My Journey

This class has been quite the amazing experience. I didn't really know what open source learning was upon entering this class, I had heard from previous students of your class that we had to have our own blog. I thought having our own blogs sounded neat, but I was extremely nervous with this change, as I have never previously done open source learning. I guess you could say I am a person who isn't too fond of change. Once I am used to doing things a certain way, I like them to stay like that. I had also heard from previous students that there was a lot of assignments, and this course requires a lot of independence because you must stay on top of your blog. That was the main reason for the nerves I had before entering the class, the independence, but I figured I was going to be a senior in high school so this would be a great learning experience before college.

Ince the school year began, I quickly adjusted to using the blog, in fact, I began to enjoy using the blog, and learning and exploring the blogs was fun, just as John Savage in Brave New World enjoyed learning and discovering the new world. For someone like me who is constantly busy and not home and usually training in the gymnastics gym, this was perfect because I almost always have my iphone with me, and I was able to post wherever I was, especially during snack breaks at practice. I feel that we definitely earned and deserved the trust you placed upon my colleagues and I with our blogs. We were able to reach out and receive help from one another by using our blogs to communicate. We were able to go and comment and ask questions on each others posts. When I needed help, or had a question I always had someone there to answer me.

This year was my last year/season as a competitive gymnast, mainly due to a knee injury that occurred at the beginning of the school year. I knew it was going to be hard to say goodbye to this sport as gymnastics is in my blood and I can't even describe how much I love the sport, even though I say I "hate" it all the time. When you dedicate so much time to something as I did with gymnastics, you feel like a part of you is ripped out when it suddenly ends. Now I have really discovered through out high school, and especially this year, that I want to study and pursue my other passion which is performing arts. This year I auditioned for the PCPA program, as I have performed for them since I was 12 as a child actor. I auditioned and beat out over a thousand other applicants and made it to the final callbacks which was a group of only 70 people. Only 30 spots were available this year of that 70, and I was unfortunately told that they did not except me this year based on how young I was because I will still be 17 when the program starts and that they had many people apply that already had bachelors degrees, but they would like me to reapply next year. When I found this out my heart was crushed. I was extremely upset and angry at the world all because I did not get in. I soon realized maybe this was for the best, I could get my GE done this year, which is what PCPA prefers, and then reapply next year. Then there was still the heart break of about a month ago when my gymnastics season ended, and it was officially time to say goodbye. As I previously stated, I love this sport with all of my heart, and on my last practice I was an emotional wreck, I couldn't say goodbye to my teammates who are basically my sisters because I was with them in the gym more than my own family. But more good was to come, as my gym owner pulled me aside and offered me a coaching position. I really believe everything happens for a reason, and now this year I will be able to get my GE done and reapply to PCPA and still be involved in the sport that I love just in a little bit of a different way.

I'll never forget when Caroline, Micaela, and I wrote the character study about me being an alien. We were literally laughing so hard we were almost in tears as we were writing the story. My group especially had fun including making fun of me and my Justin Bieber music in the story.

Passion is clearly a theme that was common in many of the presentations in the class. I saw this in Daniel's passion for learning, Maira's passion for helping others, Allyson's passion for biology, Rudy's passion for music, Becky's passion for dance, and Jason's passion for wrestling. I loved watching these presentations because I could clearly see that they were very into what they were speaking about.

I am proud of what I have accomplished on this journey so far. I took the challenge of my masterpiece which I was extremely nervous about at first, but once I took the plunge into the water I realized this was a new adventure. Michaila and I went on to seek a mentor and were successful. After all the dedication Michaila and I put into our masterpiece we were ecstatic with the final result and it showed that all our hard work really paid off.

Thanks Dr. Preston for believing in every single person in our class, and pushing us to do our very best. Yes, it was rough waters at times but I always made it out stronger. I learned so much this year and am so grateful to experience open source learning and become closer with many of my colleagues.

Graduation Is Almost Here!!! Holy Cow!!

Well tonight I received my chords to wear at graduation, which was pretty exciting! But I think it's just now hitting me that we are actually graduating a week from tomorrow. As much as I have said I "hate" high school, I know I'm going to miss it because once we graduate we are all going our separate ways, which makes me pretty sad. On a good note, I can't wait to see what the future has in store, and am ready to begin a new chapter in my life.

Masterpiece Final Thoughts...

