by Rewa, (25 posts) on June 12th, 2011
Though I have been away these past few days and have not experienced as much poetry as others in english class. Judging from todays class and my over all experience with poetry i found that poetry is not all about trying to put words together so they can rhyme but so you can find the unique feeling it gives you. Some poems i have read don’t express an exact feeling to me but i some how understand what the poet is trying to express or try to give their readers a different experience.
Poets to me usually give a a whole new meaning to things we never think about, for example the poem i saw today in class on grass interested me in how so many things can be expressed through grass or how something as pitiful as grass can be used as an example of our everyday life. Poetry is what brings out the beauty of all languages, as we find knew vocabulary that can express so many things to a person in different ways. We are all different, so we all come across poems differently, i admit that some poems i can never understand why it is famous or so creative because nothing comes across to me, I feel nothing from it except words put together.
To really enjoy poetry you must feel like reading poetry or to feel like being inspired, other wise if you are forced to read poetry you won’t appreciate it as much. I feel many people including myself don’t read poetry as a hobby or to write own poetry because of the new things around us for example iPhones and the internet. Though people including myself could look at the world differently if we try writing our own poetry or read poems. This is what i think of Poetry.
 2 people like this post.
by Jenny, (29 posts) on June 12th, 2011
Courtney Sheinmel
216pg
In the world we can see lucky, but sad people, and unlucky, but happy people. Mostly, the unlucky but happy people live a better life. This book shows the protagonist Emmy’s change from unlucky and sad person to a unlucky, but happy person.
Emmy’s life was miserable, her mom died, and she had aids. It was very understandable that she felt lonely and depressed. Emmy was never open minded to anything. However, after the HIV-positive girls camp, she makes a lot of friends and changes positively. This was because the people she met in HIV positive girls camp were just like her, and Emmy could rely on them.
Personally, I think depression is one of the causes of all diseases. It will make the illness even worse, and will also lead to mental illness. In our lives, we worry about a lot of things, and have a lot of problems too. And positiveness will always help solve the problems. This book reminded of this, and I thought that I should not be negative or depressed, and cheer up by thinking positively.
by Young Suk, (18 posts) on June 12th, 2011
Title: Dewey
Author: Vicki Myron
Pages: ~p.224
After I read this book, I could realize that how animals could be the happy for people. I couldn’t believe that his book was based on the real because this book was really impressive.
In winter, one day, librarians discovered a grayish cat at corner of library. Librarians felt poor for misery cat so they decided that they are going to raise cat. They named this cat, Dewey. I thought that they can’t raise cat in the library someday before I read toward to the next. The reason why I thought like that was because cat was definitely going to make all the books messed up if they didn’t train it. In addition, in the library rules, they can’t raise any animals in the library. Finally, they just broke the rules and raised Dewey in the library. Dewey changed my prejudices. It made people who visited library happy, using its cute tricks. Sometimes Dewey made troubles in the library but usually, it was really helpful for library. This rumor spread out Spencer library to the whole America. More and more people began to find Spencer library, Dewey was also become a famous. Even thought Dewey was getting older with some diseases, it still gave happy and be friend for people who visited library. In this section, I could realize that how respect is important, which does my school also emphasize. Normally, most of animals that old and get some diseases, they usually last and boring. However, Dewey was different. It kept its responsibilities that made people happy and be helpful for library.
When I finished to read this book, I could realize that how respect, friendship, and sympathies are significant and valuable. I was shameful because I haven’t usually respected the other people. Overall, this book was quite impressive with many life lessons through Dewey’s life. If you like to read impressive and marvelous fiction, I strongly recommend you to read this book.
by Young Suk, (18 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Title: Tuesdays with Morrie
Author: Mitch Albom
Pages: ~p.192
This book was little special for me. I’ve never seen this kind of book before, reflective with many lessons. The book called, ‘tuesdays with morrie’ was about professor Morrie’s life lesson. It can be heard boring for someone but it was absolutely not.
This beautiful story is developed by professor Morrie’s students and professor Morrie’s every tuesday meeting. Every tuesday, professor Morrie gave them lessons. I can’t still forget professor Morrie’s several lessons.
“Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live” (page 82)
This lesson gave me a huge impact for me. Every time, I usually learn and think in right way, like first ‘live’ and ‘die’. However, professor Morrie reversed my way of thinking. I could realize that I should think in reversed way also even if reversed way doesn’t make sense. This lesson broke my prejudices immediately when I just read that part.
“Forget what the culture says. I’ve ignored the culture much of life. I’m not going to be ashamed. What’s the big deal?” (page 116)
This quotation gave me an impression. As you know, professor Morrie have fought with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), which is a name of serious disease that can cause death. But, in front of death, professor Morrie didn’t lose confidences of life. He just tried to make a great life even if he got a serious disease. When I read this lesson, I looked back my life. I have lost life confidence many times by cultural things. In fact, these cultural things are just small thing for my life. If I manage my mind properly, I can overcome depression. In contrast, professor Morrie got huge thing on his life, which can cause death, as I mentioned. However, he just forget it and live his life more hardly.
“Forgive yourself before you die, then forgive others” (page 164)
Nearly the last lesson, professor Morrie’s forgiveness lessons let me think about previous me. Commonly, I’ve not thought about me at first, but have hated and forgave others at first. I’ve never thought about me in this situation. While I was reading professor Morrie’s life lesson, I could realize that some people that hated me, can be hurt by my selfishness.
When I closed this book, I thought that this is not a fiction, but a bunch of lessons. There are many valuable and beautiful life lessons that didn’t introduce yet on journal entry. I strongly recommend you to read this book, who get tired and depressed by school works or the other things.
