This week was very similar to last, as our main focus was again our literature presentations. I was really thankful that we were given extra time because Jess and I definitely wouldn’t have been ready to present when we were originally supposed to. This presentation was a very different experience for me because I didn’t really know what to expect. We were only given a simple outline to follow for our presentations; we weren’t given the specific, detailed instructions that we were used to from previous classes. It ended up working out fine, but at first it was a little overwhelming, especially since we had so much material to cover. I generally feel like I am a very good public speaker. Being a leader in different groups has taught me how to present well, and to exude confidence, even if it’s fake. Even though I think of myself this way, I was very nervous for this particular presentation at the beginning of the week. This was the point of the process where we had all of our information, we just didn’t know how we were going to share it, and that freaked me out. I truly believe that you can only present well if you really understand the material you are covering. At first I was confident that we were going to fail because instead of calmly organizing our thoughts, Jess and I decided to panic a little bit. Though we didn’t have the best start, we worked together and figured it out leading to a strong presentation. This week showed me that if I stay calm I will succeed, especially if I'm out of my comfort zone. http://www.inc.com/ss/jeff-haden/20-public-speaking-tips-best-ted-talks
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Our whole focus this week revolved around our literature presentations. In the beginning, it was really nice just to select our short stories and read through them. I enjoyed all of the stories, and it was fun to analyze the ‘Big Questions’ we were asked. The hard part came eventually, when Jess and I started to think about how we wanted to present the information we found. Even though we were only given a small chapter to read through on our element of fiction, and a few stories to look at, it seemed like we had a ton of information to go through. Throughout the week, we were able to talk to other groups and get an explanation on how to present our information clearly. I think we have a pretty solid idea of how we want to set up our powerpoint, now we just have to find a way to make it flow well. One idea we really want to focus on is making our presentation visually appealing. I know that I have definitely sat through my fair share of boring lectures, so I want to make sure that ours holds everyone's attention. I think the best way to do this will be through plenty of pictures and visuals. I also want to avoid writing out large paragraphs by using simple bullet points and not robotically reading the powerpoint to the class. The extra information given is what makes the presentation good, and hopefully we will be able to provide that. I am a little nervous as we haven’t done a real presentation in the class before, but I generally don’t mind public speaking so hopefully it will go well. Here is a website that gives some tips for designing visually appealing powerpoints. http://www.proofhq.com/blog-marketing/10-tips-for-designing-presentations-that-dont-suck-pt-1-007623/ These six weeks went by extremely fast. It feels like we just started, but we are actually halfway through the trimester. For pretty much this whole week, we had workshop time to continue our Unit 1 projects. I mainly used this time to finish reading my first short story, “Sonny’s Blues.” I enjoyed this story much more than I thought I would. I don’t really know why, but I have this skepticism about short stories. It just seems like a great piece of literature should be longer than six or seven pages, but that obviously isn’t true. Sonny’s Blues was a fantastic story, and I could easily see why it was used to show Characterization. Sonny and his brother both have deep story lines that shape who they are and what they do. After enjoying characterization so much, I’m excited to move on to Point of View. As the marking period ended this Friday, it meant that it was time to write our SSR book essays. I was worried about it all week because I always do very poorly with timed writings. This time was no different. In my general writing process, it takes almost an hour just to get all of my ideas out, and then another fair bit of time to go back for organization, so this forty minute assignment was difficult for me. I know that this is something that I will have to work on for the future. I think the next six week essay will be slightly better as I now have an idea of what to expect, but I know I will probably have to redo this past essay. Here is a link that describes the different kinds of Point of View that I will be looking at next week. http://users.humboldt.edu/tduckart/PoV.htm This was the week of fog. We had a fog delay on Tuesday and then a fog-caused cancellation on Thursday. While this was great for my sleeping schedule, it made it hard because we missed a fair amount of class this week. Regardless, we still accomplished a few things in the short time that we were given. Most of our time was spent working on the unit that we began last week. I am working with Jess, and together we decided to pick Characterization and Point of View as our elements of fiction that we wanted to study. We didn’t get extremely far into our topic, but we were able to read our Characterization chapter, and begin one of the short stories that goes with it. At first, I was a little skeptical of reading the chapters that we were given. I thought they were going to be like any average textbook, where they just give you lots of useless facts and boring information. This was different however, as I found myself really agreeing and connecting with what the characterization chapter was saying. One of the main points discussed was about characters who aren’t perfect heroes, and how they are more likely found in literature instead of the average story. I found myself thinking of my favorite characters, and how they all have flaws that they learn from. That is my favorite part of reading; watching these flawed characters and how they react. It makes them feel real, like a friend, instead of just someone you wish you could be. After reading this chapter, I very excited to read the next one, and to compare our findings to the short stories we will analyze. This website shows different examples of characterization. http://www.literarydevices.com/characterization/ In the past week, we have covered many different topics. As always, one of our main topics was our poem of the week. On Monday, when I first read "I felt a Funeral, in my brain” by Emily Dickinson, I really was not grasping the idea of it. I was frustrated, and I was dreading looking at it again on Tuesday. It wasn’t until Wednesday that something completely shifted for me, and I began to really enjoy this poem. In class we broke the stanzas down and we talked about how each one was an aspect of a funeral, and how that relates to a mental shift. I don’t know why, but this was my light bulb moment of the week. Somehow, this discussion made something click for me, and I finally felt like I could connect with what the author was saying. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, poetry is going to be my struggle, but this week showed me that if I’m persistent and patient, I will eventually understand. Another one of our main topics was introducing our next unit, which covers the idea of story vs. literature. An article we analyzed talked about the differences between the two, using the example of books and movies. I’m a firm believer that you should read the book before you watch the movie, as I believe that you should gain your own perspective of the book before you watch somebody else's through film, and I know the importance of the details that are often lacking in the movie. Working through this topic and reading the articles definitely reaffirmed what I had previously thought, and that was a cool connection for me. I am very interested in continuing this topic as I always enjoy seeing varying perspectives. This article does a great job of explaining why you should always read the book. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/6-reasons-the-book-is-almost-always-better-than-the-movie/ |
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April 2017
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