End of the Year Showcase!

Prezi English Final

Project Plan Update

Project is going good. Originally our idea was to make a simple boring Prezi with no life. I wanted to make it more interesting by having each idea connect with each other and compare the new to the old. Eli, Connor, and Whitney need to email me their thoughts and research to put in our Prezi. 

Project in Progress

In class on Wednesday the 22 I discussed my final project with my group (Eli Esparza, Connor Albright, and Whitney Houg). We talked about what we needed to do individually to finish by the deadline.

Best of American Lit

After some thought on the specific area I did well in during the course I narrowed it down to Fahrenheit 451. I felt like I best understood what was going on during the book because we spent a lot of time on it but I also liked reading the book. Another topic from the course that I think is the best is we could collaborate with our classmates like you would collaborate with coworkers and bounce ideas off each other and work with each other cohesively. Learning how to express our thoughts and interests into our work is a tool I will carry with me for the rest of my life that I learned in American Lit this year. 

Brag Sheet

ACADEMICS

 • Renaissance (3 years)

 • Scholar Athlete, 4.0 (3 years)

SPORTS

 • Scholar Athlete, 4.0 (3 years)

 • Varsity Soccer (2 years)

VOLUNTEER

 • Good Sam Club and Camp (2 years)

 • Special Olympics (1 year)

 • Patterson Road Elementary Silent Auction and Family Fun Fest 

Derby Reportage

I find it so interesting how Hunter S. Thompson tells his experience at the derby to tell what happened there and when he was meeting different people. The dialogue with some of the characters has colorful language and isn't something you typically see in journalism, but it made me feel like I was there having the conversations and hearing how people really are. Thompson doesn't discuss the actual events in the derby as much as the typical journalist would and that makes gonzojournalism so intriguing. Reading the article tells you what happened at the derby and how people are rather than what the outcome of the derby was. 

Johnny Cyberpunk

This is a very confusing story. All the technology references and new short words that Gibson makes is unique to his style of writing and makes this piece a cyberpunk story. The lack of chronological order makes "Johnny Mnemonic" a postmodern story as well. The spelling and grammar errors I think were placed in the story on purpose but who knows. This style of writing seems like fiction but also so real. 

FUTURE ME

I used futureme.org to send a letter to myself (via email) one year in the future. I did this last year as an English assignment also. I think it is so cool and interesting to see what you were thinking about a year ago (or whatever you set it to) and in what ways you have grown and how you have and haven't changed that much. I can't wait to get my letter next year!! 

My Slaughterhouse

Post modernism broke the rules of literature. This style of writing is about breaking the fourth wall, not having chronological order, and using satire go tell a story I a funny but real way. "Slaughterhouse-Five", by Kurt Vonnegut, is one of the first postmodernist books that conveys the postmodernist elements throughout the story.

Kurt Vonnegut breaks the fourth wall in the first sentence of the book. Vonnegut is talking directly to the reader and says, "Listen:". Using the technique of breaking the fourt wall brings the reader into the story. In postmodern literature talking directly to your audience is normal but it was a new and confusing concept to readers if early postmodernism. 

"Slaughterhouse-Five" is a sorry about Billy Pilgrim time traveling though his life. Billy met the Tralfamadorians and started to become "unstuck in time" having no sense of time is postmodern. Billy Pilgrim travels in time from the war, to his daughter's wedding, to present days, and back to the war. A story with no sense of time is difficult and frustrating to follow for most readers. 

Vonnegut uses satire, parody, and humor to tell a story about war. This element of postmodernism is used for readers to laugh at what is confusing and makes no sense in life. Postmodernism makes fun of what can before this style of writing fiction mixed with nonfiction.

Kurt Vonnegut is one of the postmodernist writers. In "Slaughterhouse-Five" he uses breaking the fourth wall, no chronological order, and satire to tell his story about Billy Pilgrim being "unstuck in time".

So It Goes

Part of my groups postmodernism project! Really excited how it is turning out!!! :)

SCHLACHTOF SIEBEN

Vonnegut says humans are machines
We all act the same
Waving-(medieval times) show that you aren't holding a weapon
-(present) you are "programmed" to
Dirty little limerick to a hanging
Elbe?
It is illegal to spoon the syrup
Somebody is coming
I have a feeling someone is going to get caught

Favorite quote: "...and he dreamed millions of things, some of them true. The true things were time-travel." This jumped out to me because the book is about Billy being unstuck in time and traveling in time to different parts in his life. Billy having a dream about time-travel and saying it was true caught my attention.

