Response to Course Material

Well, it's been a very long time since our last response to course material, so I'll try to cover as many of the highlights as I can remember. We finished our discussion of Ceremony, and I'd have to say it's probably my favorite work we've read this year (tied with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead). I love the way it's written and how Tayo is living the Laguna stories. I also like the message regarding embracing hybridity of cultures, rather than just attacking one culture and promoting another. The matriarchal aspect of it is a nice touch too :). There is so much deep meaning and symbolism in Ceremony, that I wish I could just discuss it for hours. I'm happy with the theme statement first hour came up with, and I'm so proud of us for putting it together in such a short time before spring break. I'm sure there's still a lot about Ceremony I don't understand. I think I'll read it again when I'm older and wiser, with more life experience under my belt. I'm sure I'll get something new out of it. 

We've also been doing some more multiple choice and essay practice, and I'm pleased to report that I'm coming along on those. I think the multiple choice will be the hardest part. I still find the wording kind of confusing. I'm also a little worried about the closed prompts, especially the poetry one. I still have a hard time analyzing poetry, because it tends to be more abstract than prose, and I sometimes find myself misinterpreting it completely, which is pretty demoralizing and kind of disturbing. On the bright side, I'm feeling better about the open prompts. I have a better idea on how to structure them, and solid variety of works that we've discussed thoroughly to write about. One day, as a class, we went through a bunch of open prompts, and for each one named a few works that one could use for them and gave a few ideas on how we'd structure it. I liked this a lot and was comforted to see that we had no trouble coming up with works for any of them. Also, I think the prompt we just had on "thoughtful laughter" went better than some of the other ones we've had. So, overall I'm feeling significantly better about the exam than I was a few weeks ago, but still pretty nervous. Even if I don't do well enough on the exam to get credit, this class was more than worth it. I've had a lot of fun growing as a literary analyst and discussing various works with my wonderful first hour class this year :).

Recently, we did a project that involved writing a collaborative essay with people from other hours, and submitting articles we found and creating a website. I personally don't think I'll find all the articles everyone submitted too helpful, because the sheer number of articles is overwhelming, and I honesty don't think I'll do much more than skim some of the ones that stick out. Also, I haven't figured out how to get onto that website, so I should probably do that first. The collaborative essay was a lot of work. Communicating with people from other hours mainly through google docs is inefficient. But, I kept it simple and only had one partner, with whom I communicated pretty well, so from what I've heard I had a smoother experience than some of my peers. Although I was very overwhelmed at first, once we narrowed down our topic our essay came together nicely. I also got a good review of Hamlet out of it, which will be helpful for the exam. Although it was stressful, I think it was a cool project, and I liked how we got to bridge the gap and collaborate with the other hours.

We also are supposed to have been reading Fifth Business over the last few weeks, but I have procrastinated a lot on that, and I'm only about 30 or 40 pages in. I have a lot of reading to do tomorrow. Bring it on. So far I like the writing style. I enjoy hearing the narrator recount his childhood and ten-year-old thought processes using an adult voice. It reminds me of a darker, more witty and intellectual version of A Christmas Story, if that makes any sense. I think I'm going to like this book. It's too bad we won't have too much time to discuss it.