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by Jenny, (29 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Elizabeth Pulford
pg144
Jamie meets a young girl Lani in his grandmother’s house, castle cliff. He doesn’t like her at first, and thought she’s rather weird. However, after some time they spend together, he finds out himself truly loving Lani as a friend.
The most impressing part of the story was when Jamie finds out about Lani’s illness. Mom said
” It is desperately sad about grancliff dying, not only for all those who knew her, but especially for Lani. Grancliff was her strength in all of this. And now that she’s no longer here it’s taking its toll on Lani. That;s what is pulling her down fast. If Grancliff was still alive…”(pg90)
Through out the story I felt sorry for Lani because of her illness. Because she even couldn’t go to school because of the illness, I could understand the loneliness she felt, after her best friend Grancliff died. Lani might look like a normal young girl, but actually she has a very mature thought and mind. She knows to listen to other people, and to understand them. There were lots to learn from Lani even though her age is young, and it was very impressive to see Jamie changing by Lani.
by Jenny, (29 posts) on June 11th, 2011
I think poems can express the writers’ emotions or thoughts in a beautiful and an indirect way. Because of this, I’ve always liked writing or reading poems. In our english class, I had a chance to learn about the poems. I learned about the basic rythmns, and types of poems.
Because I enjoy reading poems, I’ve read quite a lot of Korean poems in my normal days. Reading and learning about poems that are written in English, I found it harder to understand. It might be because it’s not written in my first language, but I think it’s more because of the difference. In our english class, we learnt that poems do not send messages. However, it is true that a lot of Korean poems written during the Japanese Colonial Rule do have hidden messages.
Overall, it was a good chance to learn about different types of poems, and their rules. I think I should try writing english poems sometime.
by Jason, (26 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Pendragon
Book One: The Merchant of Death
By D.J. MacHale
Pages-392
‘Pendragon The Merchant of Death’ is sort of a confusing book cause of how the story is organized. The story abruptly changes. The story first starts with Bobby introducing about him, but after meeting Uncle Press the adventure abruptly starts:
“Listen, Bobby,” he said quickly, as if he didn’t have much time. “If anything happens, I want you to know what to do.” “Happens? What do you mean happens?” This didn’t sound good. “Everything will be fine if you know what to do. We’re not here to catch a train, we’re here because this is where the gate is.”…. (Page24)
By Uncle Press Bobby reaches to territory of Denduron and his journey starts. But then after this chapter the story goes back to the earth and the story gets back to Mark and Courtney. But what makes more confusing is when Mark and Courtney read the pages from Bobby. At the beginning it’s quite hard to understand what is going on.
“Courtney finished Bobby’s second amazing journal and…” (Page159)
“Mark threw the parchment pages down onto his bedroom floor angrily…” (Page270)
Up until the middle parts as I mentioned it’s confusing but it starts making the readers understand easily by above examples. However generally the book was sort of confusing but as I kept on reading it started easy to understand.
Overall when I first started I was willing to give 4/10 cause of the abrupt changes but after finishing the book I’ll give 8/10. It could be 10/10 but at the last part it ends by Courtney and Mark looking at Bobby’s newest journal with their hand shivering. But then something weird is there is this extra chapters which isn’t related that much to the ending. I recommend this book to people who likes adventure stories and some one who likes stories which goes back and front.
Have A Good Day~^^
by Young Suk, (18 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Title: Hope for the flowers
Author: Trina Paulus
Pages: ~p.160
This book made me think about our serious competing society. The characters can be divided into three, striped caterpillar, yellow caterpillar, and the other caterpillars that was making a caterpillar pillar. Caterpillars that lost their identities trampled on their friends and try to climb the pillar, which created by caterpillars. They actually wanted to know what things on the sky. A striped caterpillar also climbed up the pillar. While it was climbing, it met a yellow caterpillar. Yellow caterpillar didn’t know why it had to go up. Thus, they just went down from the pillar. Till this scene, I could realize that this situation is similar to our society. Everybody compete each other for their benefits and curiosities. While they competing, they should beat someone. After they leave from the pillar, they just played on the field, like common caterpillars. I could know that they got an identity of caterpillar, which is just play in the field. Afterward, they grew up to beautiful butterflies.
This book was quite short and easy to read, but gave me many lessons. First of all, I could think about our society, compare with this story. I thought the modern people who sell their identities for competing society (they don’t know the result of competing society) are really stupid. For example, a student that should study something competes and plays game with his life. Sadly, I can say that he lost his identity, student. Through this book, I could check and look back my life. I strongly recommend to read this book for corrupted people that lost their identities.
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by Young Suk, (18 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Title: The catcher in the rye
Author: J.D.Salinger
Pages: ~p.214
This book gave me sympathies for me. In this book, the main character, who named Holden was criticizing that age’s fake facts of society. An innocent child, Holden was an outsider from that kind of society by expulsion from school, worse friendships, etc. His families also ignored Holden. His father was a lawyer that have just concentrated on raising money for himself. As a result, he doesn’t care about Holden’s education. In this situation, I thought that this scene was really similar to current my abroad life. Currently, most of Koreans that migrated to China, try to raise more and more money because China is much easier to raise money than Korea. So they don’t actually have time Korean adults that they really educate their children or not.
One day, one of Holden’s brothers died due to leukemia. Holden got a shock mentally. While I was reading this part, I thought about innocent children that still living in this world. Originally, those innocent children should succeed and accepted from society. However, current world is that everybody compete and work hard for money that for their benefits. I was really disappointed and mad about our real world.
