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?

I read my colleagues work online a lot of the time, probably once a week I will go through some random blogs and read what my classmates have to say. Its interesting to see the way that different people think and since Blogger shows times, it's also interesting to see how crazy of times things are posted.

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?

Since my blog is visible to ANYONE in the world it is important that I always put my best work up and that it is appropriate. The way people look at my blog alters the way they think of Dr. Preston and of Righetti High School.

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?

Publishing my work definitely is a different feeling than just turning in a paper. With publishing the work, you can virtually turn it in any time that day and it will still be on time. I like the fact that this class in basically run online. It teaches us so much everyday.

Has your experience of the physical classroom changed because of the open & online aspects? Where does your learning actually happen? 

The physical classroom is no longer just the classroom for me. I learn everywhere now because of this class. Online aspects are a great thing and it integrates so much more in than just the standard "English" class. The classroom now is a place for me to discuss my learning with my colleagues, whereas before I actually saw things first there. 

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)?

There is no better word for what I'm doing than a "pioneer" We have been through so many struggles whether online or in class and have come together to learn how to fix it. This wasn't easy getting used to but in the end I wouldn't have it any other way. The online aspect makes it so that our class is never ending, even at 2 am., the weekends, or on holiday break there is always someone to talk to.

How do they respond when you describe the brave new world in which you’re working?
What do their responses mean to you? What effect(s) (if any) do they have on you?

Alot of people are very surprised when I tell them that I blog and that my class is run online. When I tell adults this, they think its an act of laziness on the teachers part because they dont have to do paperwork etc. I immediately correct them and say that all my colleagues and teacher has put SO much work into their blogs. Its the place for ultimate learning and a lot of effort go into these things on a daily basis.

MAN OUR BLOGS SUCK

As it's the middle of the night and I'm doing some last minute blog maintenance I decided to compare my blog with my classmates. All I can say is that a majority of the blogs have not been updated in over a month. I honestly thought mine was bad but then looked again and WOW mine is pretty good!(: Please take that into account Dr. Preston!

Literature Analysis #5 Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men

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).



George is a small little man and Lennie is a giant of a man with huge arms. They are both laborers who live near Salinas, CA and roam around looking for work. One night while talking they were discussing their dream of owning their own piece of land. Lennie wants to have rabbits and let them live on the land. The next day, George and Lennie travel to a ranch and they find work. They are given two beds in the bunkhouse. Then Old Candy introduces them to almost everybody on the ranch. They meet the boss and the boss’s son Curley, who is quite rude. They also meet Curley’s wife when she comes looking for her husband. She wears heavy make-up and possesses a flirtatious attitude. George warns Lennie to behave his best around Curley and his wife. He also suggests that they should meet by the pool if anything unfortunate happens to either of them on the ranch. George and Lennie are assigned to work with Slim, whohas common sense and they like him. George finds Slim an understanding confidante, and a bond forms between the two of them. When Curley wrongly accuses Slim for talking to his wife, Slim gets very angry. Curley apologizes to him in the bunkhouse in front of everybody, but his apology is rejected. Curley vents his frustration on Lennie, trying to pick a fight. Lennie does not hit back initially, but when George asks him to, Lennie obeys and crushes Curley’s hand. Curley agrees that he will not tell anyone about his hand, for it would mean losing his self-respect. While working on the ranch, George and Lennie continue to dream about owning their own piece of land and make plans accordingly. Old Candy, one of the ranch hands, overhears their planning and asks to join them. He even offers to contribute all of his savings to purchase the land. George and Lennie accept his proposal. One evening, Lennie, looking for his puppy, enters the room of Crooks; since he is the only black man on the ranch, Crooks lives alone, separated from the other ranch workers. Candy enters, looking for Lennie; the two of them tell Crooks about their dream of owning their own ranch, but Crooks tells them that it will never happen, foreshadowing the truth. Curley’s wife comes in and interrupts them. When Crooks objects to her presence in his room, she threatens him with a false rape charge. Later on, Lennie is seen alone in the barn, petting his dead pup. He has unintentionally killed it by handling it too hard. Now he is grieving over the loss. Curley’s wife walks into the barn and strikes up a conversation with Lennie. As they talk, she asks him to stroke her hair. She panics when she feels Lennie’s strong hands. When she raises her voice to him, Lennie covers her mouth. In the process, he accidentally breaks her neck and she dies. Knowing he has done something terrible, he leaves the ranch. When the ranch hands learn that Curley’s wife has been killed, they rightly guess the guilty party. Led by an angry Curley, they all go out to search for Lennie. They plan to murder him in retribution. George guesses where Lennie is and races to the pool. To save him from the brutal assaults of the ranch hands, George mercifully kills his friend himself. Hearing the gunshot, the searchers converge by the pool. They praise George for his act. Only Slim understands the actual purpose of George’s deed.



