ELA Questions

ANSWER ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS

1. What was the most fun/engaging activity that you did in ELA this year? Why was it fun/engaging?

The most engaging activity in ELA is seminars, as always. The reason for this is that it's intriguing to hear everyone's opinions and their contradictions and similarities. I liked the silent discussion a lot and would like to see the two cent discussion used in a seminar next year.

1. What was the most boring activity that you did this year? Why was it boring?

There are two ties in this. The first is annotating because it took away from reading the book and made it difficult for me to become as involved with the book as I would have otherwise. That, and it's so easy to forget annotating and when I have to consciously remind myself, it distracts me from reading and makes me almost not want to read, which is pretty rare for me as an avid reader. I think reading the Odyssey out loud during class was the second most boring activity we did because of the way it was read out loud, specifically being read off-beat and in a monotone tone with the mispronunciation of words; because it's a classic work resulting in it being harder to understand when listening rather than when reading; and because it was our job to read it outside of class and not in class, where it took up quite a bit of time. I would rather us have a summary of what went on then read it. I know we only read chunks in class and not all of it, but it was really boring for me.

1. What was your favorite book this year? Why?

Honestly, I love all of the books we read this year except the Odyssey but that's because I need to reread it to really wrap my head around it. The tie is between the Alchemist and Maus. The Alchemist was wonderful in its ideas and theories. It really made me think, and so did Maus. Maus was wonderful because it was able to describe the horrors of war without the emotional heaviness of it. They're both brilliant and I love them to death.

1. What was your least favorite book this year? Why?

I'd have to say Odyssey, not because it was a bad book, but because I needed more time to understand it and read it. I know the readings were short, but it was still difficult for me to comprehend completely. It's a beautiful piece of literature, but my brain needed more time to get through it.

1. What should I definitely keep the same for next year's ELA curriculum? Why?

There's nothing horrible about this class that stands out. Everything was great for the most part. I'd say keep seminars, open response projects, and your methodology for choosing books, as well as the variety.

1. What should I definitely change for next year's ELA curriculum? Why?

Blog posts and responses are the banes of my academic existence. I understand that it's how you make sure we read, but they're so easy yet they count for so much of our grade. I've noticed that there seem to be more standards put on blog posts when I miss them then when I actually do them and you grade them, at least recently. I don't think that's fair. Like on my last blog post, I did and was only graded on timeliness (5) and it was very thoughtful and long but on the one I didn't do before that, you put three standards as 0. Honestly, blog posts drag my grade down more than anything and I know because I do everything else even if it's late. I forget twice or three times in the middle of the school year and it makes it near impossible for me to achieve an exemplary in that class. Just... If you're going to keep blog posts, score them somewhat evenly and don't make them count as much. Forgetting to write a handful of sentences a week two or three times should not be able to trump writing five couple page essays, as well as their drafts and outlines.
Is there anything else that you would like to tell me about your experience in ELA? If so - please put it here.
I'd recommend making students more aware of the half analytical half creative response requirement.

A Grape Waiting to be Starved to Death

          A Raisin in The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, in my opinion, uses dreams to translate the issues of blacks and apply them to all people in order to give the universal understanding that black people are people too. Whether this is believed nowadays is a highly controversial topic considering the current riots in Baltimore and prior ones in Ferguson. Racism within the States is a notoriously consistent mainstream occurrence, especially in conversations. Between the discussions of conflict between black and white people and the accusatory statements being shot into the web like toddlers with AK-47s, I wonder if discussing racism actually makes it worse because it is injected into the conscious mind by making people choose a side. By choosing to support black people or white people, the division between black and white people not only continues to divide further but also the one between black and white people that others perceive. The result is that people see black people and white people as enemies, and if people see that in their external environment, then it will start to affect their own thoughts. And so, ironically, we are making people more racially prejudice by addressing the issue of racism in the United States.

          One might object here that discussing racism would help cure it by bringing awareness to it, but all that can be done to help racism on a controllable scale on the national level has been. With the Reconstruction Amendments, black people were given the same legal rights as white men, and with the eradication of the grandfather clauses, the same general ease in which to use them. Legally, black people are equal to white people. When elections ran after the reconstruction amendments, it is not the law that tried to stop black people from voting. It was hate groups like the KKK that would stand in front of the booths and attack any black person who came near. Racism exists solely within people's minds and these racist thoughts turn into racist actions. There is nothing the government can do that it has not done so we can talk about it, but it won't change anything that can be changed as a whole because the only way of doing this, legally, has been done. The inequality within our minds can't be changed by the government any more than it has so by causing riots to get government and civilian attention, people are making racism worse and the government still cannot fix it because it exists on an individual level that is mainly subconscious. On a civilian level, discussing it only brings more attention to the divide and because the media is only portraying the positive things the rioters do and the negative ones the police does, for the most part, the divide appears to be worse than it is. If people believe it is worse than it is, then they will act like it is in this condition, thus causing it to become worse than it is. Sometimes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This seems to be one particularly sad case of it.

