Saturday, January 26, 2013

Lit Terms 31-56


31. Dialect: the language of a particular district, class or group of persons; the sounds, grammar, and diction employed by people distinguished from others.
 

32. Dialectics: formal debates usually over the nature of truth.
 

33. Dichotomy: split or break between two opposing things.
 

34. Diction: the style of speaking or writing as reflected in the choice and use of words.

35. Didactic: having to do with the transmission of information; education.
 

36.Dogmatic: rigid in beliefs and principles.
 

37. Elegy: a mournful, melancholy poem, especially a funeral song or lament for the dead, sometimes contains general reflections on death, often with a rural or pastoral setting.
 

38. Epic: a long narrative poem unified by a hero who reflects the customs, mores, and aspirations of his nation of race as he makes his way through legendary and historic exploits, usually over a long period of time (definition bordering on circumlocution).
 

39. Epigram: witty aphorism.
 

40. Epitaph: any brief inscription in prose or verse on a tombstone; a short formal poem of commemoration often a credo written by the person who wishes it to be on his tombstone.
 

41. Epithet: a short, descriptive name or phrase that  may insult someone’s character, characteristics
 

42. Euphemism: the use of an indirect, mild or vague word or expression for one thought to be coarse, offensive, or blunt.
 

43. Evocative (evocation): a calling forth of memories and sensations; the suggestion or production through artistry and imagination of a sense of reality.
 

44. Exposition: beginning of a story that sets forth facts, ideas, and/or characters, in a detailed explanation.
 

45. Expressionism: movement in art, literature, and music consisting of unrealistic   representation of an inner idea or feeling(s).
 

46. Fable: a short, simple story, usually with animals as characters, designed to teach a moral truth.
 

47. Fallacy: from Latin word “to deceive”, a false or misleading notion, belief, or argument; any kind of erroneous reasoning that makes arguments unsound.
 

48. Falling Action: part of the narrative or drama after the climax.
 

49. Farce: a boisterous comedy involving ludicrous action and dialogue.
 

50. Figurative Language: apt and imaginative language characterized by figures of speech (such as metaphor and simile).
 

51. Flashback: a narrative device that flashes back to prior events.
 

52. Foil: a person or thing that, by contrast, makes another seem better or more prominent.
 

53. Folk Tale: story passed on by word of mouth.
 

54. Foreshadowing: in fiction and drama, a device to prepare the reader for the outcome of the action; “planning” to make the outcome convincing, though not to give it away.
 

55. Free Verse: verse without conventional metrical pattern, with irregular pattern or no rhyme.
 


56. Genre: a category or class of artistic endeavor having a particular form, technique, or content.
 

SMART Goal
My SMART goal is to pass the AP exam in May and to attend a 4 year university where I will major in neuroscience, and eventually attend medical school to become a neurosurgeon.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Lit Terms 6-30



6. Analogy: a comparison made between two things to show the similarities between them
 
7. Analysis: a method in which a work or idea is separated into its parts, and those parts given rigorous and detailed scrutiny

8. Anaphora: a device or repetition in which a word or words are repeated at the beginning of two or more lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences
 

9. Anecdote: a very short story used to illustrate a point
 

10. Antagonist: a person or force opposing the protagonist in a drama or narrative
 

11. Antithesis: a balancing of one term against another for emphasis or stylistic effectiveness
 

12. Aphorism: a terse, pointed statement expressing some wise or clever observation about life
 

13. Apologia: a defense or justification for some doctrine, piece of writing, cause, or action; also apology
 

14. Apostrophe: a figure of speech in which an absent or dead person, an abstract quality, or something inanimate or nonhuman is addressed directly
 

15. Argument(ation): the process of convincing a reader by proving either the truth or the falsity of an idea or proposition; also, the thesis or proposition itself
 

16. Assumption: the act of supposing, or taking for granted that a thing is true
 

17. Audience: the intended listener or listeners
 
18. Characterization: the means by which a writer reveals a character’s personality
 

19. Chiasmus: a reversal in the order off words so that the second half of a statement balances the first half in inverted word order
 

20. Circumlocution: a roundabout or evasive speech or writing, in which many words are used but a few would have served
 

21. Classicism: art, literature, and music reflecting the principles of ancient Greece and Rome: tradition, reason, clarity, order, and balance
 

22. Cliché: a phrase or situation overused within society
 

23. Climax: the decisive point in a narrative or drama; the pint of greatest intensity or interest at which plot question is answered or resolved
 

