Originality has never been a trait of mine. Though I'm an avid disciple of the arts-everything from musical showmanship to casual writing-what I excel at is not creating ideas from thin air but in decomposing someone else's idea for its best pieces and omitting the rest. Like Joji's prowess for drawing cats in "The Boy who Drew Cats", my talent may seem useless at first; what good could picking apart another's work have? But just as Joji was able to unintentionally save the town from a terrible beast, I believe my ability to see the successes and failures in a person's suggestion is the perfect way to efficiently organize what our group should and should not be doing. For me, even if someone has a plan that seems as silly as felines on rice paper, I can see that, if pulled in the right direction, that weak idea can become a strength, one that can benefit the group in ways that otherwise may have been lost.
On the rare occasion that I do come up with an idea, I usually believe that idea is one that can be of use to the group. I am, however, not afraid to yield. The "Master Man" Shadusa believed his abilities to be the greatest in the world, but he soon encountered men that were capable of strength he couldn't even imagine. Shadusa was overconfident in his strength; I am the opposite. I mentioned that I can easily see the flaws in others' plans, but I can easily see the flaws in my own plans, too. In this way, my role as the conciliator fits me well; I can accept criticisms without taking offense, and unlike Shadusa, I already know that there will always be someone out there with a better, stronger idea than my own, and I'm happily willing to listen.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
Blog Post 2: Willpower
I can't honestly say that I'm proud of getting a 66% on this pre-test, but I also wouldn't say I'm entirely disappointed. Eight weeks through AP Language and Composition and my practice multiple choice scores were still around a 68%, so it's clear that I've retained some of my knowledge from the past year: literary devices, rhetorical terms, context, audience, all are familiar ideas I can spot with near-ease in most pieces. Though the works of poetry were unfamiliar, I was still able to identify the symbolism of the setting sun, the metaphor for the speaker's relationship with his beloved, and what certain pronouns and metaphors were referring to.
Unfortunately, I still have quite a ways to go. Yes, I did manage to remember the test-taking strategies from AP Comp for the multiple choice section, but I did not decide to actually use them. Regardless of whether this can be chalked up to AP test-nerves or my own unwavering laziness, I know that most of the techniques I learned-such as physically writing the SOAPStone of the text on the paper, annotating the pieces for general ideas, and finding textual support for every answer I choose-must be applied for me to find success. Missing questions like "The setting of the passage is" and "According to the speaker, the one trait which saves Europeans from savagery is" are not acceptable for me to miss at this point. If I had taken the time to carefully study the text, I would've found the answers to these questions staring me right in the face.
It wasn't just the small details that escaped my attention; I often found myself completely missing the big picture behind the passage, missing questions that required me to identify tone or draw conclusions about who and where the speaker is. I'm sure if I wrote down the information I found in the text as I read through it and made note of what I found to be important, I'd not only take the test more successfully, but more efficiently as well.
The material itself poses as much of a problem as does the way in which I take my tests. Answer choices like caesura, sestina, and lyric had me staring at the paper in front of me wondering what exactly I'd signed up for. When it comes to these question types, I know that as the year goes on, I'll be able to grasp the semantics behind the words, and questions that ask me to choose between Spenserian, Petrarchan, and Shakespearean sonnets will become "gimme" points.
In order to achieve this level of comfort, however, I need to work. One of the simplest goals I can think of is to annotate and SOAPStone every passage before I answer the questions. This is a skill I already possess. All that's left now is for me to employ it. More difficult will be using my testing time wisely. I finished this test with twenty minutes left to spare, and instead of using that time to check and re-check my work, ensuring that every answer I'd chosen made sense, I decided to grade my test against the answer key. In the real AP testing room, there won't be an answer key for me to compare with; it will be me, the multiple choice book, and one hour to get as many questions right as possible. If I utilize all the time given to me, silly mistakes like identifying the setting-which can be found word for word within the text-can be prevented. My final goal is the one that will require the most constant effort, and it is to talk the talk. To be successful in this goal, I'll do my best to have a deep understanding of ten new vocabulary words a month, whether they're specific to AP Literature or words I can use on a daily basis.
These three goals are difficult. They're not impossible. If I put in the effort, I truly believe a high multiple-choice score is within my reach.
