zBlogging the Literary Life - AP College English

10th PERIOD PHOTO

ok, so here is a bunch of gobb-o-ly-gook that should link you guys to my photo website where i've uploaded our class picture.  hope it works...

AP English album

FINALLY OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

Today was the last day of finals for AP English! This has got to be one of the most happiest moments in my life. I presented my final presentation on utopia, I cleaned out my locker for the last time, I donated my extra supplies to the elementary schools. Having nothing in my locker has been a dream of mines every since I started out as a freshman.  So tomorrow is our last day of high school! I am eager to finally be free from school for a few months. Tomorrow is the first step into my new life. I know that after tomorrow my life will never be the same. Do any other seniors feel this way? I wish all seniors a prosperous journey in their new lives as well. I hope to see everyone alive and well at our 10year high school reunion. But before that I get one more chance to say our last good-byes at graduation. One more chance to see us looking our best! Mr. Heidkamp I better see you there as well. Take care and as my grandfather would say- So long!

Projects

Firstly, I wanted to adress my english presentation about zen becuase I think I threw a few curve balls.  I know that I stressed that zen cant be taught and that noone can understand it etc.  However, you can begin to think differently zen dosnt have to just be just be about enlightenment but a path of thinking.  And I want to say that we all can begin thinking as a zens tudent would. 

Now I wanted to adress the insanity presentation.  And ask if we put "insane people away" so we dont have to see them and look at our own faults because of them.  Do we use them as a sheild.  And who is the one to label some one insane or sane.  Is the norm the sane?  Or is the non conformity the sane?  How I feel like throughout the year we ask all these questions that I dont can be answer?  Why do we do this arnt there answers out there?

The Longest 2 Weeks of My Life!!!!!!!!

I feel as if these last two weeks are going to be the longest and the most chaotic weeks of my life. With seniors getting out of school on the 1st it good but stressful. Probably because most of my finals are on the 30th and the 1st. However, I like these English finals that we are doing. I find that  the students are doing a really good job on teaching the different concepts. The one that really confused me was the one based on free will. I understand the concept but the way the group presented it made me even more confused than I was before. Because it is not a concrete concept, I felt as if there were too many big words flying around and I couldn't quite grasp what was being said. Also the element of physics kept surfacing and it made me extremely out of it. Other than that the projects are really free flowing and good. Now finals week is going to be a little bit more chaotic than I expected. Why are we having full days of school next week as seniors if next week is our finals week? Any who, I have 3 presentations starting on Tuesday and ending on June 1st. Oh don't forget my 2-day math finals. The faster the week goes by the better. Does anyone else feel this way?

Pleasure

I wanted to continue the discussion about hedonism.  I feel like hedonism has a negative connotation because institutions i.e. religious institutionas wanted to use it to control.  What I mean by that is the natural human seeks pleasure, which is considered negative and therefore have to confess or atone for your sins.  Institiutions take advantage and use the idea of seeking pleasure as a way of controlling the actions of the patrons. 

Also I wanted to ask a question if America changed the drinking age to 18 would society regard it differently?  Would people make it not seem like such a big deal?

TIME-WAIT A MINUTE!!!!!

There is not enough time to do anything anymore. I feel so rushed all the time. Now that senior year is winding down, it seems like my classes want to push more work on us instead of them allowing us a peaceful end of the year. With one less week for finals, I think they should have all senior finals before prom so that all we will have to do is come back and graduate. It would be so much more less stressful. I think I'm going to need my asthma inhaler just for making it past prom week. Its crunch time and I need a minute.  How many students want to relax after prom? I know my hand is raised high to the sky. With prom being three days away, this week is so much more hectic just because there are so many finals deadlines. I wish I could blink my eyes and it would be all over. On a better note, my group project on Utopia I think is going to be a rather good one. Well good luck to my fellow seniors and I will see you all at prom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

English

So what's everyone’s' thoughts on the English language/literature profession?

As a child, being brought up by MAD Magazine and 2 teachers, I thought it was the lamest concept for a class- after all, who needs to know English good anyway? MAD's perverse humor drilled into my mind that an English Major was just a pothead who couldn't make it in anything else. When attending the then-glorious halls of a high school with my mother on "Bring Your Child to Work Day" (before the noodle incident), the English classes seemed less than impressive. They seemed to be still teaching the same absurd minute differences between the pluralization and possessive form's of words five years later, something I did not look forward to.

