Last week, we had the discussion of story versus literature. Moving onto a similar topic this week, we talked about viewing literature as art, which I only thought about last year, when we got our books at the end of the year and Mr. Schoenborn said something about an art gallery and books.
Anyways, we started out by watching a TED talk. This was about taking the time to appreciate a single piece of art in a gallery instead of rushing through to look at all of them, and being able to make a story out of what you see. You need to find something that you enjoy looking at and take your time looking at it. That's when I realized the connection and the point that it was supposed to teach us. We need to find books or literature that we enjoy to read, and take our time with it so we can really understand what it is about.The class isn't about reading as many books as possible in the quickest amount of time. It's about having a good time with what you're reading, and not feeling the need to rush through it to go onto the next one, and making something out of the story. After this, we got the chance to take a look at a piece of art and really examine what the artist was making and what they were trying to convey through their art. Our group decided to look at Guernica, by Picasso. This is when we found many things about what the piece could be about. When you get to look at something specifically, when you get to choose what you want to look at, you can really find what it's trying to say. This week really made me appreciate taking the time to enjoy things in life. I feel like we've never really done it in school much. We always just spend a week on something and then move on to something else. It just makes me think about how much I would learn something if I chose what I wanted to learn and enjoyed. Good thing college is coming up soon.
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During this week, we spent most of the week making our visual metaphors, which I didn't really enjoy that much, but it was still a good learning experience. It was interesting to see what others came up for metaphors. The thing that I felt impacted me the most and I learned the most from was finding the difference between story and literature. Reading the article about Story versus Literature was a strange thing to learn about. Mostly because I didn't know the difference to begin with. It never crossed my mind to even think about the difference, I guess I just assumed they were the same, really. The article talks about how the story is just the plot, events, and the characters of the book, and everything left behind, the point of view, thoughts and feelings, etc, is the literature. It then talks about how that is the reason why the book is almost always better than the movie. A movie cannot explain the thoughts and feelings behind words, or really go into detail with everything in a book. That's what makes them almost a one of a kind type of thing. As much as we wish we could, you can't just bring a book to life and have it be exactly the same. I really enjoyed this article. It gave me a new perspective on why the book is better than the movie. Plus, it was just really well written and I could get behind every point that the author was making in it. This week, we read the poem The Eagle, by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It was a rather short piece, and was a little confusing. At first, I thought that the poem would just be about an eagle, and that's what it seemed like it was. Just an eagle. But, as we looked at it as a table, it began to feel as if the eagle wasn't really an eagle, but maybe a person. After this thought, we continued to analyze every line of the poem, and realized that it could very easily be describing a person as an eagle. Perhaps we were just grabbing at straws, trying to make something out of nothing. I mean, of course someone could just write a poem about an eagle. But what are the chances of that? You just feel something inside you saying; "That can't be all it is, right?" It can't just be about an eagle. I felt the need to try to look deeper into it, maybe a little too deep. I've never been one to enjoy poetry. I have always found it boring and it's never really been something I've connected to, and to be honest, I still kind of feel that way. But, this week has taught me to look deeper into the meaning of things. It has shown me that some pieces of writing may not be what they look like. You need to read it over and over and over again, just to see if there is something you are not getting. Because of this, it has made me feel some appreciation for poetry. I'm still not the biggest fan of it, but I can appreciate it. For the past three years in high school, each first day was filled with anxiety. Worries that I won't have friends in my classes or someone to sit with at lunch. While the latter of those two is a problem for this trimester, I've realized this week that I don't need to worry about these things.
This week, I wasn't expecting to get much out of any of my classes. Just homework out of my math class, boredom out of my English and science class, and everything else as a relaxation period. Surprisingly, I didn't get any homework out of math, I actually learned something in AP Lit, and science was still boring. In AP Lit, when we were asked how we got here, I didn't know what to say. A million things flew through my head as I started to freak out. Should I be taking this class? Will I even want to read and write as much as I will need to? It wasn't until when we began to discuss ourselves as readers and writers that I began to realize that I should be in this class, and if I am not prepared for the workload, then I will push myself to complete it. It's time that I stop making excuses to procrastinate and avoid doing a paper or read. The discussions in class, and being able to pick a book from a certain author, have helped me understand that I should read, and not just sit around and sleep. They've helped rekindle my interest in reading. It was this week that I learned I need to start over with how I view my education. I can't just keep faking my way through all my classes. I need to do my work, I need to get the grades that I deserve. This week has helped me realize that I need to have a new beginning for my final year. Reading was such an important aspect of my life when I was younger, and I'm hoping that I can get back into it this year. |
AuthorJust a senior trying to survive his last year. Archives
November 2017
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