Literature Analysis Three: The Black Unicorn by Terry Brooks

1) The story starts out with Ben Holiday, the king, the court wizard, and Ben's "girlfriend" all having a specific dream which actually feels more than a dream. Ben had a dream that his old friend from Earth, Miles, was being terrorized. The wizard has a dream that he found the books of magic which will make him more powerful. Ben's girlfriend who is a sylph, had a dream of the black unicorn of death. An evil wizard named Meeks who sold this magical kingdom to ben, changed ben's appearance so no one would know that he is the king. Miles from Earth ended up being okay in the end. The court wizard found the books of magic, but one of them had pages and pages of unicorn drawings. The other book had a large hole burned through its center. The Sylph found the black unicorn and tamed it. it seemed as though the black unicorn wasnt so evil after all. It was just an outsider and was scared. At the end of the story, the wizard meeks ends up dying and everything ends up just peachy!

Fall final project

During the final, I would like to create a powerpoint that demonstrates what I have learned throughout the course of the year. Since Dr. Preston is not a fan of powerpoints, I will create a Prezi instead. I have no idea how to use it, but it should be interesting to figure out how to use. For those of you who don't know, a Prezi is a visual designed to explore various thoughts and ideas. This may be a little bit more fun than a powerpoint and I can include pictures, links, videos, and anything else I think will be helpful for summarizing this first semester. We'll see how this goes...

Literature Analysis 2: The Magic Kingdom by Terry Brooks

General:
1) A lawyer named Ben Holiday reads a christmas catalog and finds an ad for a magic kingdom which is selling for $1,000,000. After debating about it, he eventually buys the kingdom from a man named Meeks. Meeks is an older gentleman who told Holiday that if he doesnt want to be king, he can have a refund for his money within ten days. Holiday decides to stay within the ruined kingdom to help it prosper. The castle is in ruins and there is no money in the treasury, no guards or servents in the castle, and no enforced laws. The only people who remained in the castle include a court wizard, a court scribe who is a talking dog, and two kabolds. Also, demons from another world will come to him in the winter to challenge him in a duel and to take over the magical kingdom of Landover. This book is about the travels of the new king, Ben Holiday, trying to find allies throughout the land.

BQ: first steps

            Well, to become faster at swimming I need to work more on technique. Dolphin kicking off the wall would be a good thing to work on and doing four dolphin kicks would be even more specidic to how many I should do. My coach has always said that doing squats and squat jumps like we usually do would make it so I push off the wall faster and more efficiently. When streamlining, you have to keep your arms squeezing your head tight for less resistance.

The Big Question

My big question is: How can I excel or improve in swimming to become faster than I am now?

The medium is the message

I watched the cartoon of Legend of Sleepy Hollow on youtube,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxX66vLSZoQ. It was quite a bit entertaining. The actual text is very dry and boring, in my opinion. I was actually focused on the short cartoon. When I read the story, I just kept getting distracted and felt like it was a waste of time. Watching the video was very helpful, indeed.

This weeks vocab

*note: I just replaced the vocab suggestions with these real vocabulary words for the week. Here you go...

Debate falicies

Ad Homiem: Obama just kept attacking Romney with strong examples, and Romney basically lost that argument. It was over sending more troops to Iraq.

Vocab remix (with pictures)

flout- To scorn; mock at

Remix of Emerson's essay Self- reliance

Please comment! I need five people to comment to this post!

Emerson's Essay on Self Reliance Questions

           To preceve the essay, most people have their own attributes. They are all individuals. Emerson has a positive view on human nature. Looking at the entire essay, Emerson meant be self reliance when he said to believe in your own thoughts and not taking other people's thoughts. "the eye was placed where one ray should fall that it might testify of one particular ray." This quote means  that we are powerful whereever we put our attention. "The divine idea which most of us represents" means that each of us is an individual representing a whole. The reference to the Iron string in the essay shows us to trust yourself. Iron is strong and holds things together unlike gold or silk. Trancendentalism was a period where people wanted to break away from colonial literature and to do something new. "society everywhere is in conspiericy against the manhood of everyone of its members." This quote says that even though we are whole, we still take eachothers work. We should work together more and your voice is as great as the human voices in history. "Words as hard as cannonballs." Words can be strong and effective as cannonballs.

vocab.....

