Sunday, April 29, 2012

A Reflection on Unstructured Learning

The theme of this piece is the idea of a universal learning environment where ideas, knowledge and wisdom can come from anywhere at anytime and potentially launch a person into the stars if their inspiration and determination is strong enough. The whole idea that the sarcastic remark "Nite Owl" becoming the name for a potential hero exemplifies this point.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Studying So Far

I looked over some of the multiple-choice questions today and realized that on many questions I saw reasonably correct answers and couldn’t really decipher the correct answer from the bunch.  As long as I was able to slip inside the story I did fine. I was able to identify conflicts and points of view very well. I was able to get into the minds of the characters very well. However my only draw back was when the question mentioned that the story was really some sort of allegory or fable. Then I started to second guess myself and end up with not being able to answer the question because I could argue all of them being right like what I said above.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Macbeth Essay Prompts


1996     Hawthorne’s “Judge Pyncheon” from House of the Seven Gables:  Analyze how the narrator reveals the character of Judge Pyncheon.  Emphasize such devices as tone, selection of detail, syntax, point of view.

1999     Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing:  Show how the author’s techniques convey the impact of the experience on the main character.

2005    Katharine Brush’s “Birthday Party” (1946): Write an essay in which you show how the author uses literary devices to achieve her purpose.

Monday, April 23, 2012

My Ap plan

My plan is to know the literary terms and familiarize myself with the AP test-makers' writing style so I will be able to percieve the answers they deem as correct. I am a horrid test taker and what I think is right or important often is not seen as such for the people who write these exams. I will be mainly focusing on the multiple choice styled questions this week and then focus almost soley on the essay responses next week. Oh, and during the course of both weeks I will be using the AP literary terms so I am not stuck with a clutch of words/terms I can only use or recognize. That way I will get a better understanding of the test-makers' language in the multiple choice and use it in the essay response.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Macbeth Lecture Notes




Pre-murder

Macbeth simple play, rise and fall of a great man
            Act 3 he is already king
            Act4-5 is fall of Macbeth
Macbeth doesn’t let us get in his mind
            Porter is only comedy in play
Interested in the character Macbeth
            Tragic hero- flaw is ambition
            Has a ton of potential
            At end of the play, wife is dead, friends have left him, hopes dashed and he is
completely alone
Macbeth is never deceived or used
            More he tries to make situation better the worse it gets
Nature of the challenge creates a sort of prolonged suicide
            Kills King and is still not happy with position
Wants to become king- obvious
            Part of a plan he isn’t aware of
Both Banquo and Macbeth skeptical of witches, but Macbeth already had ideas about
killing the king
Desire for kingship conflicts with morals
Macbeth tackles issues head on and has mental strength to continue goals
Lady Macbeth keeps dream of kingship alive-she is pure evil, desire
            Cognitive dissonance with loving mother
Animos- masc.
Anima- fem.
How can Macbeth murder, puts himself in situation and then forced to carry our killing
Macbeth freely embraces evil, crazy imagination drives him

            As King

On a slippery slope, kill one kill them all
Villain plus conscience equals tragic hero
He is an addict to ambition because of loss of self control
Macbeth has outward courage but no inner courage
Lady Macbeth’s inner world folds on her and subconscious kills hers because she can’t
                        Issues of inner world
She feels out of control and then kills herself

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Macbeth Notes

The story takes place in Medieval Scotland and Britain. Macbeth kills the traitorous thane of cawdor, and soon the fates come and tell him a prophecy about him becomming the future king and that his friend Banquo will be both greater and lesser than he. Soon Macbeth is told that he is next in line for the kingship. Lady Macbeth then harasses Macbeth into slaying King Duncan and creates a cover story for both of them. Duncan's sons flee the murder thinking they will be next and try to raise an army in England. He then kills Banquo because of what was mentioned in the prophecy. Banquo's son flees to England as well. Macduff becomes suspicious of all the killings and deserts Macbeth as well, who then later kills Macduff's wife and kids. Lady Macbeth realizes the horror that she created in Macbeth and kills herself. Macbeth is grieved but undettered in his quest for kingship. The witches warn that Macbeth will be invincible until the Birmam woods move and that he will be slain by one born not of a woman, who turns out to be Macduff who was born by c-section. Macbeth gets beheaded by Macduff in combat and Duncan's son, Malcolm becomes king.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Macbeth Test Answers

Part I.

