Senior Scrapbook! 2.0

I am proud to say that I have just finished my project! I felt extremly accomplished because I finished it early:) I plan on not looking at my project until Sunday night because I know that after seeing it a few days later I will want to edit it more. During dead/finals week, I will be presenting a movie/scrapbook. It is pretty much an overview of my whole life and my freinds and family. There are also a few songs that I feel go with the pictures and express a little of who I am and what I love. An example would be mariachi songs. I enjoy listening and dancing to that so I decided to incorporate some of those songs into my movie/scrapbook.
I really hope you guys enjoy it:D

Project Progress!:)

So far I have done just about everything. I have chosen most of my songs and I have gone through hundreds of photo albums to find the most meaningful photos for my scrapbook. It was difficult not to put choose too many pictures; I loved a lot of them. In the next two weeks I still have to put the things together. I have already cropped and fix the pictures to the correct size. I have also edited my songs to make sure they fit perfectly. My work while benefit me in the long run because I will have something memorable to look back at, at any moment I wish.

Project Plan

Goals/Timeline: My main goal is to have my scrapbook/power point done by next Friday. I have a lot coming up and I don’t want to be stressing out about it. I also want to make sure I don’t leave it till the last minute and  end up making it ugly. I want to make the power point very appealing and pretty I hope to include songs that describe e who I am, as well as show people basically where I come from.  Want them to understand why I am the way I am.

Materials: I plan to either use the prezi program or the windows movie maker. I am going to use a lot of photos of family, friends, and teachers in my power point. I will use a friend’s scanner to upload old pictures on the my computer, as well as using facebook to find more interesting photos of friends and family that I may not have on my computer already.

Presentation: I am basically just going to play my power point as it is. There will be titles, so it will be easy to understand what is actually being shown.

Feats of Wisdom?!

So I went to the Farmer's Market at SLO and visited the Wall of Gum and saw this. It reminded me of the Feats of Wisdom.  (Sorry it's a little blurry)

David Foster Wallace's excerpt

The excerpt from David Foster Wallace’s Everything and More contains a large number of different literary elements in order to prove his point. His purpose is to make people think about a noun, but also clarify the meaning and make them not go too in depth with the definition and cause confusion. The theme of the excerpt is “always think critically about everything.” David uses a serious yet humorous tone to get his point across. He chooses to use simple, understandable diction in order to make it easy to understand what he is trying to say. Although the words are easy recognize, the word structure is a little complex. There are a lot of punctuations and the order in which the words are placed can be simplified. David also uses many other literary elements throughout the excerpt. Some are: allusion, ambiguity, analysis, aphorism, audience, purpose, rhetorical question, repetition, satire, and style.

AP Preparation

These past few days I have been slacking on preparing for the AP English Test, but not because I am being lazy. I am focusing more on preparing for the AP Spanish Literature Test. I feel like it’s a lot more difficult for me to understand the Spanish literature because it’s proper Spanish. I have been studying and working on essays for the Spanish test. I feel that the same concept applies to the English test when it comes to answering the essays topics. The essay topics that I have been using come from the books "Abriendo puertas" tomo uno y tomo dos.

4/30/12 Progress

Today I made some progress. I was able to get some of the literary term definitions cleared for me. I plan to study them more tonight. My plan for the week is to have all of them completely down by Friday. It’s going to take me some time because I continue to confuse some, especially analogy, allegory, and aphorism. I need to come up with a way not to get the words and definitions mixed up.

"A Reflection on Unstructured Learning"

The text could be said to have a number of different themes, both universal and specifically for that situation. I personally believe the theme is universal and can apply to anyone in any type of situation. I think the essay is to take advantage of your surroundings and go forth. This text applies to our AP course and the students in it. I personally see a lot of symbolism in the text. The costume symbolizes the AP test, and the other police officer symbolizes other students and the teacher. 

The teacher has provided just about all the sources needed not just to prepare us for the AP test, but to help us pass it with a satisfying grade. We should stop underestimating our abilities and minds. We need to take it upon ourselves to suck it up and use all the sources provided and just start studying. The sources are already there, but they aren’t any good without us doing anything with them.

Progress

I must admit that my progress this week has been pretty bad. I have been studying the literary terms, but that is it. I know I have to push myself and stop procrastinating. I plan to start studying with the example test posted on the blog. I have also been sleeping very little so I plan to try and change that.

Essay Topic Ideas

1977 No prose selection (instead, had the following prompt: A character’s attempt to recapture or reject the past is important in many plays, novels, and poems. Choose a work in which a character views the past with such feelings as reverence, bitterness, or longing. Show with clear evidence how the character’s view of the past is used to develop a theme in the work.)

1983 Thomas Carlyle’s “Work”: Examine how he uses language to convince the reader of the rightness of his position.

1995 Sandra Cisneros’ “Eleven”: Show how the author uses literary techniques to characterize Rachel.

2004 Henry James’s “The Pupil” (1891): Analyze the author’s depiction of the three characters and the relationships among them. Pay particular attention to tone and point of view.

Preparing for the AP test

In order to prepare for the AP test, I plan to take as many practice test as possible. I also plan to read various essay topics in order to get an idea of what will come up. The thing I will work on the most is memorizing the literary terms.

"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" Video Recital By:Erica Marquez

Lecture notes part 2: Cold Blooded!!

Cold Blooded:
•Macbeth--- He doesn’t care about others!
He takes things to the exxxtreme and only wants to satisfy himself and bring himself happiness.
He hasn’t fully lost morals, but is pretty close.
•His bond is slowly disintegrating. Ex: his reaction to wife’s death; no connection and no denial either.
Witches:
•Malicious, evil intentions; symbolize temptations, sin…
•Macbeth only beliefs their prophecies after one of them comes true. (picks and chooses little parts that benefit him)
•The witches are always around. Never actually threaten or force Macbeth to do things, so it’s not their fault?