Finally, Holden try to escape corrupted New York with his sister but they couldn’t. They couldn’t leave New York because of their parents. When I closed this book, I thought that Holden is the poorest child in the world. Actually, they should treated in really good environments but they couldn’t. This book gave me a huge sympathy, using one innocent child eyes.
by Vincent, (11 posts) on June 11th, 2011
The Blind Side
Author: Michael Lewis
Pages Read: 339
The Blind Side is a wonderful, touching story based on the real life of story of a NFL player, Michael Oher, a poor African American whose mother is addicted to crack, and he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read and write.
The Blind Side contains two stories, which are 1. How Michael and the Tuohys met, and how they have become a family. And 2. The importance of the position that Michael will play in the game of football, the left tackles, and according to Michael Lewis ‘is one of the most important in the entire sport, for the person fulfilling this role is responsible for protecting the quarterback’s blind side.’
This book was a little bit difficult for me to read, because I barely know anything about American football. Therefore, I don’t understand words like ‘flea-flicker’, ‘linebacker’, the tackles, or the names of the teams.
There was a poem in this book, which Michael Oher liked it very much and interested in it, which was called “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”
“Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldiers knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred…
Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d…
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!”
After reading this book, I have learned that Kindness, love, and understanding are great and important, and ‘no matter who you are, where you came from, it doesn’t matter, you can do whatever you want to do as long as you work hard to achieve it.’ I recommend this anyone who wants to know Michael Oher’s story to read it.
3 people like this post.
by Jason, (26 posts) on June 11th, 2011
A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Vile Village
Book the Seventh
By Lemoney Snicket
Pages-257
Now everybody should know about the basic story of A Series of Unfortunate Events cause I’ve been writing 6 posts of the series. But for some people I’ll be explaining shortly; it’s about this vicious man called Count Olaf trying to get a large fortune by immoral ways from the Baudelaire. On this book the story starts by the Baudelaires looking at The Daily Punctilio which is full of lies about the Quagmires (Duncan and Isadora) and Count Olaf. The Baudelaires this time they depart for the unrevealed V.F.D, the place the two Quagmire triplets told before getting captured.
They reach the town of V.F.D, which is filled with crows and they starts living with a new guardian called Hector the handyman. Then Hector shows the house, the barn and the Nevermore Tree. The Baudelaires then gets to know V.F.D stands of the Village of Fowl Devotees that isn’t related to Count Olaf or the Quagmires. By the crows they start getting short poem (couplet) by the Quagmires. After knowing all the couplet:
For the sapphires we are held in here.
Only you can end our fear.
Until dawn comes we cannot speak.
No words can come from this sad beak.
The first thing you read contains clue.
An initial way to speak to you.
Inside these letters the eye will see.
Nearby are your friends and V.F.D (page 194)
The Baudelaires figure out the first letter in each verse spells out ‘FOUNTAIN’. Then they rush over to Fowl Fountains and finally find out the Quagmires. Afterward cause of the falsehood of Baudelaires killing some one the mobs chase after the orphans to catch them. However at last the Quagmire get in the hot-air mobile home made by Hector but the rope ladder to the mobile home gets burned and the Baudelaires gets left behind. The Quagmires throw their notebooks about the Count Olaf and the real meaning of V.F.D down to the orphans but the notebook gets scattered by Officer Luciana gunshots. The book ends up with Count Olaf and Officer Luciana escaped on a motorcycle and the article written that the orphans killing some one.
Overall I really liked this book comparing to the other series. Because in this book most of the mystery was solved, like V.F.D. But I think Lemony Snicket wanted the readers to keep on reading the next book. So in this book the mysterious like V.F.D is as well not saved exactly. I’ll give 9/10 for this book cause I really liked how the location of quagmires got solved by using the first letter in each verse spells.
3 people like this post.
by Vincent, (11 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Animal Farm
Author: George Orwell
Pages read: 139
‘Animal Farm’ is a weird book. At first I thought it is a story about the animals in a farm, but it is actually about the things that are happening in the world, at George Orwell’s time.
The main plot of this story is that, the overworked animals take over the running of the farm after the “old major” announced to them that ‘our lives are miserable…Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend…” died. Few days after the announcement, Major dies, and the three younger pigs-Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer take on old major’s principles and elaborate his ideas into philosophy called ‘Animalism’. One night, the animals manage to defeat to owner of the farm, and create their own one. At first, everything is wonderful, but then the pigs start to take over the farm, and one of the pigs-Napoleon becomes the leader of the animals and Napoleon becomes to disobey Major’s principles of the revolution, and the whole thing become worst than before. Napoleon abandons those things, and the animals have less freedom.
Benjamin was actually my favorite character, he’s an old donkey, who is very intelligent because “he reads as well as any pig” and he does not like Napoleon’s idea, but he doesn’t do anything because if he did do anything, he would probably get killed by Napoleon.
I think the story represents our characteristics and makes you really think what it means. It is a great book and I recommend people to read it.
by Vincent, (11 posts) on June 11th, 2011
The Giver
Author: Lois Lowery
Pages Read: 179
‘The Giver’ is a science fiction novel by Lois Lowery. The main character is Jonas, and he lives in the perfect world which everything is under control, including weather and emotions. “There is no war or fear or pain. But there are no choices, every people are assigned to a job according to their abilities, and people can not marry with the person they like (they don’t like others anyway), they are matched up based on their personalities.
