Open Prompt (LAST ONE!!!) Dec. 9th

1971. The significance of a title such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is so easy to discover. However, in other works (for example, Measure for Measure) the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only gradually. Choose two works and show how the significance of their respective titles is developed through the authors' use of devices such as contrast, repetition, allusion, and point of view.

Ellen Hopkins is probably one of my favorite authors. She writes her books in free verse poetry, making reading them go by much quicker, and keeping the audience on the edge of their seats (figuratively). Sarah Dessen was an author I looked to for a cushion during my early teenage years, as she basically creates chick flicks and puts them down to paper. Hopkins' Impulse and Dessen's Along For the Ride are two examples of books with titles that aren't too obvious as to what the book is about.

Impulse centers around three teens, Connor, Vanessa, and Tony. The three of them are in Aspen Springs, a rehabilitation center, for their specific addictions/problems. Vanessa is bi polar, and is addicted to self harming. Connor comes from a rich family, that is, rich in money, but dirt poor when it comes to family love and respect. Out of the lack of attention given to Connor by his parents, Connor seeks out a sexual relationship with the house maid, and then later with one of his teachers. Tony came to Aspen Springs after an overdose on pills, a result of his previously having been sexually abused by one of his loose mother's boyfriends, and then having killed him.

Sarah Dessen's novel, Along For the Ride, begins when a girl named Auden isn't sure what to do with herself the summer after her graduation from high school, after she's been accepted to a university, and settles on living with her father, his new wife and their baby. Unsure at first, Auden finds herself becoming close to her stepmother and half-sister, and after meeting a boy around her age, Eli, starts spending every night out with him.

The titles of these books don't exactly give away their plots, so it's more up to the reader to look to the story and the techniques and tones the author uses to pick up why the titles were chosen. Impulse becomes understanding and apparent while watching the struggle of the teens in rehab to try to force themselves out of their old habits - Vanessa wants to cut, Connor wants to seduce his therapist, Tony is battling his suicidal thoughts. The book is told in first person narrative, so the theme of acting on impulse is pounded into the reader's head over and over, by being able to read and feel the thoughts of each character throughout their struggle. Auden's story, while the theme is much less apparent because of the lack of intensity and drama, the "along for the ride" comes in with the fact that while growing up, Auden never learned how to ride a bike, and so Eli takes her out every night teaching her, while they do simple, carefree things like grocery shopping and talking in diner tables. She's along for the ride. Having been reluctant at first about living with her father, with Eli's help Auden lets go of her worries about taking care of everyone in her family, and has a new chance at a childhood.

Death of a Salesman Summary & Analysis

 Author: Arthur Miller
Published: 1949 (Viking Penguin, Inc.)


Plot:
     Willy Loman, a salesman living in the shabby outskirts of New York City, is the center of the play with his career, honesty, family relationships, and even his own sanity in question. The play opens with Willy coming home to his wife Linda at a late hour, with her worried and immediately questioning him, asking if something was wrong, if he crashed his car, etc. Not long after we are introduced to Linda's personality and role in the play as the anxious, stress-ridden caretaker of Willy, he begins talking to himself in the kitchen, the topic only his son, Biff, and his life. (ex. "You gonna wash the engine, Biff?", "Don't get your sweater dirty, Biff!","No kiddin', Biff, you got a date? Wonderful!","No, you finish first. Never leave a job till you're finished - remember that." [Miller, 27-28]) His life revolves around Biff and his concerns that his son won't be "well-liked" and successful. Willy looked up to his older brother Ben as an example, a man who went to Africa, and at the age of 21, came out of the country rich with his findings (somehow..) of diamonds. In one scene, Willy is in one of his fantasies, imagining a conversation with Ben, asking him how he should raise his boys, and if he had done a good job. Willy pressures his son after Biff's flunking out of his math class, and therefore out of his university. Instead of going on to become the "well-liked" salesman Willy always wanted him to be (and wanted himself to be) Biff goes West to farm. On his visit home (the time period of the play) Willy's fantasies and conversations with people who aren't there (according to Linda) become worse, and he heads into a mental crisis as he's fired from his job, facing his guilt of not being successful like his brother Ben, not having Biff turn out to be successful and rich, and from the affair he had on a business trip that Biff caught him on, and is struggling and having to borrow money from his neighbor to pay the bills for his home. In the end, Willy commits suicide in a last attempt to save his family, hoping that from his death, his family would be able to collect the insurance money, and have enough to go on.

