It's hard to believe it's been a month already, but here we are, nearly in October. And what a month! We've covered a lot in AP Lit so far, and it has me really excited for the rest of the year. One of the first things we covered was DIDLS (diction, imagery, details, language, and syntax), and that small acronym alone has already helped me with both the first close reading we did and the annotating for The American Dream. It wasn't something I had ever done before, so I found it really helpful that we got the chance to discuss it before we had to put it in practice. Having the opportunity to bounce ideas off my classmates definitely helped me get the hang of it.
Possibly my favorite thing about the class so far is the fact that it is so discussion-based. I find that being able to go back and forth with my classmates on the various subjects we cover often helps me figure things out a lot faster than if I had to do it on my own. It's also really refreshing to get the chance to decide things for ourselves as opposed to simply being told what something means or why it's important. However, with a student-led discussion comes the risk of missing something important. For example, I don't know that anyone really understood Daddy's surgery in The American Dream until we read the excerpt from the Cambridge Companion to Albee (Kolin). Once we read that, though, there was even more to discuss and explore.
I think the discussion we've been having on The American Dream is starting to get close to something important, although I'm not sure what. Every new outside opinion, such as the article talking about Grandma as the old American Dream (Beck) and Kolin's essay, adds something new. Each new piece of information, be it about Theatre of the Absurd or the various forms of comedy, gets us one step further in our understanding of Albee's play. The discussion we've been avoiding, about the gender roles and how Albee plays with them, is one that I think we should pursue. I'm really interested in what we'll find if we dig deeper, and I can't wait for the discussions that we're sure to have!
I agree that it's a lot better when the class is student-led. It's certainly different from all other lit classes and yet I feel like I've learned so much! Ms Holmes only interjects when she has something truly useful or entertaining to contribute, which is nice compared to listening to a lit teacher tell you what you're supposed to think about everything, like you said. In my hour the gender roles and sexual ideas were thoroughly explored. I'm surprised that our hours have differed so much. I sort of figured every class would arrive at the same ideas more or less. Do you think you're being well prepped for the exam as well? That's the only thing I'm feeling a bit unsure of. I mean during the exam we can't talk with our classmates for hours about the pieces... I hope more individual practice is coming too. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteI agree, the class is very discussion-based and it really lets everyone think for themselves, rather than have the teacher spell everything out. It would have been hard to have to analyze The American Dream on our own, but we learn tons from class discussions. I think if the discussions were teacher-led then we would be covering less topics and probably wouldn’t be coming to the same conclusions, we would come only to the conclusions the teacher had already made. You mention though that student-led discussions might mean that the class won’t discuss something important. Our class discussions always seem productive, and I’m sure your class’s are too. Each class can’t examine every aspect of the book in equal depth, otherwise we would have probably needed even more discussion time. What I’m trying to say is that most things each class discusses has some importance. Ms. Holmes always steps in when needed, and part of the reason she gave us those articles was to help guide the discussions, so we don’t miss anything big.
ReplyDeleteI of course also agree that student lead is better. It makes us as a class think about the book a whole lot more than if we were just taking notes or sitting listening to a lecture. I do not think that we will miss anything important between Ms.Holmes interjections and the supplement essays that she gives us. She is giving the class far enough guidance to let us be in the most productive learning environment. And did you notice that she gave us the skills before hand and made us do work on our own? I agree that we have already learned so much and I'm ready for a harder challenge of "Death of a Salesman" because it looks much more daunting. When you say "getting close to something important" I disagree with that, I think that everything we find in The American Dream is important and all the little things fit into a bigger picture. I do not think that anything in the novel was not packed with meaning and worth talking about.
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