So tomorrow is the day Michaila and I will finally present our masterpiece that we've worked very hard on and put a lot of time into. I'm excited to present and show everyone what we've been working on, but I do get pretty nervous speaking in front of the class. I'm hoping everything will go as planned tomorrow. :)

Masterpiece Update

Michaila and I have been doing really well with our masterpiece, it is really coming along!! I have also learned a lot from my masterpiece by getting to speak professionals about physical therapy.

Masterpiece Update

Michaila and I have met with several of the workers from Star Physical Therapy, and they have been very helpful in answering our questions about high school athletes and injuries. It's been fun learning more about physical therapy!

Macbeth Act 5

ACT 5

A dr. observes Lady MacBeth and her nocturnal walking

They think she feels guilt for the murders of Banquo and Duncan

Tyrants are protecting Dunsinane

ten thousand soldiers approaching

men are ready to fight and die

MacBeth makes it knows that he is not afraid of death

Lady MacBeth's illness is within her heart therefor it can not be cured

Soldiers disguise themselves in the woods in other words they hide out

Once told that Lady MacBeth has died MacBeth suddenly fears death once again

Malcolm and his army finally reach the castle

MacBeth is Macduffs only target

Macbeth Act 4

ACT 4

the third apparition says Duncan and Malcolm may be able to harm MacBeth

there were 8 kings

the witches disappear

Macduff abandoned his family and fled to England

a messenger tells Macduffs wife and son to leave because "danger is near"

They don't leave and they are killed

Malcolm doesn't trust Macduff

One dr. can cure patients just by touching them

Ross reports that Macduffs whole family is killed

Malcolm and Macduff are going to fight back

Macbeth Act III

ACT 3

-witches prophecy's come true

-MacBeth doesn't want Fleance to become king

-MacBeth views Banquo as a threat

-Lady MacBeth and MacBeth become King and Queen

-Banquo is killed

-Fleance fled

-MacBeth worries about Fleance revenge

-MacBeth saw Banquo's ghost

-King Edward and Duncan's son are preparing for war against MacBeth

Michael Bublé "It's A Beautiful Day"

This song is a great way to start the day. It is just one of those songs that automatically makes me happy! :)

"A Pep Talk from Kid President to You" This kid is AWESOME

Macbeth Act 2 Notes

Act 2

-MacBeth decided to kill Duncan

-Lady MacBeth drugged the Chaimberlains of kings

-Macduff tells everyone of kings murder

-Donalbalin goes to Ireland and Malcolm goes to England

-MacBeth is ready to be officially crowned king

LOOK AT MY BRAIN

My masterpiece that I am collaborating with Michaila, has really come a long way. We have had to be super creative because we combined two completely separate ideas to form one big masterpiece. I think that is the best part about working on our masterpiece is how much creativity it has shown.

What About My Masterpiece?

Michaila and I have still found time to work on our masterpiece even with all the work we are doing for Macbeth. I love our masterpiece because as we work on it our ideas expand and grow and we have really been developing our masterpiece!

Macbeth Act 1 Notes

Act 1

the 3 witches are introduced

the bloody battle occurs

a wounded captain tells about the battle and of MacBeths bravery

witches are dark and evil

MacBeth asks the witches about his future

his child will be king

the witches say no more and vanish

Duncans oldest son is now in line to be king

Lady MacBeth has planned to kill the king

Lady MacBeth makes her plan obvious

MacBeth is hesitant to follow her plan

My Team

Michaila Bohard and I will be working together on combining together what we both wanted to have our masterpieces based, gymnastics, and physical therapy. I personally thought these two would go great together since I just came out of a knee injury and if it weren't for physical therapy I wouldn't be competing this season. In gymnastics a lot of injuries can actually be prevented by doing different exercises to strengthen specific muscles in the gymnasts body. We are also going to talk with physical therapists on what exercises a gymnast can do to prevent injuries. I am also going to talk about how being safe in the gymnastics gym and taking simple precautions will help prevent injuries as well.

Seeking Mentor

My expert really is an expert! They can really go into detail on what they've seen as far as common injuries with gymnasts, how to prevent them, and how rigorous gymnastics is on the human body.

My Macbeth Resources

I found a great website that is a study guide for Macbeth. It breaks down Macbeth into study guide sections. Ir is a great resource to use!

