Since the last reponse to course material, we have read and analyzed "Death of a Salesman." Again, like with "The American Dream," discussing the play in class helped open my eyes to things I didn't notice during my own close reading and helped me understand certain things much better. I liked that our "first read" was watching the play, it was very interesting and an effective way to get some understanding of the big picture and ideas in the play. I think I'm getting better at finding elements of DIDLS in works and seeing how they contribute to meaning, but more practice with this will definitely help.
In class we also wrote another essay comparing and contrasting two poems, "A Barred Owl" and "The History Teacher." I was less nervous about writing this essay and felt that I had a better understanding of the way in which the essay should be written. However, the time constraint tends to make me read the poems too quickly and I missed some of the major points in the poems. It's definitely more important to write a quality essay than a super long one, so next time I'll take more time to really read and understand the poems and not overlook anything major. If we rewrite this essay I think I'll be able to write a more effective and quality one. We also read and discussed the essays in small groups in class. It helped me a lot to get a couple different perspectives and some feedback on my work so I knew exactly what to work on.
Most recently, we have been working on and presenting our eras projects on Prezi. I really like the Prezi program but I wasn't really able to take full advantage of and learn everything the site can do. I have learned about these eras in previous literature classes, but the projects will be helpful in refreshing my memory. Having a good understanding of the characteristics and literature of each era will help with my overall knowledge and ability in this class.
I found our class discussion of "DoS" much less informative than "American Dream" I agree that seeing the movie was nice, as it allowed us to look at the play from a slightly different perspective. I've noticed that I don't look at DIDLS as much as at general themes during my close read, because I feel like every single word could potentially be a part of DIDLS.
ReplyDeleteThe time factor is a big problem for all of us on the essays, but the feedback from peers will help. However, even though we had the rubrics, we don't have the same grading qualities as a AP person. And Prezi was pretty cool, but it definitely takes some getting used to.
Watching Death of a Salesman was nice, but I think we should have done an actual first read and then watched it. We could have made our own assumptions about the way Miller wants the characters to be and then test our theories. I agree with you on the essays. I'm worried for the actual exam though, when we don't get second chances. That seems really intimidating to me. I wish Ms. Holmes would have actually showed us how to use Prezi. It would have been helpful.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I enjoyed watching the play too. The time limit really limited my interpretation skills as well. I think it helped that we did get to go over the essays together. I love Prezi! It was so cool :) I enjoyed seeing the presentations as well.
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