Characters:

Willy Loman - Representative of the failure of the "American Dream" and the tragic hero of the story. Looks up to his older brother Ben's success and wealth, feels guilt for not being as successful, not making his boys that successful, guilt for the affair on Linda, guilt and shame for losing his job and not being able to pay the family's bills on his own.

Biff Loman - Seen by Willy as his failure, however, Biff, unlike Willy, was able to tell himself he knew that being a salesman wasn't right for him, and that he was happy in the West farming, and that was success for him. He was able to see past the strict, cut-throat business world Happy and Willy were stuck in, and struggled with Willy always over his shoulder to find his own "American Dream". Struggles as the "disappointment" son to his father, wanting to do his own thing, while his father has his own plans for his son according to the life he was unable to have, and therefore wants fulfilled in Biff's lifetime.

Happy Loman - serves for the most part of the play as a buffer between Willy and Biff during their arguments. Happy followed in his father's footsteps in the way that he got himself into the business world, and while he wasn't exactly super successful or wealthy, did alright for himself. Throughout the play, Happy continues to reassure his father and mother that he will get married, and that he's "gotten bigger", though he's never really particularly noticed by either parent. He has an over-active sex drive, talked about in the beginning of the play between he and his brother, and seen in the restaurant scene when Willy meets the boys for dinner.

Charley - Charley is the face of Willy's guilt. He must continuously borrow money from Charley to pay his bills because he doesn't have a job, and when he offers Willy a job, Willy refuses, insisting he has a job, only a short while later reluctantly admitting his unemployed status.

Linda - As explained in the plot summary, Linda is the caretaker of Willy. She goes along with his pretendings and lies about the job he doesn't have, congratulating him and advising him to ask his boss to drive to Boston. She gets upset and defensive of his mental state when Biff comes home, telling him that his failure of his math class and of not getting the business job Willy wanted him to are the reasons for his talking to himself and the evidence she found for his wanting to commit suicide.

Response to Course Materials Dec. 2nd

     Hamlet and Death of a Salesman. Those few words basically sum up what we've been and are doing now in class. Watching the movie of Salesman before reading the actual play was really helpful, so that while reading and annotating, I could picture scenes from the movie while it was happening during my reading. Finally, we watched the movie again, but this time after we had completed our annotations, so we could pause after major scenes to compare the staging/acting/script to the script we had read. The movie was overall really true to the script, and the staging and acting choices were much more easy to understand after we were finished reading.
      Hamlet is kind of a different story. There were definitely some sort of cryptic phrases in Salesman we as a class had to hash out so we could understand underlying meanings/etc. But Hamlet isn't really just a few cryptic phrases here and there, it's the entire play. It's Shakespeare. I'm really glad right now we're taking time during the in-class readings of the play to pause and get help from each other and of course Ms. Holmes to kind of translate the unfamiliar language into more modern descriptions we can understand. Still, I'm wanting to be able to read and comprehend the play as we're reading on my own, instead of relying on the help from Ms. Holmes. I think for this one I'm going to have to get onto Sparknotes for the No Fear Shakespeare, so when I go back to annotate further, I can understand more and have more things to point out and analyze.
    