Resource of the Day

My resource of the day is actually my dad. My dad will becoming to my gymnastics practice to get footage on his professional camera to put towards our video, and he is also going to show me how to use his camera so I can film some of my teammates.

Lit Analysis 3

1. I chose the novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. The story is about an African American man and his adversities that helped him get to the person he is now. The story is in the 1920's in the south. Had a talent with writing and public speaking, the main character gives a speech when he was a teen and got a scholarship for college. When he was at college he was in charge of driving Mr. Norton, who is a wealthy white trustee at the college. One day Mr. Norton overheard someone talking about Jim Trueblood, an uneducated African American man who got one of his daughters pregnant . After he heard that Mr. Norton goes to the bar to get a drink. when the true rumor spreads through the college, the college's president who expels the narrator. The narrator moves to Harlem, gets a job. Things are looking up for the narrator, until he got hurt on the job and looses consciousness. He recovers then joins a group called the Brotherhood, headed by Brother Jack. Again things go bad and the brotherhood begins to question the narrators motives in being part of the organization. In fear the narrator hides from the brotherhood. Finally the narrator returns home to a riot and falls into a hole in the street. Police tries to kill him by surrounding the hole he fell into. The narrator tries to tell them that he lived in that hole for the day. This accident gets the narrator to look back on things and gives him the motivation to what he wants and tell his story of life. Telling his story the he finally gets the strength within himself to come out of the hole because he stayed true to himself.

2. The main theme of the novel is the courage to stay true to who you are. considering he was an African American man living in the south in the 1920's those were bad times and it was tempting for him to take the easy way out of things and accept the poor treatment towards blacks. But it was harder to speak out about the cruelty and make a change. It was a struggle he had to overcome in order to face himself and others.
3. Some people might view his tone as cross or dreary, because of his reflection he has all the time on on the racism issue at the time and his struggles. But I see honesty and thoughtfulness.
“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?”
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”
“The world is a possibility if only you'll discover it.”
4.Literary Devices:
-symbolism
-setting
-tone
-theme
-figurative language
-allusions
-diction
-imagery
-allegory
-point of view

“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?”
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”
“The world is a possibility if only you'll discover it.”
“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.”
“I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even as just now I've tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth. No one was satisfied”
“And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own.”
“Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.”
“I remember that I'm invisible and walk softly so as not awake the sleeping ones. Sometimes it is best not to awaken them; there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.”
“Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me.”
“The truth is the light and the light is the truth.
“Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.”
“Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.”
“I'd like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing "What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue"-all at the same time. Sometimes now I listen to Louis while I have my favorite dessert of vanilla ice cream and sloe gin. I pour the red liquid over the white mound, watching it glisten and the vapor rising as Louis bends that military instrument into a beam of lyrical sound.”
“I felt that even when they were polite they hardly saw me, that they would have begged the pardon of Jack the Bear, never glancing his way if the bear happened to be walking along minding his business. It was confusing. I did not know if it was desirable or undesirable...”

Characterization
1. The narrator describes his thoughts and actions through the entire story,so he is always using direct characterization.
2.I did not notice much change in the author's tone when discussing characters mainly because the author writes through the main character describing his thoughts and feelings
3. The main character is definitely dynamic because he struggles with being himself and being conformed by the racist outlook, he is also a round character because he has so many qualities.
4. I actually got into the book, it was like i was experiencing it with him.

Resource of the day

Michaila Bohard and I have decided to team up with our ideas for our masterpieces and work together to make one masterpiece. She wants to do hers on physical therapy, and I want to do mine on gymnastics. What better way than to talk about how gymnastics effects the body, what common injuries gymnasts can get, and how physical therapy plays a big role in gymnasts lives.

Brave New World: Completed

I finished reading Brave New World which I am so happy to finally have finished reading. I as worried that I wouldn't finish it time, but I somehow managed in my chaotic week to finsih it. My fellow classmates that sat around me while we had a sub last week and myself discussed any confusion we had with the book. After speaking with them I am very confident in my understanding of the book.

Welcome!

I would just like to put it out there that yes, my blog is a big work in progress right now, but I am getting there. I have a lot of drafts that I am almost done with that will be up shortly. In the mean time, I hope you enjoy what I do have posted up on my blog right now.

