Another blog post cycle has passed, so it's time for another response to course material! As usual, there's a lot to go over and I'm not sure I remember everything, but I'll give it a shot. It's a good thing Ms. Holmes keeps track of what we do on her boot, otherwise these posts would be a lot shorter.
We finished annotating Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which I definitely enjoyed a lot! I'm pretty sure that it's my favorite play of the year, although I've enjoyed all of them. I think my annotations suffered a little bit this time around, though. I have a difficult time picking out rhetoric when I'm reading a book, especially with some of the things that were (apparently) in R and G. I say apparently because I totally missed them but I'm sure they were in there. If someone tells me that a book uses synecdoche a lot and I should keep an eye out for it (this happened with Hamlet) I'll usually be able to find it no problem. But I don't just pick up on things like epizeuxis and anadiplosis if I'm reading through a book. I guess it doesn't occur to me to look for them. I definitely need to work on that!
After much discussion, we finally settled on a theme for R and G. I am pretty satisfied with what we came up with -- while it's definitely not the absolute meaning of the text, it covers a lot of what I thought it needed to. It also seems pretty practical, and definitely very useable when it's time to take the test. Before we came up with a theme, we did some reading of other people's thoughts on the play, and I think I am not alone when I say that I was not particularly fond of them. While the Postmodernist Reading certainly made some useful points, I completely disagreed with the "final verdict" it presented, which was that the play had no meaning. I also didn't really like the way the information was presented, but I think that might just be me being picky.
In preparing to read our next work, Ceremony, we read a selection of essays by the author, Leslie Marmon Silko. I thought these essays were really interesting, and I definitely enjoyed reading them. The creation story she shared particularly caught my attention. I had only ever heard the creation story of the Ojibwe, which makes sense because they are one of the major tribes in Michigan. In their story, the world is flooded after the people become violent and start fighting with one another. After the flood, the few survivors need land, so a muskrat dives to the bottom of the water and brings mud to spread on a turtle's back. From that mud, an island is formed and the world grows from there. I've always been interested in the various stories of how the world began, so I really enjoyed reading the Laguna's take on it.
The book itself is quickly becoming one of my favorites. I can't stop reading it! Having read ahead makes discussion a little challenging, but it's totally worth it. I love the way Silko weaves together the various timelines, and the story itself is also quite beautiful. I'm glad we're reading it in AP Lit, because I don't think I would have discovered it on my own. I can't wait to discuss the whole thing with the rest of the class! I hope they're enjoying it as much as I am.
After discussing the first third of Ceremony, we talked about critical lenses and applied them to some of the works we've read in class. I thought this was really helpful, because I have a hard time with them sometimes -- usually the only one I can ever find evidence for is (surprise, surprise) the feminist lens. I really liked the discussion we had after applying a psychoanalytic lens to The American Dream. I think that definitely shed some new light on a work that I hadn't really thought about in a while. I'll be interested to see where discussions of the various criticisms lead us in the future!
I'm glad that you came to a place where you're "pretty satisfied" with your understanding of the meaning of R & G. I know how disconcerting it can be to get to this level of academic work and have to constantly cope with ambiguity, but do you still really think that there IS an "absolute meaning" out there, somewhere?
ReplyDeleteHi Emma!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about annotating R and G. That was difficult for me as well. The hardest part is quality vs quantity for me. I'd rather have fewer, but significant markings. But for fear of being marked down I try to fill every margin with analysis! So time-consuming!
I wish you would have explained what your class' theme statement for R and G was! You obviously like it, and my hour couldn't agree on anything very profound for the piece... Maybe I'll peek at your summary/analysis to check it out!
Nice recap of the Ojibwe creation story! I haven't thought of that in a very long time. It's neat that you thought to compare those stories, since it provides insight into the cultures. And the two creation ideas are so different!!
It's good that the critical lenses practice helped you! I didn't really get as much out of it as I should have. My hour struggled to apply them well. Sometimes working with a group is really helpful, but sometimes it adds to the confusion and hinders progress.
You forgot about the practice essay and practice multiple choice! That was super helpful for me.
I tried to fill as much space as I could and I still got marked down, so I think the lesson is to always favor quality in annotations. Thinking back that probably should have been obvious.
DeleteAlso, thanks for reminding me about the test practice! I completely forgot about that (clearly, since I didn't even mention it). I'll have to fix that at some point.
Hey Emma,
ReplyDeleteI agree that sometimes it can be hard, when reading a play or a novel, to pick up on the rhetoric. When someone else tells me what to look for, then that’s what I do when I read, but if I just have to find it myself I’ll forget that I was even supposed to look for it in the first place.
And I also really enjoyed Ceremony; all the works we’ve read in class have been pretty good, but I particularly enjoyed Silko’s writing style. She writes very poetically (even in her prose). You also mention how you loved the way she weaved together the different timelines; I think she did this part well, but at first I was so confused as to what was going on, because sometimes a new section would start and the characters names weren’t stated, it was just “him” or “her.” After reading more of the book though, things became clearer.
I actually really loved the way that the beginning of Ceremony was so confusing -- it made me want to keep reading so I could understand what was going on! My favorite books are the ones that keep building as more and more pieces come together, and I feel like Ceremony really did that.
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