Closed Prompt Nov. 18th

     William J. Bennett, a CNN contributor, analyzed the causes behind the issue of rising college tuition in his article entitled, "Stop subsidizing soaring college costs" (CNN.com). He opens with repeating his hypothesis from an article he wrote for the New York Times in 2011, which supposedly became known as the "Bennett Hypothesis" within education circles. His hypothesis states that, "the cost of college tuition will continue to rise as long as federal student aid programs continue to increase with little to no accountability" (Bennett). He observed that federal financial aid was doing little to nothing to help make college more affordable. College tuition prices would, according to his studies, increase as would financial aid and alumni donations.
     After clearly stating his position on the issue of the "soaring college costs", Bennett went on to make sure that readers with opposing positions would not think he was sending the wrong message by assuring in a later paragraph, "while increased financial aid does not cause college price inflation, it can be a considerable factor" (Bennett), and then going on to support his argument with statistics from outside sources. For example, he uses a quote from the College Board which said, "Total student aid increased by about 84% in inflation-adjusted dollars over the decade from 1997-98 to 2007-08". By using statistics, he helps rope in the audience members who may be skeptical, by assuring that his hypothesis was not just a thought he had by himself, but was one gathered from research on the topic.
     Not only did Bennett use statistics appropriately and effectively to his advantage, but the entire article was written in language that is easy to understand by adults and students alike. This was a good decision because it ensures that young people, of whom the issue he is talking about most concerns, easily understand and are aware of this side of the argument that is today being considered "could be the next U.S. debt bomb" (Bennett). He closes the article with a direct quote from President Obama with a threat that "If you [colleges and universities] can't stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down", so his ending not only explained the problem of college costs contributing heavily to the U.S. debt (student loans) and offered a common opinion on the why of the problem, but it left the audience with the President's previous statement, and the thought that " It remains to be seen if his threat holds any weight and if he will act on it" (Bennett).


http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-22/opinion/opinion_bennett-college-costs_1_student-aid-financial-aid-tuition-at-public-universities/2?_s=PM:OPINION

^link to the article

Open Prompt Nov. 11th

1979. Choose a complex and important character in a novel or a play of recognized literary merit who might on the basis of the character's actions alone be considered evil or immoral. In a well-organized essay, explain both how and why the full presentation of the character in the work makes us react more sympathetically than we otherwise might. Avoid plot summary.

     Antwone Fisher's novel, Finding Fish, is the true story of Fisher's life, showing how he went from the foster care system to being homeless, working in the army, and trying to reconnect with his birth mother. When Antwone is taken in by the Pickett family, Mizz Pickett becomes a prime example of a character that can definitely be considered evil and/or immoral through her actions of abuse toward Antwone.
     Mizz Pickett's "affectionate" words to Antwone as well as the other foster kids, Dwight and Flo, were such as calling them by derogatory terms like "nigga" and "chocolate'. Antwone noted in the novel that he always noticed while growing up the special treatment of Keith, a foster child who was considerably lighter-skinned than the rest of the children. Mizz Pickett would call neighbors, fellow church-goers, basically anyone who would listen, to tell them what awful and evil children she had to take care of. Because of these such incidents, Antwone grew up questioning whether or not he should have shame for being dark skinned, and thinking that he wasn't a well-behaved or kind child.
     Regularly, the children would be physically abused by Mizz Pickett, along with the verbal abuse discussed previously. She would take the children to the basement and tie them up for hours, and either beat the kids herself with a whip, or send down her husband to do it. Antwone wrote how Mr. Pickett never really showed any sort of emotion while beating them, as if he either felt guilty or just didn't really think anything of the children's "misbehaving" of whatever Mizz Pickett wanted, so even if it was he who was giving the beatings, it was Mizz Pickett who was the mind behind the whip.
     Because of the mental and physical abuse Antwone and the other foster children suffered while staying in the Pickett household beginning at the time when they were just small, and then through to their pre-teen/teenage years,  Mizz Pickett can be considered by the readers to be an evil and/or immoral character in the book.
     
    

Responding to Course Materialsssssss. Yeah.

     Done with "The American Dream"! Yaaaay! Aaaand now on to "Death of a Salesman". While I was super exhausted while watching the movie in class, I did think that the plot was interesting, so I'm interested to see how we'll go about annotating and discussing this one.
     I don't think we've done too much with DIDLS, other than our daily exercises with different words. We had another terms test, which I failed again. Wee! Yeah, I really need to start studying examples instead of trying to learn the definitions only. I think every time I'm really tripped up by the three questions when the quote from "V for Vendetta is used".  To make up for that grade, Morgan and I are reading Foster's "How to Read Novels Like a Professor" and going to talk to Ms. Holmes about it sometime this week. I actually like doing this, because like with "How to Read Literature Like a Professor", I think Foster has an entertaining voice, and his examples throughout the book make it interesting and a lot easier to read through.
     Alright I waited until late at night to do this response and I really just want to go to bed so that's all I'm going to comment on right now. Stay tuned for the next super exciting response!

