Wednesday, February 26, 2014

My Team

Serena Nichols: she and I are working together on our masterpiece so she's obviously a key element in it's success.
Lesther Valenzuela: he showed some interest in our idea and I am interested in his.
Hannah Savaso, Taylor Duguran, and Meghan Martella: we all relate in our wanting to help people and promote positivity and I saw that they're all working together on a somewhat similar project.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Launch

      I'm working with my partner in crime, Serena Nichols, on this masterpiece.  We both were sort of unsure as to what we wanted to do for our project but knew that we both wanted to help people.  In class we came up with an idea for a website to help people get involved in community organizations that make a difference.  So many people want to help out and volunteer, but just don't know how to go about it.  Our website would give resources on how to become involved locally and how that helps the community and the world as a whole. 
      Another thing we want to portray on our site is positive news stories because we're fairly interested in the news and finding out what's going on in the world and we noticed that the media tends to focus on negativity.  We want to highlight stories that are positive and have hopeful messages and inspirations. 
      Our main goal is to show that a little positivity or kindness goes a long way.  No good deed goes unnoticed and positivity is truly appreciated no matter how much negative news and events seem to outshine it.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Welcome to the Interdisciplinary

I have not come up with a clear plan yet, when I was thinking of those questions I answered the other week I realized that my goals had to do with once I move to San Francisco for college, and therefore cannot be accomplished by the time I graduate high school.  Since my goals don't really match up with the assignment I'm going to look for groups to join which somewhat meet my interests.

I Am Here

I'm going to be honest when I say I'm in this class because it's an AP course and I never considered taking college prep English.  This first grading period I've been really thinking about what my senior project is going to be and since I didn't really spend a lot of time and effort on the big question last semester I'm trying to decide what to do.  I don't really know how I'm going to turn my love of helping people into a project that I can accomplish over a semester, but I'm working on it.  If I can't come up with anything myself I'll most likely join another collaborative working group and help out where it's needed.  In the end though this class is mostly about the grade and all the typical elements of a high school class to me.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Lit Terms #6

simile: a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid
-"Brave as a lion."

soliloquy: an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, esp. by a character in a play
-Hamlet gives many famous soliloquies.

spiritual: of or relating to religion or religious belief
-Many Native American stories were spiritual.

speaker: a person who speaks
-The author lets you know what the speaker in the story thinks.

stereotype: a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing
-"All Asians are good at math."

stream of consciousness: a person's thoughts and conscious reactions to events, perceived as a continuous flow
-To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

structure: the arrangement of and relations between the parts or elements of something complex
-Some authors are very structured in their writing while others are more scattered.

style: a distinctive appearance, typically determined by the principles according to which something is designed
-My writing style is sort of scattered.

subordination: the action or state of subordinating or of being subordinate
-"The subordination of medicine to political expediency."

surrealism: a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images
-"The Magnetic Fields."

suspension of disbelief: infusing a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale so the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative
-Highlander.

symbol: a thing that represents or stands for something else, esp. a material object representing something abstract
-Godot was a sort of symbol of hope in Waiting for Godot.

synesthesia: the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body
-The Devine Comedy by Dante

synecdoche: figure of speech: a figure of speech in which the word for part of something is used to mean the whole
-"Sail" in place of "boat".

syntax: organization of words in sentences: the ordering of and relationship between the words and other structural elements in phrases and sentences
-"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."

theme: distinct and unifying idea: a distinct, recurring, and unifying quality or idea
-Most of the books I read have a theme of love.

thesis: a proposition advanced as an argument
-Your thesis statement is arguably the most important part of your essay.

tone: the general quality or character of something as an indicator of the attitude or view of the person who produced it
-I don't generally enjoy books with a melancholy tone.

tongue in cheek: a figure of speech used to imply that a statement or other production is humorously or otherwise not seriously intended, and it should not be taken at face value
-The comedian's material was a little tongue in cheek.

tragedy: a disastrous circumstance or event
-Hamlet is a tragedy.

understatement: restrained or muted statement: a statement, or a way of expressing yourself, that is deliberately less forceful or dramatic than the subject would seem to justify or require
-Saying that Brave New World is weird is an understatement.

vernacular: the everyday language of the people in a country or region, as distinct from official or formal language
-Typically young adult books use a more modern vernacular.

voice: the characteristic speech and thought patterns of a first-person narrator
-The author's voice is usually portrayed through the main character.

zeitgeist: ideas and spirit of time: the ideas prevalent in a period and place, particularly as expressed in literature, philosophy, and religion
-The zeitgeist in the 70s was love everyone.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Lit Terms #5

parallelism:repetition for effect: in writing, the deliberate repetition of words or sentence structures for effect
-"beside one another."

parody: amusing imitation: a piece of writing or music that deliberately copies another work in a comic or satirical way
-Saturday Night Live is famous for it's political and pop culture parodies.

pathos: quality that arouses pity: the quality in something that makes people feel pity or sadness
-The ASPCA commercials utilize pathos.

pedantry: a pedantic attitude or an example of pedantic behavior
-A friend standing in line for a show not letting another friend cut in line in front of them.

personification: an embodiment or perfect example of something
-"The stars danced playfully in the moonlit sky."

plot: the story or sequence of events in something such as a novel, play, or movie
-Some people found the plot of American Hustle hard to follow.

poignant: particularly penetrating and effective or relevant
-The death of Simba's father was a poignant moment in the movie.

point of view: somebody's way of thinking about or approaching a subject, as shaped by his or her own character, experience, mindset, and history
-In an argument you should always try and see the other person's point of view.

postmodernism: a style in architecture, art, literature, and criticism developed after and often in reaction to modernism, characterized by reference to other periods or styles in a self-conscious way and a rejection of the notion of high art
-"The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot."

prose: writing or speech in its normal continuous form, without the rhythmic or visual line structure of poetry
-"The cheetah is the fastest land animal."

protagonist: the most important character in a novel, play, story, or other literary work
-Harry Potter.

pun: a humorous use of words that involves a word or phrase that has more than one possible meaning
-"Why do people study gravity? It's a pretty attractive field."

purpose: the goal or intended outcome of something
-Most authors don't write for the sole purpose of making money.

realism: a  practical understanding and acceptance of the actual nature of the world, rather than an idealized or romantic view of it
-Mark Twain.

refrain: to avoid doing something or hold yourself back from doing something
-I should refrain from using the word "like" so much.

requiem: a piece of music written to commemorate somebody who has died
-The Oscars do a live requiem each year.

resolution: the process of resolving something such as a problem or dispute
-I know the movie is going to end soon if the resolution begins.

restatement: to state again or in a new way
-Puck, from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

rhetoric: speech or writing that communicates its point persuasively
My uncle was an expert in rhetoric when he was the speech writer for Diane Feinstein.

rhetorical question: a question asked for effect that neither expects nor requires an answer
-"Is the pope Catholic?"

rising action: a related series of incidents in a literary plot that build toward the point of greatest interest
-The rising action really hooks me into a book or a movie.

romanticism: romantic quality or spirit in thought, expression, or action
-Daffodils by William Wordsworth.

satire: the use of wit, especially irony, sarcasm, and ridicule, to criticize faults
-Jimmy Fallon uses some satire in his opening monologue.

scansion: the analysis of verse according to the rules of meter
-I never quite mastered scansion when writing poetry.

setting:  the surroundings or environment in which something exists or takes place
-Usually when the character is sad their setting is dark and gloomy.