Animal Farm Creative Project

Poetry Out Loud: My Poem

The poem I will be reciting is, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. On a base level the poem might seem quite simple and easily understandable. If you analyze the poem and look deep enough you can find out what the poem means to you.

I took the steps to learn each and every word by heart. I know what lies beneath the poetic phrasing of Robert Frost. This poem to me is about decision making processes. Near the start he comes at a cross road. He ventures down one turns back and goes down the other a ways. To me this would be exploring each option to decide which one you want to choose. Then he describes how one is torn up from people going that way and the other has been virtually unused. I think that this means one decision can be the easy answer that gets you out of it, and the other is the one that is more interesting and can teach you lessons on the journey there. Then he talks about how he will leave the other for another day, which means that he might use that decision another time. He then says how he is glad he took the road not taken, which means he is glad all the hard work payed off well.

This poem could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To me, this poem is the struggle of one making a decision to work hard or to take the easy way out of things.

Exra Credit 5 Part Paragraph new and improved

Writing the 5 part paragraph has been so much easier for me since it was explained in such detail the first time around. I felt that I could have improved on my last 5 part paragraph so I went ahead and improved on the elements needed to be changed. The elements I had struggled with last time were putting quotes in chronological order, keeping my ideas organized, and going deeper then I would ordinarily do.

Keeping my quotes in chronological order was an easy fix. All had to do was put my quotes in chronological order. I struggled a little bit with keeping my ideas and thoughts organized but I think that after several rough drafts I was able to get where I wanted to. Going deeper within my poem actually came quite easily for me. Right away I could see a common concept the author was trying to get across and interpreted it right away.

I feel that I did a much better job on this paper than my other one. I feel this way since I now know the elements to put in this melting pot of literary genius. I also know I did a better job because it flows smoothly and has a lot of good points to it. Enjoy!

Poetry Out Loud

Part One: 1. John Lennon
                2. A Fixed Idea
                3. Learning To Love America
                4. Richard Cory , Helen
Part Two: I liked John Lennon and A Fixed Idea because they made me think about how John Lennon was such an amazing man and how in A Fixed Idea how an idea comes to mind.
                I did not like Learning To Love America because it was sort of bland and not interesting to me.
                I would most likely pick A Fixed Idea because it was an interesting look on how an idea because reality in someones mind and how you can remember so much about your past.
                I personally connected with that poem because I think of ideas and make them a reality and I sometimes pondered upon my past.
Part Three: Physical presence would be easy for me because all you have to do there is be there and be physically ready to read. Dramatic Appropriateness would be easy too because i am able to find hoe dramatic poems can be be or not be.
                  Level of difficulty would be harder for me since you would have to find a more advanced and a longer poem. Voice and articulation would also be harder for me since I sometimes mispronounce words and kinda stumble on them.
                 When presenting be attentive use eye contact and look confident. Try not to always focus on judges. Project to the audience, make sure all rows can hear you clearly. When rhyming be careful not to recite in a song sort of way. Don't act out the poem. To much dramatic acting can distract your audience from the language of the poem. Make sure your poem isn't to easy but isn't to hard where as you would forget some parts of it. Know the meaning, allusions, irony, tone, and messages in your poem.
Part Four: I watched the performance of William Farley, he was able to be successful because he used eye contact and body language. He was able to be at times subtle and at times harsh. He could captivate the audience on what it means to be alone and a human. Carolyn Rose Garcia was successful for the way she presented herself and how she presented the poem. She was articulate and witty. She knew what she was talking about how to talk about it.
Part Five: I think the website is well organized, it was easy to find all of the places i needed to which made the task easier to follow. This competition could be one of two things, a competitive experience or a boring forceful experience. Its all up to the students to decide which one they want it to be. To help me memorize this poem I could recite it a bunch and make actions to each of the phrases.

Extra Credit Thanksgiving Blog

      Throughout this quarter I have learned a lot. I've learned more than I probably did in the whole year of 8th grade. A lot of this new knowledge has come from English, with this knowledge comes important skills and ways of writing. Among these skills the one that has stood out and taught me most would have to be the twist method of analyzing pieces of literature.

      Through the use of twist we are able to decorate our Christmas tree of literary knowledge with the gorgeous ornaments known as tone, word choice, imagery, style and theme. Tone is like the kind of tree you pick out and how big, small, ugly or pretty it is. Tone is very important to writing so that the author can get there point across through feelings and emotions that the reader decodes in the writings. Word choice is like the ornaments that stand out on your tree, word choice is also very important because when describing something you want to be as descriptive as possible. Imagery is like the tinsel of the tree, it's what you use to make a picture of what you are writing about so that the reader can become more involved and see the meaning behind the words. Style is what you put on under the tree to really show what you like and what your about, style shows the authors use of metaphors, similes, personification and much more! Theme is what you put one top of your tree to be deciphered among your many house guests on to what it means. Theme is the authors method of giving you a lesson about life that you should follow.