Summary and Analysis of "The American Dream"

     So basically, when reading through The American Dream for the first time, I had absolutely no idea what it was about. I just kind of sat there like, "hm...this...this is really weird" So I was pretty interested to hear what we were going to discuss in class. Lo and behold, the point of it all was consumerism. And, from an essay we read in class, it was a sort of "grotesque sitcom" (Philip C. Kolin, "Ablee's early one-act plays: 'A new American playwright from whom much is to be expected'").
     Mommy and Daddy's function in the play was the reversal of gender roles, with Mommy constantly emasculating Daddy by pointing out his faults and calling him a woman, and then by manipulating him with her supposedly seductive language of "oh...you were so masculine.." to get him to do what she wanted. She wore the pants in the relationship, where Albee was mocking the traditional roles of the male being the head of the household and the woman just being on the side to cook and clean. If you think about the stereotypical sitcom, pictures should come up in your mind of a father and mother and son/daughter sitting around a television set, with the father talking about work and the mother knitting or preparing dinner. Here, the role of the child is altered as it is used again to show America's obsession with consumerism. When talking about how their baby disobeyed their wishes, Grandma tells Mrs. Barker that Mommy and Daddy "wanted their money back" (Albee). They mutilated the child as if it weren't a human being at all, because it was doing things that they didn't want, meaning that when something or someone isn't satisfying, you can just get rid of or replace it.
      Grandma is treated similarly to the baby. She raised Mommy, packing her lunches every day and making sure she had a home to stay in, and then once Mommy was grown up and found a rich man to marry and live off of, Mommy began to treat Grandma as a burden, talking in the play about the "van man" taking Grandma away and trying to falsely compliment her with comments such as "look how nicely she wrapped those boxes"(Albee), treating Grandma like a helpless child and making her out to be a fool who was good for nothing, and so when she does something like wrap a box she must be praised. All the while, Grandma is uttering to herself how "old people never..." or "they think old people are..." referring to how once Grandma was done being useful to Mommy, she wanted to be rid of her, thinking there was nothing satisfying that Grandma had to offer anymore, so they could call "the van man" and have her taken away to a nursing home just like that. Grandma and the baby in this way were both just treated as two objects that, once their usefulness seems to have gone, are just replaceable items that have run their course and should be thrown out.
     The Young Man toward the end of the play is the symbol of "The American Dream", seen when Mommy asks who is knocking at the door and Grandma answers with, "it's The American Dream!" (Albee). The Young Man, when asks by Grandma, talks about how he is out looking for work, for anything that pays. Being young, good looking, and working for pay is part of The American Dream.
     Between the beginning of the play with Mommy obsessing over the color of her hat and wanting satisfaction knowing that it was a beige hat and not wheat, with the mindless mutilation of the "bumble" and the careless, "you're-just-a-crazy-old-woman" attitude toward Grandma, the emasculation of Daddy and the appearance of The Young Man as the picture of the future of America, Albee's play was just a huge mock on consumerism and obsessiveness with material goods and the typical gender roles in America. "The American Dream" is classified as a play in the "Theater of the Absurd" because of its strange ("grotesque") plot, extravagant humor, and such themes as "the sterility and lack of values in the modern world" and "the absurdity of man's position in the universe through a series of ridiculous situations that render man's position more absurd".

Close Reading Oct. 21rst

     Okay, I'm going to be perfectly honest and start out by telling you that I have no idea who wrote this essay. I literally just typed "persuasive essays" into Google and clicked one of the random links that came up. However, I feel like since it IS a persuasive essay and I AM still analyzing it...well it still counts because I'm getting the practice...uh, right? Okay. That said, when quoting I'll be using "Anonymous".

     "Why Exercise is Wise" began with quotes, drawing the audience in and making this essay personal by having it begin with '"Come on!" your gym teacher bellows. "Just one more lap!"

