Poetry is an expression of the author's feelings. The composition can be as simple or as complex as the emotion as it betrays. One can easily make light of an emotion or twist it into a much darker theme. Poems can also tell stories. Some stories are easily read while others are have to be pulled out, bit by bit and, put together. Songs just a easily mean something, because there is always a motive to write. Some significant event caused the author to pick up a pen and jot down his or her feelings at that moment. But the question stands, how do we know if they really meant that? If we look back at Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor, he urges us that if we think it means that it does. Do you agree with this? Is that red rock he just threw really his anger, or did the author just think that the rock should be red? What makes it easier to find what the author meant? What makes it harder? How much of our interpretations come from our experiences? Why is it that we all find different answers in the same symbol?

Discrimination/Racism

We all define people by the way they look or groups they belong to. Many of us do not like to think that we define people by these two things. It seems to me that discrimination and racism go hand in hand. Our society is always trying to make an effort to eliminate these things. President Lincoln gave an executive order to eliminate slavery. Even after this order, African Americans were still not treated as equal to whites. Not very long ago in our history, we had the civil rights movement. African Americans now have more rights than they ever have had before. Now, it seems that there is a gay rights movement. There seems to always be a group that wants more rights. People from the Middle East are often discriminated against at airports and many places within our country due to the World Trade Center attacks. Most of these people are completely innocent yet are discriminated against. Our society sees the flaws that a person has. Do you believe that racism will ever die out in our country? Will discrimination ever disappear? Even though many consider discrimination to be a bad thing, is it important to our national security? Could our country still be safe without discrimination? What rights battles do you see in our nation's future?

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Wow!  What an impressive singular performance by Cherita Armstrong!  I found the production today both poignant and enrapturing.  For this entry, I would like you to 1) summarize your five chapters for the rest of the class (we'll still talk about them later) and 2) give us your review of the production.

Recently, we have been learning more about slavery by reading Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. This is a story of incredible bravery, sacrifice, and hope. We are surrounded of stories of people showing the world that good still exists, yet the news media portrays the stories of crime and destruction. Personally, I enjoy hearing that people still have a sense of decent humanity in them. I am one of those rare people that hope for world peace. I am wondering why society likes to promote the bad and ignore the good. I understand that it is important to be well rounded in all happenings though. I want to know what your thoughts are on this topic. What stories do you like to hear? Do all the bad stories promote people to act in the same poor manner again? Why are there not more stories like Harriet Ann Jacobs?                    

Snow Falling on Salmon

Well, if Shakespeare had been a student in Salmon School District this past week, he may have amended the opening lines of Richard III to read something more akin to "Now is the winter of our discontent," due to the recent snow days.  I hope you have enjoyed your mini vacation and took the opportunity to catch up on some sleep or get ahead on some homework (or go sledding or make a snowman - or woman!).  Obviously, the days off will change our schedule for next week.  On Monday, you will present your outside reading books and chapters from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; Tuesday, you will write the in-class essay on your book; and Wednesday, we will have the vocab. quiz and discuss the performance of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.  Oh, and it's Sarah's week for the blog.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and may the snow be ever in your favor!

Love at First Sight

We discussed the themes of Twelfth Night in class recently and one of the ideas or themes that stuck out to me was love at first sight. Shakespeare seems to include this idea in more than one of his writings. Now a lot has changed since the time of Shakespeare, but is it possible to experience love at first sight? Can the appearance of a person be so powerful that it is possible to fall in love with them that very instant? What exactly has changed since the time of Shakespeare when dealing with love and marriages? What are the credentials of love? How can we tell if we truly love someone or just like someone? Do we all have a need to love and be loved? If so, why?

Poetry's Individuality

Since we are headed into poetry, I thought we could discuss our views on it. As we know, there are many different kinds of poetry, for example, the sonnet or haiku. Throughout our school years, we have learned about poetry in various English classes as well as literature and other forms of writing. Why do you think that people use poetry to express themselves rather than just writing a book or opinion article? Those are literature too... What kinds of an impact does poetry have on people? Do you think that the stories and expressions of people that are written with poems can be just as easily expressed through other forms of literature? Poetry can be such a deep and inspirational type of literature to read. Why is poetry such a unique form of literature and what makes it so unique?