This week we have been focusing solely on our snowfall projects. The snowfall project is essentially a project to create a multimodal presentation website that answered an important question. You then used a book to reference that question. Overall I thought it was a good project, I think my group just procrastinated a bit and we had quite a few days where people were gone. Our question of "How does perceived purpose affect our outlook" was a pretty easy one to answer: motivation. This came to us pretty easily as the book "Siddhartha" was full of examples and explanation. I think this project helped us learn how to put many elements onto a story, rather than just writing it. We got to mess with coding to make everything look different, and we got to put pictures in and many other things. I think allowing us to have that much creativity really gave us the opportunity to fully express ourselves and get our points across.
I think our group had a difficult start and didn't communicate all that well, so we ended up leaving a lot of work to be done in last few days. This resulted in us rushing a bit and we may have left a few things out as a result. This all could have been fixed by us just taking initiative to get things done before and during spring break, but senioritis makes that very difficult at times. I hope Schoenborn understands how we all feel. It's not that we don't care about what he is presenting us, it's that it can be difficult to give one hundred percent effort when the grade doesn't matter as much anymore and we have so many other things on our minds. That's not an excuse, but that goes through a lof of our heads as the days go on. The stress of leaving and getting everything ready to go is weighing on me and has been a lot lately.
This week, we have gone back to look at our SSR proposals that we did a long time ago. The reason for that is that we are now going to do the project we made the proposal for. My critical theory still makes sense to me and I think it works, so writing it should be fine. The two books I picked are rather interesting books, so writing about them should be pretty easy due to me being interested in them. That's the most important factor when judging whether or not you're going to be able to give something your all. It's really the deciding factor on whether something will be your best work. Actually I would say that's not true at all times, but it is the majority of occasions. I think the idea of people going too far for success is something that occurs very often and will be very easy to research. It tends to happen with very famous people as well. Mostly with famous athletes or music artists.
The new Pecha Kucha project is going to be very interesting. I like the idea of explaining things with images to it, so I think that this new project will be a real treat for me. I think the time intervals and images in the background make an image much more powerful. It'll also give us an opportunity to explain something very interesting. I think I can really make something I'm proud of and am excited to move forward with this project. I think I can have fun working on it as long as I'm with the right people who think like I do. It's very important to surround yourself with the right people because the wrong people can rub you the wrong way and perhaps put you on a tangent you never wanted things to go on.
I think my project should go well because the issue I am focusing on is an issue that can affect anyone. The only issue I see is that my references are pretty limited due to the short time we have working on this project, but I think the amount of substance these books are giving me will allow this project to still look researched enough to listen to and heed warning from.
As for this week, there has been a new project put in front of us. Our This I Believe portion is done and I must say I was really impressed with the result. The quality of each video was very good and some of them had really powerful messages. I really learned a lot about my classmates by watching these videos. Everyone was brought closer together I think. I think the issue we sometimes run into is a lack of sincerity when discussing things because nobody wants to reveal themselves. People become too shy and are scared of people judging them or not accepting what they say and judging them. This project had a certain effect on people in that it opened people up and people were much more willing to share their personal information or back story. It made me really happy to learn the things I learned about my classmates. I feel I know them much better and understand their motives and what made them the way they are a lot better, and I feel that has given me even more respect for each and every one of them.
The new project looks interesting. The idea of having people do different things is really interesting. I think my skillset allows me to be best suited as a writer simply because I like to be in charge of narrative. I think it's best for me to be in charge of narrative because I really don't like it when others speak for me, especially when I have something to say. I like to have my hands on the message we're giving as a group. That makes me feel like I'm in control of what could happen. I like that I can choose my fate in terms of making sure what needs to be said is said.
I was really happy with what happened in the past, and now I'm excited for the future, as long as I'm able to stay on top of everything a little bit better this time around. Time management is key.
This week we have been going over putting our "This I Believe" essays together into videos. We have recorded them and are currently working on editing them into the masterpieces we desire. This is a really cool project that has some value because it helps us find certain parts of ourselves we may not have found yet. It also helps us explain ourselves to each other. Perhaps there are some details about some people that a lot of people don't know, well this project will help them figure that out.