SCHLACHTOF (what's German for 6?)

The number 6 in German is sechs

"Listen:" - how the book (Ch. 2) starts

Why is there a Blue Fairy Godmother??

Lazzaro did a gruesome thing I don't want to say to a dog :(

Lazzaro is also demented, thinking about killing people in torturous ways

Billy has seen his own death many times

"Their address was this: "Schlachtof- fünf." Schlachtof meant slaughterhouse. Fünf was good old five."

SCHLACHTOF FUNF

Billy knows he is going to be abducted

Unstuck in time watching WW2 films

Billy asks, "Why me?"

Billy on travels most to certain times; daughters wedding, the war, and the "present"

Billy is blamed for Weary's death even though they were in different boxcars

Why does Billy go back to childhood memories?

"Valley of the Dolls"- Earth book on Tralfamadore

ex-captain Eliot Rosewater

Billy travels back to his wedding night

Kurt Vonnegut is in the war?

a boys mother thinks Billy is insane talking about Tralfamadore with her son

THIS IS ABSURD

Absurd- unreasonable

Something in my life that I find truly absurd is how your actions in the present can impact your future immensely.

SCHLACHTOF DREI & SCHLACHTOF VEIR

Discontinuity
 "Where have all the years gone"

Coital- adjective- referring to sex

androgyn- blending of the sexes

chaplin- religious officer in the military
 How can a rabbi be a chaplin? Chaplin can be any religion.

date on the license plate- 1967

John Birch- Baptist missionary in WW2
Earl Warren- 14th United States Chief of Justice

poverty- hot, destroyed what little they had
being a prisoner of poverty was like being a prisoner of war

Billy is neutral in all situations

Why was he weeping?

Billy's life seems boring, lonely, and empty

Billy is a POW, stuck in a train, helmet as a toilet

SCHLACHTOF ZWEI

Who is Billy Pilgrim? - son of a barber from Ilium, New York

"So it goes." repeated after a tragedy/death

Billy's family thinks he has gone insane

"plumber's friend"- plunger

Weary is demented talking about torture weapons

I'm not enjoying this novel because of the lock of (chronological order) time.

Billy doesn't have a helmet in the war, Weary (fat kid) thinks he is the leader.

Who is doing the talking?

Pilgrim- traveler to unknown places

First got unstuck in time, 1944

SCHLACHTHOF EINS- one slaughterhouse

• Author is the narrator and a character in the book
• "So it goes" comes up at specific moments
• Book about war and Vonnegut remembering the past
• Mustard gas and roses (poisonous and deadly but sweet and romantic)
• No sense of time (no chronological order)
• Interesting how he uses crayons and wallpaper to organize his memory (significance of orange crayon for firebombing?)
• Vonnegut is anti-war but was in the war
• Is the whole book going to be him talking about writing the book and war?
• O'Hore doesn't want her children to join war because she is afraid they will die
• I don't understand what the title stands for

The Modern Great Gatsby

(my modern remix of The Great Gatsby)
Marissa was a beautiful young lady who lived in the city. She had a boyfriend, Holden, who was self-centered and careless but would do anything to keep him and Marissa together. Marissa loved Holden once, she is the materialistic type who is also careless, so you can say they are perfect for each other. Before Marissa dated Holden she was in love with Jeremy. Jeremy and Marissa dated and were their high schools "it' couple, no one ever thought they would break-up. After graduation Marissa and Jeremy went to different colleges and tried to manage their long-distance relationship. Never seeing each other Marissa gave up on Jeremy and moved on and started dating Holden.
  At their high schools five year reunion Marissa brought Holden and Jeremy, crushed, showed up alone, staring at the love of his life with another man. Holden didn't like Jeremy because Holden knew that Jeremy still loved Marissa and Holden was in denial that Marissa still loved Jeremy. The reunion lasted a couple days, the first night was a welcome back party, the second day was a luncheon, and the third day was another party.
  On the third night Holden and Jeremy started yelling at each other and got in a fight over Marissa. Jeremy claimed that she didn't love Holden and Marissa threatened to leave Holden. Holden took Marissa by her wrist and pulled her to their 2013 BMW. Jeremy left as well and followed them to their hotel so he knew Marissa was safe.
  The next day Jeremy tried to call Marissa hoping she wanted to get lunch before she left town but she never picked up her cellphone and he knew he had lost her again.

