Friday, December 14, 2012

FEATS OF WISDOM #1




https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif6j-11WnWHJk0NU4LloCbxO8AY1beCc1Fvhe4pfAAajVAofD-lqKvqoY81_6cCeZ2L8ShToWkUAVU0gEZ16fBBmjPHAGPXeh7CIWjYCdZs3jl1bkBvpF_Xt6Mhetb0IWmWJttYvy72qPP/s1600/Sphinx_Face2.jpg 
 Amanda Arnold and myself at the Hobbit
Camera men: 
Ryan Nguyen and Will Veroski

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Fall Semester Reflection

Do you read your colleagues’ work online?  How often? What is it like to read their work? How does being able to see everyone’s work online at any given time change the way you do your work?
If I'm honest, I don't look at people's blogs very much. I'd say about once every other week... bad I know. 
Having your peers be able to look in on your assignments makes you want to do better.
How has the publicly and always visible course blog made this course different from one without a blog? How would the course change if the course blog disappeared tomorrow?
It's easily accessible to everyone and we don't waste class time to talk about what's going on. Certainly, if the blog went down tonight we would probably just find another place to collaborate. The internet doesn't begin and end with Blogger.
Has publishing your work for the public to see changed your approach to completing an assignment? How so?  How would your feelings about the course change if you couldn’t publish your work that way?
I never thought about the incentive for better quality work, but it is true isn't it? We all try harder and make things that are worth seeing because anyone can see them.
Has your experience of the physical classroom changed because of the open & online aspects?  Where does your learning actually happen?
Not really, I guess if there's one thing I tend to not pay attention to your announcements because I know they'll be on the blog that evening. My learning happens where ever I can find a video or a website that explains something to me.


You were described in the Macarthur Foundation/DML  interview as “a pioneer”-- how do you describe the experience on the edge to people who haven’t been there (friends and family)?
My experience in this class has been very different from my other classes. I love Shakespeare and in this class I actually got to help people understand him better. I got to teach. THAT is pretty fantastic.
How do they respond when you describe the brave new world in which you’re working?
haha...hah. mmmmm you don't want to know. I will say though that they don't like it very much.
 What do their responses mean to you?  What effect(s) (if any) do they have on you?
Not much, this system isn't perfect but it has some great potential all the same. Things change every day and if there's one thing that I say needs a good healing, it's the public school system.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Richard II & Henry IV Literary Analysis

yaaay

A Christmas Carol LAQs

General:
1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read, and explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).

Ebenezer Scrooge is a grumpy old man who doesn’t think much of Chrismas. “A covetous old sinner” who isn’t very nice to the people around him. One night when he gets home his old friend Jacob Marley’s ghost comes to him telling him to change his ways and to warn him that he will be visited by three ghosts that night. Past Present Future. By the end of the story Scrooge is so shaken by the horrors of what he has become that he turns into a lovely chap who saves Tiny Tim from death.



2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel.
When you are mean to people it isn’t good for you. Especially during Christmas season. Try to love people more than loath them.

3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
Dickens is always rather peppy. He’ll actually use words we would say to describe things. His voice is very definitively jolly when it needs to be and serious when the mood flips. His tone is one of “hey I have a great story here, so give it a listen if you fancy a good read on this cold winter’s night.”

4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers. Foreshadowing: "Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE." The ghost of Christmas yet to come shows Scrooge his grave.

Concrete Language: "Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom’s hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost." This quote is telling us what happened, instead of talking about an idea or belief.
Simile: "Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, 'Was it a dream or not?'" (The First of the Three Spirits)
Aphorism: "But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."
Amplification:
 “Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!” said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal." I think this was meant to show just how jolly the Cratchits are, even though their circumstances are not ideal.
Foil: Scrooge's nephew is his foil. They are exact opposites when the story begins. One loves Christmas and the other hates it. In the end however, Scrooge conforms and approaches the day with a happy heart.
Repetition: "Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it." (The First of Three Spirits)
Syntax: “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."
Allusion: "For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch." Glee and Catch was a new form of music at the time.
Caricature: “Oh!  But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!” (Marley's Ghost)

CHARACTERIZATION 



1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization.  Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?