The part of this project I'm struggling with is finding something I actually want to commit to speaking about. I had an initial idea but now I'm having second thoughts. I had originally decided about how the most important quality of the things you do is that they represent yourself. Someone will almost always be better, smarter, faster, or stronger, but they can't be better than you at being you. There's a Kanye West quote that goes something like that. This is my main idea thus far and I like the idea, I just find it hard to talk about it without getting corny or sounding too cliche. However, I think not sounding cliche is an unrealistic goal due to the fact that a lot of people have lived and explained their lives before I have. It's very difficult to sound original when explaining something of this nature.
After going through all this, a question I have is, is it ever possible to explain the things you believe or, main ideas of them, without at least some of them overlapping with the way someone else believes? I don't necessarily think this is an absolutely terrible thing, but I also wish I could be original when I'm not sure I can. Hopefully this is something I can overcome.
As far as content goes this week, it has been mostly "This I Believe". The main topic of discussion has been the concept of writing and performing our speeches and making videos to go along with them. To me, this has been a rather difficult unit because I'm having a hard time trying to decide what I want to write my speech on. There are a lot of things I believe and I don't know if I could pick just one to write about to explain my beliefs properly. I think the problem is that I'm afraid of sounding corny. The problem is that I can't get very into anything I come up with. I think that's just because I don't have the right idea yet. I wonder what it'll take for me to get the right idea. I'm thinking I'll come up with something but of course it'll be later than I had hoped. Although all that matters is that I come up with something I believe in. I need my topic to be something I can stand behind and stick up for when people are arguing against it.
The majority of people's talks are going to be about how they worked hard or some life lesson they learned that relates to working hard and their path to success. To me, that's something anyone can write about no matter how genuine it actually is. Most people writing about things like that really don't know if it actually changed their life, they just either want something to write about, or they don't know what to believe in terms of what got them where they are. I really want to avoid this, and perhaps my analysis of the situation is a little bit wayward of accurate, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to. I've been really busy lately and am having trouble keeping up on sleep so maybe my brain is just being lazy.
I think this could be a really helpful unit as long as I'm able to put my complete effort into it. I could make some very good personal discoveries and share those with all of my classmates. Perhaps my ideas that I share will help them on their path in life. As long as I put my best effort forward, this unit will help me a lot.
This week the culmination of our efforts was presented in front of the class. We presented our critical theories to everyone about either the play King Lear or Macbeth. There were a wide range of theories and they were all very interesting. To me, the most interesting one was the theory that my group presented. The psychoanalysis of Edmund is very interesting because he's a very twisted character that does many twisted things. By learning his motives we get to figure out perhaps some hidden meanings in the play or maybe we learn things we didn't think we would learn. For example, Shakespeare could have implied a hidden meaning about how constantly treating a bastard child like a bastard child that has no value. The important thing to learn is that everyone has value, no matter where they come from or what situation they are in.
Another theory I was very interested in was the Marxist theory that took place in Macbeth. I thought it was really interesting how a political ideology could carry on to affect more things that just the government or politics. The idea that people can carry these things past what they are meant for is interesting because it causes you to think that people who are communists politically would also like totalitarian control in the rest of their lives. Not only is it interesting but it is a little scary as well.
To me, all of this proves how great a writer Shakespeare was. His work appears in almost everything you see nowadays and it can entertain you as well. The language is pretty dry but the themes are very interesting and they are still relevant, time has never taken anything from the main idea of a Shakespeare play.
In our eighteenth week in AP Lit class, we haven't been learning anything in the conventional sense, we haven't learned a new author, a new formula, or a new way to write papers so sometimes we think we haven't learned anything. In reality, we have really learned a lot. I learned about the connection between music and Shakespeare's plays. There are a lot of songs that draw inspiration from King Lear. Maybe they don't do this on purpose, but the themes overlap. For example, any song that talks about having issues with your father relates to Edmund and his hatred of his dad because he is a bastard and his non-bastard brother, Edgar, is treated much better than him. This seems to happen a lot in modern work because Shakespeare covered such a wide majority of topics that sometimes it can be hard to find something that he hasn't done yet.