1. Ad infinitum: To infinity; endlessly; without limit.

2. Apportion: To distribute proportionally.

3. Bona fide: Made or presented in good faith.

4. Buoyant: Tending to float in a fluid.

5. Clique: A small, exclusive group of people.

6. Concede: To acknowledge as true; to admit.

7. Congenial: Agreeable, or pleasing in nature or character.

8. Lofty: Extending high in the air; towering.

9. Migration: The process or act of migrating; moving.

10. Perceive: To become aware of.

11. Perverse: Willfully determined to counter what is expected or desired.

12. Prelude: Before an action, event or condition.

13. Rancid: Unpleasant smell or taste.

14. Rustic: Living in the country; rural.

15. Sever: To separate from the whole.

16. Sordid: Morally ignoble or base; vile.

17. Untenable: Incapable of being defended, as an argument.

18. Versatile: Capable for turning easily from one to another of various tasks.

19. Vindicate: To clear, as from an accusation.

20. Wane: To decrease in strength, intensity.

Midterm

           So on my next midterm or vocab test, I absolutely expect myself to review a lot more... i felt like I only knew about half of the words. I did do well though on the extra  credit paragraph because I used eleven vocab words which means 11 points of extra credit! Very little of this content will stick with me. :(

Literary analysis

         PLOT: In the novel the Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, Langdon is called to give a speech at the capitol for a mason named Peter Solomon.

Note: Sara Stevens wrote this paragraph. I helped paraphrase it by finding the words that we didnt know. The words are in my jouranl. The people in my group were me, Sara Stevens, and Whitney Hough.

Note: Sara Stevens wrote this paragraph. I helped paraphrase it by finding the words that we didnt know. The words are in my jouranl. The people in my group were me, Sara Stevens, and Whitney Hough.

I went to the forest so I can live for a purpose, to face the important things in life, and see if life could teach me, so I don't die without understanding my life. I don"t want a largesse from life if I don't deserve it because life is potent, also I don't want to be contumacious, unless I have to. I don't want to live superficial and protrude from life's necessities, to not live to ascetically but live with the bare necessities and meritorious attitude, to make a wide path and cut life close, into a corner, and live on the lowest terms, and, if it proved stupid why would I get the uniqueness of it and publish that to the world; or if it was greater than anything, I would let you know about my experience, my journey. It appears most people are curious but scared of life, is it evil, blessed, sinful, or holy, I am going to figure it out on my own.

Still we live with no meaning in our lives and have no idea what our life means. We need to transcend our lives and find the errors. An exemplary man doesn't waste his time on meticulous work but just does the minimum to get by.

Vocab strategy

        The time is upon us for a vocabulary midterm on 120 words. Six weeks times 20 words equals 120 words. If I have four days to study these words, I can study thirty words each day. On thursday night, I will go over every word I studied throughout the week just to refresh my memory. Besides vocabulary, we also have to memorize a poem by wednesday. I have almost half memorized so if I memorize for about 30 minutes each day, I should be on track.

Romantacism

On my wonderful walk which lasted for about fifteen minutes, I thought about how stresst out I was about all my English homework. (Im not kidding) I saw a couple cars in a nice variety of color. I saw some trees, a couple leaves fell off one of them. It was also hot out when I took my walk, possibly high 70's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism  http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/romanticism.html   
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/romanticism

The last link is more of a definition of Romanticism. Most of the information I found seemed to be primarilly focused on emotions or the emotional state of a person. During my walk I was not emotional. I was just bored, but that is an emotion. My notes would be considered romantic since I used the word I. (The I's have it!!!!)

Dream within a dream

        This poem is of the Romanticism period because Poe puts himself in the poem when he uses the word "I." (The "I"s have it!) Poe also expresses his feelings through the lines, "Grains of the golden sand- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep- while I weep!" These lines also express a sense of Imagery because I can actually picture this in my head. This poem to me is a little bit creepy. I don't know why i feel like it is...