      All the class work we did with twist has helped me have a better understanding of what authors put into literary works. It has let me become more aware of whats in a passage besides just words. Twist has let me become a better writer and has helped me analyze what poems mean to me.

Lobsters

A lot of interesting topics were brought up in the "Lobsters" discussion. One thought that really captured my   attention, were the comments about the lobsters colors. Almost everyone agreed that the adjectives used to illustrate the lobster's colors (mud red, cadaver green, bruise purple) were selectively chosen to create a mood of ugliness and death. A few people disagreed that the adjectives picked were not directly connected to the color of the lobster and had a deeper meaning about life and that it just happened that these colors were colors of cooked and uncooked lobsters. The chosen colors were just supposed to make you think of how the lobster looks. Not to show any connotation.

I definitely believe that the words were chosen carefully and meaningfully to enhance the meaning of the poem. I believe that all words in the poem were picked extremely specifically. The three adjectives used to illustrate the hues were no different. Neither was the word choice of "herd", which was used many times throughout the poem. To me, when I hear the word herd I think of cattle or sheep being herded around not knowing how to think or what to do. Herds of animals bossed around by the herder. This example is not very different than lobsters being in herd in a glass tank not knowing what to do. I think that the author used these words to create a gloomy and depressing look on how we kill animals for food even when we don't desperately need them

5 part paragraph critiques

I know everyone spent a lot of their time on these 5 part paragraphs. But to be truthful some of them have not be as excellent as others. In other words there were details that everyone in my class could improve on. One being proof reading, some students papers were poorly proof read and there were a lot of capitalization and "spell errors". To change this I would suggest that you have a parent read over your final draft to insure that it is proof read thoroughly. To improve on spell check errors people could use spell check but not click "OK" before even checking if spell check is doing what they want.

I think that the first time around I did better at proof reading and having the structure of the 5 part paragraph. My quotes might have been a little to long on some but for the most part I think I did fine on it. For each of my examples I probably should have put them in chronological order so that the paper would have flowed easier. Next time around I would change a few things but I would keep some others the same. I now know the format and I have a feel for the 5 part paragraph structure so I would be able to focus on my ideas more. I would try to accomplish more in shorter sentences to maximize the effectiveness of my paragraph.

Informal Diction

Hey all, so dis week I went on a exciting adventure! You'll never guess whered I went! I flew to Las Angeles and saw all my homiez. Dat's right all my homiez are from Las Angeles and I haven't gone to visit them in a long time, I said to myself," Dis here ridonkulous!" Yes I be sayin those very words cause I was oober excited to go visit dem. So I went to the airport and put my bags on the loopy track thang. Then I went and there was this line wit all these people in der fancy clothin and I just felt out of place in my lepord skin pajamas cause you know how I do. Anyway I got in this line and it was so boring no one even talked to me so I was txting my frands as I waited in da line. I finaly got to the end of the line and guess who was dere! Da popo! I mean if your goin wait in such a big line at the end there should be like rhianna or kanye but if kanye was dere something might go down taylor swift related...So the popo was up in my grill tellin me to take off meh shoes and put things in this and that in where. Then they told me to walk through this machine that kept bleepin its mouth off. They made meh take off my chains and blang, and my grilllzzz! So after da popo was done doin wat dey do I was off to catchmeh flight.

I got to da waiting area or wateva and I was hungray after having to do all that waitin around. So I galloped on over to the nearerst popeyes chicken and got a big ole bucket all to meh self. I downed that sucker like my pet snake ursala on some fresh rat meat. I was exhausted by then so I had the popo drive me to meh gate and they did not peddle to the meddle! I finnaly got to da gate and got on dat plane like no otha. On the plane I met this sweet ole child named Shanaynay, ya know she had dat cornrose goin for her and she was lookin fine. I would have complimented her on dat but I dosed right when we left dat airport. I finnaly got to Las Angeles and meh homiezz picked me up and we pealed out that pick up zone. I hung out wit dem in dat ghetto and we poped a few caps in some uder homiezz who weren't as tight as we arez. Then I got on dat plane I flew back homezzz....

