1/24/2018 2 Comments mp3 Reading analysisIt's amazing how much I can get done if I put my phone down. This marking period I read 630 pages which is 90 pages per week. This is way more than usual because usually, I do the minimum requirement but nothing beyond that. However, this six weeks I really liked the books I was reading so I spent a lot more time reading at home or reading during musical rehearsal when I was not on stage. This marking period I also made reading more of a priority. I tried to read at least twenty minutes a night this is far more than I usually read because I'm beginning to enjoy reading again. I think I'm growing as a reading because now I look forward to reading compared to before when I dreaded reading. I also think I have grown as a reader because I normally don't read two books at a time but I read Surfacing by Margaret Atwood and Turtles All The Way Down by John Green. Not only did I read them both at the same I understood them both and knew what has happened. Although reading two books at a time is not something I'm going to do all the time I think it was beneficial experience because it allowed me to find a connection between the two novels which I thought was very interesting because the genre of the books was different and so was the level of depth beneath the words. Margaret Atwood was a literary fiction book and John Green's was a young adult novel. I also read half of Asking For It this marking period. I really enjoyed Turtles All The Way Down and Asking For It. Turtles All The Way Down was a good experience because I love the way John Green uses technology and quotes in his book.I also loved how John Green portrayed mental illness in his books because I think he used an accurate description of OCD because it is something he struggles with personally. I liked " Asking For It because it has a good plot along with a more mature topic. However, I struggled a little bit when reading "Surfacing" because there was a lot of allegory happening at the end of the book that I did not fully understand the first time and ended up having to spark note it in order to understand it. As the tri continues I want to continue to read different kinds of books and read more than just in school. I also want to keep my original goal of reading 1000 pages in one tri. Overall I look forward to SSR throughout the rest of the tri.
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1/24/2018 2 Comments Project PRocess reflection
My Decisions
When first assigned the Shakespeare drama project I kind of panicked because it meant we had to get into groups and I had also been gone for a week so I was not sure what was going on. I was very happy to find out that the project did not have to be done in a group because although I do see the value there is in teamwork I wanted to learn how to write a good 8-15 page paper by myself. At first, when I heard that we had to watch our movies twice I was outraged and really closed minded about it. I honestly thought it was a waste of my time. However looking back on it now I am not sure how well I would have understood Macbeth after just one reading.
Going Back to the basics
When it came time to actually writing the paper I again panicked due to the lack of instruction because in the years past it had been write this paper in this particular way, with this thesis, and the standard five-paragraph essay. Through this paper, I learned through trial and error. When I went to write the paper the first time I did not do any sort of pre-writing what so ever because in the past years I have been able to get away with just throwing some words together and then fixing grammar for my revisions so, I figured I would do the same for this paper.I'm not exactly sure where but somewhere between second grade and here the pre-writing had become non existent. However, when I tried to go straight to writing it did not work out very well so I spent at least one class period just staring at my computer trying to figure out how in the world I was gonna whip up a paper out of my jumbled up thoughts in my head. After staring for awhile I decided I was going to have to approach this paper in a different way.I ended up making a word document dedicated to organizing my thoughts by character which in the long run ended up shaping the structure of my paper.
When it actually came to writing the paper I had named my document "Macbeth super rough draft" mostly as a joke but it ended up being true but after pre-writing I decided I just wanted to throw my thoughts down. This process is what really helped me improve my paper by leaps and bounds. Once I had written the "super" rough draft I went back through the book version of Macbeth to look for specific quotes and instances for each character. This step really helped me notice new things about Macbeth and helped shape my thesis even more. The main example of this is when I talk about Duncan in my paper.
When editing my rough draft I also decided to go back and put in some points about why Shakespeare wrote some of the scenes the way he did. This was a growth moment for me because I do not usually think about the author's purpose in terms of purpose and usually view that as extra information; however, the guest speaker we had Dr. Smith helped me realize that the author's intention and the audience is important and can help persuade the audience more. I think this really helped me develop my paragraph about Banquo.