Five years down the path to the beginning of my own high school career I discovered the differences between the remedial and honors-track programs. Mainly, in honors classes you actually have to try... a little. The biggest surprise came when for English, Mr. Bell assigned not, "Go, Dog, Go!" for the twelfth time so we could pick up on the graceful subtleties of such poetic writing, but stuff that might as well been scrawled on cave walls in charcoal for how old it was. It wasn't so much deciphering the hidden sexual innuendos of every line as it was the interpretations we were forced to draw. No longer was I allowed to believe that "Why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served" was just what it claimed to be, lactose intolerance.

Speaking of the AP's for other languages- what the dilio?! (I wish I knew how to type an interurban). NOBODY that's not a native speaker of the language can get a 5 on the AP test unless their accent is nonexistent! We might as well have a question on the AP English saying, "Is English your first language?" and if you answer "No" they automatically dock a point off your test.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is no longer do I scoff at the idea of learning my primary language in school, but am terrified at the realization that I still know only a quarter of the languages nuances after 18 years.

ZENNY

I wanted to talk about what I am doing for my group project which is zen.  I didn't really understand what it was before I looked it up I thought it was a religion with some yoga mixed in.  However, I was greatly wrong.  To simplify it, it is a subset of Buddhism and basis is for a person to have self discovery through introspection.  This concept I think is really cool and wish we could incorporate in it America life.  In America, we are always go go go and Zen seems to take time to absorb everything around them.  Do you think that American would and could accept the idea of Zen.

AP'S ARE THEY REALLY OVER????????????

Well majority of those in any AP English took the test yesterday. I went in there with tons of unwanted and unnecessary stress on my shoulders. In a way I can say that the preparation work we did in class was a true immulation of the test itself.  Well some of you are like duh! Why wouldn't it be? It isn't called preparation for nothing! Well see that's where my stress came from because when I took the ACT test for the first time after being in the class for numerous amounts of weeks it didn't accurately prepare me for taking an ACT test. The class was centered around more of how to take a test and less on the material. Maybe that's my own personal issue and others may not have the same problem but I would prepare the material itself than prepare time management solely. So my question is are AP's really over?????? The reason I pose this question is because now that the stressful part is over(actually taking the test) there is still the stress of test scores. What if I took a $92.00 test and failed and didn't even get an adequate score? I would feel like a complete idiot!

Prom Countdown:8 days !!!!!!!!!!!

Good Luck!

Good luck tomorrow on the AP test everyone!

Metaphor-Off

Well, now that I'm done taking finals in AP classes, I've begun to catch up on my over-one-month-long Daily Show and Colbert Report backlog on Tivo.  And, this afternoon, I got to a funny clip on the Colbert Report with actor Sean Penn in which the two engage in a metaphor-off.  Actually, that whole week Colbert prepared on the air by using metaphors as well as other literary devices such as hyperbole and allusion, but the culmination of this act ended in his face-off with Penn.  Check out the video clip yourself. Click here.

Poem Test

So that AP style test that we took yesterday..was so hard.  On a lot of questions the answers seemed like they could all be correct and I just had to guess what I was supposed to be answering.  I've talked to a lot of other people and everyone else thinks the test was nowhere near easy.  I think that the time limit was a little short, I know I definitely struggled with keeping up.  Now I'm more nervous to take the AP, hopefully the test will be extremely curved..

The Color Red

I never really got to blog about IMAC so here it goes. 

I wanted to ask some questions to everyone about the characters.  Was Ira a hero in rebellious way.  Was he just manipulated or was he looking for something to belong to.  Ira seemed like he was a noble man that had good morals and values.  However, communism seemed to corrupt him and altered his decision making. 

Why did Ira seem to think he was so connected with communism ideas.  Was it because he thought it was a way to stop the American corruption nd he could spread his ideals. 

I wanted to ask one more question that someone else brought up, which is would there be a variety of ideals in a community of ideals.  I always thought the idea of communism was make everyone equal or the same.  Wouldn't one lose him/her self.  Would Ira get lost his this world he is trying to create?