The problem with this is that finding one that matches up perfectly is difficult. A lot match up, but they don't cover more than one or two aspects of it. You have to dissect it and find each element in it before you can find a match. You have to gain an understanding of the words in the song and the play. I find this to be challenging but it's a fun challenge. I gain from this because I learn how to understand things better and how to find a match for things. I am gaining an understanding on how to match themes with others and create a powerful example. It's not a conventional skill I will use in other classes, but it's a real life ability that someday I'll be glad I learned.
This week in AP Lit class, we watched the play King Lear, and it was very interesting. Shakespeare always keeps it exciting and sad with all of the crazy struggles that go on in his pieces. King Lear was interesting to watch because it showed the struggle for power and how far some people will go for it. That was interesting to me because it pertained well to my SSR project for this trimester. This trimester, my SSR project has the theme of success and how far some people go to achieve when perhaps they don't realize what they lose in that race, and how much it can affect the rest of their life. You may be rich, but if nobody loves you for anything other than your money, than does it really matter? Are you really "rich"? It would seem that you are rather poor. I think there's a balance between success and people. There are always going to be those friends that aren't going to be by your side when you start to get successful, or they head the other direction. The important thing is to hold on to the friends that are true friends and want you to be successful.
The story of King Lear is really just quite sickening. The King starts this love game between his three daughters; whoever can say they love him the most can inherit his fortune. The two older daughters are super greedy and try really hard to best one another. The third daughter is above this, and finds it stupid. She is then banished by the King. The third and youngest daughter is probably the only pure and good character. To me, the saddest part of the play is when you figure out that the youngest daughter dies because she is the only good character besides perhaps Edgar or Gloucester. The story reflects on this greed between sisters, and a character named Edmond's attempts to be a player and manipulate both of them for their money. Edmond is very diabolical in his plans and his plans result in many people, including his father, being killed because of it.
This week in AP Lit class, we went over our usual poem, plus one. We went over two poems like last week, and we are going to compare them in writing. I missed a day this week, so I'm not entirely clear on what happened in one of the poems. I know that both are about how the speaker has a love, but she is not perfect. The object of their affection has flaws that they are very aware of. They know the girl they love isn't perfect to anyone else's eyes, perhaps they aren't even perfect in their eyes. The only thing that is true is that they love them even with these in consideration. I think this goes to show that love is a very strong emotion and can take over other negative things that could be associated with a relationship. It doesn't have to be perfect because the emotion is so strong. Your love doesn't have to be a model that has everything you want and more. They can be an average person as long as love is present.
This week we went over how to grade an essay. This is a valuable skill to possess when writing because if you can look at an essay and see that it is a nine, it makes it much easier to write a nine. When trying to learn how to do something, it certainly helps to be able to do it backwards. Learning the reverse way to do things makes you much more familiar with them and able to do them because of it. Not only that, but this skill will carry over to my college years and help me write coherent essays for my professors to grade. This is already giving me a leg up on the competition for when I get to college.
Overall, I think the main point of what I learned this week is that not everything goes as planned and that sometimes you have to just go with the flow. I'm not entirely sure how I came up with this but that's how I'm feeling at the moment.
This past week, we learned about the classic plays of Macbeth and King Lear, and how we can tie certain elements in with them. We were assigned a group and were given a project where we had to analyze certain aspects in the story and make comparisons and find evidence for a critical theory inside of the stories. My group decided to do the aspect of psychology and how it relates to characters in the stories. To me, psychology is really easy to relate to Shakespearean literature because the characters all have lots of things going through their minds and have pretty straightforward motives. I hope it doesn't turn into making a lot of assumptions, I feel like that could be one downfall of using psychology. It can sometimes appear subjective and a little bit random, but I hope it doesn't. I feel like if we do it right we can make it completely accurate and prevent it from appearing subjective.
This week we read two poems that I thought were pretty interesting: Ozymandias and Sonnet 146 (Poor soul. the centre of my sinful earth). To me, these poems had quite a bit in common because it focused on the fact that we focus too much on what we have in terms of money and power, rather than focusing on our souls. We have this along with a body that doesn't last forever, but a soul that does. Our soul is eternal while our bodies are temporary. I think it's interesting to think about, but perhaps an atheist wouldn't find it very interesting because it talks about how we should focus on the things they don't believe in. Although I also think it still has meaning because you shouldn't overvalue your power or the amount of possessions you have because once you die, none of those things matter and you've still only got your soul (or nothing).