The Great Gatsby Essay

 In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway is the confidant. He listens to Gatsby's life stories leading the reader through the story. The narrator's curiosity about Gatsby is part of the sympathetic listener role in a confidant character. Nick is also a character of other purposes as well; he is the narrator and everyone tells Nick what is going on.

 Nick's character leads us through Gatsby's world by Nick being so interested in Gatsby's life and becoming his good friend. Having Gatsby and Nick be neighbors but also having different personas intrigues Nick into Gatsby's life. Nick's truthful and reliable traits support his character as the confidant , Gatsby's mysterious character opening up about his life to Nick makes the plot more understandable for the reader. Jay Gatsby is a mystery to everyone else but Nick because Gatsby opened up and told Nick all his life adventures.

 Having Nick be present in the plot brings the story together and makes the situation seem more real. Nick knowing all Gatsby's secrets and about the love triangles brought the story to a real dimension of how twisted society can get. Fitzgerald writing Nick as the narrator instead of a different style keeps the novel in perspective of one person's ideas who isn't from that area and is new to East Egg. The reader and Nick are both new to the East Egg lifestyle and how everyone is connected.

 With F. Scott Fitzgerald writing Nick Carraway as the narrator and being the confidant in the novel, The Great Gatsby, the reader understands the tone and theme better. Nick's character accomplishes displaying the type of life everyone wanted to have and the real people behind the fancy clothes. Carraway's character guides the reader through Jay Gatsby's world better than Jay Gatsby would.

MAP

      

http://prezi.com/a-tudtotk4nh/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-a-tudtotk4nh&rc=ref-35759923

Wallace Stevens lived from 1879-1955 and wrote from 1914-1955. Wallace wrote mostly poems and some essays. He is apart of the modernist genre. I believe his purpose for writing was to get his thoughts out of his head and to express what he was feeling in an artistic way. I really enjoyed reading through some of Stevens pieces and the rhyming scheme he uses in all the poems I read made it easy to read but the content made you think. I am amazed at the diction he uses in his poems, the words he chooses are complex but powerful. My favorite poem by Stevens is "A Postcard from the Volcano" and my favorite Wallace Stevens quote is "It can never be satisfied, the mind, never." 

MAPLAN

My MAP Plan is to do the project just like the one Dr. Preston made years back. The way I'm going to hack it is use pictures whenever I can to get a point across more clear.



Edited
I changed the way I was going to do the project. I decided to do a Prezi because I think it is more interesting than just answering the questions.

Josie College

Today for English we went into the Career Center at our school. I really love talking about what my future is going to be like even though I am not sure what I want my career to be. I do want to go to a big-ish, co-ed school that has warm weather and scenery. I want to go into a field with business or design but I have a challenge on what I want to major in and how far from home I want to go. Getting ready for college is a good opportunity to make a big decision in your life that sets you up for the rest of your life because you aren't completely alone if you have your family supporting you.

I am Wallace STEVENS

I am born October 2, 1879 in Reading, PA.
I am the son of a prosperous lawyer.
I am married to Elsie Viola Kachel and we have a daughter Holly.
I am suffering from stomach cancer.
I am politically conservative.

MAP (1): Introducing Wallace Stevens

1. Attended Harvard University
2. His alter-ego Crispin
3. Much of his poetry is about poetry
4. None of his family attended his wedding
5. Died from stomach cancer

Spring Vocabulary #6

Chronic- constant; habitual
•Chronic illness also seems to be evolving rapidly.

Sentiment- feeling
•With the brand we're really trying to express the sentiments of youth, the new generation.

Morality- conformity to the rules of right conduct
•I will make enemies if I impose morality on people.

Remorse- regret; feeling of sorrow
•Don't expect me to feel remorse for the scum of the earth.

Defect- a shortcoming, fault, or imperfection
• The urge to write is like a congenital birth defect.

Acquaintance- a person known to one, usually not a close friend
• A business acquaintance is trying to break into your close social circle.

Sanity- healthful state of mind
• The more you talk, the more I lose my sanity.

Implication- to involve, esp. incriminating
•Time will be needed to assess the implications of the response to consultation from both an official and a political point of view.

Alternative- a choice between two or more possibilities
• We had to take the alternative route to LA because our first route has traffic.