Sestina

My group hasn't gone yet, and I don't want to reveal our secretive interpretation of For the Union Dead, so unfortunately I must blog about another poem. I suppose that since we didn't have much time to discuss Sestina today in class, I'll attempt an interpretation here.

I really enjoy Sestina; we read it earlier this year during another poetry unit, and I was impressed by both its formal characteristics and its meaning. I think that it describes well the pain the grandmother must keep secret from the young child. By juxtaposing traditional symbols of childhood with phrases detailing the grandmother's anguish, she shows the weight of sorrow amidst the ease and comfort of innocence. The only line that really confuses me is in the final stanza: "Time to plant tears, says the almanac." Does that phrase imply the almanac's ability to cause pain? In fact, what exactly is the position of the almanac within the poem? I sort of understand it metaphorically, but remain a bit confused- perhaps it has personal significance to the author or speaker?

Sestina

For our poetry presentation my group did the Sestina and we didn't have a lot of time to present so I thought I would sum it up.  I would just like to say that Scott did a wonderful job on his performance and deserves the two tickets.  The poem takes place in a kitchen during a rainstorm, beside  a wood stove, where a grandmother makes tea and reads jokes from an almanac to her grandchild, who draws a picture of a house.  This poem is actually a painful and depressing story of the grandmother and child living with loss.  The loss is probably a loss of the child's father of the grandmothers husband.  Also, the mother is gone so it could have to do with that.  But throughout the poem the grandmother tries to remain cheerful in order to protect the child, but the child can sense the grandmother's tears even though she tries to hide them.  The child expresses this through the picture she drew of a man with "buttons like tears" and by "watching the teakettle's small hard tears dance like mad."  The child recognizes her grandmother's tear and predicament, and the poem goes into the mind of the child.  The child turns the almanac into a bird, lets the stove and almanac speak, and these provide a distinct way of being effectual, it is the child's way of dealing with things.  Any other thoughts?

Communism and Evolution

I just thought of another reason why communism sucks.

We often think of evolution as pertaining solely to biology.  However, it applies to any system that both replicates and is capable of change.

Ideas evolve just in the way that animals do.  If a new idea is well suited for replication, than it will do so.  If a new idea is not, than it won't.  An idea is well suited for replication if it is profitable (not necessarily in the money sense) for its host.  For example, if I have an idea, say, how to make a product more efficiently, than this idea is very profitable for me.  Others will witness it, note its profitability, and replicate my idea.  Such an idea is very fit for the environment.

If conversely, an idea is not profitable and harms its host, it is not likely it will reproduce, and it will die.

Now, lets consider the two different environments of capitalism and communism.  In capitalism, what is profitable for a host is well defined.  Ideas (not all, but many) reproduce because of their financial merit.  Capitalism is a very hostile and demanding environment.  As, a result evolution of ideas is much faster.  Just as a competitive environment jump starts biological evolution in the wild.

In communism, host profitability is far less defined. Because of the lack of monetary reward for good ideas, it is a much different environment for ideas.  It is an environment in which weaker ideas can thrive because they offer virtually as much profitability to the hosts as a strong idea would: little to none.  In such an environment, idea evolution stagnates, just as non-competitive habitats cause biological evolution to stagnate (look at the animals that have little competition in the wild, some haven't changed much in millions of years).

If you think about it, the only reason ideas evolve progressively at all in communist societies is because the world economy is capitalist.  A communist society here is not a pure communist society, it is a communist society nested within a capitalist society.  An entire communist nation in the world economy is akin to an individual in a capitalist economy, it must have somewhat competitive ideas or it will not profit.  Unfortunately this is not as powerful because countries don't have ideas, people within them do.

In other words, the only reason ideas evolve progressively in communist societies is because they must compete with capitalist societies in which ideas inherently evolve progressively.  If one could imagine an entire world that was communist, free of competition, the progressive evolution of ideas would cease, and the evolution would be slow and directionless.

Thus, an isolated capitalist society, because of its competitive environment for ideas, will progress faster than an isolated communist society.

I'm just sayin' is all.