1. Macbeth won the respect of King Duncan by
A. Slaying the traitor Macdonwald.

2. King Duncan rewarded Macbeth by dubbing him
B. The Thane of Cawdor him.

3. In addressing Banquo, the witches called him which of these?
"Lesser than Macbeth, and greater." (I)
"Not so happy as Macbeth, yet much happier." (II)
"A future father of kings." (III)
A. I and II only

4. When Macbeth said, "Two truths are told / As happy prologues" he was referring to
A. His titles of Glamis and Cawdor.

5. "Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it" is a reference to
A. The traitorous Thane of Cawdor.

6. Duncan's statement, "I have begun to plant thee and will labour / To make thee full of growing" is an example of
B. A metaphor.

7. Lady Macbeth characterizes her husband as being
B. "too full of the milk of human kindness."

8. When Macbeth agonizes over the possible killing of the king, which of these does he say?
"He is my house guest; I should protect him." (I)
"Duncan's virtues will "plead like angels" " (II)
"I am his kinsman and his subject" (III)
B. II and III

9. Macbeth's statement to his wife, "Bring forth men-children only" signifies that he
C. has accepted the challenge to slay the king.

10. As part of the plan to kill the king, Lady Macbeth would
A. get the chamberlains drunk.


11. Trace Macbeth's transformation from a good man to an evil man.

12. What motivates Macbeth to take the evil path he chooses?

13. What influence do the witches have on Macbeth?

14. Contrast Macbeth's response to the witches' predictions with Banquo's.

15. Describe the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Trace how it changes over the course of the play.



Part 2

1. "Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible / To feeling as to sight?" is a reference to the
B. dagger.

2. Lady Macbeth confessed that she would have killed King Duncan herself except for the fact that
B. he looked like her father

3. Shakespeare introduced the Porter in order to
B. remind the audience of the Witches' prophecies.

4. Malcolm and Donalbain flee after the murder
A. because they fear the daggers in men's smiles.


5. Macbeth arranges for Banquo's death by telling the hired killers that
C. he will eradicate all records of their previous crimes.

6. Macbeth startles his dinner guests by
A. conversing with the Ghost of Banquo


7. The Witches threw into the cauldron
"Eye of bat and tongue of frog"(I)
"Wool of bat and tongue of dog" (II)
"Fang of snake and eagle's glare" (III)
A. I and II

8. The three apparitions which appeared to Macbeth were
An armed head. (I)
A child with a crown. (II)
A bloody child (III)
C. I, II, and III


9. In Act IV, Malcolm is at first lukewarm toward Macduff because he
B. suspects a trick.

10. Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane when
B. the camouflaged soldiers make their advance.

11. What is the significance of the line "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" (I, i, 10)?

12. How does Macbeth function as a morality play?

13. How does Shakespeare use the technique of dramatic irony in Macbeth?

14. How does Lady Macbeth overcome her husband's resistance to the idea of killing King Duncan?

15. Contrast Macduff's response to the news of his wife's and children's deaths with Macbeth's response to being told Lady Macbeth is dead

Lord of the Flies Literature Analysis

Plot Summary:
A plane full of school boys crashes on a desert island killing the adult pilots and any grown up for that matter. They nominate this tall blonde cool looking dude called Ralph for those very reasons and because he blew a conch shell that drew everyone to that spot on the beach. His advisor and brains of the island group is a boy nicknamed Piggy. Things work out well at first. They create shelters and maintain a signal fire on the top of the mountain. People are assigned to hunt under Jack as their leader.
As days turn into weeks however, things begin to degrade and soon Jack revolts and begins his own tribe at the end of the island and raids Ralph’s remaining camp for fire. Soon Ralph and Piggy are the only ones left who want to be rescued and as they attempt to reason with Jack, his tribe shoves a boulder down the path that kills Piggy. A man hunt soon begins to kill Ralph, but just as all seems lost, the British Royal Navy lands and rescues them from the island.

