Now that the year has slightly progressed, I find myself having difficulty pinpointing topics to write about. Honestly, it may be because I have connected much of the material and it seems to all flow together. Ideas that are seen in close readings are the ideas of DIDLS, which we have gone deep in to. A majority of class time has been spent on expanding our recognition of diction, imagery, details, language, and syntax. Out of all the course material we have so far, DIDLS is used and important.
Before we dove into reading "The American Dream" by Edward Albee, we read numerous articles and examined them analytically. I sense that this was to prepare us to read this novel with a higher level of expertise than we would have without this practice. In groups and individually, I was able to annotate and point out important words, phrases, and structure in many different articles. These articles had topics from comedy to "The American Dream" itself. All of this work with DIDLS reminds me a lot of the work we did with "The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing" and Foster's "How to Read Literature like a Professor". This is because both novels were able to expand my capability of examining and understanding literature. Granted, I am far from a professional, but I can feel myself improving.
So far, I have been struggling with grasping the vocabulary that has been thrown at us, and a lot of times it is over my head. The vocabulary test we had at the beginning of the year really threw me off; however, with all of the close reading, responding, and annotating that we have practiced with the words are becoming more and more familiar to me. I still need a lot of practice with all of them, but by doing multiple activities to improve i am sure I will get better.
I am attempting to bring every lesson we are learning into one major lesson. I am trying to do this because it will help me connect the dots and comprehend the ideas that are being thrown out there.
You're connecting all of the material together? Good for you. I am simply forgetting most of the material, which will probably prove to be problematic. I guess I'm remembering all of the bigger ideas, but there are too many details in all of those packets! I agree with you that DIDLS is extremely important. The in-class activities haven't helped me that much, though. What's actually helped me the most is writing the close reading essays because it forces me to pay attention more in order to formulate an argument. Anyway, you might want to comment on The American Dream some more in your course material response, since that was such a huge component of these past few weeks. Other than that, good response Morgan!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that things are starting to flow together better as the year progresses. One thing that also really stuck with me was DIDLS. The acronym especially makes it really easy to remember and use when analyzing an article. I feel like the components of diction, imagery, details, language, and syntax are really engrained into my brain now. I like knowing that I am retaining this information instead of just memorizing it, using it on a test, and totally forgetting it after that. I agree with Haley that The American Dream was kind of the main thing we focused on the last couple of weeks and you should have brought more attention to it. When it comes to the vocabulary I am right with you! The terms test the first time around was more than disappointing for me, Knowing the definitions was no where near enough information to pass the test. We really had to know how to apply them and spot them in examples. I did much better this time around but not as well as I would have liked. Over all it was a good experience for me because it showed me what college tests are like opposed to just high school vocab test. I am glad you are bringing every lesson together and really trying to absorb the information. Im doing the same!
ReplyDeleteI can definitely agree with your comment about everything seems to flow together. I'm able to remember basic components (mostly 'The American Dream' but I can't remember much of the packet work!)
ReplyDeleteAs far as the vocab goes, I definitely feel like I'm in way over my head! I'm having trouble keeping track of all the different definitions, especially when we have to pinpoint them in examples. DIDLS seems to be the most I can handle right now...
Personally, I'd have to respectfully disagree with the "focus more on the American Dream" comments. If that aspect of the course material doesn't really hold as much of an impact, then that's fine. I've really been struggling with being able to connect with "Death of a Salesman".