Wow, we have covered a lot of information in the past month! So one of the things that we have done is start The American Dream. At first glance, this play makes absolutely no sense. I was so confused when we read it through in class, however, as I re-read it and annotated it, things started to make a bit more sense. I am sure there are many more things that I am not getting so I am excited for discussions in class.
Another thing that we did was learn about the stories in Hamilton's Mythology and the Bible. I knew most of the Greek Mythology stories, but I didn't know any of the Bible stories, so this was very helpful for me. It wasn't until I heard these Bible stories that I realized how many allusions there are to the Bible! For example, in choirs that I have been in, we have sung songs about Moses. I used to think that Moses was just some random guy that a lot of people liked to sing about. I knew he was important because he kept on appearing in the songs we were singing, but I never realized he was a Bible figure. Knowing the story of Moses gives these songs so much more meaning!
We also talked about DIDLS: Diction, Imagery, Details, Language, Syntax and how authors use them to help convey ideas. I was familiar with most of these elements, but syntax was probably the most foreign. I knew that syntax is how the writing is structured, but I never realized how much of an impact syntax can make. The packet that we got on syntax was especially helpful because the examples really helped to show how the syntax could change the feeling of a sentence. I never noticed how passive voice gives things an impersonal tone or how changing the parts of a sentence around emphasizes different things. I think this is so cool! Now when I am reading, I notice so much more about the writing than I would have a month ago.
The first month of AP Lit has been filled with information. I love how I have already learned so much about analyzing literature. Not only that, but it has been fun too! I'm usually not a fan of lit classes, but I have been loving this one!
I think it was more interesting to follow the in-class reading and discussions AFTER I had annotated The American Dream. Because then all these questions I had scrawled in the margins were able to be answered.
ReplyDeleteIn my sister's AP Lit class (see: class of 2011), they were required to read Hamilton's Mythology and the Bible. And while I do think our summer assignments were beneficial to us, Bible stories and Greek Mythology is so riveting. And you can relate many of these stories to literature and even pop culture.
And yes, syntax is really confusing. Up until this year, I wasn't even quite sure how one would examine sentence structure... I definitely think I need more practice on it...
I thought the American Dream was very confusing at first, too! The class discussions that we had throughout the weeks though were really helpful for me as I was annotating, because just like Daphine said, a lot of the questions that I wrote down while annotating were answered.
ReplyDeleteI thought that looking at the Bible stories were really cool. I didn't know all of them that well; I only had a general idea of what they were about. I had no idea how many allusions there were to the Bible in other pieces of work!
As for the syntax, I definitely thought that it was the hardest thing to examine when looking at a piece of literature. In most of my other English classes, we looked at things like imagery and tone but we never looked at syntax before, so it was something new.
When our class read through the American dream I was completely lost as well. I couldn't recognize any themes or purpose for the writing other than for entertainments sake. Discussing the book in class helped me make a lot more connections. When I annotated the American dream the second time a lot more jumped off the page at me. I really began to understand the themes and learned that there actually is a purpose for writing this "Theater of the Absurd" piece. It really helped reading the analysis paper as well. Reading Thomas C. Fosters "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" really opened my eyes to all of the references in the bible story. For example, who knew Harry Potter could be considered a Christ figure? I knew the stories pretty well before but I guess I just never made the connections. I also have problems analyzing for syntax. I have never trained my brain to think this way before so it will just take some time getting used to. I hope it will come with time!
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