"Why don't you head outside - it's a beautiful day, perfect for getting some exercise," your mom says' (Anonymous). It's imagery. It brings to mind those days in elementary school running laps and rock climbing on one of the walls and doing that thing where all the kids lift that rainbow colored blanket up and then quickly sit down inside the dome it forms. Nostalgic. Then the picture of a sunny day with joggers listening to their iPods while their dog trots along side them. Then the author plunges into the article with "Exercise is a word you hear everywhere - and for good reason. Exercise is a very important part of life..." (Anonymous). It was a fantastic opening and a nice way to transition into the informational part.
     Again in the next paragraph, the author  begins with "'So what? How does that affect me?' you may be thinking" (Anonymous). Acknowledging that whoever is reading the essay may not really particularly be caring or believing his/her point that exercise is important for a healthy lifestyle is important in getting those readers to listen. Getting them to think, "Well, yeah, that is what I'm thinking, so..?" and having them be more attentive to the details. The author moves into the transition for the next paragraph by telling how exercise is important for all parts of the body, but that "probably the best place to start is your heart" (Anonymous). He/she then describes in what ways the heart is the strongest muscle and how exercise makes your heart stronger. Finally, the author ropes in other types of readers - teens, people who are more artistic than athletic, etc. by giving examples of how they can get their exercise in a way they enjoy as well as a way that will be beneficial to them.
     I think the only problem I had with this article was the same problem I had with the last one I read for a close reading...the fact that this author stated once that "doctors have done studies..." to show how exercise is important, but he/she did not give any specific statistics or studies that had been done. Details like those are really what makes the words on a page become reality to most every day Americans. Overall, I thought for how short the essay was, the structure was nice, and the transitions were really well done. This anonymous author did a good job as well, as I said, in using examples to interest different groups of people.


http://center.dordt.edu/266.543units/bodsquad/persuasive_article.html
^link to the article

Open Prompt Sun. Oct. 14th

1972. In retrospect, the reader often discovers that the first chapter of a novel or the opening scene of a drama introduces some of the major themes of the work. Write an essay about the opening scene of a drama or the first chapter of a novel in which you explain how it functions in this way.


     "I have to leave the curtains in the lounge and in the dining room, by the balcony, open to exactly the right width every day or I can't come back in the flat again. There are sixteen panes in each of the patio doors; the curtains have to be open so that I can see just eight panes of each door...If I can see a sliver of the dining room through the other panes...then I'll have to go back up to the flat and start again" (Haynes, 13).
     Elizabeth Haynes' novel, Into the Darkest Corner, depicts the horrifying memories of a woman named Cathy, who was in two separate abusive relationships in her life. That's what the back of the book says. However, neither the back of the book nor the inside flap say much of anything about how Cathy has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (as seen in the above quote). You begin the book expecting the plot line that was written on the back, the one that drew you in to buying it, but are not aware of the twists in the characters and the overall themes. Beginning with quotes that tell how she's usually late for work because she checks her flat before leaving several times, how she forces herself to take a different path home every night from work or from being out, and how she is so paranoid about not having anyone in her flat or going into anyone elses' flat makes the reader begin to see more into the reasoning behind the abusive relationships. Does her disease attract her to dangerous people in some sort of way? Did her OCD develop long before or shortly after the physical abuse?
     The format of the book isn't exactly in chapters, but in sections. Within the sections, each short narration of the small things in her life day to day are written underneath the dates in which they happened (ex. Thursday 1 November 2007). All of the sudden, a few pages later, the date will switch from 2007 to 2003, and there will be a different man in that passage. To me, that brought home the detail of Cathy's OCD, with the switching back and forth between the years. You aren't starting the book after she's been abused or while it's happening, but you begin with her regular life, with her working and going out to bars with friends at night. The first chapter (section) of Into the Darkest Corner introduces the reader to the deeper personal problems Cathy is dealing with, while foreshadowing what is to come.