In Class Essay

What is everyone's plan for the in-class essay on Monday? I was thinking about writing an outline for each of the prompts to be ready for any of them, but that seems like it will be a lot of work. Does anyone have any good ideas on how to prepare yourself for the essay, other than having a very good understanding of the book?

16. Some of the most significant events in literature are often mental or psychological; for example, awakenings, discoveries, changes in consciousness. Explain how these sorts of events are the pivotal and vital ones for characters in this work.

17. In some works of literature a character struggles to come to terms with past events. Explain how such a character is found in this work. Explain the nature of the struggle and how the character’s response to the past is a source of meaning in the work.

18. Some leading characters conform to the pattern of life expected of them; others rebel against this pattern. Select a character from this work and demonstrate the nature of the character’s conformity or rebellion and explain how it is important to the theme or some other important aspect of the work as a whole.

Why Listening?

Why does Roth tell Ira's story via Murry, through spoken word? Why is listening so important for Nathan? What makes the actual opening of the ears so alluring?

I think that a lot of it comes from the actual thinking that occurs when one actually listens. Its a basic difference between Ira and Nathan. Ira speaks, he is constantly giving speeches and talking of the progressive party but he never sits down to listen to the other side, whereas Nathan only listens. By listening Nathan gets more of the big picture, he gets the two sides. There comes a kind of greater comprehension, understanding when he listens because he doesn't have to think about anything else but what is being said. He gets lost in the words, lost in thought, and can maybe come to some sort of understanding. I would like to know what other people think about Nathan's mentors and what you think he has learned from their speeches as well as why people think Roth constructed the book the way he did. Thoughts?

My Villanelle

I can't think of anything else to post so here's my lame Villanelle. As Mr. Heidkamp called it, it's simple yet efficient. I actually don't remember if he called it that or not but it is. I got a check mark. I hope that's a good thing.

He was just a crazy old man
With a pencil-thick neck and a beard
And his body was shaped like an oil can

He still drove an old hippie van
Everyone thought he was weird
He was just a crazy old man

They all called him Dan
Spiders were all that he feared
And his body was shaped like an oil can

The last thing they called him was bland
He only ate his cream cheese smeared
He was just a crazy old man

His house was simply grand
When he first saw it, he cheered
And his body was shaped like an oil can
He was just a crazy old man

gravewalking

This is my villanelle that HK decided to lose. I will print out 5 copies of it and give it to him on Monday. :)

- - -

He lies like a grave,
with open, honest deceit.
Wandering in the cemetery, I know I must be brave.

In the darkness, the branches seem to wave,
but not with pleasure do they greet.
He lies like a grave.

I see nothing left to save,
but I won’t let my heart sink in defeat.
Wandering in the cemetery, I know I must be brave.

At the apex, night swallows the moon like a cave.
Thoughts are born and die on repeat.
He lies like a grave.

I see them sleeping below the hill and crave
the cessation of my heart’s beat.
He lies like a grave.
Wandering in the cemetery, I know I must be brave.

Irate Ira: Good guy, bad guy?

So, onto Ira.  Someone brought up in class yesterday that Ira is a good guy, who is unfairly mocked.  I'd like to challenge that definition.  When Ira and Nathan are at Goldstine's house, Nathan hears a lot of Ira's sordid history.  Ira, long ago, had told Nathan that he had been beat up by guys in the army who called him a "Jew bastard" (48).  Nathan and we the readers had felt bad for Ira.  Here's a passage from chapter one:

"Hours later Ira got ambushed in the dark and wound up in the hospital.  At best he could diagnose the pains that began to develop while he was working at the record factory, they were from the damage caused by that savage beating.  Now he was always pulling a muscle or spraining a joint - his ankle, his wrist, his knee, his neck - and often as not from doing virtually nothing, no more than stepping off the bus coming home or reaching across the counter for the sugar bowl in the diner where he went to eat" (49).

From this passage, we all sympathize with Ira.  But then, we learn Ira didn't tell the whole story.  The reason the army men beat up Ira is because he tried to drown one of their comrades and then almost killed another who tried to save him.  Yes, the man, called "Butts" came at Ira with a knife, but then Ira went crazy and tried to kill him, way after the threat was over, and then wouldn't let others save Butts when obviously Butts had learned his lesson.  It's not OK to kill a man just because they wronged you.  Goldstine calls Ira a "crazy fucking homicidal nut" (98).