Savage- fierce, or cruel; untamed
• The seagulls fought old french fries like savages.

Phenomenon- an occurrence or fact that can be perceived by the senses
• The meteor shower was a natural phenomenon.

Richard Cory Modernism Essay

Modernism literature works were breaking the rules of the Victorian literature era. The post World War 1 writing style was designed to emphasize the inner-self and consciousness. "Richard Cory" is a Modernist poem. Elements like the time period, the target audience, and the idea about all truth becoming relative reinforce Modernism.
Edwin Arlington Robinson published "Richard Cory" in 1897 which falls around the Modernism time period of the early 1900s to 1965. Being so close to the beginning of Modernism Robinson's poem is considered to be Modernism.
The target audience of this poem is the lower to middle/working class. Modernist writers wrote pieces of the people. Richard Cory, in the poem, was a person who people looked up to and the "people on the pavement" didn't see how he was hurting just like they were. The authors of Modernist literature targeted this audience to give them a world outside of their own, like
when they look up to Richard Cory they see that everything is perfect and okay on the surface.
The biggest shock in the poem is the last line when Richard Cory takes his own life. Robinson shares a truth with his audience that money can't bring happiness to people. Readers get the inner feelings of the workers who wait for the light and curse the bread and the people who are richer than a king. The truth about both groups is they are unhappy and the workers think Richard Cory is happy because he has money but Modernist writers make all truths relative.
The Modernist poem, "Richard Cory", has the correct time period, target audience, and truths being relative which are all qualities of being Modernism literary works. Robinson makes his poem emphasize the inner-self and consciousness that post World War 1 writers did.

This Modern Moment

At this moment in time when I am typing these words out it is different from what I would've typed five years ago. This moment is different because I think different and my surroundings are different. In this modern moment I see the world in a different perspective than I would have five years ago. Not only that but the world has changed in five years just like I have. I am obviously older then I was five years ago so my thoughts and views on topics come from an more mature mind as a junior in high school rather than a sixth grader about to go into Jr. high.

My Modernist

I chose Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955) because we have the same last name so I thought it would be cool to learn about him.

I Can Read

Watch me attempt to read Dr. Seuss' Fox in Sox!!

This is a real tongue twister :O

Spring Vocab #5

Brouhaha- an uproar
Cloy- overly sweet
Demeanor- a persons manners towards others
Deference- to easily go with others wants and ideas
Enigmatic- puzzling
Definitive- precisely outlining
Bumptious- very demanding behavior
Choleric- bad tempered
Bulwark- a wall with a similar structured being used as defence
Curtail- to cut short
Adamant- to be unwilling to try new things
Profligate- to be recklessly wasteful
Mawkish- to be very annoying when emotional
Thwart- to prevent something form taking place
Onus- burden
Requisite- necessary
Mollify- to claim
Sartorial- pertaining to tailors
Presentiment- having a sense of a future occurrence
Impromptu- reforming without rehearsal
Forbearance- prohibited
Remit- sending or canceling

The First Seven Years

The end is definitely an unexpected twist on the story. I wonder if Miriam ever ended up with Sobel? I thought it was cute how Feld was trying to set Max and Miriam up together but it was odd at the same time because he was in college and she was 19. I thought it was predictable that Miriam and Max wouldn't have a connection because they seemed so different by how they were characterized.

I am Here

So far this semester, in just this course, I feel like I am doing really well and I get the tools and materials more this year than last semester. I need to improve in keeping up with my reading but on a grading scale I feel like I am getting an A in the class. On what I am getting from the class outside the class is also an A because we are learning tools that can help is in other classes and in the future.

In Mildred's Parlor

When Montag reads the poem "Dover Beach" to Mildred and her friends, Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles, in the parlor. A better poem for this seen I think would be
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-husband-my-soldier-my-hero-my-friend/

ESSAY POSTGAME ANALYSIS

On my essay in class on F451 I thought I did well on identifying the major themes that were reinforced in the end of the novel. For next time I can improve on the examples I give to support what I am saying and the lit terms I use as supporting elements. Based on that I would give myself a B

I Can Read!

