Month: March 2024

Personally, I did not love reading this book, I found it interesting but it was very confusing for me, I didn’t understood much about what was going on and everything was very confusing, besides that the parts that I did understand were interesting, reading this for me was also hard since I had never read something like this which made it hard and confusing, I also had some trouble making notes since I couldn’t understand many parts. This was something different that I think it was a challenge for me but at the end I tried my best to understand, and I found this book different that others we have read in English class, and it was something very interesting with good ideas and lessons through the book. It also had many ideas that you could take as lessons , at the end this book was hard to read and confusing but interesting .



Reciting this was a little hard I had to memorize everything and sometimes it can be hard since you know it and memorize it but when it’s time to read it being nervous makes you forget, and that happened to me in one part, besides that I think I did a pretty good job since I didn’t receive any help and I was able to say the whole thing by myself without help and recite it very good. i don’t love this type of activities since for some people it can be hard speaking on public, and it is something we have to work with but personally i don’t like memorizing this since usually its harder and you can forget it very easily.

Overall, I think that “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a nice poem. I liked the plot, and I found it really interesting how the story pressed along, between the Mariner shooting the Albatross, and the sudden misfortunes that happened to the crew soon afterwards.  but I didn’t really like reading the poem due to the language that was used in the writing. I feel that I would’ve been more engaged in the poem if the language was easier to understand, at least to me. This poem slightly reminded me about the Story of Joseph, despite the languages being different from each other I still  I found the poem quite difficult to follow because although I had pages on pages of notes, I still couldn’t really piece together what was happening when the time came around for the quiz. In fairness, this could’ve simply been my error, and my notes were not thorough enough, but I have never had this sort of issue before when I have used my notes for quizzes on other stories.

As for the recitation on the five stanzas, I think I performed good, and I had everything memorized, despite my mind going blank as I was silently standing in front of everyone with my best efforts to try and gather my thoughts, which I was eventually able to grasp. I feel that I definitely could have done a better job on creating a sense of character, because I was mainly thinking more of memorization than emphasizing my words, or making appropriate pauses and rests to have a flow as I was reciting the stanzas. Other than the small snippet that I blanked on in the middle, I think that the rest of the recitation went well for the most part.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner really did hit different compared to other stories we have read this year. Unlike the others, it uses psychologic tactics to not only take the readers attention, but to also keep them at nerve until the climax has passed. This did prove to be a very successful tactic since cliff-hangers (which happened here and there) occurred right at the end of a certain chapters creating a suspense forcing the reader to read on. This passage (like all the others) doesn’t hold a message, but before you say anything let me show you what I mean; books and passages don’t deliver messages, it just brings us information which we chose to interpret in many ways and take out a lesson out of them. In this exact passage I have learned that we must value the small and big things that happen throughout our little adventure (life), as well as you never realise how valuable someone is until they are gone. Unfortunately this lesson I have learned the hard way when I was younger, since my grandfather has passed away from cancer in 2019, as well as my dog passing away.

Due to my inability of working on memorizing the 5 stanzas (due to my sickness) I had to resort to procrastination (I understand this is a very bad habit but try not to use it often) in order to not fail this assignment. The whole memorization took no longer than a ferry from Vancouver Island to Mainland (1.35 hours), and I must say that I was comfortable with presenting these stanzas.

However, despite me practicing over and over, getting to the point of where I “not only got it right, but couldn’t get it wrong” (Mr. Herv Kejgal, old Music Teacher, a wise man who has taught me valuable lessons for life). This self confidence was soon dissipated as I was called up to the front of the class in seemingly no time, which has lead me to be nervous. The nervousness has caused me to forget one of the lines, which made me a little more nervous. I did however come to realize that I had to keep my tempo, which has allowed me to deal with the nervousness as all I did was take long, deep, breaths in order to calm myself down; and wouldn’t you know it, it worked! After such a rollercoaster I finally sat down with a strong sense of relief and belief in myself for next time:

As the overall lesson, I have now seen what procrastinating would do to me if I kept it up (quite a bit of students failed to memorize their scripts causing them to get a low mark, which is very unfortunate for them, hence why this post covers this topic.

–Iaroslav Serg Pyrozhok

Hi, I’m going to tell you what I liked and disliked about The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A few things I liked from this ‘book’ were the ghost ship and how the Mariner paid the price for killing the poor, innocent albatross. Things I didn’t like about this book were the way it was written, sometimes it was so hard to understand that I honestly just skipped over completely and proceeded to throw the paper across the room; the fact that the poor wedding guest had to stand and listen to this old man yap for the whole wedding was honestly the saddest part, like let the wedding guest go enjoy himself.

Now, for the recitation… I swear I practiced it, it’s just hard to speak out loud in front of a crowd sometimes. Out of everything we’ve done this term, this was it. This is my #1 opp. I hope we never have to memorize and recite anything again (I know we will have to but I pray we don’t).

 

When I first started reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, I never thought I would have to memorize ballads from it later on. The story follows an ancient mariner who tells a story to a wedding guest who is stopped by his frightening glare. Before this, I had never thought of reading ballads as an actual form of reading. However, it was not as bad as I believed it would be. I greatly admired how each line was spaced enough to make me feel like I wasn’t reading a story at all, but a text message on my phone instead. The text itself, as could be expected in a Mr. Macknight classroom, did not make sense at all, which also made it considerably more exhausting to memorize. Also, the fact that we were forced to recite it afterward in front of our classmates made me and many others who struggle with public speaking not want to step foot in Brookes Westshore at all. Overall I’m not mad or sour over my grade I just don’t understand how making children feel bad in front of all their classmates relates to English or helps us in my future paths to greatness.