Later on, in another passage, more is revealed about Ira's dangerous side:  "Ira knew his own nature.  He knew that he was physically way out of scale and that this made him a dangerous man.  He had the rage in him, and the violence, and standing six and a half feet tall, he had the means.  He knew he needed his Ira-tamers - knew he needed all his teachers, knew he needed a kid like you [Nathan] ... But after I Married a Communist appeared, he shed the finishing school education, and he reclaimed the Ira you never saw, who beat the shit out of guys in the army, the Ira who, as a boy starting out on his own, used the shovel he dug with to protect himself against those Italian guys.  Wielded his work tool as a weapon.  His whole life was a struggle not to pick up that shovel.  But after her book, Ira set out to become his own uncorrected first self" (123).

How do you explain these different versions of Ira?  Is he the good, misunderstood, unfairly criticized man we all originally thought him to be?  Or are some of the plights in his life of his own making, and he is not necessarily the hero we thought him to be?  Or, is he a product of his environment, and of the teachers he has had over the years? Is he really his own self?

The Impromptu

I am just wondering what everyone thought of our last impromptu we did today in class.  I thought that our last impromptu was actually pretty interesting.  It was interesting how her whole life is overshadowed by the way she looks.  I mean she is very musically talented and all of her skills are just looked over because she is not pretty.  I feel like that kind of happens a lot today.  Maybe not with sports or music (because who watches girls sports anyway) but with personalities.  Everybody is just judged by the way they look and it doesn't matter how amazing they really are.  It was just interesting how relavent this is today.  I am glad that we don't have anymore impromtus though.  Any thoughts?

Contradicting

I think Eve Frame is such a weird character.  She has this intense disgust for Jewish people, like on Page 53 where Murray tells Nathan "It was a sickness, that aversion she had for the Jew who was insufficiently disguised."  However she has no problem with the Jewish people who are actors, or famous, or rich.  She only hates the Jewish people she thinks are "common", the ones who also tend to be her biggest fans.   If she hates Jewish people how can she marry Ira, who is also Jewish?  I just don't why she is so specific on the Jewish people she hates and why she even hates them so much to begin with.

Poetry & Music

I chose to compare two songs for the poetry comparison paper and while writing it I started to think about the similarities between the two mediums. Back when poetry was really, really popular, they didn't have songs with lyrics, only classical music. However poetry was probably more popular than music at the time (music had no real method of playback back then, and you could read poetry whenever and wherever). Thus, poetry had a much more widespread appeal and was therefore used to reach a wider audience of people. Today, music is obviously extremely more popular than poetry. However, it is used much in the same way poetry was. Just like how poets would many times contain a message within their poem that required in-depth analysis to figure out, so do many songs today. Songwriters will often write lyrics based off of their own views on the world and situations that many people find themselves in to reach the masses and convey a message, much in the way poets did. Thus, songs are used today in the way poetry was way back when. The medium changes but many of the messages stay the same.

Can Poetry Be Bad?

Well, of course, I will be brave enough to take on poetry.  What makes poetry really good and how do we tell the difference?  I mean let's say we have Shakespeare and some Hobo on the street and they both write poems, wouldn't each one be brilliant in there own right.  Poetry I think is just a way for people to simply express themselves or an idea or something they have just been thinking about.  Some are in a scheme others are just in random lines.  Poetry is great to someone so there is no such thing is bad poetry.  Or is there?

Poetic Questions

So what makes poetry teachable? What gives value to a poem? What makes a poem about the Iraq war more teachable than a poem about the blue sky? When Mr. Heidkamp started asking these questions today my thoughts came down to this:

The blue sky is there. We can see it every cloudless day. I know the blue sky. When discussing something like the sky, there isn't going to be much controversy. As far as I'm concerned, unless there is an extended metaphor or some journey in the poem there isn't much to learn. There is no question or perspective that can be reviewed or analyzed. No questions asked.

Whereas a poem about the Iraq war could have some discussable qualities. Someone may not agree with the viewpoint presented, some may. Some people's ideas may even change through the course of the poem. I think that a teachable poem has to ask questions, challenge ideas, have a more meaningful meaning.