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



The theme of this novel is friendship as George and Lennie have a unique friendship that started from them just being laborers. Since Lennie is a gentle giant, no body knows how to communicate with him and act around him. George is the only one who really understands Lennie and Georgo also knows that he did not purposefully kill Curley’s wife. At the end of the novel when the riot is coming to kill Lennie, George ends up killing him instead because he can’t stand to see the others kill out of hate.



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



The tone in Of Mice and Men is a dismal one. The tone is simple and Steinbeck never puts thoughts into your head for you to purposefully think something of any character. You learn and judge the characters based on the actual actions and you are able to make up your own mind about the characters. Throughout the story when Lennie kills the dog and then also kills Curley’s wife we don’t think ill of him. Steinbeck portrays Lennie as such he doesn’t mean to do any harm but his uncontrollable strength gets in the way and he cannot help it. An example of the non judgmental and innocent tone are portrayed in these passages.



Here the rabbits represent something gentle and vulnerable. The rabbits come up a lot especially since Lennie wants a rabbit to himself.



"Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones.” Ch.1



This passage from Ch. 1 is George and Lennie talking about the land they would buy and the house they will have together. Their dreams are big and in a way naïve. The naïve essence of it shows how innocent and unaware they are of the world. Especially Lennie



"All kin's a vegetables in the garden, and if we want a little whisky we can sell a few eggs or something, or some milk. We'd jus' live there. We'd belong there. There wouldn't be no more runnin' round the country and gettin' fed by a Jap cook. No, sir, we'd have our own place where we belonged and not sleep in no bunk house."



The last example is, “We could live offa the fatta the lan'.” Lennie says this various time throughout the novel and it portrays how excited he is for his dream to live off of the land.







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. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)

CHARACTERIZATION
1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization..



An example of direct characterization would be when the author writes “Curley was quick and mean.” The reader does not have to make any conclusions because the author/narrator states the trait directly.



Another example of direct characterization is when Steinbeck describes Carlson on pg. 35. “A powerful, big stomached man came into the bunk house. His head still dripped water from the scrubbing and dousing.”



An example of indirect characterization is when Curelys Wife is perceived as a 'tart' through her actions and the way she speaks to other men on the ranch, you could also comment on the fact that being labelled as 'Curelys Wife' with no name shows how the characters just see hers as Curley's property.



One more example of indirect characterization is when Slim- the Jerkiline Skinner, who despite his lack of dialect (he doesn't speak much in the novel compared to other main characters) gains great respect from each character on the ranch. also the way each of his actions are done with correct thinking.



The author uses both approaches because it gives the text variety.




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



Yes the authors syntax and diction change dramatically when the characters are talking. They do not talk in proper English and sometimes it can be hard to interpret. An example is when George speaks to Lennie and says, “You can jus’ as well go to hell,” “You now shut up.” The words are all over the place especially when speaking between characters.




3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic? Flat or round? Explain.



The protagonist in the novel is George. Although there are plenty of different characters in the story, we can relate to George the most. Lennie has a mental problem, Curley is too mean, and Slim too wonderful. George is the protagonist. He is also a dynamic character because he changes a lot throughout the story. In the beginning, he was a person who believed in his dream farm. Now at the end, he has killed his best friend and no longer believes in the idea of having his own farm. He is alo round as he encounters conflict and changes from it.




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.



I think after reading this book I felt like I had read about a character. The time period is different from my own and there are not a lot of people now a days who are laborers. The ending was extremely sad and I understood why George killed Lennie but I don’t think that was a realistic thing to do.



A textual example is when George kills Lennie and Slim comments.



“Never you mind. A guy got to sometimes ”

Literary Analysis #4 The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlett Letter

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).

 The novel begins in 17th-century Boston, Massachusetts. A young woman, Hester Prynne, is led from prison with her baby daughter, Pearl, in her arms and the scarlet letter “A” on her bosom. The scarlet letter "A" represents that she has committed adultery and the letter is on her chest for all to see. One woman who is in the crowd tells an elderly stranger that Hester is being punished for adultery. It turns out that Hester’s husband was sent to America and was lost at sea because he never showed up. She now has a new baby with a different man and Hester will not tell who the father is. The reason she is getting hung is because she is keeping the mysterious lover a secret.