Macbeth Lecture Notes

Storyline:
•Hamlet=> theme driven and Macbeth=>character driven
•Rise and fall of a great man!
***TRAGEDY
•Macbeth has flaws and at the end he is alone and falls
***Symbolism: Everything that made him who he was disintegrated at the end. (He is the architect of his own destruction!)

Duncan’s Murder: Question---Why does Macbeth kill him??
•Complex answer: not only just ambition
•Macbeth isn’t a hypocrite: He knows there is going to be consequences and faces them like a “man.” (kills Duncan knowing it’s wrong)
•Another connection to Hamlet!=> He goes back and forth and questions decisions.
•Lady Macbeth: Puuuuure evil! She is the tools of destruction and pushes Macbeth to do wrong.
***Irony: doesn’t seem like a mother figure at all!! She is all animus and makes Macbeth look anima.
•Macbeth hallucinates a dagger: he knows what he doing is wrong.

Tragic Part:
*** Admiration: Macbeth is on a killing streak. He is completely determined and loses his conscious.
•Heroic quality: he suffering but won’t crack.
***Irony: He eventually becomes terrified of himself.
•Lady Macbeth suddenly gains a conscious and completely falls apart. (ex: commits suicide)
•She feels a sense of quilt after the first death. (All talk no action maybe??)
•Their relationship is ruined. Less communication and more tension between the Macbeths.

FEATS OF WISDOM!® #8

 

Epic Rap Battles of History: Shakespeare vs. Dr. Seuss

Taylor Swift- Love Story

CSI Las Vegas: Blood Drops (Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare Quote)

Reference to various quotes

Macbeth Notes: 1st Read Through

Act One:
•There are 3 creepy/ugly witches and they plan to meet up with Macbeth.
***The witches= foreshadowing
•A “sneak peek” of Macbeth’s character and personality is given through others’ opinions. Macbeth is courageous and isn’t afraid to kill someone very gruesomely.
•Macbeth and Banquo have an encounter with the witches. They tell him that he will be king. (but of course they don’t believe them)
•Then Ross and Angus come and tell Macbeth that the king has made him thane of Cawdor, as the former thane is to be executed for treason.
•Conflicts arise (foreshadow). Duncan wants his son Malcolm to be the heir to the throne, but Macbeth stands in between Malcolm and the crown.
***Lady Macbeth comes into the story. 1st impression- she’s crazy and greedy! She wants to do WHATEVER it takes to get Macbeth that crown. (Foreshadows more deaths to come)
•Duncan arrives to Macbeth’s castle and Lady Macbeth is being fake.
•Macbeth has a moment to himself and questions himself on the murder of Duncan. He is somewhat reasonable because he knows there will be consequences.
•Once again we see Lady Macbeth’s crazy side. After Macbeth decides not to kill Duncan, she is cunning/sly and convinces him to murder Duncan. (She’s the master mind with the idea)
Act Two:
•We see Macbeth’s mind going crazy. He has weird hallucinations and continues worrying about his soon to come bloody work. (He ends up killing Duncan)
•Lady Macbeth continually calls Macbeth a coward and gets angry.
•Macduff comes (still late in the night) to see the king; from there everyone sees what happened to the king.
***Lady Macbeth- was scandalous in order to seem appalled by what happened under her roof.
•Macduff tells Ross that Macbeth has been made king by the other lords. Then suspicions fall on Malcolm and Donalbain because they fled the scene (which was only for their own safety).
Act Three:
•Banquo he ponders about the witches prophecies and questions if the second is going to come true. Also they fear that the brothers are plotting against him and Macbeth, who is now king. (a lot of self questioning is seen throughout the characters)
•After everyone leave, Macbeth begins a soliloquy. He also wonders if the prophecy of Banquo’s son will come true. So what does Macbeth do to solve his problem?? He hires murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance. ***Killing streak has began!
•Their plan failed because the murders let Fleance escape. More foreshadowing when Banquo tells his son to get revenge.
***Macbeth’s conscious causes him to see Banquo’s ghost and he basically goes crazy and ruins the feast?
•Hecate The goddess of witchcraft scolds the witches for meddling. (she has different plans for Macbeth)
•Lennox and Macduff have an idea that Macbeth killed Banquo and Duncan!!
Act Four:
•Macbeth has a crazy encounter with the witches. This leads him to order Macduff’s capture and his family’s murder.
•The wife and son are killed after being told that Macduff fled. (they died thinking they were abandoned)
•We see Malcolm question Macduff’s loyalty, but then believes him. (smart kid?)
•After Ross tells Macduff the news of his children, Malcolm makes Macduff change his sadness to anger. With an army, they plan to go to war with Macbeth and kill him!! (Teams are building up)
Act Five:
•Lady Macbeth’s madness is seen once againillusions
•Macbeth prepares for the battle while trying to have his wife cured of her madness.
•After knowing his wife is dead, Macbeth remembers the prophecy and realizes he will die fighting.  this symbolizes his pride!
•Techniques are being discussed and Macbeth murders Lord Siward’s son!! Another murder!!
•Macduff is crazy looking for Macbeth to seek revenge! (all during the battle) The prophecy about Macduff was wrong so Macbeth freaks out?
•Macduff is found holding Macbeth’s head by Malcolm and Siward!!!
***So Malcolm didn’t kill Macbeth?!?!

FEATS OF WISDOM!® #2

Senior Citizen Reading

FEATS OF WISDOM!® #4