#18: Final Portfolio Reflection

The assignments I am most proud of are the American Drama and Comparison and Contrast Paper. I am pleased with my group’s American Drama Project because I found Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf to be a very difficult play but a very entertaining one. The meaning took some effort and rereading to understand but we discovered it with just a little outside help. A lot of meaning lied in the small details of the play like the porcupine which was repeated a couple times throughout. We looked up the symbolism of a porcupine and found it symbolized childhood innocence, which made finding Albee’s view of the sexual revolution much easier. This play is also the piece of work I’ve struggled most with when it comes to pinning down my feelings about it. At first I thought it was the craziest thing I had ever read and I couldn’t understand why anyone would enjoy it but then I became emotionally attached to the characters after reading and rehearsing the lines so many times. It was a great learning experience for me in that I finally understood the joy of analyzing a literary work and how it can provide the needed insight. If I had just stopped after reading it and thrown the book on my bookshelf I would have gone through the rest of my life thinking it was the worst play I’ve ever heard of but now I really like it. I am also proud of the effort my group put into this project, their acting skills (not mine), and I overall truly enjoyed most of the time spent creating this project. Our video was not perfect by any means but I think it was close to the best it was pretty good considering the time frame and equipment we had. An imperfection in our video was how choppy it was at parts but that was because we had a hard time cutting out lines since we felt all of them were important. We ended up having to do a lot of the cutting after we filmed all of it and realized it was sixteen minutes long. Another flaw was the narration. It was lacking and didn’t explain the play as well as it could of. The narration model was truly an afterthought. We had come up with it before we started filming but wrote the lines for it after we filmed the play part.

I am also proud of my Compare and Contrast Essay because I never really thought about the stylistic choices in movies until then but now I can’t watch a movie without reasoning at least one stylistic choice (an inevitable perk of taking AP Literature). I liked Angela’s Ashes from the moment I read it but investing the time in analyzing McCourt’s choices and his message and the director’s choices and his message made me realize how much I liked it (though it can be time consuming). I began to truly sympathize with Frank and his situation, to have almost a connection with a man I’d never met before. It was a strange sensation to be so connected with a non-fiction book but I found my way of thinking and Frank’s might not be that different. A theme I really connected with was the chocking and belittling effect that religion can have on people. Frank clearly showed he thought this throughout the book and I wrote about it in my essay. I focused heavily on that theme and found the major differences in how it was communicated through the book and movie but could have spent more time analyzing the similarities. Also, I had never formally compared the book and movie version of a piece of literature but I realized how subtle differences can make a huge impact on the message received by the audience. I also learned that few decisions are ever made without some reasoning, whether it is consciously or subconsciously. That can be annoying from time to time but enlightening as well.

I know I appear to be a person who doesn’t participate in class but I want you to know, I do try my best. I haven’t contributed to the class discussion more than a couple times throughout the trimester. One class participation moment I remember was when we were discussing the metaphysical poem my group read and thesis we came up for and I spoke my couple of comments. I think my lack of participation in whole class discussions stems from my fear of being wrong in front of a large group. I always listen to what others are saying and try to come up with my own thoughts on the piece but it takes me a moment. That being said, I have always contributed when in smaller groups. When we did group presentations I was usually the first person on and the last person off of the Google doc. I never allowed the brunt of the work to fall on one person and I always gave my thoughts on the piece. I was never completely right but I was still trying to push my group toward the right interruption and allow for an exchange of ideas. Group work can be frustrating sometimes when you have those people who don’t do their share and I have never wanted to be that cause of frustration so I have always been sure to do my part. I took the lead in formulating a thesis and topic sentences for the Bluebeard/Myth Presentation my group did to name one specific example of where I did more than my share of the work. I also always listen fully to what everyone in the group says and take it into consideration.

When it comes to collaborating on papers, like with the compare/contrast summer reading essay, I was willing to read anyone’s paper who asked me and I asked a couple of others who didn’t have people editing theirs if they wanted me to edit their paper. For the papers I edited I took my time to carefully read through it and I reread making sure I caught all the things they could improve on or anything that sounded awkward or unclear. I willingly accept constructive criticism on all my papers as I know they are never as good as they could be. Also, when it came to the creative project I talked to other students about their novels, prompts, and ideas they had for their projects. I gave the input I could with my limited knowledge of their books and sometimes it helped while other times it didn’t. Despite all of this, I understand I have some work to do when it comes to whole class discussion and I will push myself in the future to become a better participant but I just wanted you to know in smaller collaborations I have always been a willing participant.

One of my goals after taking the first Diagnostic Test was to write down the purpose or point being made by the author after I was done reading each piece before I moved onto questions. This was to ensure that I wasn’t missing questions related to the subject matter of the poem or prose passage. My goal was to not be missing those types of questions by November. It is now November I think I’m getting better, but not as much as I’d like to. On the first graded test we took, I improved from the diagnostic test (after corrections) but I still have room to improve. I haven’t completely been following through with taking a moment to think about the main point of the text before moving onto questions because I always feel rushed even though I always finish before we need to be done. This is a goal I still need to work on in second trimester as I can get overwhelmed with all the passages in the test and not stop to think about them for half a minute and I think that really inhibits my understanding.

Another goal I set was using or identifying at least four literary devices I usually don't use or think of every other week until November. It is November now and I have not truly stuck to this goal. I have looked up a couple types of poem patterns and a device or two after we did the diagnostic test and after we did our first big test (for the ones I still got wrong after corrections). But those were the only times I did that so I could definitely improve. I don’t want to continue to miss the big idea and therefore miss the conceptual questions. I want to institute this goal again going into second trimester.

My final goal was to learn more poetic forms which I have done. I learned what a ballad was from our group project where my group had to research it. I learned what a lyric and ode were after googling them after taking the diagnostic test. I also have all the types of sonnets pretty much down after another group project where we had to research the types of sonnets and their characteristics like a Petrarchan versus a Shakespearean sonnet. But that was really all the work I have done toward that goal and my goal was to learn a new type of poetic form and read at least three examples of poems in that form every three days. Once again I wanted to have these terms down so I wouldn’t miss questions that should not be that hard compared to more symbolic questions. I could continue with this goal in reading a couple new poems every week and trying to analyze them like I would on a test. This will help with not only identifying poetic forms and literary devices but it would help get me more adapted at the process.