This week was also cut short due to the ACT exam. We are working one writing a persuasive letter to Hamlet, taking the point of view of another character. I like writing persuasive essays and I believe I will really enjoy writing a persuasive letter especially because it is less formal and we can take the stance and opinions of another person. I believe it's easier to fully analyze a situation when you are very removed from it. This project lets us look at Hamlet's mindset as a whole and all of the rises and falls he took and why. I am had a little bit of trouble following along with the movie but after having class discussions and filling out the music connection sheets I think I have a bit better understanding.
This week was kind of cut short due to ACT registration and career day. We continued to watch Hamlet, and looked a little bit at ACT questions. I'm really glad we are looking at some ACT questions and focusing on why answers are wrong or right. I believe the best way I learn is getting things wrong the first time, learning the right answer and trying again. I think this relates to the fact that I do not like to be wrong or "bad" at anything. I also enjoy that we aren't directly practicing for the ACT but we are doing things that will help us on the ACT all the time. Even doing things as simple as relating song lyrics to what Hamlet is feeling and doing helps me to look at the bigger picture and make connections between some not so obvious elements or events. I feel like I have a really good grasp on the English part of the ACT, but I am a bit worried about the writing part. I don't doubt my writing abilities as a whole so much as I doubt my ability to write a fully developed essay within a short time period.
This week I learned the most about looking at things from multiple points of view. We did a lot with the decision making process and I think that helped me realize that you have to look at things from all different angles to really understand it. People read one piece of information about an event or take one look at a picture and are very fast to absorb the opinions of others about these things. To really form a strong opinion about anything without ignorance you really must look at it from all different angles and point of view. I wish more people did this before trying to force their unoriginal or ignorant opinion onto others. We also looked at some "creepy" pictures for creative and that really interested me. I knew the story others around me formed about the pictures, I knew the story I formed in my head, but I wanted to know the actual story behind the pictures. I looked up the picture of the "body" falling from the ceiling on Wikipedia, unexplained photos, and Reddit and found many very interesting and thought out possible explanations. Reading a large group of different explanations from different people really helped me form my own explanation. It also amazes me how two people who could have grown up in the same house and have very similar life experiences can look at the same photo and come up with completely different and unique thoughts and inferences. It's very interesting how the human mind works and how humans are so very diverse but also so very alike at the same time.
http://www.reddit.com/r/creepy/comments/275v8g/the_falling_body_i_find_this_photo_very_eerie/ This week I learned how to create and edit a video. I had no knowledge of how to create a video or how to structure one, so this was completely new and definitely a learning experience for me. I learned about having good emotion, movement, pacing, and other elements in a video is what makes one "good". I learning how to put music as a background to a speaking part and how to make the music fade in and out. I also learned how different songs can help get a point across or tell a story. Pictures can also do this. Pacing and the timing of the video is what I had the most difficulty with. Changing the length of one section of the video affects everything that comes after it and keeping things aligned and the correct order was sometimes difficult. After picking apart the Pardoner in the process of retelling it I really had a good understand of the basics of the story which then allowed me to think a little deeper about it. The fact that people can preach so strongly against something, while doing it themselves baffles and interests me. And why are people willing to do ANYTHING to believe that they are going to heaven? People are naive when it comes to teachings that affect every aspect of their lives. If there are promises of forgiveness of sins or a key into heaven people are willing to just overlook any cost or corruptness even if its very prominent.
This week we focused on Old English Poems; understanding them, analyzing them, and the elements that go into them. The biggest idea that I learned from all of this is that different elements can apply to a certain type of writing, not all literary elements should be in every type of writing. In younger grades I think we are taught to incorporate as many elements into our writing as possible so that we learn as many as possible. If you included every type of writing element in every piece of writing you did, they would be a mess and all over the place. I would like to know what elements coincide with each other, like a if there's blank there must also be blank. This week I have also learned, during creative writing, to let go and just write whatever comes to mind. My writing becomes much more thoughtful and less choppy when I stop thinking and worrying so much if it is "good" or structured correctly. With that being said, I've realized I do enjoy writing essays that require a specific structure. I'm not sure if it's because it is easier or because I like having an exact guideline. I participated a lot within our group for analyzing the old English poems and I would rate my understand of what we did this week pretty high. I do need to work on being able to recognize and being able to point out certain literary elements.
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