This weeks vocabulary

1. Adroit: Clever or skillful in using the hands or mind.

2. Amicable: Having a spirit of friendliness; without serious disagreement.

3. Averse: Having a strong dislike of or opposition to something.

4. Belligerent: Hostile and aggresive.

5. Benevolent: Well meaning and kindly. Charitable.

6. Cursory: Hastily, therefore not thorough or detailed.

7. Duplicity: Deceitfulness; double dealing.

8. Extol: Praise enthusiastically.

9. Feasible: Possible to do easily or conveniently.

10. Grimace: A twisted expression on a person's face; disgust or pain.

11. Holocaust: Destruction or slaughter on a mass scale.

12. Impervious: Not allowing something to pass through.

13. Impetus: The force that makes something happen or happen more quickly.

14. Jeopardy: Danger of loss, harm or failure.

15. Meticulous: Showing great attention to detail; very careful and precise.

16. Nostalgia: A sentimental longing of the past.

17. Quintessence: The most perfect or typical example of a quality or class.

18. Retrogress: Go back to an earlier state; typically a worse one.

19. Scrutinize: Examine or inspect closely and thoroughly.

20. Tepid: Lukewarm; Showing little enthusiasm

Essay strategy

For my future essays to come, I need to be more clear on my literary terms. I don't think I was very clear on one of my terms such as personification. I also needed to add another example of that...  I would like to incorporate more vocabulary terms into my writing. Not only would it make my writing stronger, but it would make me sound smarter. :D

Vocab paragraph

Dr. Preston said, if we write a paragraph using all of the vocab words we dont have to take the test:

Vocabulary words

Allude- to refer to something the author thinks you should know.

Clairvoyant- Able to preceve anything beyond the senses

Conclusive- final; to conclude

Disreputable- of poor reputation

Endemic- Wide spread in a particular place

Exemplary- To do something of noteworthy importance

Fathom- Measure of nautical depth; to understand

Guile- to trick

Integrity- Integrating thought, word, and action

Itinerary- a trip schedule

Misconstrue- to miss understand, to miss represent

Obnoxious- rude, loud

Placate- to calm down or satisfy

Placid- calm or peaceful

Plagiarism- Taking someone else's work and making it your own

Potent- Powerful

Pretext- a rational/ reason for doing something

Protrude- to stick out

Stark- obvious or clear

Superficial- shallow or at a surface level

Your life is your life

1. From what poem/author does this commercial borrow (without credit)?
2. Why might the use of this poem by a corporation be considered ironic?
3. Does the poem reflect the reputation of the author? Why/why not?
4. How did you find the answers to #1 & #3? Describe your research process and your sources in detail.
5. MEMORIZE the poem and be prepared to recite it on demand.

Reading Book

For English, I have decided to read a book by Dan Brown called The Lost Symbol. I have chosen to read it because I have enjoyed his other books such as The DaVinci Code and also Angels and Demons. This book also has been sitting in my bookshelf for a couple years and I've been meaning to read it.....

Vocabulary. (Mostly from Young Goodman Brown)

melancholy: A deep, pensive, and long-lasting sadness.

exemplary: Serving as a desirable model; representing the best of its kind

peculiar: Strange or odd.

dread: Anticipate with great apprehension or fear

bough: A main branch of a tree.

pious: Devoutly religious

communion: The sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings.

auditor: A person who conducts an audit

multitude: A large number

eloquence: Fluent or persuasive speaking or writing.

despair : the complete loss or absence of hope.

hoary: gray or white with age; ancient or venerable

AHA

My AHA moment was two days ago in class when we talked about different symbols in Young Goodman Brown. When I first read the story I thought it was just a random dream some guy had, but actually each thing in the story is a symbol. It didn't occur to me that EVERY thing was a symbol. Even the forest and trees were symbols! Lord of the Flies was full of symbols too which I didn't realize till the very end of the book. I can't believe YGB is full of symbols too....

Symbols in Young Goodman Brown

1) The Old man may symbolize an older version of Brown or even the Devil.

2) The staff symbolizes a snake that is known to lead people down bad paths which is why the old man wanted him to have the staff.