When I first started to memorise the five stanzas, I went over each stanza repeatedly one at a time until I knew that stanza off by heart. I continued to do this to the second stanza than reciting both until I knew the entire five stanzas. When I knew the five stanzas, I would say the whole thing in my head and practice with my friends. Because it was a poem, I found it easier to memorise it than say, a random section of a novel, because the last words of every line, rhyme with another. It also has a beat, or rhythm, to it which helps to know how many syllables are in each line.

“Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a very interesting ballad. It centers around the Ancient Mariner, an old man, who killed an Albatross for no apparent reason while working on a ship. This caused the ship to get stuck, and led to the death of his 200 crewmates. After a symbolic phantom ship containing “Death” and “Life in Death” came up to their ship, they both gambled on whether he would survive. Life in Death won, so the Mariner was left alive. After his crewmates died, he was left alone on the ship, cursed to float in the sea until he died. A wind that could not be felt caught the sails of the ship, and it eventually made its way back to England, where he had departed from, he was forced to do penance for killing the albatross in the form of being forced to tell people his story. This is told through the lens of the Mariner telling his story to a man going into a wedding.

I believe the story of the Ancient Mariner does draw some ties to Jekyll and Hyde with its narrative. It explores the immoral urges of man, and the consequences of such, through a strict lens of morality. The strict lens of morality, however, in Rime of the Ancient Mariner is strictly a Christian lens, while that of Jekyll and Hyde is a Victorian lens, which is partially Christian, but also encompasses ideals outside of that. I quite enjoyed this ballad. It was very well paced for something so short, and it was an interesting look into late-16th-century ideals. Beyond this, it was also a generally enjoyable story, and the rhythm of it kept it from being too tedious to read. For what reason, I do not know. Its main idea is the idea that every creature is important to their creator, no matter how obscene people interpret them to be. We can see this when the Mariner unconsciously blesses the sea-snakes, which he had previously called disgusting, and is able to pray again.

My experience memorizing the five stanzas of this play was, in fact, quite pleasant. I personally opted to memorize it around a week before, which was quite the help, and allowed me to be more confident. It reduced my stress tenfold, and allowed me to make my presentation very smooth.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner was a poem produced by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I found the book insanely confusing to understand at certain points. I liked this books’ plot though because I like the non-fiction, and the ghost crew and “Death & Life after death”. This book makes me think of what it would be like to have everyone you know be killed and you escaping back to your homeland, alive. At one part, I would think it would feel great to be back home, and you would usually feel victorious that you survived a chaotic trip. But at the same time, you wouldn’t be able to see your crew ever again and you would have flashing memories or maybe nightmares about the corpses laying on the ship. I would say that the ending made me feel sad, except I’m just happy the Mariner got back home safely whether he’s a ghost or not, because now he can go tell his story to a bunch of others! Over all the book and it’s non-fiction made me love it, I just wish it was written in an easier understanding way, and I hope to read more non-fiction books like we have been.

Now, to my experience trying to remember/recite the five stanzas. I didn’t have time and I kind of forgot to try and memorize it, so I only had Sunday and Monday to try and be able to recite it, which stressed me out a lot since I have a math summative coming up the day I’m writing this as well. Even though it was very stressful, I got one of my friends to help me through it. On the day of the recitation, I was pretty confident, but I know how things work, I went up there and I forgot most of the stanzas but I still completed it so I’m proud of myself because doing public speaking like that scares me. The weird part is I wasn’t too concerned with reciting it, it was more how was I going to stand so I don’t look weird. Either way, I feel like I did a good job and I’m so happy it’s over haha.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was an eye-catching read with many things to say about this Ballard, the main thing on my mind is that no matter how hard you struggled and fought to pronounce and recite the tricky old-time English words, you always had a drive to read the next line, and to find the rhyme within the stanzas’. Something I will always remember from this book was the Albatross, and how it hung around the Ancient Mariners neck as a symbol of sin.

— The selfsame moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.” (Page 8 Stanza 7)

I had many questions about this stanza, I felt a significant change in the way I viewed the Ancient Mariner. Not only did he forgive the world around him, but it was just that, that released the sin weighted on his neck. Memorizing the 5 stanzas’ was not difficult considering it’s already in Rime, one thing would rhyme with the next which made the words easier to compare and contrast between the stanzas’. I think it was unrealistic to have such high expectations for a class of students, the most of whom were born and/or raised in non-English speaking nations. Applying the grading system incorrectly in this instance, with the bulk of the class receiving a 5 or lower, due to a small number of students exceeding expectations, is the reason for this.

‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ is a narrative poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798. It is about the mariner who shoots an innocent Albatross which creates problems for him when his ship stops moving due to the doldrum. When the ship became static, it was on the equator at the time and did not move for many days. With direct sun, it got very hot and there was no water to drink. The mariner’s shipmates all died but he stayed alive. When he eventually gets back to England and confesses his journey and unfortunate events to the Hermit through a poem, he learns that his penance for killing the Albatross is to continue to tell his story to people.

Overall, I enjoyed the story of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. I have never read a narrative poem until now and I found it fascinating how someone can tell a story through poetry. Even though the terminology was confusing at times, I was able to piece it together like a puzzle and try and figure it out along the way. Even though I liked how it was written, there were many parts where I was not expecting that to happen and seemed odd to me. Including when it wrote that ‘the dead men rose’ and how there was a ghost ship, ‘spectre barque’. But after finishing reading it, it fit together, and I understood what had happened.

I personally didnt like this book because the end was really boring. in my opinion it is a well written book, But it’s not the kind of book I like or would read.