Super 5

Identify 5 potential experts who can serve as role models and/or endorse your work:

1. My gymnastics coaches.

2. Previous physical therapists who will be talking to us about how important it is for not only gymnasts, but all athletes to prevent and treat injuries properly.

3. Social Media to help spread the word about what we are doing and to help promote our project.

4. I have a teammate who dislocated her elbow last year and she will be talking about how she could have prevented her injury in the first place, but also how physical therapy helped her make a full recovery.

5. Olympic gymnast Mckayla Maroney as an example.

Lit Analysis #2

1. There is so much to the plot of this book, so I can only hope that I do it justice. Huxley sets the book in A.F. (after Ford) where the point of A.F. is that people are created by mass production, are trained to be in castes, trained to know only what they are told, and are matured by the age of four. And sexual activity is encouraged. The story is about Bernard, an alpha who does not fit in physically or mentally to the "brave new world". He rebels, meets "savages" outside of his world, brings them back to live in the world he disgusts so much, and soon one of the savages, John, gets too overwhelmed by the non-feeling, twisted world of not-so-free thinking.

2. The theme of the novel that I caught was freedom of the mind, and the ability to think and feel freely. Everyone takes something different from a book they read, depending on their standpoint and personal experiences. In my mind, while reading, Huxley proves how important our own humanity and feelings are to society, and how nothing would be normal without it. It occurs over and over in the book, so it just makes sense.

3. The tone that Huxley carries throughout the novel changes sometimes, but he is pretty dramatic and wise about most of the situations. “I am I, and I wish I weren't.” “No social stability without individual stability.” “...most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.”

4.
Personification: “I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then," he added in a lower tone, "I ate my own wickedness.”
Allusion: "You got rid of them. Yes, that's just like you. Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether 'tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows or outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them...But you don't do either."
Parallelism: “I want God, I want poetry, I want danger, I want freedom, I want sin.”
Rhythm and rhyme: “Ending is better than mending.”
Alliteration: "Mustapha Mond"
Oxymoron: “Pain was a fascinating horror”
Simile: “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
Verse: “The more stitches, the less riches.”
Imagery: “A squat gray building of only thirty-four stories.”
Amplification: “Words can be like x-rays if you use them properly - they'll go through anything.”


Characterization
1.Indirect: “All alone, outside the pueblo, on the bare plain of the mesa. The rock was like bleached bones in the moonlight. Down in the valley, the coyotes were howling at the moon. The bruises hurt him, the cuts were still bleeding; but it was not for pain that he sobbed; it was because he was all alone, because he had been driven out, alone, into this skeleton world of rocks and moonlight. At the edge of the precipice he sat down. The moon was behind him; he looked down into the black shadow of the mesa, into the black shadow of death. He had only to take one step, one little jump.. He held out his right hand in the moonlight. From the cut on his wrist the blood was still oozing. Every few seconds a drop fell, dark, almost colourless in the dead light. Drop, drop, drop. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. He had discovered Time and Death and God.”
Direct: "A squat gray building of only thirty-four stories."

Huxley uses the indirect to build up the feeling that you are actually there, while using direct characterization to paint an image for you in your head.

2. Huxley's syntax stays constant, and his diction changes based on the situation at hand. During the beginning of the book, he used bugs at one point to describe the dystopia and the people that were living in it. Different characters called for different words and descriptions. He described Bernard as a too-small-for-his-own-good Alpha who doesn't belong as much as Hemholtz does.

3. The protagonist, Bernard, is definitely a round dynamic character. He changes throughout the book from someone who is closed minded with his thoughts to someone who is capable of speaking his mind and setting forth his feelings about the twisted world they live in.

4. After reading this book, I feel like I understand the constant breakdown of emotions and feelings encompassing John and his constant battle against the confusingly robotic world that Bernard resides in. It made sense to me from the very beginning how frustrating the dystopia was without common ideals and differences of opinion.
"He was obscurely terrified lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of." Here, Huxley is describing what John is feeling as Lenina seduces him; he feels so lost in himself and the world he is living in. But somehow, he conjures up the power of resistance.

