Looking back on what we have done the past month, I found that most of our time was spent reading and analyzing The Kite Runner. Reading this novel has been a memorable experience for me. I grew to love and hate the characters while crying a little (a lot) at some parts. The Kite Runner was extremely fascinating to analyze but it also gave me a lot of insight to a Afghan society and culture. While the book's overarching themes seems to be geared toward guilt and redemption, I was more intrigued by the underlying social, economic, and ethnic disparities Khaled Hosseini presented throughout the book. I think it tied in beautifully with the theme— guilt and redemption can be experienced by all people despite the many differences that divide them. While I thought that the writing was lovely (except the end wow that was a mess), I did feel like the novel was hard to analyze at times. The symbols such as the pomegranate tree, eyes, and deformations were presented too straightforwardly and obviously. It was harder to draw underlying meanings and in-depth analysis for me than it was with The American Dream. I was able to see everyone else's interpretations of certain moments through discussion. Many interesting ideas were brought up such as how deformation of a character signal a person who was generally good on the inside or the broken glasses of the orphanage owner. To tie in the whole unit together, we took an open prompt test. I don't do well under pressure. It was a good reminder how fast I have to think and work when timed.
We continued to work on the poetry portion of the closed prompts. I think that I have improved as an essay writing and the comments that I have received have been quite helpful. I've learned that poetry focuses a lot more on the DIDLS of literature. It's interesting to see how sentence structure, length, rhyme schemes, and diction affect the overall meaning of the story. While poetry is harder to understand, it is a lot easier for me to analyze in comparison to proses.
While we have focused on the writing aspect of the AP exam all year, we took our first practice MC test. I realized that I need to work on time as I definitely ran out of time at the end. I was rushing and I didn't even read the last few prompts. When we went over our scores, I learned that I kind of suck at the multiple choice. Although those scores were rough, I feel that I am a strong essay writer. If I improve my MC skills by looking at practice tests and reading tips, I may be able to bring my score up for the next time. The practice test helped me realize that I should put more effort into working on my weaknesses.
Within the last week, we started reading Oedipus which has been really new for me. The two other books we have read were The American Dream and The Kite Runner which are both relatively recent. Oedipus was written a long, long, long time ago. It was fascinating learning about the history and backstory of the play. It was also a lot of fun listening to my class recite their lines. Some people really got into their roles. It's interesting to see how the lessons we can learn from extremely old pieces of literature can still be prevalent today. After reading "Fate, Freedom, and the Tragic Experience: An Introductory Lecture on Sophocles's Oedipus the King" which was a whopping twenty five pages, I felt as if I had a knew much more about tragic heroes. It intriguing how much more satisfying tragic heroes can be compared to comic ones. The article also help me see Oedipus in a new light, someone who is strong in the assertion of his beliefs rather than a stubborn self-absorbed idiot. It's interesting discussing its meaning as a class and I look forward for what is to come in the unit!
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