I guess I'm not actually answering what gives a poem value, because I think a poem about the blue sky can still have plenty of value, the beauty of nature or what have you-- it is neither more or less valuable than the poem about the Iraq war, there is just less to say about it, less to discuss I guess. My idea is that the hypothetical blue sky poem is more likely to be a statement, whereas the Iraq war one is more likely to be a question. Teachers will teach what gets minds going and its always the question. Thats just my thoughts though, any others? 

So What

The other day in class, after somone had played their song for us, our class got into discussion about meaning in songs. One argument, if i recall correctly, was what if we're not suppose to understand the exact meaning behind the lyrics, or that even by trying to find meaning, we degrade and ruin the song.  Someone said that maybe a song is only meant to be understood by the songwriter themself and that is what makes it so delicate. The other argument was that, if we don't try to incorporate meaning into a work- like a song- we are being ignorant and not giving the author justice. I tend to agree with both sides though.

Not Lovin Beloved (Yet?)

Well, I'm trying to kill two birds with one stone here.  I am not very happy with my paper yet, so I'm wondering if maybe I need to reconsider my thesis.  Also, I wouldn't mind the EC early blogging.  Here is my current introduction to the question, "How does an identity struggle contribute to the meaning of a work of literature?"

"Often in a novel, at least one character undergoes an identity crisis.  In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, both Sethe and Paul D (among others) struggle to define themselves in a post-Civil-War American South.  Morrison uses Sethe and Paul D to show the impact slavery had as it stripped the identity of slaves.  They lost their gender schemas and even the very feeling of being human.  Until they reconcile their troubled pasts, they cannot move on to live a meaningful life."

I go on to talk about Sethe and Paul D losing their gender schemas (Sethe losing her milk...Paul D not feeling like a man...)  Later I consider their loss of human identity (Paul D less than the rooster named Mister...)

Any thoughts?  Feedback?  Other passages that might help me out here?  Come on, you know you wouldn't mind getting some blogging points either =)

Which Art Tickles Your Heart?

Recently, I have liked to deem myself an appreciator of poetry. It is fun to say, "Poetry is a man's mind on paper," and I do enjoy writing my own. Then again, maybe I am just a fool pretending to be an artist. Whatever. However, music has claimed an importance in my life that is unmatched by most anything. I find my musical experiences as almost religious.
Still, some poems really, really hit hard. I think the first one in "Sound and Sense" to knock me down was "Dulce et Decorum Est," about the man who died in the gas attack. It is one of the most beautifully powerful collection of words I have ever read. While certain songs reach this level of intensity, I do not think that the words have enough time or spotlight to create these images/ideas.
"the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lings, bitter as the cud." I still cannot get over that line.
I think poetry's main handicap is that people cannot get together and read the poem together. Listening to a song and singing along with your buddies/alone/the universe is a majestic experience. You can't really learn a poem and perform it in your own style like you can a song, and you can't really find poetry on CD that you want to listen to while going for a run. Unless we put all of our attention on a poem, we can't really appreciate it all, but we can listen to music while walking, working, driving, eating...pretty much anything that affords us our ears.

Then again, art is not a competition, so why can't we appreciate and enjoy all forms?

Songs vs. Poetry

Woo, gettin my extra credit

This is kind of similar to Ben's post but oh well. In class yesterday we talked (technically not "we," since I didn't say anything) about the relationship between songs and poetry and how, in someone in the class's words (don't remember who), people expect songs to be less "intellectually challenging" or whatever. I don't always think that's true. I think both poets and songwriters have ideas they want to express but choose to do so in different ways. Poetry is more "old fashioned"--much more people now listen to music than read poetry, so if you want to get your ideas across, it's probably going to gain more widespread acceptance if you do it through a song than through a poem (like Rage Against the Machine for example). The main difference is that if you're a poet and your poem sucks, you're screwed. But if you're a songwriter and your lyrics suck, you can still save the song by making it appealing to listen to. Because of this, with a poem people tend to focus more on the meaning because that's all that's there, while I think in a song, people tend to focus more on the music because it's what jumps out at you. That doesn't mean that songwriters don't also have messages to get across, or that theirs are any less important or relevant, just that they may sometimes take back stage to the more apparent music.