Lit Terms #6

Simile: comparing two things using the word "like" or "as"

Soliloquy: a long speech given by a character in a play to the audience that reveals their thoughts

Spiritual: a folk song, usually on a religious theme

Speaker: the person who is speaker; narrator

Stereotype: a fixed idea of a character/idea which does not allow for any individual prejudices

Stream of consciousness: a style of writing that portrays the inner workings of a character's mind

Structure: framework of a work of literature

Style: the distinctive way in which a writer uses language; use of diction, tone, syntax

Subordination: words, phrases, and clauses that make one element of a sentence dependent on another

Surrealism: movement that replaces conventional realism with the full expression of the unconscious mind

Suspension of disbelief: suspended not believing in order to enjoy it

Symbol: a person, place, thing or event that had meaning in itself and also stands for something more than itself

Synesthesia: to present ideas, characters, or places in such a manner that they appeal to more than one senses like hearing, seeing, smell, at the same time

Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole

Syntax: the way an author chooses to join word into phrases, clauses, and sentences

Theme: the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary

Thesis: the sentence or group of sentences that directly express the author's opinion, purpose, or meaning

Tone: the attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience

Tongue in cheek: cleverly amusing in tone

Tragedy: any literary composition dealing with a somber theme

Understatement: the ironic minimizing of fact; presents something as less significant than it is

Vernacular: everyday language; slang

Voice: the author's style that makes his or her writing unique and conveys the author's attitude, personality, and character

Zeitgeist: the general cultural, intellectual, or spiritual climate within a nation or even specific groups

LAUNCH/DRAFT

Since I have decided this will be my last year being a competitive gymnast, I want show my passion for gymnastics in my masterpiece.

I can use the internet to help guide me and promote myself.

I need to stay on top of my work and not let myself get behind so that I may have a less stressful last semester of high school.

What will impress others in my life and my field is showing others my dedication and hard work and how it pays off.

I have to put forth the effort from my idea and actually make it work and not let myself hold back at all.

I want people who will help guide me in the right direction in my personal learning network and people that have always been there guiding me and helping me.

HAFTA/WANNA

I think that high school and college are two completely different places in life. I feel that I will be doing a lot of growing up when college starts because it is so much more independent based compared to being in high school. In high school you constantly have teachers reminding you to study, requiring that you take notes from the power point, when in college this is all on you and and you must stay on top of yourself and your work. Having said that we have learned to have to keep up with work in high school, especially myself when I began taking AP classes which require similar independence of that in college. So in many ways I feel prepared for college. I think that it's definitely going to take some time to adjust to not having someone there to stay in too of myself and that it definitely doesn't just magically happen the day you graduate. I think the key balance will be putting my school priorities first before anything else, because I think so many people in their first year of college get overwhelmed because they don't put their college education first and worry too much about the "college experience" (partying). I expect there to be challenges I am going to be facing in college, but I am looking forward to being able to work towards my dreams.

Literature Analysis #4

1. Bless Me Ultima takes place in Guadalupe, New Mexico, during World War 2. The main character Antonio Marez. His curandera Ultima tries to stop the madness between the daughters of Tenorio (antagonist). Antonio struggles throughout the story when he witnesses the death of people. He ponders religious questions as well as moral problems. He has to choose between two lifestyles: crazy and wild or calm and sane. Religion becomes and issue in this decision because Antonio tries to figure out who he is and what religion he chooses to follow, if any at all.

2. Theme: Influence on family and religion: Antonio has to make a lot of decisions throughout the story when it comes to religion and how his family tries to make decisions for him. Different cultures try to mess with his identity and that had a big impact on who he was in life.
Personal Values: Antonio has to decide what he wants to value in life whether it is family, religion, or morals. He has to make his own decisions and balance them out with the ideas of others. He has so many people trying to change who he is that it becomes a challenge to keep his identity.

3. The tone the author used was very casual.
"God! Why did Lupito die? Why do you allow the evil of the Trementinas?"
"Hell, Andy,' Gene said softly, 'we can't build out lives on their dreams."
"Why did you allow Narciso to be murdered when he was doing good?"

4. Literary Elements/ Devices:

Tone: The author used a very casual tone that was easy to understand.
Direct Characterization: The author did a great job of directly describing characters with enough detail where I was able to imagine what the characters were like as people as I was reading.
Indirect Characterazaion: Antonio is a good example of a character that was indirectly described. He was described through actions, but in such a strong way that I felt like I knew him just as well as the other characters.
Imagery: The description of setting made me think of where it was and when I closed my eyes I felt like I was there. I felt a sense of imagery within the characters as well, and it helped with my imagining of their character.
Syntax/diction: "we can't build out lives on their dreams."
Implication: "He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career."
Narrator: "Sometimes I felt like Jason, like I wanted to shout and cry, but I never did."
Metaphor: "The sun was good. The men of the llano were men of the sun. The men of the farms along the river were men of the moon. But we were all children of the white sun."

