has in West Egg and returns to the Midwest.

Resource of the Day

My resource of the day is from Sarah Stevens. I was looking for a site were I could put Breanna and my project information and research. Sarah went through the same dilemma and gave me her words of wisdom. She went through many programs where you had to pay for having the site or started out free but then would charge. We then decided to end with blogger to make it easy and it is a format that Breanna and I are familiar with. So there you have it. Thanks Sarah!

10 Questions

If I were to talk to an expert for more help on my project, these are the questions I would ask, assuming I was talking with a director of movies.

1. How has movies changed your life?

2. What made you want to pursue directing? 

3. How do you collaborate with others?

4. How has your values effected your movies?

5. What's your take on the impact of your movies in society?

6. How have the viewers of your movies responded to them?

7. Has your audience influenced how you direct your movies?

8. How has your life experiences effected your movies?

9. Do you portray your life experiences in your movies?

10. Do you see reality different since you have created your own world?

Benchmark Project

Breanna and I have come together to embark on this project as a team. We have decided to take movies from the 1900s and compare them to movies in the 2000s. We will show how these movies have effected the way we think about things and how they have become more explicit over time. 

In many of the 1900s movies, you see a married couple sleeping in two separate beds, i.e I Love Lucy, consceleing the obvious that they do sleep together, when in nowadays movies they don't hide the fact at all. We plan to make a website with different insights, using creative ways to show our thoughts. We will be asking our friends and family what they think of certain movies and add it to our research. To see our website I will soon add a link for all to see. Stay posted!

Literature Analysis #2

Northanger Abbey by, Jane Austen

1. Catherine Morland is a seventeen year old girl with nine siblings and her parents. Her family friends, the Allens, invite her to accompany them to the luxurious city of Bath in which she graciously accepts. She soon becomes friends the Thorpes family and the Tilneys family. Catherine finds herself in situations of the utmost dilemma not wished upon anyone and yet she is able to deal with them. Throughout the story a tangled web is woven and love triangles are broken. The narrative fulfills the author's purpose, because the readers are able to feel what the author wants you to through tone and her syntax and diction.

Launch

• What am I passionate about?  What do I want to do?

I am passionate about helping others and playing basketball. I love being with my family and friends. Breanna and I have decided to combine those things beside basketball and create a masterpiece. We are watching movies and are going to compare how they have changed along with society and the way we think as individuals.

• How can I use the tools from last semester (and the Internet in general)?

Breanna and I will create either a website or a blog of some sort with different videos, post and pictures.

• What will I need to do in order to "feel the awesomeness with no regrets" by June?

I will need to stay on top of this project. Breanna and I can't let it slip past us until last minute.

• What will impress/convince others (both in my life and in my field)?

The way we are able to show people our project with the different, creative ideas we have for it. Breanna and I are hoping to make people think in a different way.

• How will I move beyond 'What If' and take this from idea --> reality?

Breanna and I are actually going to work on it one day at a time.

• Who will be the peers, public, and experts in my personal learning network?

Anyone who wants to come across our website can be apart of it. Our classmates will be able to give us feedback and anyone else who would like to comment to it.

Brave New Essay Topic

Describe the elements of our real-time world that you think relate-- or don't-- to Huxley's Brave New one.

I chose the journal topic as my essay prompt, because it's very relatable. I would find it as one where everyone would be able to answer and include their own input. The layout of the essay could be formatted nicely and you could still include a lot of quotes from the book.

I Am Here

My progress in this course during the first grading period has been great.  I have taken everyday and have worked on bettering myself and my education. I have not started my senior project, but my group had been decided. Breanna and I have been brainstorming some very interesting yet brilliant ideas that will soon be expressed in posts to come. We are incorporating the things we find interesting with things that will keep others entertained.

Hafta/Wanna

There are many similarities/differences I see between my life during high school and life after high school.  People won't somehow magically transform the day after graduation, but over time you will see a change. You are given more responsibility and decisions only you are able to make. You need to balance what you want to do versus what you have to do. I expect to learn from my mistakes and help others as they go through a similar journey. I will listen to what everyone has to say and try my best in everything I do. Life after high school will be very different, but everyday needs to be taken step by step.

Lit Terms #6 Vocabulary

1) Simile: a figure of speech comparing two essentially unlike things through the use of a specific word of comparison.

2) Soliloquy: an extended speech, usually in a drama, delivered by a character alone on stage.

3) Spiritual:  a folk song, usually on a religious theme

4) Speaker: a narrator, the one speaking.

4) Stereotype:  cliché; a simplified, standardized conception with a special

The Nose

1. What does Ivan Yakovlevich do for a living? 

He is a Barber. He cuts hair in St. Petersburg, Russia.

2. What does Ivan find in a loaf of bread?

He finds a nose, the nose of customer Assessor Kovalev.   

Launch/ Draft

• I am passionate about my family, basketball and the world around me. I want to help others by giving them my services.
  
  
• I can use tools from last semester, such as our blogs, resources of friends and the internet in general.

• In order to "feel the awesomeness with no regrets" by June, I will need to take it one day at a time and collaborate with my classmates to be the best I can be.

• What will impress/convince others (both in my life and in my field)?
• How will I move beyond 'What If' and take this from idea --> reality?
• Who will be the peers, public, and experts in my personal learning network?