“Oh!  But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!” (Marley's Ghost)
This quote is a direct characterization that tells the reader just how mean Mr. Scrooge was. An Indirect example is at his nephew's party where everyone is insulting Scrooge while he is looking in with the ghost of Christmas present. Some loath him, but his nephew is the only one that takes pity on Scrooge.
2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character?  How?  Example(s)?




Yes, for example when Scrooge is talking he uses many exclamation marks to let the reader know he is a grumpy old chap that needs a good kick in the backside. Whilst the many of the other characters don't exclaim things unless it's to wish someone a Merry Christmas. 
3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic?  Flat or round?  Explain.
Scrooge is definitely a dynamic character. He went from screaming "Humbug!" all the time to helping Tiny Tim and making peace with his nephew and wife and giving to the poor. All because of his visitations from the spirits.
4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character? 
I felt like I came out of the book with a lesson, but I did like the sentimentality of going back to Scrooge's past and finding pity for him. It was a bit generic. Be righted or get smited.



The Picture of Dorian Gray LAQs

GENERAL 



1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read, and explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).

Wow, this book was a real... eye opener is how I can best describe it. Dorian Gray is a young man who is being painted by this painter named Basil. He paints such an amazingly lifelike image of Dorian that the young man sees himself as young and hansom and with the influence of Lord Henry he curses himself and the portrait. He then goes about living this corrupt life while he stays young and flawless and the painting begins to reflect who he really is. Dorian ends up stabbing the painting and therefore killing himself.
"When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was."
(ch20 last page)



2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.

I think what Oscar Wilde was trying to say was that deception is lethal and an over exposure to bad things is also lethal. If we could see our souls as Dorian did through the painting, depending on what kind of life we lead we would probably see something hideous.

3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).

I thought it was very foreboding, especially with Henry Wotton saying all of those influential "wise" sayings to a young easily influenced young boy. For example, when Henry says,


"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him."
(ch2)
It's as if he's using reverse psychology to influence Dorian. Saying not to let anyone influence you and then that's exactly what Dorian lets him do. I don't know, if you read the book, you'll realize just how many seemingly insightful statements Henry makes. It's kind of choking and Dorian think that this cynic is right so he follows him blindly.
 

4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers.

Foreshadowing: "They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly." (ch1)

Metaphor: "Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek martyr" (ch2)
Simile: "The moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull." (ch16)
Aphorism: "The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it.
" (ch1)
Amplification:
"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it." (ch3)
Foil: At the beginning of the story Lord Henry is a foil for Dorian, but by the end of it, I make the argument that Dorian becomes Henry's foil because he has changed so dramatically.
"Stop!" faltered Dorian Gray, "stop! you bewilder me. I don't know what to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it. Don't speak. Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think."(ch2)

Pedantic: Henry is always trying to "enlighten" Dorian by giving him all these lectures on what he has observed.
"I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied." (ch4)
Diction: Wilde is very descriptive with words.

"For some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat Jew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with an oily tremulous smile." (ch7)
Allusion:
Wilde references Dorian to Adonis twice in the text. Adonis was a Greek god who was a strikingly beautiful young man.
"and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves." (ch1)
"and as Adonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear." (ch9)
Caricature:
"Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you--well, of course you have an intellectual expression and all that." (ch1)



CHARACTERIZATION 



1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization.  Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?

Indirect and direct characterization are used equally in the book.
"You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose." ch1
"In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty." ch1
Wilde used both to show us the true character and to show us what everyone already thinks of that character's character.


2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character?  How?  Example(s)?



  
When he focuses on James Vane his syntax and diction seems to slip into a low class sounding dialogue. "A chance word I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track." (ch16)
However, when he focuses on Lord Henry for example he uses bigger words and linger sentences.
3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic?  Flat or round?  Explain.



Dorian is definitely a dynamic character. He goes from white and innocent to red and horrific in nature.
4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character?  Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.


No not really. I felt like Dorian was too innocent and didn't know anything about the real world and then in the end he was... too corrupt to even be human. As for Lord Henry he was very cynical yet he never did anything wrong. I don't know it felt like all of the characters were merely there for Oscar Wilde to get his point across. It was however, a very interesting read. It really made me think and it will make you think too. It's not just a book, really, more of a philosophy lesson.