Theme:
            The theme of the book is the inner struggle of our beastly wants and our intellectual pursuits such as morals. This is exemplified by Simon’s talk with the boar’s head on the spear.

Tone:
            The tone can be seen as bitter and solemn as seen in the dialogue between Simon and the boar’s head and how Simon is killed in the frenzy fire and how his body drifts off to sea.

Five Literary Elements:

            Setting: The setting takes place on a desert island free of authority, needed to support/create reason for the theme of the novel.

            Symbol: The degradation and then destruction of Piggy’s glasses and then Piggy himself represents how the culture on the island is becoming more animal than human.

Tragedy: The deaths of the marked boy, Simon and then finally Piggy show how shocking the changes in the boys are over the course of the book.
Imagery: The description of the painted boys, the pig’s head and the dead parachutist all add the feel of how the island paradise is turning into a nightmare.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Macbeth Notes

When we first hear of Macbeth, he has just cut an enemy open ("unseamed") from belly button ("nave") to throat ("chops"). The king shouts "Oh valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!"

Horses go insane and devour each others' meat while they are still alive.

I'm an autopsy pathologist. I am very familiar with how human bodies decompose. To show Macbeth his future, the witches add to the brew "grease that's sweated from the murderer's gibbet." Would you like to know what that means? The bodies of executed murderers were left hanging on the gallows / gibbet, often caged so their friends couldn't take them away, until they were skeletonized, a process that takes weeks. At about ten days in suitable weather, there are enough weak points in the skin that the bodyfat, which has liquefied, can start dripping through. There will be a puddle of oil underneath the body. This is for real.

Macbeth's head ends up on a stick. All teens know that severed heads were probably the first soccer balls. If you are directing the play, this is a nice touch.

In a barbaric era, population pressures made war and even the slaughter of one community by another a fact of life. Survival depended in having a capable warlord to protect life and property, prevent infighting, and protect from distant enemies. Groups of warlords would unite under the nominal leadership of one king to promote their common interests and war on more distant nations. While people pretended to believe in "the divine right of kings" and "lawful succession", continuing effective leadership was assured by warlords killing off the less capable family members.

For some reason, perhaps to give his own Stuart king some more glamorous ancestors, Boece made up Banquo and Fleance. Check out the old Scottish genealogies online. You'll find nobody matching their descriptions.

The three witches remind English teachers of the three Fates of Greek mythology and the three Norns of Norse mythology. "Weird" (as in "weird sisters") used to mean "destiny" or "fate". Perhaps in an older version they were.

Notice that on the morning of the day Banquo gets murdered, Macbeth asks him three times where he is going and whether his son will be with him. Banquo should have been more suspicious. After the banquet, every one of the other warlords in Scotland knows that Macbeth killed Banquo for no good reason, and that he is mentally imbalanced, and that they are themselves in danger. My friend Ian Brown offered an idea that seems ingenious. Much of what goes on in this short play is what is NOT said. In the scene after the banquet, the Macbeths have become distant from one another. They say little of consequence, as in a marriage that both parties know has failed. Brown suggests that Lady Macbeth writes a letter warning her friend, Lady Macduff, about her husband. This explains the appearance of the messenger to warn Lady Macduff just before she is killed -- this episode does not contribute otherwise to the drama -- and afterwards, Lady Macbeth's repetitive writing during her sleepwalking.

Around 1950, scholars noticed and argued the obvious. Macbeth was written specifically to be performed for, and to please, King James I.

