In the past month or so, we’ve had
many discussions. Some were about the wideness of your stance, and how it
directly correlates to how much authority you have, but others were deep and
meaningful. I think the most helpful of these discussions was just a few days
ago. We talked about what willy was selling in the book the death of a salesman. It was noted that in the play, they never
really mentioned what willy sells, but when you get right down to it, what did
he waste his life selling? We didn’t come up with a definite answer, the bell
cut us short, but we did get some good points in. To Biff he sells his dream,
He sells his life to the whole selling career, and he sells a ton of lies to Linda.
I would like to be able to pick this conversation back up and find out what
each of these means for the play.
The
most recent conversation that our class has had, had real potential. We talked
about what a tragedy was, we decided that the guide lines were a little bit
looser than they have been in the past, but some people couldn’t get over the
fact that that the lines had changed, and that because they weren’t rooting for
willy means that it wasn’t a tragedy. I think that these people didn’t understand
that Macbeth was considered a tragedy. Now, I don’t know about you, but by the
end, I was sure not rooting for him, and since the guidelines are looser now,
that means that it encompasses more things. I really wish I would have said
something, because it kind of annoys me now how some people didn’t even read
some of the papers that were handed out. Macbeth was listed right on the single
sheet essay.
Obviously
we have had other discussions, some on essay questions, some on multiple choice
questions. All of which confuse me greatly. I think that if we could just go over the
wording of the questions, I would understand the questions better. Most of the
time, I read the question, and I understand it to a point, then my brain
switches to the “what is happening, is this English?” mode, and it’s all lost. I
think if we took an hour and just practiced dumbing down the questions, I would
not only understand the questions on the AP lit exam, but I would also understand
questions in some of my other classes (shout out to Mr. Whitmeyer for writing
the most confusing questions quite possibly in the history of OHS)
Hey, Rach--Can we make a FLEX appt to work on this together? And btw, you know you can say whatever you need to say about me and about our class, but if you need to say something critical about another class as you're making connections between the material in AP Lit and the material in other classes, please don't mention other staff members by name--it's not any kinder in our electronic space than in our face-to-face space. =) Just say "It reminds me of the questions on the tests in my [whatever] class" and don't call out staff members by name, 'k? (Unless you want to give someone props, of course!) Thanks!
ReplyDeleteRachel,
ReplyDeleteHey, so I followed along with your post. Good...good. Umm, you kinda left out poetry? Is that what you were addressing when you mentioned the multiple choice practice? If so, could you clarify this a bit? And then don't forget to go all crazy in depth in your analysis of the poetry we've read in class. "Promises Like Pie Crust"- my absolute favorite. Next time someone promises me something and fails to follow through, guess what they're reading? Yep, "Promises Like Pie Crust"
Your thoughts on Death of a Salesman are noted.Way to stand firm against not rooting for Willy. Do you find any of the other characters annoying/maybe even charming/humorous? Or are all the characters pretty much sucky? When you were discussing what Willy is selling... I feel the need to add in...everything you bring up points back to Willy. Therefore, Willy is selling himself. There's never a product from the company. He is the product. He wants the approval of others, and so he sells himself and tries to be bigger and better. Also, remember to capitalize names of people and plays...
Rachel,
ReplyDeleteYou don’t think that how our stance affects our authority is deep or meaningful? Haha, I can see that you are giving your thoughts on a lot of what we discussed in class, but there should be more of a connection to how these class activities relate to what we do elsewhere (at home, with friends, etc.). Don’t worry too much about that because I got a little too caught up in just discussing class work when I typed my October course response as well. This just needs to be added when we go to edit our posts later this month.
Also, I get that the multiple choice questions can be confusing a lot of the time, they can. However, when we get to the AP exam in May, the questions aren’t going to be any easier. That’s why we need to work on them right now, so that we can interpret them better when we get the real deal next spring.