24. Colloquialism: folksy speech, slang words or phrases usually used in informal conversation
 

25. Comedy: originally a nondramatic literary piece of work that was marked by a happy ending; now a term to describe a ludicrous, farcical, or amusing event designed provide enjoyment or produce smiles and laughter
 

26. Conflict: struggle or problem in a story causing tension
 

27. Connotation: implicit meaning, going beyond dictionary definition
 

28.Contrast: a rhetorical device by which one element (idea or object) is thrown into opposition to another for the sake of emphasis or clarity

29. Denotation: plain dictionary definition(same image shown under #27)

30. Denouement (pronounced day-new-mahn): loose ends tied up in a story after the climax, closure, conclusion
 

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Poetry Analysis

Dover Beach

By: Matthew Arnold
 
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 Dover Beach Analysis
 The speaker's tone was somber throughout the poem. The poem illustrates change, humanity, and the struggle for the truth. The imagery in this poem is breathtaking.
 
We Real Cool
By: Gwendolyn Brooks
 
THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.
 
 We Real Cool Analysis
The speaker seems to be concerned about the community and tries to interpret the mind of one of the boys. The word "we" is repeated multiple times througout the poem which makes the reader assume that the boys have a group identity.

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (124)

By: Emily Dickinson
 
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -
Untouched by Morning -
and untouched by noon -
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection,
Rafter of Satin and Roof of Stone -

Grand go the Years,
In the Crescent above them -
Worlds scoop their Arcs -
and Firmaments - row -
Diadems - drop -
And Doges surrender -
Soundless as Dots,
On a Disk of Snow.
 
 Safe in their alabaster chamber Analysis
The speaker talks about death throughout the poem and tells the reader that no matter what you do in your lifetime; when you die you are nothing. The more of the poem that you read, the more you realize that the speaker is talking about the nature of death.

Mending Wall

By: Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."
 
 Mending Wall Analysis
The theme of the poem is that the speaker blames nature for all the damages to the wall. As the poem progresses it is harder to understand the speaker's take on the wall.
 
 

To His Coy Mistress

By: Andrew Marvell
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast;
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart;
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
   But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
   Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
 
His Coy Mistress Analysis
The speaker sounds very flattering when he describes the lady. He has a way with words and charms
the reader. Death is most likely a theme of the poem because a description of the afterlife recieves a 
whole stanza.
Sources: (http://edsitement.neh.gov/feature/twenty-one-poems-ap-literature-and-composition#01)
 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Literature Terms 1-5
 
1. Allegory: a tale in prose or verse in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities; a story that uses symbols to make a point

 (I am confused.......)


2. Alliteration: the repetition of similar initial sounds, usually consonants, in a group of words

 (Try saying that 5 times fast:)

3. Allusion: a reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects a reader to recognize
(Everytime you see this picture, your mind thinks of something dirty.)
 

4. Ambiguity: something uncertain as to interpretation

(You have no idea who he is talking about.)
 

5. Anachronism: something that shows up in the wrong place or the wrong time

(This video speaks for itself:)





 

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Spring Semester Plan 1
I hope that during the spring semester that I keep the momentum I had during the fall semester so I don't get senioritis. My goal for the spring semester is to acquire as many tools from the Internet as possible to help me in my future college classes. My other goal for the spring semester is to stay focused so I am able to pass the AP Exam at the end of the year.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

AP PREP POST 1: SIDDARTHA

1.If you were the river, would you be enlightenment or would you know enlightenment? In other words, what’s up with the river? What is it’s relation to enlightenment? (http://www.shmoop.com/siddhartha/questions.html)
2. What does he fear if he stays at home and continues in his father’s religion? (http://www.studymode.com/essays/Siddhartha-Reading-Questions-641015.html)
3. How was Siddartha able to put aside social expectations to pursure his path to enlightenment? ( http://www.gradesaver.com/siddhartha/)
4. In the beginning Siddhartha is following a traditional “devotional” path . Why isn’t this enough for Siddhartha? Do you agree that he should leave? Why? (http://arapahoe.littletonpublicschools.net/Default.aspx?tabid=2905)
5. What purpose does self-denial serve in Siddhartha? What about self-indulgence? (http://www.shmoop.com/siddhartha/questions.html)

I can't answer any of these questions at the moment because I don't remember too much about the novel. I think if I reread the book it would assist me in answering the questions.