Tale of Two Cities Lecture Notes

Lit Terms #4

interior monologue- expressing a character's inner thoughts

inversion- the action of inverting something

juxtaposition- the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect

lyric- expressing the writer's emotions, usually briefly and in stanzas or recognized forms

magic(al) realism- magic elements are a natural part in an otherwise mundane, realistic environment

metaphor- a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable

vehicles- a thing used to express, embody, or fulfill something

metonymy- the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or
the track for horse racing

modernism- modern character or quality of thought, expression, or technique

monologue- a long speech by one actor in a play or movie, or as part of a theatrical or broadcast program

mood- evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through words and descriptions.

motif- a decorative design or pattern

myth- a traditional story, esp. one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically
involving supernatural beings or event

narrative- a spoken or written account of connected events; a story

narrator- the one telling the story

omniscient point of view- narrator is a character in the story, but also knows the thoughts and feelings of all the other characters

onomatopoeia- the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named

oxymoron- a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction

parable- a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson

paradox- a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory

Lit Terms #3

exposition- The beginning

expressionism- a style of painting, music, or drama in which the artist or writer seeks to express emotional experience rather than

impressions of the external world

fable- a short story

fallacy- a mistaken belief, esp. one based on unsound argument

falling action- what happens after the climax

farce- a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization

figurative language- expressing ideas indirectly; language used in a special way to create a special effect made up of words and phrases

which don’t mean what they first appear to mean

flashback- a scene in a movie, novel, etc., set in a time earlier than the main story

foil- prevent (something considered wrong or undesirable) from succeeding

folk tale- a story originating in popular culture, typically passed on by word of mouth

foreshadowing- be a warning or indication of (a future event)

free verse- poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter

genre- a category

gothic tale- genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance

hyperbole- exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally

imagery- visually descriptive or figurative language, esp. in a literary work

implication- the conclusion that can be drawn from something, although it is not explicitly stated

incongruity- the state of being incongruous or out of keeping

inference- a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning

irony- the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect

Lit Terms #2

circumlocution-the use of many words where fewer would do, esp. in a deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive-tending to avoid commitment or self-revelation, esp. by responding only indirectly
classicism-the following of ancient Greek or Roman principles and style in art and literature
cliche-a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought
climax-the highest point
colloquialism-a word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation.
comedy-A dramatic work that is light and often humorous or satirical in tone and that usually contains a happy resolution of the thematic conflict
conflict-A problem
connotation-an idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning
contrast-the state of being strikingly different from something else, typically something in juxtaposition or close association
denotation-the literal or primary meaning of a word
denouement-the final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved
dialect- a particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group
dialectics- the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions
dichotomy- a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different
diction- The choice or use of words
didactic- Intended to instruct
dogmatic- inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true
elegy- a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead
epic- a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition
epigram- a pithy saying or remark expressing an idea in a clever and amusing way
epitaph- a phrase or statement written in memory of a person who has died
epithet- an adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality characteristic of the person or thing mentioned
euphemism-a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing
evocative- bringing strong images, memories, or feelings to mind

HACKING MY EDUCATION

My goal for this semester and what I want to know is what I previously spoke about in my last post, which is to basically put school first and hot to avoid procrastination this way I am able to eliminate a lot of stress and have more time to enjoy my last semester of high school and focus on my goals outside of high school. With my blog there is always something I can do to improve the quality and content, I would specifically like to post more personal posts of things outside of the class. And honestly I don't know what experiences I want to have before I graduate, I guess I'm just taking them as they come along, but I do know I hope to have a lot of wonderful experiences in this last semester of high school.

WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?

My goal this semester is really just to focus on doing my best in my last semester of high school and to avoid the "senioritis" that happens to so many students in their last semester of high school because they are too focused on graduating. I want to be able to really enjoy my last semester of high school because once it's gone it's gone forever. I want to have fun and enjoy myself but at the same time avoid the procrastination and really just be on top of my work and focusing on school, that way I am able to relieve a lot of stress.