Sunday, December 8, 2013
Pie Glog Essay
Grandma’s Pie
Cara Roth
I am a picky eater. I always have been and always will be. But every time we take a trip to my grandparents’ house we end up having pie for dessert. Cherry, apple, blueberry. I don’t like pie. I’m sorry, pie-lovers. I really don’t. So I never eat it; I stick to my ice cream. On every day of the year except one: Thanksgiving. Thomas C. Foster tells us that “breaking bread is an act of sharing and peace” (Foster 8). And what better time to focus on sharing and peace than the holidays? And thanksgiving is certainly the only time when I am at peace with a piece of pie. Pumpkin Pie.
There is no pumpkin pie quite like grandma’s. My mom can’t quite make it and I’m not really sure I can make it either. But my grandmother can’t make it anymore. So the pie I bake is as close as it gets. A little background: a few years ago my grandmother suffered a stroke that paralyzed her entire left side. So she can no longer cook; and the loss of her meals, most noticeably that pie, is what enlightened for me the importance of food. As Kathryn Twiss said, “We are what we eat. We also are where we eat, how we eat, and whom we eat with.” And although the who, where and how are still factors in our annual Thanksgiving meal, losing a part of the “what” means I lose a part of myself. The part of me that loved to visit her grandparents on sundays and holidays. The part that was seven years old, sitting on the couch next to grandma, enjoying the only pie I didn’t gripe and complain about. The only pie that meant my grandparents need not chuckle at my stubbornness and pull out the ice cream and sprinkles for. We find ourselves in food and the relationships that introduced us to those foods. Mervyn Claxton writes that “the techniques utilized to prepare and process foods . . . can have an important influence on social and familial relationships” as they did for me. I can’t say for sure whether I achieved my grandmother’s technique for pie but I found a connection to her and to my family in the process of trying.
Works Cited
Claxton, Mervyn. "Culture, Food, and Identity." N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.
Foster, Thomas C. "Nice to Eat With You: Acts of Communion." How to Read Literature like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading between the Lines. New York: Quill, 2003. 8. Print.
Twiss, Katherine C. "Join Academia.edu & Share Your Research with the World." The Archaeology of Food and Identity. Southern Illinois University, 01 Jan. 2007. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Blog Post 20: Rainbow Essay Reflection
The initial score given for my essay was a 3. Scored by Kayla Burns, I believe she was actually too generous with her rating. It is clear that I was completely unfocused when I attempted this essay and the essay did indeed contain, "an unfocused . . . presentation of ideas." It lacked both thought and effort on my part and for that I am truly sorry. Besides being so rough in composition, the essay falls more so under a two essay as it is, "unacceptably brief." While the writing is substandard and crudely put together, I can't say that this essay is a correct assessment of my skills. Looking back at my notes on the passage, however, I do believe I missed several themes that are of import to D. H. Lawrence's style and recurring subject matter.
If I were given a second chance at this essay, there are several themes of Lawrence's that I would like to touch on and give a fuller analysis. The first would be to more deeply analyze the contrast that the woman sees between her men and the vicar. It should be said why she is comparing them, that it is her own desire for knowledge, for something more that pulls her away from the blood and the land that she has been taken into. I feel it is also important to articulate what that connection means: that she, a woman, is bound to her husband, by both law and expectations of society, yet strives to leave, to get away from him and what he stands for. Lastly, one needs to consider the irony in which the men who work the land and live and breath in the sun, the source of life for all, seem dull, dead almost, in comparison to the more intellectually advanced vicar. His intelligence gives him more "life" in the eyes of the woman than the Brangwens who share this "blood intimacy" with life. These important insights into the mind of Lawrence most definitely need to be included in an apt analysis of this piece.
How that analysis is put together, however, is also of great importance. My first attempt at this essay was unstructured in that I did not pace myself correctly, ran out of time, and found myself rushing to simply get some basic ideas down on the page. A better essay would begin, as the Five Steps to a Five workbook suggests, with a strong opening paragraph, complete with a more direct and in depth thesis and a more creative opening line. The ideas that I got down on paper themselves needed to be more spaced out with more textual evidence in between. There was not time for a deep enough analysis into the passage for the essay to be successful or for it to flow well. With more careful planning, both these kinks can be smoothed out.
Overall, the essay that I wrote for D. H. Lawrence's "The Rainbow" was incomplete and raw. There were a few good, basic ideas written down but they needed to be more fully developed. With the knowledge I have gained about Lawrence's writing, it is clear that I missed some very major concepts within the work. The essay could also use a lot of organizing, especially when it comes to the flow of ideas. By reflecting on this, I have gained a better sense of what needs to be fixed with my skills in organization, analysis, and most importantly, time management.