Response to Course Materials Oct. 7th

     Now in class, we've covered a lot more of things that were talked about in Foster's. We've talked about the different time periods and how the literature changed, who the well-known authors of those time periods were, and what the major themes were. We talked about the story of Oedipus, read The American Dream, and did a group project where we split up things like the Old and New Testaments, and basically studied the stories/symbols/themes and presented them in front of the class. Every day we begin class with a student-led discussion with a different exercise that deals with DIDLS - Diction, Imagery, Details, Language, Syntax...we also have tone exercises. 
     I liked doing the last group project, because I've never really been one to go to church, and so I don't really know many Bible stories or their meanings. From what we've learned in class, the Bible stories  are important to know in literature, because almost all works in literature relate back to the Bible. I think starting every day with the student-led exercises is one of my favorite things. It makes me feel more...mature, I guess? I feel like by senior year, we as students are ready for a lot more responsibility in our classes, and I think the leadership we have through these exercises are not only helpful for the AP exam with helping us learn to annotate and read into poetry/prompts/etc. faster and more effectively, but it helps us just in general in the classes. We're going to be in college next year, so stepping up in taking control of your education is a big deal. What I'm mainly confused about right now is The American Dream. It's probably because I was gone for the two days we read it in class, so I read it on my own, but I didn't really understand the point of the play at all. Any of it, basically. I'm not sure if we talked about it in those days when I was absent, but I hope in the future before we do any assignments or essays over it, we can talk in depth about it so I can understand it better. The notes we took on the different literary movements were partially new and partially a review from BritLit last year. The other day we were handed a chart where we had to fill out for each movement/time period who the heroes were, what were the themes, things like that. The chart was really helpful to show us how we should be studying for tests. Not just taking notes and then reading them over or making flash cards, but taking the notes and rearranging them into groups and categories that help us to better understand and organize the information in our minds in a way that makes it easier to memorize and that makes sense to us.

Close Reading Assignment for Sunday, Sep. 23rd

         Seth Mullins' article, "An Argument Against Television for Children", I found to be not very convincing, not because I'm an adolescent who enjoys television, but because the article lacked examples and references to specific studies. The structure of the essay was well done, beginning with an introduction paragraph to get the reader to recognize the topic being argued, body paragraphs explaining why the author feels the way he does, and a closing paragraph to sum up the argument and offer a solution to the problem introduced in the beginning. The opening and closing paragraphs were probably the best parts of the work. It begins with, "Studies have shown that in the past few decades, a significant number of American children spent more time in front of a television set than in a classroom" (Mullins). The introduction was nice, however, he didn't really state clearly that the fact was a big issue; he could have even included right in the beginning an example of how this is a thing to be concerned with (use of statistics, for example). The ending summarized the body paragraphs and then stated a possible solution - "The more we can curb our kids’ TV watching time and replace it with active and/or creative play the more their imaginations, reasoning abilities and spontaneity will flourish" (Mullins). Nice way to finish.
      The body paragraphs were the main problem, I think. The author states both in the intro as well as in the first body paragraph that "studies have been shown..." and "much has been written about" for the negative effects that television can have on the young mind, but there are no specific examples. Mullins uses diction to convey his point instead, stating that television "demands that they [children] be passive while bombarded with imagery that they can neither respond to nor be given time to think about and assimilate"(Mullins). Then goes on to say that television provides "another reality" for children, so they are not more adapted and responsive to the environment in which they are actually living. I think the wording as well as the structure was done well, telling the audience what his opinion was and why, and then dabbling a bit into how to solve the issue. It's when he states things such as "studies have shown" and "young children learn primarily through imitation and repetition" (Mullins) that examples from outside sources would best accomplish the goal he is trying to achieve - informing, arguing his case - because it is just that, an argumentative essay. One of the best ways to persuade someone who has a differing view than you is to use real-world examples to show how something is good or bad.

http://articles.familylobby.com/287-an-argument-against-television-for-children.htm
^ link to Mullins' article

2010, Form B. “You can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you.” —Sonsyrea Tate (Open Prompt for Sept.16th)

Sonsyrea Tate’s statement suggests that “home” may be conceived of as a dwelling, a place, or a state of mind. It may have positive or negative associations, but in either case, it may have a considerable influence on an individual. Choose a novel or play in which a central character leaves home yet finds that home remains significant. Write a well-developed essay in which you analyze the importance of “home” to this character and the reasons for its continuing influence. Explain how the character’s idea of home illuminates the larger meaning of the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.


John Green's novel, Looking For Alaska, begins with a teenage boy about to move from his parent's home into a boarding school in a different state. The boy, Miles, never really had much of an emotional connection to his house or his school. He didn't have many friends, didn't go out on the weekends, wasn't very extroverted at all. His home was what Tate would probably describe as merely a 'dwelling'. Something more temporary and convenient, rather than a place that holds a deeper meaning to someone than calling it their 'house'. It was his house, not really a home.




