These first few weeks of AP Lit have been invigorating. Maybe you wouldn't think talking about diction, imagery, details, language, and syntax (DIDLS) in literature would be your slice of pie, but I thought it was great! As we dissected and discussed these gears that make the clock of literature tick, I was able to connect what we were learning to things I remembered and experiences I would have. Everything sort of turned into an assignment to annotate. One thing that I noticed was that whether it's in the literature we read, the movies/music we watch/listen to, or the conversations and interactions we have on a daily basis, we use the same patterns of DIDLS. It seems pretty obvious when you focus on it. We use books and plays and poetry because the DIDLS in these is super condensed, but the concepts carry through with the real world.
The American Dream is the first piece of literature that we've applied our new found knowledge to in class. We had some solid discussions about the superficial reality of the "American Dream," the roles Mommy, Daddy, and Mrs. Barker played, and what Grandma and "pioneer stock" had to do with the whole thing. However what I believe I will retain the most is the discussion we had on Thursday about dolls. Ms. Holmes was really pumped about 2nd hour's discussion earlier that day and how they had come up with a perfectly original and valid idea about the characters being like dolls being played with and how they could be representations of the ideas of another cast of characters altogether. (That's just a rough overview, I didn't want to try and explain and totally botch it; if you know about the doll thing, then you get what I'm talking about). Anyway, Holmes was excited yet hesitant to share the idea with our 6th hour class because she wanted us to "come to our own conclusions" or some cliche phrase like that, but we begged her to let us in on the mind blowing idea, so she finally did. Now, our class usually has awesome discussions, and I myself thought that with this crazy idea to kickstart Thursday's discussion, we'd come to some enlightenment about the meaning behind Albee's play. The complete opposite happened. We became so hung up on the doll/barbie/puppet idea that we came up with virtually every possible scenario revolving around that one idea. In short: we rode the proverbial horse into the ground, shot it dead, kicked the dead horse, burned it to ashes, kicked the ashed until they were thoroughly scattered, gathered them back up, and stomped on them. I'm exaggerating, but the point is, that discussion ended with very little enthusiasm and it didn't seem like we really learned anything that day. Ms. Holmes had been right when she had hesitated to tell us about the other class' idea because we clung to that idea like it was the one and only answer, which of course, was not the case. The outcome for us was a wasted opportunity to progress. Though I guess that's not completely true; I will look back on this experience as a reason to 1) trust that the teacher knows best, and 2) be unique and original in my work and ideas.
Peter,
ReplyDeleteThe “doll” discussion as you put it originated in my hour, and I think it is funny (not laughing wise) that you ended up stuck on it. I also noticed that our class discussions seem more forced when the class as a whole feels we need to be more focused on the article given to us than on our own ideas or piece. The articles and other classes discussions should be tools to notice holes in our own arguments or comparisons to our own ideas, not be the entire topic of discussion.
Still, I think our discussions sometimes move so fast with so many ideas that it is hard to notice when a gem comes up. The “doll” idea almost got lost in the changing speakers because ideas were moving so fast and people were responding to comments before the original doll comment. With so many ideas, article, and different past experiences, the discussions have lots of variety, but it is harder to find a good focus.
Do you think that the articles can sometimes hinder our discussion and cause us to only focus on the ideas in them as opposed to our own ideas?
Hey guys, I am relieved to hear that your hours are having similar issues to my hour in regards to discussion of "The American Dream". I feel like we got caught up on some of the ideas from the articles, and ended up going in circles saying the same thing in different ways over and over. There was one day when we were trying to sort out the gender roles and what they represent, but we were having a hard time with it and kept getting distracted and circling back to ideas from the article such as Grandma's role as the most mentally put together character, thus avoiding the issue of gender roles. We finally came to some conclusions on gender roles, but it took longer than it should have to zero in on the issue. I think that outside articles and ideas certainly helped our discussions, but they made it a little harder to branch out and think for ourselves. I personally find the thought of challenging the ideas of well researched professionals (such as the ones that wrote the articles) intimidating.
ReplyDeleteI don't really like the doll idea for the play that much. That's not relevant to your post really, I just wanted to say that. But I do completely agree about how being fed ideas can dampen discussions. Often times in first hour, when we get transfixed on a point it's just a few people going back and forth trying to find as many different ways to make the point work as possible. It's only when we begin to try to form our own ideas about certain sections of the play when more people begin to speak up and the conversations really get going.
ReplyDeleteThough I do feel like the articles can provide particular insight that can further later discussions. One of the first articles we read was one that pointed out how much Grandma signified the "old American dream". We hadn't quite reached this conclusion on our own yet (it was only the second day of discussion), but it's a point that we've been using for almost all of our discussions since then.