Week of 1/24-1/28

This week we worked mostly on trying to improve our project proposals for our inquiry project as well as laying the groundwork for future work in our project. This week I also started reading my first book, American Psycho. Earlier this year I has read half the book but had to stop because we started our last inquiry project and decided to just restart the book. Re-reading it I am noticing many things that I did not realize before. In the story the main character, Patrick Bateman, always says what a person is wearing before he starts talking about them and always know what brand their clothes are by. However, I've noticed that a few times he will say that himself or somebody else is wearing one thing but will then change what they are wearing later on in the chapter. I highly doubt that this is a mistake on the part of the author and understand that he did this intentionally. However, I can't quite figure out the reason for doing this. My best guesses are that either is satire on the part of Ellis to criticize how all the fashion back then was easily interchangeable and simply based on brand names or that he is trying to show that Patirck is lying and really has no idea who made the clothes but likes to act as if he knows. Just an interesting little thing I noticed in the book.

1/17-1/21

This week we have been finishing up with our inquiry project proposals and preparing for our Beowulf test. Personally, I chose to write about the topic of what would America's Epic hero look like. One important distinction I thought was that in our embodiment of the Epic Hero was that rather than solely being strong he/she must also be cunning. I think strong examples of this are Frodo in Lord of the Rings and the James Bond series. Frodo is a weak little hobbit that in many situations in the film trilogies got along based on his intelligence, and James Bond usually takes advantage of an arsenal of gadgets. Additionally, I thought that the American Epic Hero must also have sex appeal. Maybe this has been added due to the fact that "sex sells" but I've realized that many American epic heroes, like James Bond, must not only be able to defeat the villain but also be able to woe the ladies. One last difference I noticed was that we have abandoned the mysterious or noble birth of the epic hero. I think this is based on the fact that we have no nobility in America and that with our better understanding of biology and baby making there isn't much room for a "mysterious" birth.

Week of 1/10-1/14

This week we have been studying the epic poem Beowulf. I remember reading it in middle school but all that I could recall was that he slayed a demon named Grendel, his mother, and a dragon. After reading the poem I really liked it and can easily relate to other epic stories. One it particularly relates to is the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Tolkken's writings has many of the same themes as Celtic folklore such as giants and dragons that guard treasure. However, I realized that a strange difference with Lord of the Rings is that even though Frodo is the protagonist he is not a bold hero like Beowulf. Instead, Leoglas, Eragorn, and Gimili embody the epic hero.
Also this week I have choose the books that I was going to read for my inquiry project. Right now I'm thinking that I'm going to read Notes From Underground, Master and Margarita, and American Psycho. I'm thinking that my question will be something along the lines of why are people drawn to dark or misanthropic literature that focuses on the negative aspects of humanity?

Language

This week we have been studying language, specifically English. In the beginning of the week we examined how a word gains or looses the status becoming an "official" word. However, on Friday, we watched a lecture about the evolution of language and English. I found this topic to be very interesting to see how languages develop. This lesson also connects with a question that I have had for a long time. I've realized that when I normally think or talk to myself in my head that I do so in English. This lead me to ask the question of what did people do before there was language? How did they think in their heads? It's strange to think about because you can't just forget the language you know. Another thing I find interesting about language is how it can directly affect our emotions. It's strange to think that a sentence containing words that have a purely artificial value have the ability to affect our biological being and state of mind.

Blog Post #10

1) “Most Beautiful Work Award” - Which piece of writing (formal or informal) are you most proud of and why? What other skill or habit have you developed (maybe as a reader?) that you are proud of?
-I would say that I am most proud of the short story I wrote for the Tragedy Project. I really liked the setting of the story and would have liked to have gone more in depth with it. My writing and editing skills have definitely improved as a result of writing essays in class and the numerous college essays I've written.
2) “Lesson Learned” - What content do you feel you have mastered? Or, which skill(s) did you enjoy learning and feel that you have had some success in developing? How so?
- As said I have become better at writing. I also feel that I've become better and faster at reading. Atlas Shrugged had very small font, was extremely long, and very complex. This forced me to develop stronger attention span while reading and the ability to read faster. I also became better at analyzing texts. The many annotation we had to write on articles, poems, and novels all helped me to develop this skill.
3) “Lessons I’d Like to Learn” - Which skills would you like to develop before graduation? What content do you feel that you need to know in order to feel ready for college? Do you have any project ideas?
-I would like to improve upon my creative writing skills. I already feel that these are strong but I simply enjoy writing stories and think it would be fun to have an assignment of this kind. I would also like to do another reading focused project. There are many books that I want to read next semester after hearing all of the presentations. 

Week of 12/5-10/10

This week in class we have continued to work on our presentation and abstract for our reading project. So far my abstract has been going well and I think that my partner and I, Stephan, are going to do a Socratic seminar to present our book, Atlas Shrugged. I'm still unsure of how we should run the seminar. Right now we have two potential options. The first one is we could present our findings and Ayn Rand's beliefs on selfishness and then have the seminar where the class would discuss whether selfishness is ever moral and/or practical. The other option is that we have a general discussion on selfishness and morality and then afterwords we present our findings and show Rand's take on it. I feel that both ways have their merits and strengths but I'm unsure which one to go with. Opinions?

Atlas Shrugged Product

For he reading project my group read Atlas Shrugged.Which is essentially an 1,100 page novel that tries to prove that selfishness can be moral and practical. We need to show this somehow in our presentation and we're not quite sure how.
One idea I had was to set up a game that the class would play where by do doing some action they earn pieces of candy and my group would act as administrators. After a few rounds we could then start "redistributing the wealth" by taking candy from the successful people to "support" the unsuccessful ones. We would design it so that as the game progressed the system would collapse upon itself as the successful loose their incentive to work because it's just going to be taken from it and the unsuccessful will loose their incentive because the successful will support them. This cycle is what happened in the end of the novel so it would be fitting. However, I'm concerned that it may be too difficult to design the game, and that it might not work out how we want which would be embarrassing.
The other idea we had was to arrange a Socratic Seminar where a few members of the class would discuss whether selfishness can be moral and/or practical. We like this idea but we are hesitant that the group will just all agree that selfishness isn't moral or practical, seeing they haven't read the novel and generally society looks down upon selfishness. We were thinking that maybe we would sit in on the discussion so that we could make it more dynamic but we feel that that may be a little weird.
Opinions?