One Last Thing

I tried commenting on other blogs, but for some reason Google says my account is not verified.  I took the steps to verify it, and they said it worked. Apperantly, the people at Google are liars.  :)  So that's why I didn't comment on anyone's blog this week.

LAST BLOG OF FRESHMAN YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D

   

     I can't believe it's already the end of my freshman year! Man, time flies! Well, looking back on all of my old blogs really showed me a lot about how I have progressed as a writer.  From the time I started blogging up until this final blog, I could see how I started out trying to have the best blog ever.  In my “Blog Introduction” I was forcing the words.  What I was saying was meant to sound good, not natural.  By the time I was getting to our Great Expectations blog, I could write much more fluently.  I noticed that as a beginning writer, I wrote about the prompt given.  Most people would think that was a good thing, but to me, that only means that I was not willing to dive into the deeper meaning of what I was writing.  As I said before, I forced the words out of my head, to my fingers, and onto the computer.  Once I became a more developed writer, however, my blogs had much more fluency.  I especially like the one I wrote about connections between Romeo and Juliet and modern day things.  After some consideration of what I wrote, the connection itself made little sense at all, but I noticed how my writing had changed and become much more myself.  My blog as a whole is basically about English prompts.  One of my favorites was writing in either high or low diction, because I could truly be myself and talk how I would in a normal conversation.  Mainly my blog served its purpose in that it helped me develop into a writer that was fluent, natural, and willing to put effort into discovering the hidden meaning in literature.  Monica Dickens said, “Writing is a cop-out.  An excuse to live perpetually in fantasy land, where you can create, direct and watch the products of your own head.  Very selfish.”  The reason I chose this quote is because I this is how I view writing.  Not as selfish, but as a way to escape reality and create a world that is all your own.  I think that part of the blogs purpose was to allow us to really enter the world of another person.  If you think about it, that’s really the 95% majority of what we do in English class.  We read a book which is a mini universe that was put on paper.  Its origin is the mind of another person.  Their thoughts were preserved on the thin pages we now examine.  After reading, what do we do?  We analyze the work.  We study it, decode it, dig out its heart all to find the message that the world’s creator was trying to convey all along.  This is what I loved most about blogging.  The way that we were able to enter into an alternate universe absolutely amazed me.  I love reading, and I will never cease to love it.  This blog has made a huge difference in the way I analyze literature, and the skills that blogging has taught me will help me so much with English classes in high school and through college.

Memories of a Frosh :)

     My favorite English memory from freshman year is the Great Expectations discussion that we did.  I am definitely not saying that it was my favorite assignment.  I am not saying I loved sitting and trying to think of questions or loved reading the book.  I do think, however, that I put a lot of time and effort into this project.  The hours that I spent thinking of evaluative and in-depth questions really paid off in the end, and I think that my well-thought-through comments contributed to the discussion.  I also felt like, in that discussion, I asked a lot of questions and really got my ideas across.
     The gist of the project was having to come up with 10 interpretive and 5 literal questions about Great Expectations and provide answers that were about a paragraph in length.  Being the lengthy, rather intricate novel that it is, I found it hard to come up with interpretive questions that I could answer myself.  After all the questions were written, we had fishbowl discussions where we asked and answered each others questions.  Though I found this assignment to be a more difficult one, I enjoyed the challenge, and I feel like I did a good job overall.
      

Poetry

I have had several good experiences with poetry.  My all time favorite experience is definitely writing my own peotry.  I wrote a poem called "I want to be..." and I absolutely loved it!  I actually wrote this poem after we did our Poetry Out Loud unit.  I realized just how deep poetry could be, and I think I wanted to make a connection like that.  I wanted something that I wrote to have a deeper meaning than just the words on the page, and that's how my poetry began.
     The other way poetry has made a positive impact on my life is being my way to express myself.  I found that whether I was happy, sad, or angry, I could put down exactly how I was feeling if I was writing poetry.  I liked the challenge of coming up with words that rhymed while also trying to convey the deeper meaning behind the words.  I felt like writing poetry has become my way of dealing with some of the challenges in life. 
     When I hear the word poetry, I think of a piece of artwork.  Everything flows and there is connotation behind everything, and like a painting, the colors or words chosen are picked out specifically by the painter to show meaning and emotion.  When I hear the word poetry in class, however, it has a negative connotation.  I feel like there is a lot of analyzing poetry for different terms, and though it's necessary to analyze the poem to discover the deeper meaning, I wish there was less analysis.