If I were given a second chance at this essay, there are several themes of Lawrence's that I would like to touch on and give a fuller analysis. The first would be to more deeply analyze the contrast that the woman sees between her men and the vicar. It should be said why she is comparing them, that it is her own desire for knowledge, for something more that pulls her away from the blood and the land that she has been taken into. I feel it is also important to articulate what that connection means: that she, a woman, is bound to her husband, by both law and expectations of society, yet strives to leave, to get away from him and what he stands for. Lastly, one needs to consider the irony in which the men who work the land and live and breath in the sun, the source of life for all, seem dull, dead almost, in comparison to the more intellectually advanced vicar. His intelligence gives him more "life" in the eyes of the woman than the Brangwens who share this "blood intimacy" with life. These important insights into the mind of Lawrence most definitely need to be included in an apt analysis of this piece.
How that analysis is put together, however, is also of great importance. My first attempt at this essay was unstructured in that I did not pace myself correctly, ran out of time, and found myself rushing to simply get some basic ideas down on the page. A better essay would begin, as the Five Steps to a Five workbook suggests, with a strong opening paragraph, complete with a more direct and in depth thesis and a more creative opening line. The ideas that I got down on paper themselves needed to be more spaced out with more textual evidence in between. There was not time for a deep enough analysis into the passage for the essay to be successful or for it to flow well. With more careful planning, both these kinks can be smoothed out.
Overall, the essay that I wrote for D. H. Lawrence's "The Rainbow" was incomplete and raw. There were a few good, basic ideas written down but they needed to be more fully developed. With the knowledge I have gained about Lawrence's writing, it is clear that I missed some very major concepts within the work. The essay could also use a lot of organizing, especially when it comes to the flow of ideas. By reflecting on this, I have gained a better sense of what needs to be fixed with my skills in organization, analysis, and most importantly, time management.
Blog Post 19: "The Rainbow" Essay
In his 1915 novel, The Rainbow, D.H. Lawrence uses parallels and repetition to characterize the woman's plight of being confined to the underdeveloped and unchanging world of farm life while yearning for the skills and company of those more evolved.
As the woman analyzes her own situation, Lawrence uses repetition to mimic her thought pattern as, over time, the woman ponders over and over the difference between her men and those more advanced men like the vicar. The parallels emphasize her constant comparison of her husband with the vicar. She realizes that, "As Brangwen had power over the cattle, so the vicar had power over her husband."
As the woman analyzes her own situation, Lawrence uses repetition to mimic her thought pattern as, over time, the woman ponders over and over the difference between her men and those more advanced men like the vicar. The parallels emphasize her constant comparison of her husband with the vicar. She realizes that, "As Brangwen had power over the cattle, so the vicar had power over her husband."
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Final Blog Portfolio Reflection
I think both my second Hamlet post, post #14, and my Independent American Drama Assignment posts demonstrated the most hard work when it comes to this electronic portfolio. The American Drama pieces exhibited a long, involved group project that showed great effort and cooperation while the Hamlet post a lot of creativity.
The American Drama Assignment took a long time and was rather difficult to post onto the blog. I think the fact that I managed to get the whole project posted alone makes up a good portion of how proud I am of this assignment. Because the project was made in a group, it combines a range of perspectives on a single play, Buried Child by Sam Shepard, and remains clear and cohesive as a whole. Admittedly, the drawing of the storyboards and a few other pieces to the assignment were rushed and to not contribute as much as they could to the work. But still, this project showed me how well group work on such difficult pieces can go if everyone equally contributes. It also allowed em and my group mates to improve upon a variety of skills having to do with the filming and editing of the video as well as the online research and in-depth reading of the text that was required.
My second Hamlet blog post successfully compared a rather silly movie with Hamlet, a play of a more serious nature. I spent more time on the work than was necessary and I feel that over-thinking shows in the writing. The composition may be less than satisfactory because part of it was very rushed. But the creativity int he comparison, I believe, makes up for that. I was able to deeply analyze and find meaning in a movie that I previously viewed as a nonsensical film with no real significance in the plot. In that respect, this project has taught me to more deeply analyze things instead of just taking them at face value.
I felt that I participated well enough in class but I know I could have done more. For the group projects in the beginning weeks of class, I was still trying to get my bearings with how the class worked and was mentally unable to contribute to the best of my ability. I was unfamiliar with the idea of writing an essay in a group in such a way and I believe the other members of my group were better at taking charge on such things. This group work was even more difficult when done separately from each other; the times when we were forced to work with each other across google docs or skydrive. For example, I was absent from class and could only contribute through the internet for a few days. I wasn't even there for the presentation. I feel like that post was one I unfortunately was able to participate in the least.