Unfortunately, I still have quite a ways to go. Yes, I did manage to remember the test-taking strategies from AP Comp for the multiple choice section, but I did not decide to actually use them. Regardless of whether this can be chalked up to AP test-nerves or my own unwavering laziness, I know that most of the techniques I learned-such as physically writing the SOAPStone of the text on the paper, annotating the pieces for general ideas, and finding textual support for every answer I choose-must be applied for me to find success. Missing questions like "The setting of the passage is" and "According to the speaker, the one trait which saves Europeans from savagery is" are not acceptable for me to miss at this point. If I had taken the time to carefully study the text, I would've found the answers to these questions staring me right in the face.
It wasn't just the small details that escaped my attention; I often found myself completely missing the big picture behind the passage, missing questions that required me to identify tone or draw conclusions about who and where the speaker is. I'm sure if I wrote down the information I found in the text as I read through it and made note of what I found to be important, I'd not only take the test more successfully, but more efficiently as well.
The material itself poses as much of a problem as does the way in which I take my tests. Answer choices like caesura, sestina, and lyric had me staring at the paper in front of me wondering what exactly I'd signed up for. When it comes to these question types, I know that as the year goes on, I'll be able to grasp the semantics behind the words, and questions that ask me to choose between Spenserian, Petrarchan, and Shakespearean sonnets will become "gimme" points.
In order to achieve this level of comfort, however, I need to work. One of the simplest goals I can think of is to annotate and SOAPStone every passage before I answer the questions. This is a skill I already possess. All that's left now is for me to employ it. More difficult will be using my testing time wisely. I finished this test with twenty minutes left to spare, and instead of using that time to check and re-check my work, ensuring that every answer I'd chosen made sense, I decided to grade my test against the answer key. In the real AP testing room, there won't be an answer key for me to compare with; it will be me, the multiple choice book, and one hour to get as many questions right as possible. If I utilize all the time given to me, silly mistakes like identifying the setting-which can be found word for word within the text-can be prevented. My final goal is the one that will require the most constant effort, and it is to talk the talk. To be successful in this goal, I'll do my best to have a deep understanding of ten new vocabulary words a month, whether they're specific to AP Literature or words I can use on a daily basis.
These three goals are difficult. They're not impossible. If I put in the effort, I truly believe a high multiple-choice score is within my reach.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Blog Post 1: Choosing in Style
"'My grandfather always says that's what books are for...to travel without moving an inch." ~Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake
As The Namesake was required reading for AP Literature, and AP Literature is, shockingly enough, a course about books, I thought it apt to shape the theme of my blog around the idea that one can travel wherever they'd like through reading. The backdrop of the inside of a foreign building, the wordplay between "word" and "world", the font I'm writing in-Georgia for a sense of clear, non-spontaneous purpose, and orange, for excitement and enthusiasm (according to Kendra Cherry)-all unite under the cohesive theme of travel.
If not for words written on a page years before I was born, my world would consist of nothing but Mason, Ohio. It's a rare occasion that my family and I go further than 15 miles from home. As it is, I can skip the bag-packing, the hotel-booking, the plane trips for hours on end, and pick up a book instead.
So though this blog may only be for English class, though its purpose is purely academic, though these posts are graded assignments that I'm required to do, my hope is that when a viewer scrolls through the page, as they're taking in the background and color scheme and style, a sudden, unexplainable sense of excitement will reach them, and with it, the urge to keep on reading.
As The Namesake was required reading for AP Literature, and AP Literature is, shockingly enough, a course about books, I thought it apt to shape the theme of my blog around the idea that one can travel wherever they'd like through reading. The backdrop of the inside of a foreign building, the wordplay between "word" and "world", the font I'm writing in-Georgia for a sense of clear, non-spontaneous purpose, and orange, for excitement and enthusiasm (according to Kendra Cherry)-all unite under the cohesive theme of travel.
If not for words written on a page years before I was born, my world would consist of nothing but Mason, Ohio. It's a rare occasion that my family and I go further than 15 miles from home. As it is, I can skip the bag-packing, the hotel-booking, the plane trips for hours on end, and pick up a book instead.
So though this blog may only be for English class, though its purpose is purely academic, though these posts are graded assignments that I'm required to do, my hope is that when a viewer scrolls through the page, as they're taking in the background and color scheme and style, a sudden, unexplainable sense of excitement will reach them, and with it, the urge to keep on reading.
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