One of the most important themes in ‘The Giver’ is the consequences of memory to human life. The author – Lois Lowery thought that without memory, there would be no pain, it is good for people, but someone has to keep the bad memories, and which is the job of the giver. When Jonas s 12, he is assigned to be the giver, because he has no hobbies or things he wanted to do. The Giver is the Receiver of Memories, and plays the most important person in the community. He can experience pain, love, happiness, and sees colors or listens to music while no one else can. Every Receivers of Memories are honored and respected by everyone, because the receivers have to hold the memories of violence, sadness, pain, and loss.
This is on of my favorite book, because I liked the plot of the book. After Jonas receives memories from the previous receiver, Jonas discovered the truth which is that every person is being ‘released’ means getting killed. Theres a baby called ‘Gabriel’ is going to be released because ‘he is unable to sleep throughout the night and disturbs the other babies in the “Nurturing Center”. Jonas flees the community with Gabriel; at first the escape seems successful. However, the food runs out, and they become weak, cold, and hungry. They begin to lose hope, but then Jonas begins to no longer take care of himself, and starts to give Gabriel those happy memories, and the good memories and bad memories that Jonas has become imbalanced.
I would recommend everyone to read this book, because it makes you think, and feels like what Jonas feels in the story. I liked the ending the most, because it is ambiguous. It hints that he may have heard music coming from a distance, and so he and the baby might have survived. Overall I would give ‘The Giver’ 9/10.
by Vincent, (11 posts) on June 11th, 2011
The Secret
Author: Rhonda Byrne
Pages Read: 198
A title of a book always shows how good a writer is. For example the book “the Secret”, when I first got this book I was attracted to the book’s title and I was wondering “What is the secret?” which did kept my attention and made me want to read and find out more about the secret.
After I finished reading this book, I’ve found out that the secret is about life, and how to be healthy, wealthy, happy, and finally in relationships. In addition, you can do or have anything you want. So, what is the secret? The author said that the secret is the law of attraction which is that ‘Everything that’s coming into your life you are attracting into your life. And it’s attracted to you by virtue of the images you’re holding in your mind. It’s what you’re thinking. Whatever is going on in your mind you are attracting it to you.’
However, this book is extremely different than other books, and I would say that it is weird, because I felt that Rhonda Byrnes not the author of the book, since the she uses many other people’s quotes to explain her idea, which the quotes are more than the words she wrote.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. This book is a great book, because it teaches me a lot, and I would start using the law of attraction in real life. If you really want to understand the secret of life and be successful or to help yourself in many things, you would have to think about it, and experience it. I recommend everyone to read this book.
1 person likes this post.
by Vincent, (11 posts) on June 11th, 2011
The Little Prince
Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Pages Read: 91
‘The Little Prince’ is a story about a little prince whos from Asteroid B-612. He wants to find a friend, so he sets a journey from his asteroid to earth. During his journey, he has met many people on other asteroids, but they’re all weird. Such as, a man who thinks he is the king of everything and a drunken man who keeps drinking because he is trying to forget his ashamed of drinking. Finally, the little prince has arrived on earth, and he meets the narrator who has crashed in the middle of the desert. Later on in the story, the little prince meets and fox, and makes friends with it. The Fox tells him a secret and which is ‘it is only with one’s heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.’ as a gift for the little prince. By learning the secret, the little prince finds a well with the narrator in the Sahara.
One thing I liked this book is that, the language of this book is simple – simple but has a deep meaning.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery used the point of view of the kid / little prince to show how silly, empty, and weird the adults are, and the author also criticized the relationships based on money between people. This book is interesting and I guess that’s why ‘The Little Prince’ became so famous. I would give a 7/10 for this book.
1 person likes this post.
by Vincent, (11 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Buffalo Before Breakfast
Author: Mary Pope Osborne
Pages Read: 72
The book ‘Buffalo Before Breakfast’ by Mary Pope Osborne is about Jack, Annie, and their dog Teddy travelled back about 200 years to the Great Plains to find ‘a gift from the prairie blue.’
My favorite parts were when Annie, Jack, Blackhawk, and Teddy were being chased by the buffalo because it was really cool and funny, and I liked the part where Jack and Annie made friends with the Lakota Indian boy called ‘Black Hawk’, which I thought his name was really cool and I wish my names Black Hawk too. Black Hawks trying to show them that he is strong can he can hunt buffalos, but in fact he sneezed and made a buffalo chased them.
After they made friends with the Native American boy, they went to their tribe and learned about the Lakota ways of living and the way of how the Lakota Indians used buffalo to make things. ‘Food from his body. Tepees from his skin. Tool from his bones. Cups from his horns. Ropes from his hair. Sleds from his ribs.’
Overall I enjoyed reading this book because this book helped me learned a lot about the buffalos and the Lakota, and information that I learned helped me understand more about the Indians. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the history of it.
by Melissa, (28 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Author: Nicholas Sparks
Title: The Last Song
Pages read: 390
Just like many of Nicholas Sparks’ books, The Last Song is another truly breathtaking novel. It’s about a teenage girl, Ronnie, who’s parents are divorced so she’s been rebellious ever since. The book’s called The Last Song because her father had written her a song before he died of stomach cancer. Ronnie was always disrespectful and never responded when he tried to talk to her because of the divorce and she kept believing that he had left their family.
One of the major themes in this story is love. When Ronnie goes to visit her dad for the summer she meets a boy called Will. She falls in love with him and he falls in love with her too. From this one summer Ronnie has discovered many things like family, first love, and moments in life that lead you back home. There are numerous events in the book that lead to love, like the boy she fell in love with and her relationship with her dad, which improved immensely over the summer. Before the summer her attitude towards her father was hurtful to him, when he asked her something she would answer like this,
“‘She’s fine,’ she assured him. She pulled up the covers. ‘But I know she misses you too.’” (pg. 62).