Overall I think this Shakespeare paper is the best paper I have ever written. I think I grew leaps and bounds as a writer. I believe the things that helped me grow the most were coming up with a pre-writing strategy, changing my editing process and looking at the historical aspect of the author using a guest speaker. All of these growth aspects are summed up in the writing standards by ILA that basically states that students use a variety of techniques and writing processes to effectively write to the audience, I believe with the skills I learned throughout this paper will help me not be as terrified next time I am assigned an 8 page paper.
1/24/2018 1 Comment To The girl who called me uglyTo the girl who called me ugly, I remember the day you called me ugly, I did not sleep well that night and threw on a hoodie and sweatpants hoping no one would notice the bags under my eyes, But you did, Instead of keeping your irrelevant thoughts to yourself, You just had to open your mouth, I will never understand why you had to open your mouth but you did, Why you had to insult me as if the devil took over your body, You said, Get some sleep grandma, That night I remember looking in the mirror with tears running down my face and thinking I no longer view myself the way I did before, All because of you, Everytime I see my reflection in the window I hope the glass will fog up, When I look in the mirror I want rip that devil off the wall, I see my ugly face even though I’m not actually looking at my own reflection, I’m looking at my reflection through your jack frost cold heart, I see the bags I need to cover, I see the pimples I want to erase like a dry erase marker, I see my small eyes that I wish I could photoshop My misshapen nose that I can’t change, And my chapped lips as dry as the Sahara, When I look at my hair, I see every splintering split end, Every misplaced curl and every snarl, I see my impartable part, And the tiny bits of dandruff that I should need a magnify glass to see, Thanks to you I see all my imperfections, Not just on my face, On my body to, I see my hippo thighs, My, wrinkled ankles, My twig like arms, My oddly shaped knees that look like an abstract painting gone wrong, And my six pack of pudding cups, When I look at chocolate I see deliciousness but I also see the number of jumping jacks to get rid of the calories, I feel like a star crossed lover I want it so bad knowing I shouldn’t have it , You made my life a constant battle, A battle with my mirror, A Battle with my body, And a battle with my mind which absolutely sucks, When I go outside I no longer see people, I see judgmental eyes staring and judging me, All thanks to you, But I also want to thank you for the one good thing you taught me, Thank you for teaching me not to judge other people on their looks because words hurt, I am more than my looks and I hope you see that, Sincerely the girl you made hate herself. Notes from the author When I was looking through scholarship websites I saw one that was a poetry scholarship, the prompt was to write a letter in the form of a poem to anything or anyone. So I decided to write an aggressive letter about the impact of someone's words. This piece was inspired by a day where I felt sick so I wore leggings and a sweatshirt and threw my hair up in a pony tale. That day someone told me I looked like I had just rolled out bed. The rest of that day I felt very self conscious. Although it did not effect me for days after like the poem suggests, it still affected me. However, I chose to write the poem about the long term affects of peoples words because sometimes it is hard to know how a few words will impact someones life so I wanted to create something that showed the power a few words can have. RevisionsWhile writing this poem it was a major work and progress. I wrote seven drafts of this poem in order to get it to the point where I was willing to share it. Every copy of the poem I would either changed a few lines or added a few lines. The main revision I made was my word choice and adding metaphors and similes and personification. I think by adding comparisons made my poem more powerful . For example in my first draft i said" Every time I look in the Mirror I want to rip it off the wall," and in my final draft it said "When I look in the mirror I want rip that devil off the wall,". One of the main section i added to the poem is the part that says "Instead of keeping your irrelevant thoughts to yourself,You just had to open your mouth,I will never understand why you had to open your mouth but you did,Why you had to insult me as if the devil took over your body," I chose to add this part as I was revising to show to add more effect of how words can hurt and also why there was no reason it needed to be said and also so the readers could see the anger it causes. One of my favorite revisions is the line " I’m looking at my reflection through your jack frost cold heart. " this is my favorite revision because personally I think it does an effective job of showing how the worlds opinions affect others.
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March 2018
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