This week we started looking at our group projects, which for me, was Siddharta by Herman Hesse.
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In class this week we watched everyone's "This I Believe" projects! Yay! It was both an uncomfortable and enlightening experience for me. Uncomfortable because I had to listen to my own weird video voice that I had already heard like thirty times, but it wasn't actually that bad.
The best part of this entire project was being able to see the beliefs that are integral to my classmates' ideas of themselves. Like I said before, it's a weirdly enlightening experience. I've known most of these people from elementary school, preschool even, and yet I don't really know them at all. The cool thing is, I can kind of see how these ideas play a part in my classmates' lives. It's retrospective, I know, but it is interesting nonetheless. I thoroughly enjoyed this project not just because it gave me a better understanding of myself, but also because it has helped me develop more empathy towards my peers, something that's invaluable. We are continuing to embark on this wonderful "This I Believe" journey that will (hopefully) end in breakfast for everyone. Which I am looking forward.
I don't think I've said this yet, but what I like actually like the idea of sharing our deep and personal thoughts. That sounds pretty weird, but you know what I mean. I think this project will help me understand my classmates better, not in the least because their sharing their ideas with their own voices. I know that in the long run, this project is supposed to help us understand characters in books better, but I can't help see it as an exercise in real life empathy. It's rather fitting that, in my last year at high school, I will be able to catch a glimpse at the true selves of my classmates, most of whom I've known since elementary school. This week we started to transition from writing our "This I Believe" projects to actually recording them. Of course, since I am me, I was still trying to write mine during the middle of the week. It's not like I'm procrastinating, although I suppose it can be taken that way. For me, though, it's something more deeply rooted in fear. Writing my thoughts, especially thoughts about existentialism that are central to my understanding of human purpose, is hard. I don't want to say anything that doesn't sound exactly right.
Of course, you can't live any life like this. Midweek I received sudden inspiration, a lightening bolt of ideas if you will, that connected my pen to my mind. My thoughts just flowed onto paper, just like their supposed too. But I understand that I can't wait for this inspiration like this to do my work because that won't always come. However, this incident has given me the confidence and understanding to continue writing, even if it's not exactly what I want to say. It's the first week of a new marking period! And I'm halfway through my senior year! Which gives me anxiety. Somehow I don't really think I'm ready for that. anyways, as it is the start of a new marking period, we are also starting a new project. This part is entitled "This I Believe" and it is a short speech/essay on a belief that I hold. This week, in addition to working on the poem of the week, we learned and discussed how to write a proper conversational piece and what elements make a good one. We also listened to quite a few examples from NPR and previous students.
I genuinely like this project and I actually had an idea straight from the start. I decided to write about how I believe that humans have a purpose because of our ability to learn. Sort of existential-ly, I know. This is a topic I write a lot about (just look at my creative writing from last year), so it was difficult dealing with my inability to write about this. Weird, right? When I'm actually asked to write about the stuff I believe in, I freeze up and I can't say anything the right way. But the title of this blog is "The Spirit of Accomplishment" so you know that's not the end of this story. For the first time in a really, really looooong time, I actually let go of my inhibitions and started to write about this. I figured, since I've done that before with this topic, why not now? And guess what? The spirit of writing or my muse or whatever the heck you call it took over and I now have a (mostly) finished essay! That I like! And I never really like my essays! Granted, I did finish it five minutes into class, so I should stop procrastinating and just write. I think that's the lesson that I learned this week. Just write. Hopefully I can do that with formal essays as well! Quote of the Week: "It's time for you to look inward and begin asking yourself the big questions: who are you? and what do you want?" - Uncle Iroh Avatar: The Last Airbender (I think this quote thing has devolved from book quotes to quotes I just like. Oh well.) Get it? Cause in this unit my group is doing Shakespeare and archetypes and Shakespeare performed in the Globe Theater! No? Well, I though it was funny.
In any case, this unit is all about looking at texts from a different kind of literary theory, or a specific way of looking at a text. We decided to look at King Lear from an archetypal perspectives. Archetypes, if you do not know, are types of characters that persist throughout stories everywhere, like the charming prince or the damsel in distress. Think tropes. It's like that. To be honest, our group didn't really know what questions we were going to examine during this project. However, after hearing Dr. McDermott, we had a really great idea. See, she talked about how and why Shakespeare is still popular today. She discussed how Shakespeare, unlike the other playwrights of his time, made his characters memorable. This sparked an idea with us; we decided to focus our project on how Shakespeare uses archetypal characters but also goes beyond the archetypes to give new levels of complexity. All in all, I'm really looking forward to this project! Schoenborn's back! Huzzah! This week in class he helped explain and start the Shakespeare project with us. We also focused on the Poems of the Week a ton and recapped the experience of his absence. But the most significant thing we did this week, the thing that grabbed my attention the most, was the discussion on what type of learners we are.