At the end of the book I cherished my family and friends more because you never know when they’ll suddenly disappear one day just like Ronnie’s dad did. Every single day is one day closer to a person’s death so it’s important for you to cherish every moment in life with other people. Personally I really like the work written by Nicholas Sparks, and I would recommend anyone to read his books.
1 person likes this post.
by Tianxiong Zhang, (19 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Poetry was always a bit cryptic to me. No matter what type, Haiku, Limerick, or otherwise, there is always something I’m trying to find out, undoubtedly usually the meaning. But after reading several pieces, and even writing a few, I have learned there is plenty more to Poetry then simply “looking for the meaning”. I don’t dislike or despise poetry, nor do I relish or take great pleasure in reading/writing them. Then again, after looking at a few, and attempting to imitate the art of poetry, I found what never thought I would. What I found was, my own interest in poetry. My views on poetry had risen from ordinary to intrigued.
Poetry, as mysterious and perplexing as it may be, I learned, should not be read to understand it’s meaning, but rather to feel. And I did. I felt things I once thought were hollow expressions put into word formation. There are plenty of “internal” images a poem can vent, and if you were to do nothing but analyze the words for meanings, you would never see them. Such as, the poem (which I have unfortunately forgotten the title to) describing the grandma and the child inside a house on a rainy day. The feeling is what matters in it, Mr. Macknight seemingly wanted to be there, and I assume although nobody else raised their hand when asked whether or not they felt the same, they also felt as if they wanted to be there. I didn’t raise my hand, but I surely wanted to experience that.
Of all the poetry we read, regardless of good or bad, they all gave me an image, not literally, but as in, they showed me something, each one was different. If the poem wasn’t very good, the image would be blurry and indecent. But with a good poem such as Robert Frost’s “The Road not Taken”, the image was like something taken with an HD camera, I saw the two roads, I felt the atmosphere, I somewhat “connected”.
We’ve also looked into poem structure, which I believe is the hardest part. I usually do not have a problem with metaphorical phrases or lines, I am not bothered by rhyming, nor disturbed by interminable or protracted words. The structure is what sunders me. When we were to write our own limericks, I could come up with an easy rhyme right off the bat, but I could not structure it or keep it at a steady beat correctly. Thus, poetry isn’t the best thing for me, nor am I the best suited for it. However, regardless of how weird I find structuring to be, it does not obstruct my positive views on poetry. Reading and writing them gives me joy.
“Writing a Poem is like Discovering” – Robert Frost.
1 person likes this post.
by Melissa, (28 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Author: Jane Austen
Title: Pride and Prejudice
Pages read: 428
Jane Austen’s famous book, Pride and Prejudice is about Elizabeth Bennet who lives in England and has a family of both parents and four sisters. Then came Mr Bingley who went to Hartfordshire, which is where the Bennets live. When Mr Bingley (handsome and rich bachelor) arrived at Hartfordshire, Ms Bennet (Elizabeth’s mother) immediately tried to get one of her daughters to marry him. Mr Bingley had a friend, Mr Darcy who meets Elizabeth. Elizabeth hates him though, and she tried to avoid him any time she could. At the start Mr Darcy was proud but then he became obvious about his feelings towards Elizabeth. The tragic thing about this was that they couldn’t get married since she was from a middle-class family, whereas Mr Darcy was in a high class.
The main character for this book was Elizabeth Bennet. She’s independent, attractive, and witty. Elizabeth was the kind of person who has strong impressions on people, and in this case she had a bad impression of Mr Darcy, which caused her to reject him many times, as can be interpreted from this quote,
“You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness” (pg. 215).
Reading Pride and Prejudice was more difficult than other novels I have read before because of the vocabulary, it wasn’t exactly modern English so it took some time to see what the sentence really meant. I think it was good that I read this book since it was challenging and I learnt many new things from it. Also when you read a book that’s more challenging for you, you’d most likely remember it more than easy books that you basically skim through since it’s so easy. This book was kind of funny, different, and somewhat heart warming because of the ending.
by Melissa, (28 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Title: Eat, Pray, Love
Pages read: 445
Eat, Pray, Love is about a woman, Elizabeth Gilbert, who has everything in life like a job, husband and friends but she felt as though she has to find more. Because of that, she went to different places in search for them, those places included Italy, India and Bali (Indonesia). Italy was for the pleasure, India for devotion, and Bali for yoga.
A major theme in the story is love, which is obviously in the title of the book. It’s a major theme because it’s the reason why Elizabeth wanted to start going to different places. Before she went to those places, she just got through a divorce, which is heart breaking for her husband since there wasn’t anything wrong in their relationship, she just suddenly thought, “what am I doing here?”. When she went to Bali she found love for a child and her single mother who had gone through a divorce as well, over in Bali it was considered unthinkable to be divorced. As soon as Elizabeth spent an afternoon with them, she said in her book:
“Already, in the space of one afternoon, I was so in love with this kid.” (pg. 343).