On p. 143, Walter states, "There ain't no causes - there ain't nothing but taking in this world, and he who takes the most is smartest - and it don't make a damn bit of difference how." Do you think that this is true? Why or why not?

I think that Walter brings up an interesting point because rather than saying the world is made up of takers and givers, he says that everyone is a taker and that whoever takes the most is the smartest. I agree that everyone in this world is a taker, because everyone takes something from this planet just by existing. However, I disagree that the person who takes the most is the smartest. I think that it is not the person who takes the most who is the smartest but the one who gives back the most when looking at the percentage they've created and given to the world in comparison to what they originally had. The people who have made the most money in this world have it because somewhere along the line, they gave the people something that they wanted that was worth more than what they originally had. Hence, they gave more than they took. Let's look at an old lady who donated a dollar to charity. She had worked her whole life to get a few dollars because she was paid so low that a dollar to her was worth a million to us. She gave all of it charity, and that charity declared her as the biggest donor not because she gave the most money but because she gave the biggest percentage of what she had. Another person at the charity donated billions, but he didn't get the title despite having given the most money because to him, a couple billion was nothing compared to how much money he had altogether. Therefore, I think that defining intelligence by whoever has the most is futile. Rather, I think it is the person gives the largest percentage to the world compared to what they originally had to begin with that is the most intelligent. This intelligence shows in the academic skills to be able to build up what they had into something better, the emotional maturity to be able to let go of everything you have and give it to the world even if you don't know if it will reap anything for you, and the social awareness to be able to create something that could benefit a lot of people out of something that at first only benefitted you.

In Act II, Scene 2, Mama puts Walter in charge of all of the money. Why do you think that she does that?

I think Mama put Walter in charge of the money because she thought that the knowledge of her trusting him would cause him to use it wisely, and as she asks. She does not trust him, and Walter believed this to be so but was not certain. As a result, her trust is highly valued by him, because he does not see the emotion translate into something tangible often. Mama knew Walter wasn't going to spend the money wisely even if he had it because he puts his emotions before logical thought. So, if she made him think she trusted him, then that might counteract his thoughtless actions because of the pressure that knowledge would put on him.

However, Mama's calculated risk was wrong. Walter does not value Mama or her opinions. He only values her when she has something to offer him that he wants, such as money. As a result, Mama's trust is shocking, but not of great importance to him. It is not enough to make him think through his decision, otherwise he would have put the money in the bank, not given it to Woody. I don't think he intentionally was illogical. That is simply how he is, and Mama's false trust couldn't change that no matter how good of an actress she may be.

Lorraine Hansberry used a line from Langston Hughes poem, Harlem, as the title of her play. Considering that which you have read so far (Act 1), why do you think she did that?

  A sad fact of life is that people's dreams contradict each other. Not everyone can achieve their dreams because individuals and resources do not have the means to achieve these dreams. For example, if Martha and Stewart want to be the top psychologist in the world from 2030 to 2040 consecutively, then only one of them can be if it isn't someone else entirely. This is an example of a dream that individuals cause to contradict. Now, let's look at Amanda, who's dream is to buy a Lamborghini. This is a dream that multiple people can achieve, so individuals don't cause it to contradict. However, Amanda is a lower class American citizen with no money saved up in the bank and bad credit. Amanda needs good credit and a lot of money to buy a Lamborghini. Amanda doesn't have the money or the credit, so the resources causes her dream to contradict reality. For Martha and Stewart, the reality is they can become the top psychologist, but not both of them. For Amanda, the reality is she can purchase a Lamborghini, but she isn't able to because she doesn't have the resources to buy it.