Vocabulary Lit Terms #5

1) Parallelism: The state of being parallel or of corresponding in someway.

2) Parody: An imitation of style of a particular writer artist or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.

3) Pathos: A quality that evokes pity or sadness.

4) Pedantry: Excessive concern with minor details and rules.

The Time of My Life

In class today I studied my vocabulary for the lit term quiz on Monday. We also discussed the book Great Expectations and took mental notes. 

Spring Literature Analysis #1

Death of a Salesman
General:

1) Willy Loman is a man who spends his life following "the American Way", by living out his belief in salesmanship as a way to reinvent himself. As the story continues, the riches and respect he has held on to have done him wrong. At age sixty-three, he looks for the moment his life took a bad turn, the moment he lost his relationship with his wife and son, to whom he invested all his faith. This narrative fulfills the author's purpose in a way where the readers are able to understand what point the author is trying to get across.

What's the Story?

Why did Joseph Heller write the novel you're reading/reviewing? What in your analysis of literary techniques led you to this conclusion?

Joseph Heller wrote Catch 22, to show that no matter what you do, people will never cease to amaze you. He is able to show humor through war, with the use of his syntax and diction. His tone throughout the book is depressing, yet you can't help but smile by the way he writes about his stories while the war is going on. Heller's writing is something else, but he is able to get across what he wants you to know.

Vocabulary #4 Lit Terms

1. Interior monologue: A piece of writing expressing a character's inner thoughts.

2. Inversion: Reversal of the normal order of words typically for rhetorical effect.

3. Juxtaposition: The fact of two things being seen our place close together with contrasting effect.

4. Lyric: Expressing the riders emotions usually briefly and in stanzas or recognized forms.

5. Magical realism: A literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy.

6. Extended Metaphor: Can go on first sentences or even a paragraph.

Controlling: A symbolic story used in a poem.

Mixed: A combination of two or more incompatible metaphors; produces a ridiculous effect.

7. Metonymy: The substitution of the name of an attribute or adjuct for that of the thing meant.

8. Modernism: modern character or quality of thought, expression or technique.

9. Monologue: A long speech by want to actor in a play or movie, or as part of a theatrical or broadcast program.

10. Mood: A temporary stay of mind or feeling.

11. Motif: A decorated designer pattern.

12. Myth: A traditional story one concerning the early history of the people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

13. Narrative: A spoken or written account of connected events.

14. Narrator: A person who narrates something; a character who recounts the events of a novel.

15. Naturalism: A style and theory of representation based on the accurate depiction of detail.

16. Novelette/novella: A short novel or long short story.

17. Omniscient point of view: One who can see and report everything. Has awareness.

18. Onomatopoeia: The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named.

19. Oxymoron : A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction.

20. Pacing: A single step taken when walking or running.

21. Parable: A simple story used to illustrate amoral of spiritual lesson.

22. Paradox: A statement or proposition that leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable or self-contradictory.

Vocabulary Lit Terms #3

1. Exposition: A comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory.

2. Expressionism: The style of painting music or drama in which the artist or writer seeks to express emotional experience rather than impressions of the in the external world.

3. Fable: A short story typically with animals as characters, conveying a moral

4. Fallacy: A mistaken belief especially one based on unsound argument.

5. Falling action: The events of a drama after the climax but before the denouement.

6. Farce: A comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations. 

7. Figurative language: Expressing ideas indirectly.

8. Flashback: A scene in a movie novel etc. set anytime earlier than the main story.

9. Foil: Prebend something considered Brownmoore undesirable from succeed.

10. Folk tale: A story originating in popular culture typically passed on by word-of-mouth.

11. Foreshadowing: A warning or indication of a future event.

12. Free verse: Poetry that does not Rymer have a regular meter.

13. Genre: A category of artistic composition as a music or literature characterized by similarities and form, style.

14. Gothic tale: A genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and Romance. 

15. Hyperbole: Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

16. Imagery: Visually descriptive or figurative language especially in a literary work.

17. Implication: The conclusion that can be drawn from something although not explicitly stated.

18. Incongruity: The state of being incongruous or out of keeping.

19. Inference: A conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reason.

20. Irony: Expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies opposite, typically for humorous effect.

AP Prep Post 1: Siddhartha

Questions on Siddhartha:

1. If you were the river, would you be enlightenment or would you know enlightenment? In other words, what’s up with the river?
2. What is it’s relation to enlightenment?
3. What does enlightenment look like in Siddhartha? Is it a feeling? An attitude?
4. What purpose does self-denial serve in Siddhartha?
5. What purpose does self-indulgence serve in Siddhartha?

http://www.shmoop.com/siddhartha/questions.html

 

These questions tell me that the AP exam will test your knowledge thoroughly and we need to be prepared for any question they are going to throw at us. Due to the fact I didn't read this book my sophomore year, I can't accurately answer these questions.

Hacking My Education

1. What do you want to know by the end of this course that you don't know now?

2. What skills do you want to be able to demonstrate on your blog?

3. What experiences do you want to get under your belt before you graduate?

Personal Learning network: 1) peers 2) Public 3) The experts

What's In This for Me?

I understand Dr. Preston didn't really want a hallmark response on what we wish to accomplish this semester, but I hope to be successful. My definition of success is having peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming. I want to finish this course knowing I did the best I could do. It will take hard work and determination!