My personal reaction to this book was that I started thinking about a lot of things. I thought about things like what is true happiness? where can I go to find what I’m looking for? I think people should read this book because it makes you think about life and everything even deeper than usual. It’s good for the audience mentally. I’d give this book 9/10.
by Melissa, (28 posts) on June 11th, 2011
Author: Lauren Kate
Title: Fallen
Pages read: 452
‘Fallen’ written by Lauren Kate is basically about a girl named Lucinda Price (Luce) who’s sent to a reform school since the court ordered for her to be relocated at the reform school, Swords and Crosses. She was ordered by the court because she was suspected of killing Trevor. What actually happened between them was that when they were alone ‘shadows’ started to circle above them, then they kissed and flames came out, which killed Trevor. When she goes to Swords and Crosses, she meets a lot of people, but one of them stood out – Daniel. As soon as she met Daniel she felt as though they had already met before and he was familiar. Later on they fall in love and Luce discovers that she reincarnates every 17 years and she only survives 17 years, also she found out Daniel was an angel (along with many others in the school). Then the angels have a battle and the librarian at the school tried to kill Luce but was saved by Daniel.
As you can tell from that brief summary, the main character is Lucinda Price. She’s not like normal teenagers with simple lives and lives with her parents, it turns out that she is actually an angel too. Luce is different to others as in she’s weird. She was in love with Daniel so she showed her affection to him not like how usual teenagers would show, she stalked him and harassed him too. They didn’t fall in love with each other from the first moment – Luce had been the one who was madly in love with him, and she let him treat her in an unjustly way as you can see from this quote:
“She realised they were still locking eyes when Daniel flashed her a smile. A jet of warmth shot through her and she had to grip the bench for support. She felt her lips pull up in a smile back at him, but then he raised his hand in the air.
And flipped her off.” (pg. 40).
When I finished reading this book I was relived that my life didn’t seem that bad after all. Compared to this story I guess everyone’s living a fairytale, which makes the book better to read since I believe people enjoy reading things or hearing things that make themselves feel better.
by Ji Yeon, (4 posts) on June 11th, 2011
We studied about poems. The basic idea of poems is showing, not telling. The lines and stanzas make the poems. It has rhymes and syllables, so we sometimes can make songs by poems. There are many meanings in words that use in the poem. For example, ‘sleep’ also mean ‘death’ in poems. In addition, ‘make a bread’ infer their ‘love’. These make the poem more difficult to learn and understand.
We read many poems in the classes. I remembered ‘Two Road Not Taken’. The poem is about life. The ‘two roads’ is metaphoric expression and it shows the conflicts in our life journey. The poem impressed me. Other poems are also nice. After that, we wrote a limerick. I had problems with rhymes and foot. I realized writing poems are very difficult.
I have interests in poems, because it is like a magic box to me. It contains many things. There are many options to interpret in various ways depend on point of view, experiences, mottos and so on. On the other hand, we need to know the poet’s ideas. I sometimes get confusions. Furthermore, I sometimes can’t get what the poet think and want to say.
The interesting on the poems is that people can get different messages despite of same poems. Some people like long with many descriptions poems. In contrast, some people like short and vivid poems. In fact, I like simple and natural poem like Haiku.
I think we can improve our understanding and writing skills by the poems. The poem is one method of expressing our thought effectively. I would look more poems. Overall, I learned many things about the poems through the classes and I like the poetry world.
by Amy, (23 posts) on June 10th, 2011
Nowadays there are all sorts of book that portrayed Asian mothers as scheming, vicious, overdriven parents in different aspects, who often disregard their kids’ true interests. As Ms. Chua must agree, because in book she described cruel well-packaged methods, with high qualify arguments. Obviously she was arguing about the success of using Chinese educate methods. However, this “screed” ended up presenting a bitter cultural conflict between Chinese and Western parenting. On the other hand, it also presented the art of obsessive parenting.
In this book Ms. Chua directly overacts the role of evil witch. Her continuous outrage actions made her the immediate topic. As I remember, Ms. Chua throws her 3-year-old daughter in the cold, when she was trying to raise obedient. More memorably, forced her two daughters to take music lessons, as a resulted grueling one girl left her tooth mark on the piano. Even worst, she order her daughter to get grade A in every subject, and require them to speak Mandarin (Chinese) with their nanny, even though Ms. Chua does not even speak it herself.
Ms. Chua explain that this is the significance of tough Chinese parenting, ordinary physical punishments, since this is the quickest and the most direct way to present a mistake was made to kids. As popularly known, physical punishments is opposed to the lax Western education.
She admits the term “Chinese mother”. She believes that “Chinese mother” certify overdriven, snobbish and strength can certainly raise a grade A children. When she contrasts these attitudes with the loosely “Western” ones, made toughness justifiable.
She claims, “That’s just Disney’s way of appealing to all the people who never win any prizes”
Ms. Chua was not interested in cultivate unrewarded slackers. She was searching for miracle, even if it meant nonstop, and more punish labors. It describes the endless piano and violin sessions for her two daughters that Ms. Chua supervised positively.
However, her second daughter LuLu was not someone to be taken lightly, she has the total opposite characteristics comparing to her elder sister Sophia. LuLu often acted rebellious, since she was a kid.
“The wind chill was 20 degrees, and my own face hurt from just a few seconds’ exposure to the icy air. But I was determined to raise an obedient Chinese child if it killed me. … “You can’t stay in the house if you don’t listen to Mommy,” I said sternly. “Now, are you ready to be a good girl or do you want to go outside?” Lulu stepped outside. She faced me, defiant. A dull dread began seeping though my body. Lulu was wearing only a sweater, a ruffled skirt, and tights. She had stopped crying. Indeed, she was eerily still.
“Okay, good – you’ve decided to behave,” I said quickly. “You can come in now.”
Lulu shook her head.
“Don’t be silly, Lulu. It’s freezing. You’re going to get sick. Come in now.”