Some people will decide that the Macbeths are victims of supernatural forces beyond anybody's control. Other people will decide that the talk about predestination simply reflects the folk-tale, or that the Macbeths' era and/or their outlook on life guarantee that something really bad will happen to them.
Perhaps despite the supernatural trappings of witches and talk about devils, "evil" for Shakespeare is nothing more or less than bad human habits and behaviors.
Lady Macbeth, misogynist, wants to lose her femininity so she can be cold-blooded and commit murder like a man does

Malcolm tells Macduff -- who has just learned about the murder of his family -- to bear his sorrow like a man. Macduff replies he must also feel it as a man does, i.e., he IS a man because he has feelings.
Siward's son becomes a man in his father's eyes the day he falls in battle

People have had lots of fun trying to figure out who the Third Murderer really is. It's evidently somebody who knows Banquo and Fleance. The usual suspects include Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, or a servant or thane. All these people are supposed to show up momentarily at Macbeth's dinner party, without bloodstains.

Shakespeare's insight goes far deeper. So far as I know, this is the first work in English that focuses on the isolation and meaninglessness that result from selfishness and cruelty. By the end, Lady Macbeth dissociates from the horror of what she has become. Shakespeare uses insanity as a metaphor for actually gaining insight in "King Lear" and maybe elsewhere. Lady Macbeth's insanity is really nothing more than her realizing the nature and consequences of the horrible thing she has done. Macbeth verbally abuses and bullies the people who he needs to defend him (and who are abandoning him), while reflecting to himself on the emptiness and futility of it all. Of course, the couple no longer has a relationship, and Macbeth is merely annoyed when she dies.

The key question that Shakespeare seems to ask is this. Is human society fundamentally amoral, dog-eat-dog? If so, then Macbeth is right, and human life itself is meaningless and tiresome.
Or do the hints of a better life such as King Edward's ministry, Malcolm's clean living, the dignified death of the contrite traitor, and the doctor's prescription for pastoral care, display Shakespeare's Christianity and/or humanism?
It's a dark play. The light of goodness seems still fairly dim. But evil always appeals more to the imagination, while in real life, good is much more fun.
Is the message of Macbeth one of despair, or of hope?


The dramatic purposes served by Shakespeare’s unique portrait of a compassionate, tender Macbeth, and his adaptation of Kenneth’s eerie story are obvious – who would care to sit through the play if Macbeth were the static character found in Holinshed? Alien voices make for spine-tingling drama, capturing the attention of even the most apathetic audience. But the changes also enhance the thematic content of the play, blurring the line between the two extremes of good and evil within Macbeth himself. His commiseration in the play, and his intense feelings of guilt before and after the regicide clash with his "passion or infatuation beyond the reach of reason’ that propels him to commit the murder. By representing Macbeth’s nature in this way, Shakespeare "rescues Macbeth from the category of melodramatic villain, the kind of character we can dismiss with a snap moral judgment, and elevates him to that of tragic hero .... toward whom we must exercise a most careful moral and human discrimination if we are to do him even partial justice" (Calderwood, 52).

The attention Shakespeare pays to Macbeth’s conscience would have been of particular interest to King James. In his book the Basilicon Doron, written to teach his son, Henry, the ways of morality and kingly duties, James discusses the human conscience at great length, beginning with the statement: "Conscience ... it is nothing els but the light of knowledge that God hath planted in man; which choppeth him with a feeling that hee hath done wrong when ever he committeth any sinne ..." (Basilicon Doron, 17). Certainly Shakespeare was well-acquainted with this short but popular didactic treatise, and, keeping in mind that Macbeth was specifically written as entertainment for the royal court, Shakespeare’s inclusion of Macbeth’s guilty conscience was a way in which he could both intrigue and compliment King James.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Top Three Blog Posts

1st. Mariah Cooks http://mscrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/
2nd. Hannah Hosking http://hhrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/
3rd. Kayla McCallie http://kmrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/