So this happened...

I didn’t really enjoy this whole process. I mean, to begin I didn’t even like the poem. The poem’s first few lines made me think something totally different from its intended meaning, and once I knew my interpretation was wrong I honestly lost all interest in going forward. I didn’t want to, but I did, because high school. So, I interpreted each line as it made sense to me, wrote a few thoughts about what the line could mean, then answered the questions based on my translation of the lines as I understood them. I didn’t mind translating each line. It was the questions that sort of annoyed me, because I like thinking and doing all of it in my head, not writing the answers down. I feel like when I write it down I’m not actually coming to any conclusion, like it is a set answer without flexibility, but in reality the answer could change. I feel like when I write things down I also don’t need to think about or remember it, so I don’t. I have to work on that. I totally love annotating and translating though.

3, 2, 1... English.

3 things I revisited/learned:

Honestly I think about connotation VS Denotation all the time because I sometimes use words in writing or speaking that people don’t really think about the definition of. Such as “ignorant”, which literally means lacking knowledge of something, but is often thought to mean someone who is disrespectful. I like hearing people teach about the difference between these things because not many people think about it, considering it isn’t something that is brought up every day. Like think of the word “home”. When this word is said it kind of has a comforting connotation, where we picture our home and how safe it makes us feel, but that isn’t the definition. Words have two definitions in my opinion, the literal definition from the dictionary and the emotional definition which can vary depending on the individual person.

I honestly never thought about how we could highlight too little when annotating. I don’t think about anything but the text when I am told to annotate because I know that things will stand out on their own if I focus. Individual words and short phrases are often what catch my eye, so maybe I am one of those people that annotates too little. This is a not really a great habit because it makes it harder to use these thoughts to compose an essay.

English has rules. Of course I knew this, but before watching the second video I never thought about how a word’s meaning and even part of speech could change over time. The example of “google” is great because we have pretty much always used that word in our lifetime, but there was a point where this word did not exist in the dictionary. We live in a time where we are bending the rules a bit and creating a new language based off of the English language, where more slang and incorrect uses of the language are becoming the norm.

2 questions I have/skills I would like to work on:

-I would like to work on taking my annotations and making them an actual essay, rather than a mix of my random thoughts and circled words.

-I would like to also work on my ability to form plot… I have trouble designing a string or events that follow the general plot structure to keep readers interested. I design as I go, and that doesn’t always work out.

1 skill I think I do well:

I think I could teach about setting and character the best. I love creating both and spending time developing realistic places and people that people can relate to. I like adding small details that people will notice and raise an eyebrow at.