Lulu’s teeth were chattering, but she shook her head again”(p21-22).
As Ms. Chua describe her rebellious above. She was only three when she disobeyed Ms. Chua’s instruction, this drawn the battle line. This event seems absurd, because defeating Ms. Chua is unusual, since she was so strict about her rules. However, LuLu used her way to revolt and push forward on the battle line, conditions had got worst as she grew up. One day LuLu exploded in a restaurant, she threatened Ms. Chua to follow her decision or she will drop the glass goblet. As Ms. Chua refused to obey, she directly drops the goblet and immediately splashed on the floor. This gave Ms. Chua a huge challenge. As result, she compromised with LuLu.
In another perspective Ms. Chua and LuLu have alike personalities, such as, stubborn and rebellious. Both of them fought for the battle, they used their methods attempted to control each other. Eventually, a thirteen-year-old humbled Ms. Chua.
Despite the fact that I disagree to use the methods of Chinese parenting. However, I esteem mothers that uses Chinese methods on educating, because this causes the person you love, hates you. Therefore, I consider Chinese parenting as the grandest method.
Overall, this book reminds me of my mom, because she uses the same method on educating me, with the same piano lessons supervised positively. As I had the same experience, I discovered that I am more alike her first daughter Sophia, which follows instructions. Until I attended to an international school that changed my personality, since teachers encouraged us to have our own opinions, I started to have more thoughts, and tried to speak up upon my own opinions. My mother and I, had to compromise for a long time. However, our way of compromising was not as intense. Eventually, my mom gave me more freedom, but remains the same methods.
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by Mi Rin, (21 posts) on June 10th, 2011
I actually didn’t like to read poems before. I felt difficult about reading poems for I thought I had to find meaning of it behind the words. Not only that, but I thought it was boring as well. In class, we have been learning about poetry for about two weeks. It was special time for me for it changed my attitude toward poetry.
Poetry was always hard for me for I’ve tried to find meaning of it behind the words. It was one of the habits I have which I always did when reading Korean poems. Most of the Korean poems have meaning behind, which author wants readers to find out. I thought it would be the same in English poems, however it wasn’t. I was surprised when Mr. Macknight told us that there is no meaning in poems. After I have learned that meaning of poems may differ by how we think, I found it much easier than before.
Writing poem was more complicated than reading poems. Making poem was not an easy process. We had to make an poem with certain rhythm. Not only that but I should also make words rhyme. With some help from Mr Macknight, me and my partner get to finish last line of it. I thought other lines did not make sense for not choosing right words.
Poetry was actually very interesting. When we just get into this topic in class, I kind of hesitated; I’ve always thought it was difficult and complicated. What I need to do is not to study words but to experience poem. I think I will get to enjoy poems from now on!
by Alex, (30 posts) on June 9th, 2011
In English class, we started learning about poetry, something that I detest a lot. I detest poetry because it eventually just kills the reader; it has no meaning. Whenever you read a poem, you don’t know what the poet is talking about and the harder you think about it, the more you brain starts to hurt. Hence, I was never a fan of poetry.
This part should be about how I started liking poetry but in this case I still didn’t. This dislike of poetry may be because of my misinterpretation of the poem. Whenever I start reading something that is confusing or something that I don’t understand, then I don’t have the feeling to keep on reading it and I just hate it. This may be my problem but after 2 weeks of poetry, I didn’t loathe it as much.
After these two weeks of poetry and reading different varieties of poems, I’ve felt that poems want to express an image or a feeling to the reader. When I heard the Nantucket poem that Mr. Macknight read, I felt this joyful feeling around the whole class, bringing happiness and joy to the people nearby. Also, some poems that I heard today gave me a vivid image of what was happening in the poem. The sestina poem, made me imagine a little cottage in the middle of nowhere, where snow was piling up and events happening in the house with the grandmother and the little kid.
Also, a really catching thing in poems are the rhymes. Limericks have a really special rhyme, AABBA, and a unique beat which are mostly joyful or random poems about different things. After reading and listening to limericks, I felt that it was quite easy to make one up but found it difficult just getting the beat right. A lesson learnt.
From these weeks of poetry, I felt that poetry wasn’t just about words and confusing the reader. Poetry had it’s own beauty inside and we have to know what the write feels and what he/she is talking about in order to know what the images and the feeling expressed in the poems. From this, I learned to be more patient with poems because we would never understand the poem with having patience to know what the words in the poem actually mean.
by Kushal, (11 posts) on June 9th, 2011
The word “poetry” doesn’t cheer me up much. When i was a kid i hated poetry, because it didn’t have a positive side on me. But this unit made me like poetry for the first time. I like poetry which have rhymes in it, i think long poems are too descriptive and boring to read. My favourite poets are Robert frost and William Blake, they make the poem fun to read. The reason why people write poetry is because they like to play with words and they like to explore words. In this unit we read poems which are famous and we were given a task to write our own poem consisting of five lines known as a “Limerick”. poems are like short stories consisting of weird words and rhythms. Poetry was used before stories in the renaissance times. Poetry wasn’t really appreciated at that times, but if you read the poems more than once, the poems sound pretty good, and you want to appreciate poetry.
One thing i want to mention about poetry is, long poems are the most boring poems because sometimes they are so descriptive, and sometimes you feel that poetry is not a good topic to choose in literature. Mr.macknight made class fun, he made his own poems which were fun to listen to.
