The year has barely begun and surprisingly, I have learned a lot, and our class has covered quite a bit of material. I have never really looked at homework assignments as having any meaning or connection to my life, but honestly, the summer work made me look deeper into literature than I have ever before. My thought process while reading Thomas C. Foster's "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" was, "Why are we reading a piece of literature about how to read literature..?" It seemed redundant because clearly, I know how to read literature if I was reading it right then. However, of course, the reading surprised me and showed me the different meanings of various elements found in literature and how to make sense of them. I admit that in the past I have disregarded symbols and ideas in books because I was not sure how to decipher them. In doing the Power Point, I was forced to connect the ideas to pop culture that I am connected with every day. My favorite part was talking about my favorite movies like "The Notebook", "Twilight", and "The Hunger Games" because instead of "Awh! Noah and Allie are kissing in the rain, how cute!" it became "Oh, the rain created a whole new idea and effect in the scene making it more intense." I feel like I became more analytical of movies and songs that I just watched or listened to for fun.
As I went on and read "The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing", I discovered that there are many solid fundamentals that need to be learned and practiced to succeed in writing. This book went into depth about punctuation and clarity and the flow in writing, and I could not help but realize the many mistakes I have made in my own writing in the past. I have always thought of myself as a decent writer, but I know now that I still need a lot of practice.
Now, both pieces of literature that we read had deeper meanings that the title displayed. Both texts took broke apart literature piece by piece and showed how it is not sufficient to just read or write words on the page; you have to know the fundamentals and set them into action. Given, that one book talked about reading and the other talked about writing, but the point of reading both was to bring the two concepts together to make my understanding of English Literature better and more effective.
Morgan,
ReplyDeleteI started listening/watching/reading things differently after reading Foster's book, too. I know the two novels are the largest portion of the summer work, but I think (and I may be wrong) the other work (like the poetry forums, AP test, etc.) should probably be looked at, too. I liked how you tied the two novels together, though, so maybe you could look at the other work in context of the novels, ie how the other assignments helped you apply Foster or Nuts and Bolts, or understand what they talked about in a new way. Or maybe all of the summer work combined in a big way toward helping with the real AP test.
You know, I must have gotten so caught up in the couple things that I did talk about that everything else probably slipped my mind! Thanks for the suggestion, it will help me next time for sure :)
DeleteMorgan!
ReplyDeleteI started to do the same thing! I would be watching a movie with some friends and it would start to rain and I would shout "Rebirth!" or it would be snowing and I would shout "A clean slate". Needless to say after awhile I got shushed a lot. But it was amazing the new connections I was making with literature. I agree with Hannah. You did a great job on responding to the two summer novels but what about everything we have worked on this school year? Maybe throw in a paragraph or two on the presentations and the practice AP test or the poetry. What did you learn from them? How have they changed how you look at literature?
It's so difficult to realize that there is actually a lot of material already covered! I really do need to work on piecing together everything, not just a couple things here and there! Thanks for the help!
DeleteHi Morgan! I have to say, I completely agree with you that reading "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" seemed redundant. I thought the same as you, "Why are we reading this?". But, it did have some good info about symbols and ideas, like you said. I can't help but think however, that maybe there was more to the book than just symbols and ideas. The point of the book was to get us to be active, engaged readers: make connections, interpret words and phrases, use our knowledge and skills to connect with and understand the author. I like that you found some value in the book, and used Foster's tips for analyzing, but maybe think about Foster's bigger picture too, and exactly why we had to read this book.
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