3) The Pink ribbons represent Faith's innocence throughout the story. Faith has stayed the same and Goodman Brown has changed throughout the story.

4) The dark forest represents darkness or may even show the darkness that's within all of us especially Brown.

5) The alter could symbolize unholiness because faith and Brown had trouble deciding between heaven and hell...

6) The priest symbolizes everyone's sins or who has sinned.

7) Fire symbolizes how people are drawn to evil.

8) The cloud in the sky symbolizes hopelessness and doubt.

9) The trees represent the people, probably sinners...

10) Faith symbolizes that she is faithful throughout the story...

Vocab words

1. Encomium: Expression of high praise.

2. Coherent: Logically connected; Consistent.

3. Belabor: To explain, worry about  repeatedly or more than is necessary.

4. Eschew: stay away from; shun; avoid.

5. Acquisitive: Tending or seeking to aquire and own; often greedily.

6. Emulate: To try to equal or excel.

7. Arrogate: To claim unwarrantably or presumptuously.

8. Banal: Devoid of freshness or originality.

9. Excoriation: To strip the skin from a human or animal.

10. Congeal: To change from a soft or fluid state to a ridged and solid state.

11. Carping: Characterized by fussy or petulant faultfinding.

12. Substantiate: To establish by proof or competent evidence.

13. Temporize: To be indecisive or evasive to gain time or delay acting.

14. Largesse: Generous bestowal of gifts.

15. Tenable: Capable of being held, maintained or defended.

16. Insatiable: Incapible of beng satisfied or appeased.

17. Reconnaissance: A search used for useful military information in the field.

18. Germane: Closely or significantly related.
19. Ramify: To divide or spread out into branches or branchlike parts.

20. Intransigent: Refusing to agree or compromise.

21. Taciturn: Inclined to silence; reserved in speech; reluctant to join in conversation.

22. Invidious: to create ill will or resentment or give offense; hatefull.

Meanings Signs and Symbols Part 1

Biologists have discovered that we share many physical and behavioral characteristics as other mammals. Meanings are a reason for why people do things and what they are meant for. A sign needs to be able to be interpreted before it can become a sign. If you see smoke, that is a sign that a fire is probably occuring. Symbols stand for something and represent something in particular.

Vocab Words

1. Approbation: The expression of favorable opinion.

2. Innuendo: A hint; indirect suggestion or reference

3. Coalition: A combination, union, or merger for some specific purpose

4. Elicit: To draw forth, bring out from some source

5. Hiatus: A gap, opening or break.

6. Assuage: To make easier or milder, relieve, satisfy

7. Decadence: Decline, decay, or deterioration.

8. Expostulate: To attempt to dissuade someone from some course or decision by earnest reasoning.

9. Jaded: Wearied, worn out, dulled.

10. Simulate: To make a pretense of, imitate, to show the outer signs of emotions they might never have felt in life

11. Umbrage: Shadow cast by trees; offense resentment

12. Prerogative: A special right or privilege

13. Lurid: Causing shock, horror or revulsion.

14. Transcend: To rise above or beyond, exceed

15. Provincial: Pertaining to an outlying area; local

16. Petulant: Peevish, annoyed by trifles, easily irritated.

17. Unctuous: Excessively smooth or smug; trying too hard to give an impression

18. Meritorious:Worthy, deserving recognition and praise

19. Hackneyed: Used so often as to lack originality

20. Intercede: To plead on behalf of someone else; to serve as a third party

Answers to Goodman Brown Questions

1) I think Hawthornes purpose for writing this story was to show us how some people's dreams could sometimes become a reality. Maybe Hawthorne wants us to know that we can make our own dreams happen.

2) I agree that in the story, Brown's wife was aptly named faith because throughout the story, she stayed faithful. Brown didn't really have faith in her because she didnt know what path to choose.

3) I think the pink ribbons symbolize happiness and innocence. Pink ribbons make me think of a little girl with them in her hair like a bow. Little girls are innocent... Throughout the story, faith seemed innocent and fairly happy.

4) Everything that  happened was a dream for Goodman Brown because it mentions it in the story.  "A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream."

