During the past week in Ap English Literature we have been building the basic skills needed to write a successful essay on the exam, but overall learning how to effectively read literature as well as learn to find meaning. These skills not only help us do well in the exam but they are skills that we will need later on. The simple acronym DIDLS, allows us to remember to look for basic techniques that an author uses and determine how they fit in to the literature's meaning. It finally allows us to move past the elementary practice of being told a meaning and look for it ourselves. We also practiced essay structure for quite a bit, and learned how create a well organized essay that clearly expresses our arguments using literary techniques such as diction, imagery, details, language, and syntax as support.
Another extremely useful skill we learned is how to close read and annotate. Though I had in the past took notes in the margin of my books, the textbook taught us an effective way to write notes in the margins that illlustrate and explaine our understanding. The annotating allows us to practice actively responding to the literature and jotting down main ideas, possible symbols, and techniques so that we can easily write about the writing later.
This week we didn't just learn things that would be useful for the exam, most importantly we immensely improved our reading skills, which is something that can help us in our everyday lives. Being able to find profound meaning in literature will allow us to look at our world differently and be able to make many more connection.
This blog is a definite summary on what we have learned in class. You seem to cover the weeks very well and touch on many of the main points and ideas we went over. That part is very well done. However, for next time, I think I would suggest digging deeper into the meaning of things we've done and how you, personally, connect to them. For example, we did learn about DIDLS and essay structure, but what specific things did it teach you? How did it make you become a better reader and/or writer? What specifically caught your interest or taught you something new? I guess in summary, you did a good job reexplaining what we covered in class. However, for your next one I would suggest tying it more specifically to yourself. I think while it might take more time, this will make it more interesting as well!
ReplyDeleteOverall, this whole post is pretty good. You obviously have a detailed memory of everything we did, not just bits and pieces. The one thing that may be beneficial to you is if you possibly mention how you feel about some of the material and maybe how helpful you think it is. Otherwise, this is a pretty good post and it seems to effectively fulfill the criteria of the assignment.
ReplyDelete