MY F451

Summary: Montag was the typical middle class man. He was a firefighter with a wife and a nice house. As a firefighter he had to burn books and thought nothing of it until he met a girl, Clarisse, who made him question his own thoughts. One day on the job a woman went with her books and her house. Montag had that engraved in her brain and wondered why someone would die for books. His curiosity was going out of control and he was stealing books from work and hiding them at home. When he showed his wife the collection he has been making she was so shocked. Montag went to Faber to ask him about the bible. The fireman captian, Beatty, was told that Montag had books in his house so Montag had to burn his own house. He killed Beatty and the hound and started running. At the end of the book Montag finds other people who ran after their houses got burned.

Bradbury's style and diction helped me understand the point he was trying to get across because every word had a meaning and reason behind him using tat word. This style of writing gave each word a bigger impact and made the story easier to understand if you knew all the words.

To Modern or Postmodern

About David Foster Wallace quote.
In simpler terms, I feel that he is saying our world is boring and people are becoming boring. Because of this authors are running out of creative, fresh, and new ideas to write about so they are just criticizing everything that is wrong with the world hoping you do something while they do nothing.

The Time of My Life

With the time we were given in class to work I was reading to get a little ahead and so I can comprehend what I was reading.

Spring Vocab 2

1 Patronage- power to control appointments

2 Cadence- rythmic flow of a sequence of sound and words

3 Suffused- to overspread something with a liquid

4 Sieve- a strainer

5 Centrifuge- a machine that has a compartment spun around an axis to separate contained materials of different densities

6 Dentifrice- toothpaste

7 Leisure- doing something withou a hurry in free time

8 Vessel- hollow container to hold liquid

9 Saccharine- excessively sweet (first artificial sweetener)

10 Phonograph- record player

11 Profusion- abundance

Spring Vocab 1

1) Probaskis-Nose

2) Pantomime-Using gestures, not speech.
3) Proclivities-Tendency to choose or do something regularly.
4) Centrofuge-Compartment around an axis to separate contained materials of different density.
5) Odious-Extremely unpleasant.
6) Jargon-Nonsensical or incoherent talk.
7) Ravanous-Extremely hungry.
8) Parlor-A room set apart for the entertainment of visitors.
9) Stagnant-Showing no activity/Not moving.
10) Cacophony-A harsh sound.
11) Tampt-Top pack down tightly.
12) Flourish-Grow or thrive.
13) Plateau-An area of elevated flat ground.
14) Rollick-To romp/Frolic
15) Asylum-Shelter to protect from danger.

Peeved Pedestrian

Bradbury wrote the novel Fahrenheit 451 to inform the society about how we don't pay attention to the world we live in. Bradbury uses allusions to say a lot in few words. He lists authors that Montag burnt the books of at work to say what type of books firefighters burn, Dante was an example and he wrote about hell.

Theme for English 3

I believe that I am the persons teachers think I am. I also believe that in the world that I can be myself and pursue my knowledge. At school I feel that I need to make sure I am focused to get the most out of my learning experience but sometimes it's hard because I am a teenager and there are distractions because, yeah, it's life. I like to keep a lot of my life private especially at school, I don't like to share a lot with people because I know how gossip works and people are loudmouths. I think it is possible for you to take ownership of your learning process and demonstrate what you know.

Fahrenheit 451

5 Things I think are important to know:
•Set in a future American society where books are outlawed and firemen burn any house that contains them.
•About how television destroys interest in reading literature
•The title of the book represents what the author thought the autoignition point of paper was
•Montag is the main character
•"Dover Beach" is in the novel

Theme For English B

My video reciting Langston Hughes "Theme for English B". I am posting it on my blog because I needed to spend more time reading the poem in depth. This is a lot better than I thought I could do in class and would like to thank Dr. Preston for giving the opportunity to do this without the pressure of the class and all the distractions. Having my eyes closed made it more relaxing for me and less awkward being recorded. (Sorry for the crazy face at the end I couldn't make it stop recording)

SPRING POST 1: Music as Literature

Can we consider music to be literature? How do we define literature? What is the difference between a novel, a poem, a rap, a song, an opera, and a symphony?

• Music can be considered literature because most music tells a story and/or takes you through an emotional journey. Music is separated from most typical literary genres because it is a literature work set to musical instruments and beats. The definition of literature is always changing and depends on the person defining it but I think that literature is a written work. Literature can also be oral, for example before people knew how to write their stories would be told orally. The difference between a novel, a poem, a rap, a song, an opera, and a symphony is they appeal to different audiences and they can all tell the same story in a different way. The difference in literature is how something is interpreted and how the author/creator makes their interpretation of an idea available for others.