Extra Credit Blog

My favorite and most amazing writing assignment I have ever done would have to be the Explorer's essay I did in 8th grade. The assignment was to write about the explorer she assigned to you and you had to include all this information about the explorer. The explorer I got was Meriweather Lewis who If you didnt know explored the United States. Starting off this project I didn't really have any idea of how to make it really creative. I tried a lot of thesis statements and adding fun details about Lewis. After a few days and many rough drafts I had something I could be proud of. I practiced reading it the whole next day until i felt comfertable reading it. I walked into block class feeling very confident, I had a excellent paper and I felt good about it. As people started presenting their papers to the class I kept re-reading my pape to make sure it was perfect and so then I would be more familiar with it. It was my to turn present and I nailed it. I got a 100/100 on that assignment which is why I was pretty proud of myself.

My outside reading book!

I am reading The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I am enjoying this book and the writing style that it is written in because it covers interesting topics and the writing style makes the book easier to read and understand. I think this book is the kind of book that you would read for fun because the setting and theme is relatible to most people. I think that this book is also a book that teachers would assign to read because it uses a lot of literary devices and is a book people would enjoy.

 One literary devices that I would do in my creative project is the setting. I would do this since it is set in New York and that is a place that most people is exciting and interesting which adds to the story. I would compare this book to The Harry Potter Series since they both deal with a teenage boy who in a way runs from his home. For my creative project I am thinking I might want to create a poster. This poster would illustrate the setting of the book which is for the most part New York. I would do the setting for the poster because I think it would be interesting and fun to make a poster with all the buildings up in lights.

Extending the Theme

           While reading through the novel To Kill a Mockingbird I seemed to think about how Atticus relates to my own parents. Growing up I have had experiences similar to what Scout had experienced in the book. When I lived in my old house a few neighbors and I would always run around the streets playing games and having fun. When we did these things we always made sure to steer clear of the one house that made most people shudder as they walked by, the house of Mrs. Geilnast. Mrs. Geilnast was a widowed old lady who lived by herself and spent most of the time indoors or sitting on the porch in the sun. One day the neighborhood gang wandered to close to her house and didn't notice that she was sitting on the front porch. We were playing with a ball and it got kicked up near her porch. So then I ran to get it and in the process and stepped on one of her flowers. I grabbed the ball and as I turned around to leave from behind me I heard a huge scream. I whipped around to see what it was and i saw her. Mrs. Geilnast, staring daggers right at me. Like any kid I ran the other direction until I was safe in my house still hearing her rant about what had happened. Later that day my dad picked up the phone and of course it was her and I had to go apologize. I went and said I was sorry then I got back home. My dad then taught me a lesson every kid should learn. Always face problems head on and never hide from your problems. As Scout faced problems with Mrs. Dubose and I faced my problems with Mrs. Geilnast I think that we both had similar experiences and similar lessons learned.

My Boo Radley

Walking into my first day of drivers ed I had one thing in mind. Either I'm not going to make any friends and sit in the back of the room or make friends and enjoy learning about driving. A few days went by and people started to get to know each other and different groups of people started to form that hung out with each other. A few more days went by and everyone knew all the people in the class. Except for this one kid who seemed to keep to himself and not really talk at all or ask questions. Of course what happened is someone would start gossiping about him and saying that he was really weird and that he shot someone. The next day he started to open up and in some people's view he was really odd. The day after that I came in late and the only seat open was next to him. I started to talk to him but he rarely answered me but after awhile he started opening up and turned out to be a interesting person.

I think this influenced my life because everyone in the class judged him by unknown facts. If they took the time to get to know him they would have realized he wasn't who he appeared to be. He taught me to not judge a book by its cover and not to listen to what people are saying all the time. Referring to what Scout's experience was with Boo Radley I would say these experiences were quite similar in two ways, not to judge people and not to listen to every one's gossip. If not being enlightened by this happen stance I could have judged someone negatively and made them feel bad about themselves.

Introduction

I see myself as a confident reader and writer, I like to read and will mostly read just about anything put in front of me. With writing I'm usually pretty good about staying within the guidelines but I am a terrible proof reader which in most cases is a bad thing. I'm the type of English student who will do what I have to do to get an A but if I enjoy the assignment I go above and beyond. The followers who follow me can expect interesting posts about English and mor English.

I believe the meaning of an English class is to learn, comprehend, and discuss. Without reading there would be nothing to comprehend. No comprehension would lead to no discussions, and so on. English is a four-year requirement for college bound students because English is our nations language and to learn it we must understand it. If English class didnt exist each generation would come up with slang for the language and it would be all so confusing. English class is preparing you to sound more adult like once you enter college. Excelling in English will help you academically because in all your classes you have to use proper verbs and phrases to make sure people know exactly what you mean.