Conflict in Romeo and Juliet

One of the main conflicts in the play is Romeo and Juliet’s love and marriage versus the society in which they live.  They love each other and can’t live without each other, but at the same time, they aren’t supposed to be together because of the fight between their families.  For example, Romeo tells Juliet, “My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself because it is an enemy to thee,” (2.2.60).  They know that their love is not supposed to be, yet they can’t help but love each other.  Friar Lawrence only agrees to marry the two because he thinks their marriage will solve the fight between their families that keeps them apart, (2.3).  This conflict helps enhance the theme that nothing but death can keep true love apart.  The mere fact that the Montagues and Capulets are fighting will not separate Romeo and Juliet.  They are so in love that if they can’t be together, they would rather kill themselves.

                This person versus society conflict is present in our world today.  For example, people may be in relationships that their family and friends don’t approve of like Romeo and Juliet.  Another example is the pressure people may feel to go into a certain field of work that they don’t feel passionately about.  There are many more examples, but this type of conflict is important because people are forced to do something that they may not want to.  The decision s that people are making may affect them in negative ways, but they succumb to the pressure they are feeling.  I don’t have much experience with this type of conflict, but I have experienced person versus person conflict, and it has had a large impact on my life.  If I am in a conflict, I will typically walk away until I have cooled down so that I can deal with the problem more rationally.  Other people get fired up, and they explode without considering their decisions.  Conflict is present in Romeo and Juliet and in our lives today.  That is part of what makes this play such a timeless classic, and it is why this book will continue to be read by teens and adults alike for a long time to come.

Modern Culture References

This movie reminds me of Romeo and Juliet though I have only seen the commercials.  In the play, Romeo loves Rosalind, but she doesn't love him back.  He is heart-broken and only wishes he could find love.  Juliet is about to be engaged to Paris, and Shakespeare is clear that they are not meant to be together.  In the end, Romeo and Juliet find each other and live happily ever after.  In Something Borrowed, there are role reversals.  The main girl is like Romeo, and the main guy is like Juliet.  She loves him, but it's unrequited.  He becomes engaged to her best friends which makes their love even more forbidden.  The commercials allude to the fact that they will fall in love and live happily ever after as well.  With a modern twist, the story lines are very similar.  All in all, I love the play and can't wait to see the more modern movie!

Connections To Romeo And Juliet

I think that the relationships between the title characters and their parents are similar to situations today.  For example, I can metaphorically relate to the self conflict that Juliet feels.  She loves Romeo, but she is expected to love Paris.  She feels torn within herself between her heart and her parent's wishes.  I totally understand that feeling especially when it comes to school and extra-curricular activities. People expect things that either aren't realistic, or they want something for you so they try to force their ideas upon you.  Then the decision lies in who you will disappoint.  There's one thing I know for certain:  you can't please everyone.
As far as the reading goes, I doing it twice.  At home, I read in my room or in the car when it's quiet and I can really concentrate on what I'm reading.  For the most part, I clearly understand Shakespeare's language and writing styles.  I have read Shakespearian plays before, and that has been a huge advantage.  I thought I would have to use Spark Notes a lot, but it turns out that I haven't.  Reading Shakespeare is a lot easier than I would have thought, and I really enjoy Romeo and Juliet.  I definitely feel like I understand it better when we read in class.  We are able to share ideas about interpretations, and I like that aspect a lot.  Also, it is easier to pick up on the puns and such when it is read aloud.  Reading the material twice really implants it on our minds, and I think it is serving it's purpose very well.