(Warning. Rambling ahead.)
But I'm going to an art school in Australia. Writing, should my career go as planned, will not be taking precedence. Why care about how to write a good essay? As I read through Nuts and Bolts, it became more clear. I want my literature to train me to be better at communicating in general. Michael makes an effective argument on how it will make you sound more intelligent and more respectable; as he says, the "pompous style" only makes you sound… pompous. I loathe to think of myself falling into that rut. But I can see it in my writing, too. I've been letting the pompous style creep in. When he brought up how silly it made students sound, I physically winced; it was a style I'd prided myself on. Maybe I was less advanced at communication than I'd thought.
Reading Foster's book really drove home my new dedication to figure out how to write and speak more clearly. Reading about the effects of weather in literature instantly brought to mind arguments with my brother, discussing (loudly) the way weather was used in literature. He was always sure it had no real meaning, that it was something that was basically just written in because weather happens. At the time, I'd simply argued that he was wrong because when you write, you must have reason for anything to happen due to the fact that you decided to write it that way- but now my argument has gained real basis. Literature throughout history has used weather to hint at moods. "It's never just rain" indeed.
There have, of course, been other things discussed. But it was the summer reading and the powerpoints that really made me think, made me wonder at what my goals really were. Hopefully, I can actually learn to communicate through this class- and not just learn to write pretty, as I originally planned.
It's awesome that you're going to an art school in Australia and know exactly what you're doing with your life. AP English is definitely gonna help you to be better at communing in general. And I agree with you that after reading the nuts and bolts, all literature works I read from the past suddenly all make sense. It's amazing that I can finally connect the dots there, like you said, authors use weather as a symbol to express moods all the time. :)
ReplyDeleteLet me start by saying that, out of all the posts in all the AP Lit blogs, yours are some of the most entertaining to read. I’m glad Holmes is having us do these blog assignments – I just feel a little more comfortable freely writing when I’m not turning in an MLA-formatted black and white sheaf of paper, and I sense that you might be, too, given how clearly your voice comes through in these posts.
ReplyDeleteYour personal response to each activity you mention greatly helps the flow of the response in addition to helping fix the lessons in long-term memory, which is fantastic.
I only really have a couple of things to criticize here. Firstly, remember to refer to other authors by their first and last names the first time, and by their last names after that. (So don’t call the author of The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing “Michael”.) Secondly, you acknowledge that you don’t include all of the activities done so far, and I know that commenting on every little thing would be a gargantuan task, but I think some of the assignments you omitted are pretty important, both in the context of this post and in the context of the class. Other than the Foster presentation, the Sedaris essay and the forum posts were really the only two chances, at the time of writing, to apply the theory we learned from all the summer reading. Your post contains plenty of insight into individual assignments, but no connections between them. Reprocessing includes understanding how the different concepts we have covered connect to one another. Therefore, I think it’s crucial that you include anything that demonstrates how what we learned in one assignment can be applied to another.
Other than that, great job identifying what can be learned from the reading and PowerPoints and how it affects you personally.
I completely agree with you on the "pompous" style of writing thing. I have seen this a lot when writing college essays that I have to really watch myself and make sure I don't come off sounding like I'm trying to write like someone I'm not. Another thing you said that stood out to me was about Foster mentioning how weather had meaning in literature. I really liked that chapter myself because it really made me realize that nothing in literature just happens. Everything has a meaning. The only thing I would really add to your blog was that you didn't mention the summer blogs and I though those were an important task we had to complete and they taught me a lot. Other than that great job!
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