    In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, the characters dreams contradict each other, and where there are not dreams that contradict each other, there are hopes. This is seen in Walter and Beneatha's contradicting dreams- they both need Mama's money, but for different purposes. Beneatha cannot pursue her dream, to be a doctor, without Mama's money to provide her with the necessary education. Walter cannot pursue his dream, to be a successful black man, without being a monetarily successful black man, and, in his perception, the best chance he has at that is by investing in the purchase of a series of liquor stores. Walter can only achieve this through Mama's money. There is one resource, and conflicting dreams. Mama wants her children, Beneatha and Walter, to be happy, but she hopes that the means in which they pursue their happiness are not the ones they dream of. Each of them express their desperation to achieve their dream differently- Beneatha's festers like a sore, Mama's sags like a heavy load, and Walter's has become crispy sugar. Considering that this is Act 1, I expect that the other protagonists will have a different way of dealing with dead dreams, each one having been mentioned in Langston Hughes's poem. I think the purpose of having each protagonist have a different way of dealing with dreams is to see if they all end the same- explosion.

Social Media

The socially acceptable may not always be the socially acceptable. Major social media outlets as well as popular movies are overflowing with intelligent messages about current issues,  nothing like the radio as it sings on and on about getting high and fucking girls or the Victoria's Secret lingerie adds on every family's cable stream. It poses a question, for can these two opposing social media leaders be reflecting the same society? American society is bordered by extremes high and dipping lows. It encompasses the liberal and the conservative, the poor and the rich, and the everything in between. With this great divergence comes a price, though and that is that social media cannot cater to everyone's wants. Thus, certain outlets focus on certain types of people, maybe with the thought that the more people are loyal to it, the more the mindset required to agree with it spreads. In order to become popular, this mindset has to be adopted to some extent, and peer pressure continually knows at the individual until they either give in or go to a different social media outlet which shares their own mindset. And so, it is by this theory of expansion that one might argue that society is represented by social media as a whole, and not by the major social media outlets. Much like how entertainment attempts to encompass all of society with its genres of music and movies, social media does as well, but through conveying information via alternative mediums and mind sets. Thus, the socially acceptable to one person is not to the other, deeming the term socially acceptable to be fallacious.

   

Was emotional suppression the permament signature of wealth?

There was a certain coldness to the characters within Great Gatsby, this desperately insistent need for emotional suppression that by the time my fingers delicately held the last page, I felt as if my emotion had been wasted by someone who pushed on the accelerator too hard for too long and my emotion came out in the form of polluted air. It wove itself into the oxygen within Mr. Gatsby's lungs and he choked on the warmth of it because no icicle can keep itself from melting once the temperature has risen no matter how strong. It punctured his lungs as it fell, impaling his heart with the kind of dramatic flair that you only see at a badly done Shakespeare modern revival. Three days romances were never my thing, yet Gatsby intertwined his entire being with it except his Juliet wasn't willing to wait for him let alone to drink a potion so they could try to be together. No, Daisy faced Gatsby with the kind of coldness that splits you into two because you once knew what warmth was like and without it, you're lost (Fitzgerald 95, 96,145). Gatsby based his life around who Daisy used to be, resulting in his emotional well being being utterly dependent on the idea that he would have her once he actualized his wealth ( 78, 110). His emotional expressiveness was significantly higher than that of anyone within the book due to his depending on hope and other wealthy characters on the stoic coldness that wrapped their hearts in glistening ice cases like overpriced plastic wrap. With just a tug, some characters came unraveled such as Tom when Myrtle taunts him by saying Daisy over and over again (37). Others, like Daisy, could only be temporarily emotional after the building up of difficult situations involving people she cared for, specifically Gatsby (132) but in the face of emotionally traumatic events, she did not care (144). On the other hand, Myrtle is so open about her emotions that you would think her emotions were talking, not her thoughts and her husband has little emotional restraint if any. There seems to be this idea that the wealthy are emotionally suppressed and the poor emotionally out of control. Gatsby went from the poor and emotional to wealth without ridding himself of emotion, yet he became most successful through a business that required emotional suppression and extreme logic. Making his dream realistic is what made Gatsby fall because his emotion clouded his judgement so extremely that he sacrificed everything he'd ever worked for for a girl long gone. If Gatsby's dream of having Daisy wouldn't have been touched on the surface, he still would be financially successful because his emotions were still reserved since only Daisy could evoke them. In the end, it seemed that emotional suppression and coldness was the only way to maintain power because the more emotion someone held over you, the more they could control you which could result in financial and emotional loss. Being less emotional allowed for order, but it was the kind of order that was utterly revolting, like the beauty of a lethal disease. Gatsby died because he actualized his hope, and lost it. Being emotional killed him, and when Daisy became extremely cold at the end, it allowed her to save her marriage and move somewhere else without a hint of a bad reputation.