As for individual work, I believe I did as much as I could do for how busy I was this past trimester. The switch from having no work in the summer to tons of work during the school year wasn't easy, either. That being said, therew were days where I did not fully complete the homework which made it difficult to participate in class discussions. I will keep this in mind so that I can hopefully get more out of class next trimester.
To be honest, I haven't paid much attention to my goals since the start of the trimester. My original goals were to write practice essays, take full practice AP exams, familiarize myself more fully with literary terms and read poetry in order to get used to its structure and nuances. The final goal was difficult to achieve because I did not have the time to find any poetry to read let alone actually read it. I underestimated the work load of this class. At the same time, I misunderstood what exactly we would be doing in this class, which made the other goals difficult.
This class has not involved as much preparation for the actual AP exam as I had expected. That has made the first two goals impossible and unrealistic. I believed opportunities would arise for some of it as we practiced timed essays and such in class. While the few practice multiple choice exams were a step in the right direction, we have not been assigned a single 40 minute essay in this class. I also have not become as familiar with literary terms as I had expected to. Perhaps it's because of my lack of participation at times, but I feel as though the terms were more so brushed over than really studied. I believe it was difficult t o make and keep goals that we made at the beginning of the trimester because we did not know what to expect coming into this class. I relied on my knowledge of how AP Language and Composition worked and some students didn't have even that. You cannot make goals for a class you know nothing about.
The American Drama Assignment took a long time and was rather difficult to post onto the blog. I think the fact that I managed to get the whole project posted alone makes up a good portion of how proud I am of this assignment. Because the project was made in a group, it combines a range of perspectives on a single play, Buried Child by Sam Shepard, and remains clear and cohesive as a whole. Admittedly, the drawing of the storyboards and a few other pieces to the assignment were rushed and to not contribute as much as they could to the work. But still, this project showed me how well group work on such difficult pieces can go if everyone equally contributes. It also allowed em and my group mates to improve upon a variety of skills having to do with the filming and editing of the video as well as the online research and in-depth reading of the text that was required.
My second Hamlet blog post successfully compared a rather silly movie with Hamlet, a play of a more serious nature. I spent more time on the work than was necessary and I feel that over-thinking shows in the writing. The composition may be less than satisfactory because part of it was very rushed. But the creativity int he comparison, I believe, makes up for that. I was able to deeply analyze and find meaning in a movie that I previously viewed as a nonsensical film with no real significance in the plot. In that respect, this project has taught me to more deeply analyze things instead of just taking them at face value.
I felt that I participated well enough in class but I know I could have done more. For the group projects in the beginning weeks of class, I was still trying to get my bearings with how the class worked and was mentally unable to contribute to the best of my ability. I was unfamiliar with the idea of writing an essay in a group in such a way and I believe the other members of my group were better at taking charge on such things. This group work was even more difficult when done separately from each other; the times when we were forced to work with each other across google docs or skydrive. For example, I was absent from class and could only contribute through the internet for a few days. I wasn't even there for the presentation. I feel like that post was one I unfortunately was able to participate in the least.
As for individual work, I believe I did as much as I could do for how busy I was this past trimester. The switch from having no work in the summer to tons of work during the school year wasn't easy, either. That being said, therew were days where I did not fully complete the homework which made it difficult to participate in class discussions. I will keep this in mind so that I can hopefully get more out of class next trimester.
To be honest, I haven't paid much attention to my goals since the start of the trimester. My original goals were to write practice essays, take full practice AP exams, familiarize myself more fully with literary terms and read poetry in order to get used to its structure and nuances. The final goal was difficult to achieve because I did not have the time to find any poetry to read let alone actually read it. I underestimated the work load of this class. At the same time, I misunderstood what exactly we would be doing in this class, which made the other goals difficult.
This class has not involved as much preparation for the actual AP exam as I had expected. That has made the first two goals impossible and unrealistic. I believed opportunities would arise for some of it as we practiced timed essays and such in class. While the few practice multiple choice exams were a step in the right direction, we have not been assigned a single 40 minute essay in this class. I also have not become as familiar with literary terms as I had expected to. Perhaps it's because of my lack of participation at times, but I feel as though the terms were more so brushed over than really studied. I believe it was difficult t o make and keep goals that we made at the beginning of the trimester because we did not know what to expect coming into this class. I relied on my knowledge of how AP Language and Composition worked and some students didn't have even that. You cannot make goals for a class you know nothing about.
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