The elderly onlooker is Hester’s missing husband, who is now practicing medicine and calling himself Roger Chillingworth. He lives in Boston, and wants revenge. He reveals his true identity to no one but Hester, whom he has sworn to secrecy. Several years pass. Hester supports herself by working as a seamstress, and Pearl (her daughter) grows into a determined, naughty child, who is more of a symbol than an actual character, said to be the scarlet letter come to life as both Hester's love and her punishment. They are shunned by the community and they live in a small cottage on the outskirts of Boston. The police try to take Pearl away from Hester but with Arthur Dimmesdale’s help they can stay together. Dimmesdale is suffering from heart problems and now lives with Chillingworth so that he can take care of him. Chillingworth begins to suspect something from Dimmesdale and one day looks at his chest and there he discovers an “A” for adultery.

Hester arranges to meet DImmesdale in the forest and they make a plan to move back to Europe and take Pearl. They will sail out of Boston and Chillingworth gets notice of this plan and also will be on the same ship out of Boston. Dimmesdale is making him last sermon when he sees Hester and Pearl standing afar. He then immediately mounts the scaffold with Hester and their daughter and shows everyone the A on his chest. He falls dead just after Pearl kisses him.

Frustrated, Chillingworth dies a year later. Hester and Pearl leave Boston, and no one knows what has happened to them. Many years later, Hester returns alone, still wearing the scarlet letter, to live in her old cottage and resume her charitable work. She receives letters from Pearl, who now has a family of her own. Pearl also inherits all of Chillingworth's money even though he knows she is not his daughter. When Hester dies, she is buried in "a new grave near an old and sunken one, in that burial ground beside which King's Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with[in] a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tombstone served for both." The tombstone was decorated with a letter "A", and Hester and Dimmesdale share the grave.

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

The theme of the novel is Sin and a great matter in the Puritan community. Religious sin is associated with breaking the law. In this novel, we see a lot of sins and Roger Chillingworth’s need of revenge is a "worse sin" than the passion that led Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale to commit adultery. Every character in the book believes that idea sin should be punished, if not here on earth by man, than by God after death. Committing sin is regarded as willfully allowing the Black Man (Satan) to place his mark upon your soul.

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

The authors tone in the novel is detached and impassionate. The author always is talking about how many problems there are within puritan society and it is obvious he does not support it. Any time he is showing any opinion it is detached and cold.

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. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)

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)?

The author uses both types of characterization to put variety in the novel.

An example of direct characterization is when Hawthorne says, “She was beautiful, tall, thin, and dignified.” All of these adjectives literally describe Hester.

This quote from Chapter 7 is also an example of direct characterization. “The mother herself- as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into her brain that all her conceptions assumed its form-had carefully wrought out the similitude; lavishing many hours of morbid ingenuity to create an analogy the object of her affection and the emblem of her guilt and torture.”

An example of indirect characterization is when Hester Prynne, In the beginning (which later diminishes) she is thought of as a shameless tramp through the eyes of the women in the town, but really she is dignified in that while walking down the prison steps, she doesn't rush herself, she holds her shoulders back, and head up. Hawthorne writes this to show that she is not ashamed of what she has done and she needs to accept her sin.

Another example is later in the novel, she is considered to be loyal, seeing as though she will not give up the name of her child's father. She is also thought of as very charitable with all the work she does for the poor.

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

Nathaniel Hawthorns diction did not change when he solely focused on a character. The choice of words and placement of them stayed generally the same.

3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic?  Flat or round?  Explain.

Hester is the protagonist and I consider her a dynamic character because throughout the story she changes the way people think of her by doing good for others in the face of abuse. As a result, she grows more patient and kind until she is considered a saint by those who remember her. If she was simply the sinner who never changed, she wouldn't have spent her time doing good to the point of - later in life - being considered a saint by the people of the community. She has a "moment" of rebellion when she takes off the letter and wants to run away with Arthur, but that's temporary. However, she still grows as a character and changes inwardly. Hester also demonstrates the actions that of a round character.

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.

After reading this book I felt like I had come away reading a character. I think the rules in ths novel were a bit too strict although it was a Puritan society. Even Hester’s baby, Pearl, was written to be more of a symbol for the letter A than to represent an actual child.