This was our last unit in English and i have learnt a lot from this. Now i think poems are fun to read, and there are better at catching the reader’s attention.
by Young Suk, (18 posts) on June 9th, 2011
After the final exam, we’ve learned about poetry at the last three weeks. Honestly, I have not read poetry frequently because it was hard to understand the real thoughts of author. In addition, poetry was more complicate for me because of it implies everything that author wanted to put in.
When I watched poetry first, in class, I was in panic because poetry looked like a bunch of difficult words. Other poetries that consist of easy words, I couldn’t understand either because it was a bunch of implications and metaphors. When we just entered poetry unit, we talked about its structures, rhythms, etc. There were some characteristics of poetry that I know so I didn’t lose my interest of poetry.
The first poem, ‘stopping by woods on a snowy evening’ by Robert Frost, I could find the rhythmic structure, which was like ‘AABA’. So while I was reading poem, I felt that I sang a lyrics. In addition, this rhythmic structure let me keep reading this poem with excited and interesting feels.
Another poem, ‘the road not taken’ by Robert Frost, was also interested for me because there was rhythmic structure (I thought that it was not a perfect rhythm like the first poem, but almost) and there was an implication that two roads are not same.
Actually, we learned other poems that mr.Macknight like. Those were also made me think about rhythms and implications. There were longer poems that African American wrote, made me think about in complicate ways.
So far, I’m really glad to learn about poems for last 3 weeks before summer holiday because those poems that we learned made me experience the new world that I haven’t been (honestly, I didn’t usually read poems because as I mentioned, it was hard to understand). I wish I can well understand the real meaning of poetry someday.
by Amy, (23 posts) on June 9th, 2011
I was confused into thinking that we are supposed to find the meaning of poem, but after hearing what Mr. MacKnight explained to us, I realized that we don’t search for the meaning, however, we experience the poem.
Today in class Mr. MacKnight read different types of poems. However, I am unable to fully understand every poem, as a result I concentrated on the sounding. As I discovered that those different sounding of poems gave different emotions. Furthermore, we read poems from “Songs of Innocence” written by William Blake the tone of speaking was very different from the author, since he particularly used the expression of a little kid. On the other hand, there are also other poems that rhyme or have complicated structures. Regard to the value, speed and rhythm, some poems have a clear tempo sound more excited, others sound peaceful with a vivid description.
Among all types of poem, I am most interested in limericks, because it has a specific structure on rhyming and tempo, which often catches my attention. However, when we were asked to create a limerick, I recognized it was not as easy as I thought. Firstly, there are limitations on rhyming words, and it has to follow the structure with the same syllables, in order to fit the tempo. Even worst, it has to make sense.
Despite the fact that I used to hate poems. As my opinion of poem changed after these classes, since as limerick attracted my attention.
by Annie, (24 posts) on June 9th, 2011
The poems that we read in these few classes were interesting. I didn’t exactly understand all of the poems, and some of them were too random, such as the poem that repeated “flop”, “up”, “tree-top” and “plop” over and over. I barely caught how it had reflected the title of the poem. We also read a few poems from ‘Songs of Innocence’ and ‘Songs of Experience’ (from William Blake) and they were different in comparison to poems from other authors. Some were short and quite rhythmic like a little kid’s poetry. I noticed how Mr. Macknight started to use different tone in voice to read the poems, such as he didn’t read “Songs of Innocence” the way he read the poem about the man from Nantucket. Also, I realized that for many of the poems, there are always a few “symbols” used, such as for the ‘Songs of Experience’ the “tyger” is used as one of the main symbol in the poem.
While we were writing limericks in groups the other day, I realized that from choosing a topic to finishing the poem is a difficult process. You can actually choose many different ways to represent your idea/topic, such as using different objects, adjectives, and descriptions. In often times, the limericks ended up quite funny since our main goal was to make the limerick rhyme, we started choosing different words that fits with the stresses and rhythm(tempo) and paid little notice to the meaning of the sentence.
One more interesting thing I learned was that we don’t try to search for the message of the poem, but we experience them. Just like we experience trees.
by Rick, (26 posts) on June 9th, 2011
Poetry is the beauty of languages. In poetry, poets uses rhyme and various ‘tools’ to highlight and display a certain image in a different perspective. To be honest, I am not familiar with poetry, and rather weak and slow at understanding poems. It involves some time for myself to understand a poem, not that I do not understand the words, but the theme of the whole context bothers me. So, when it comes to poetry, after I try for a certain amount of time trying to understand the poem, I either yawn or lose focus.
In our english class, we looked at different poems from limericks to sestinas. And we also looked at other poems written by famous poets like William Blake. When I looked at the poems that Mr. Macknight showed us, I started to realize how poets use english with such freedom to tell their own story or idea.
However, among all different poems, I felt strongly interested in limericks, a type of poem that involves a certain structure of rhyme. Poems do not have to have rhymes, but I found out that poems without rhyme does not catch my attention. Using rhymes in a poem is a challenging task: you have to think deeply about its content and the structure, so that both of them are in a good quality. Often if you consider about rhyming the words, you miss out the content. Whereas, if you focus on the content, you miss out rhyming the words. Even though this process may seem easy at hand, when you actually start writing a poem, it makes you suddenly realize how difficult it is to create a rhyme (in terms of limericks) and also how clever the poets are.
Learning new concepts about poems was interesting, and if I get the chance to write another poem, my option will be the ‘sestina’. Even though it has a complex structure to follow (39 lines with peculiar change of the end-words), but I can challenge myself in writing a poem that involves a great amount of thinking.
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The arts, ideas, natural beauty, and good conversation provide lasting pleasure.
Success Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.
—John Wooden
Literature When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.
—Maya Angelou
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