5)  I think the old man was some sort of dark omen or monster. His staff was described kind of  like a snake. He also called him a serpent and all he did was put evil thoughts in Brown's head and told him not to turn back. :(

6) The staff represents a snake and snakes our very clever and sly. I think the staff was leading Brown further and further into the forest.

7) If Brown didnt go into the forest, I think his life would be very different. He wouldnt have doubtet faith and her love for him, the townspeople, or better yet, himself... The dream he had was a big life change.

Questions on Goodman Brown

 1) Do you think it's kind of ironic that his name is Goodman, but throughout the book bad things happen to him and he is mean to people at the end?

2) Do you think Goodman was dreaming? Or do you think it was real?

3) Who was the traveler Goodman met at the beginning of his journey?


Tone/ Mood: The story has a gloomy and dark feeling to it while I was reading it. It made me never want to go into dark forests by myself at night...

Tone and mood on Earth on Turtle's Back

In the story, "Earth on Turtles Back", it has a set tone and mood. The tone, or authors attitude torward characters, is somewhat encouraging towards the muskrat who tried his hardest out of all the animals in the story. As for the mood, the story made me feel happy that the muskrat was successful in retrieving the "Earth." The king's wife can now live happily ever after on the Earth on land that the brave muskrat found.

Socratic seminar notes

4 Threads:
1) Do you agree or disagree to the right to your opinion?
2) Literature: Life on Turtles back
3) Rhetoric
4) Technology and the ways we communicate

Notes:

You can never be right our wrong about your opinion because its just your opinion. We can always have our own opinion, but you should have good facts or arguements to back up your opinion.
I agree that everyone has their own unique opinion that is'nt really right or wrong.

Reflections on Week 1

          I think my lack of sleep will affect me just a little bit in this course. I swim five hours a day and will be lifeguarding tuesday and thursday nights until 10:00. Other than my sleepiness, I think I will do fine in this course. I will always have my recourses if I absolutely need them.

          I think my swim team is a great learning experience for me. It teaches me social skills, determination, goal settings, nutrition, and working hard. Santa Maria Swim Club has taught me important life skills that I will carry on into the future.

           For this class, I am most concerned with the amount of work required for this class. It feels to me like its going to be like Honors English all over again, but this class so far is going pretty well. I might just struggle a bit with vocabulary tests. I was never very good at those last year.


-Ethan

extra credit...

It is exactly 26 minutes since the extra credit was suppose to be written, but i wasnt home so I am doing it now.... I would very much like to improve on writting my essays and not procrastinating that much. This course seems to give a lot of work that its pretty much impossible to procrastinate on so i guess thats a start. I can better my essays by analyzing the literature not summarizing it! Plus, Dr. Preston seems like a good teacher so my essays will get better anyways.

Dear fellow bloggers,
            I have completed my first week in English 3 and now its time for me to reflect. I feel like I felt pretty strong in my poem memorization, but not so strong......i dont know where i didnt feel strong. I have been feeling strong all week because I am trying my best to excel above everyone. (no offense)
           One thing Dr. Preston can help us with is maybe extending the time period in which we have to memorize something. Most people didnt memorize Richard Cory probably because  they only had two days to do it. Mrs. Byrne gave us a week last year.....Okay, now I'm done with that topic, but seriously, most people probably needed more time to memorize that poem. Well, thats all I have to say about that topic. Talk to you guys later!

Assignment #1

         I am taking English 3 because it is needed in my curriculum for school. It is only the second day and I already like my English class. I think its so cool that I have my own blog now! Maybe it will give us students a chance to help one another through blogs.

         I am completely nervous about speaking in front of people. Today, Dr. Preston asked us if anyone was ready to recite "Richard Cory" and I was actually ready to recite it. I memorized it last year and found it easy to memorize again.  In this class, am excited to see what different types of literature we will be studying this school year.

       My goals for this course will be to write better essays. Last year when I wrote essays I mostly summarized books I didn't quite analyze the book like I was suppose to. This is a new school year to start fresh and maybe this year I can excel in my writing. I hope this will be a great year!