Miles moves into a dorm with his new roommate Chip, or as he is known on campus, 'The Colonel'.
Miles himself is soon given a new name of 'Pudge' once he starts to find friends in his roommate and other classmates. What began as a move for his education became a larger picture - a journey to find himself, his companions, and what life was about. He falls in love with a young woman named Alaska Young, who introduces him to the question that follows him throughout the book - 'How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?' - a quote from Alaska's favorite last words from Simon Bolivar. Following Alaska's death, Pudge and The Colonel are struggling to find the answer to the question, to which a synonymous question for them becomes more like, "How do you deal with life's struggles?" 




For once, Pudge has found in this question and through Alaska's friendship and tragic death what appears to be a home. A place with people he truly loves and feels a connection to, who go through the same difficulties and ask the same questions. I saw the book as answering larger questions, almost not just as a story meant for entertainment, but a novel that people of all ages can relate to and find answers in. Home is where you live your life to the best of your abilities, it's where you have anyone you consider to be your family and a place where you feel like yourself. Pudge came to the school having left a 'house', not knowing that in the boarding school he would find out that a home isn't just a roof over your head, a bed to sleep in, a kitchen to eat in. Home is one of, if not the biggest, things we as humans try to find. Going through schooling living with your immediate family, going through friendships, etc. Then leaving for college, or moving to find a job, or whatever it is you're going to do with your life. That's just the thing we're looking for - what to do with our lives, and where we're going to be. Living life in your home. I think Pudge found home at the boarding school both as a place to be and as a state of mind.

Response to Course Materials

So far in AP lit, I'm getting to see that the things we're learning every day are going to be extremely helpful not only in preparation for the AP exam in May, but for college entrance essays, college work in general, and really any other time in our careers where we'll have to be dealing with writing and reading skills. It's the essays. The essays, the papers, the blog assignments...things we've already been doing all throughout high school (for example last year's essays in AP U.S. history) and things we're going to have to do throughout the rest of our lives. From proper grammar to structure, to the language and technical devices we should be using to get across a point or completely and thoroughly answer a question. It's learning ways to look for and identify symbolism in a piece of poetry. Knowing when a piece of writing is trying to persuade or inform, entertain or argue. Knowing how to make those elements come across in your own writing. Reading things such as 'The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing' and getting a better understanding of what should be included in our writing, and what is expected of us as we get into college.

Peterson's Diagnostic Test

On the Diagnostic Test, I only received an embarrassingly low score of 23/50. This could absolutely have to do with the fact that I am not particularly fantastic with picking out symbols and identifying figurative language and such. This could also have to do with the fact that I read this at 1 in the morning and my eyes were a little bit glazed over. Another reason, probably the most accurate, is another big problem I have. I love to read, it's one of my strengths. However, sometimes when I'm reading something that I'm not interested in by any means, it's extremely difficult for me to stay focused and continue to picture what's happening in the reading inside my head. It's another thing I have to work on, because obviously in college and in life generally, there are going to be things I'm going to have to read and write that I'm not going to enjoy at all whatsoever. I need to identify skills and techniques of how to keep my mind in whatever it is that I'm reading, whether it's picturing what's happening or taking notes, annotating..anything.

My goals for poetry:

-Pay attention to symbolism, such as the season in the poem
-Understand figurative language
-Make connections to other poems/works of literature

My problem with poetry is always the same. I like to and can write it for myself, but upon reading famous works of poetry, I don't always understand it. It's the words that I love. I love the way words sound...but sometimes they make me get lost in a piece of poetry and not completely catch what the theme or idea is. I also never really pay much attention to the use of symbolism. I read the poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci". One example of where I didn't really catch the symbolism was in the third stanza, where it says "I see a lily on thy brow, with anguish moist and fever dew, and on thy cheeks a fading rose..." What I never really seem to fully grasp are things such as the meaning of the lily and the fever dew, and the fading rose on the knight's cheeks. Assuming these are not literal descriptions, I'd like to channel in on my ability to understand the symbolism. Peterson's Poetry