There are, apparently, three distinct levels of learning: surface, strategic, and deep. Surface learning involves just doing enough to get by, memorizing enough material to pass the test. Strategic learning focuses solely on the grade. It's learning so that you can get an A on the test or class and achieve the perfect grade point. Deep learning, however, is completely different. It is learning for the sake of wanting to understand. It is being inherently curious and legitimately desiring to know more. Deep learning goes beyond any test or grade, it's there with you for your entire life. And I think that that's the kind of learning I want to do. I actually really want to know more about this weird and wonderful universe in which we all live. If you've ever seen me during one of my (frequent) existential crises, you know what I'm talking about. However, I'm worried that as I spend more time in school, where the underlying tone of every class is to pass the test and make the grade, I'm going to lose this desire. I already feel like I'm learning superficially in a few of my classes. This talk, though, served as a good reminder of why I actually like learning. Knowledge isn't about the test, as high school would lead you to believe, but about the longer lasting impact it can make on your life. Quote of the Week: "Get out there, Night Vale! Grab anything you can and fight! Grab a slingshot and a book, say an Amy Bender Short Story Collection, or Milorad Pavic’s Dictionary of the Khazars. Or, if not a book, grab a rock. Or the throwing stars that come standard in most issues of McSweeney’s. Grab anything you can, and fight! Do not believe in heroes, believe in citizens. Be a citizen." - Tamica Flynn Welcome to Night Vale (yes I realize this isn't technically a book, but it's still super good!) "GAAAAAHHHH!!!" is the sound that my anxiety makes. That, and the sound of panicked sobs. I'm really not in a good place mentally. To be fair, though, I brought most of this upon myself. It's not that I was even procrastinating so much! I just feel like I've lost a bit of my motivation not only in this class, but for life in general. I blame college and thoughts of the future. They do not make me feel good. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? Let's go back to what we actually did this week:
The main focus of this week was pretty much "let's catch up on work guys, so we don't bombard Schoenborn with a mountain of stuff to grade" and the Tragedy essay. We read two more articles about tragedy that we related to Antigone, "The Burial at Thebes" and "Before the Law", both of which I loved. Both authors clearly expressed ideas that could be pulled out of the tragedy of Antigone, and it was really interesting getting their interpretations. If you want to read more about that, check out the Blogedy! It will be the last time I redirect you, I promise! To be quite honest, I would love to discuss my opinions here as well, but then Schoenborn would have to read them twice, and I would like to spare him the pain. (On a side note, I really like how the order of articles was arranged for this unit; we started out reading a story and then essays/ discussions that drew out the implications of those stories in today's world, which I found highly interesting.) After the article reading was finished, we turned our focus towards the Tragedy paper. I am legitimately excited to write this paper; I have so many thoughts that I want to discuss! I only have two issues: one, Schoenborn is gone, so I cannot ask him about the specifics of the essay; two, I haven't completed the Tragedy blogs yet. You know, the ones that are supposed to help guide me in this essay. (I can feel your disapproving stare, Schoenborn. Please don't hate me.) Don't get me wrong, I have been thinking about everything that we read and discussed! I have things written down! It's just that their on paper instead of on my blog. Which is not where they're supposed to be. This is the cause of my panic and anxiety. I have to write pretty much all of the Tragedy blogs and the Tragedy paper in a few days. Again, no one to blame but myself. * long sigh * Sometimes, I really dislike me. Why do I bring this upon myself?!?! Anyways, that's why I have been crying on the inside. Hopefully, it will all work out in the end. Quote of the Week: “Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” -David Copperfield by Charles Dickens My life wants to kill me. Not only did I not get anything done last weekend because of college applications, but it was also the last week of swim, which means extreme stress abounds.
But that's enough about me and how I will have an aneurysm before I'm twenty, let's talk about literature! Hooray! This week, we watched one TED Talk for our tragedy unit and read Antigone by Sophocles, the same author who wrote Oedipus Rex. The TED Talk was about irrationality in our decision making and how much control we really have when making them, which fit in nicely with our wrap-up of Oedipus Rex. In fact, it feels like someone (winkwinknudgenudge) planned it that way. In any case, the TED talk, although focused on irrational behaviors in economic decisions, advanced the questions raised by Sophocles's play: How much of our destiny do we really control? How big of an impact does outside factors make on our daily decisions? In essence, do we control our future, or is our fate completely out of our hands? Like last week's post, I wrote about a lot of these questions in the Blogedy, so you should go read it over there. However, I will say this: I believe the TED Talk really furthered the discussion raised by Oedipus Rex because it brought the questions into the light of the modern world. The next thing we did was read Antigone, another tragic play by Sophocles. Although I was more familiar with the story of Oedipus, I really, really liked Antigone. The story is about the daughter of Oedipus, Antigone, whose brothers just killed each other in battle. Although the King of Thebes, Creon, decreed that only one of the brothers will be buried properly and the other will be left to rot, Antigone disobeys this order and digs a grave for her forsaken brother. She goes against Creon's law, citing heavenly, "moral" law as her support. She eventually dies (what Greek heroine doesn't?), but not after defending her beliefs and being an all-around kick-butt female character. To be honest, that's probably why I like her so much. She, unlike most women in these tragedies, fights for what she thinks is right. Antigone is willing to go against the dominant power. SHE HAS A BACKBONE! Not even Jocasta, Oedipus's wife, boldly went against him when he was accusing Creon of trying to his throne. In fact, many people interpret Antigone not just as a tragedy, as we are doing in class, but also as a piece on feminism. Wow, this turned out to be a long post. And I didn't even provide my full interpretations on the subject! So far, I really like what we are doing in the Tragedy Unit; my only issue is that I'm having trouble keeping up with the workload. It might be because Schoenborn is not here. I realize that's no excuse, but it's really hard to get a good discussion going in class without him there. Oh well. I hope he's enjoying his paternity leave! Schoenborn we miss you! Quote of the Week: “Oh it's terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong.” -Antigone by Sophocles |