It's refreshing to transition from plays to novels, although Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is probably one of my favorite plays right now. And the annotations for Ceremony will probably be harder/more time-consuming. What makes R+G so awesome is that although it's an absurdist comedy (which makes it fun to read) and in plain English (even better), it still has so many layers of meaning. And it raises several interesting philosophical issues - how does language constrain us (rather than empower us, in contrast to Hamlet) and what is death? For that matter, what is life, particularly if you're just a character in a play? What does it take for a character to recognize his position? Is he always the character, or does the real, human actor occasionally remove his costume? My favorite discussion was when we managed to piece together those quotes in class to understand how these themes were all connected.
It's nice to read Ceremony because after all of these plays, it feels like it's back to "normal" reading. However, it takes a lot of background to fully understand what's going on, and it's hard to keep up with noticing every color or every appearance of water while reading and annotating and trying to figure out what the theme is. So from that point of view, it's good that we'll be doing a couple of reads. (On the other hand, it's more work.) I'm not too far into it, but the intentional jumps in narration are a little disorienting. I don't know if they'll reduce as the story progresses or if the prose poems will somehow tie into the main plot, but it's making it difficult to get into the book initially.
I can't say I enjoy writing essays in class, although I think all the APs I've taken have reduced the pain to a sort of numbness. I'm beginning to appreciate writing those prompt responses on our blogs in the fall, because practicing writing in a more relaxed environment is actually a pretty nice way to transition to writing AP essays. One of the biggest reasons I hate writing essays is they're not something I can really grade myself on objectively, unlike multiple-choice. And even when they're graded, it can be hard to determine how my writing is improving (rather than how my grade is changing). An additional problem is that I'm actually pretty decent at coming up with a thesis quickly based on a prompt and outlining how I'm going to write an essay. It's filling in the rest of the essay that causes problems. It's hardly ever as bad as full-on writer's block, but I include a claim and evidence, and then I get really close to having a great warrant, but falter. I can refine my writing given the opportunity, but the time pressure of the AP test doesn't really permit for it. Practicing essays in class might be helpful for strategy - what your thesis should look like and how the essay should be structured, for example - but I fear that writing a couple of essays between now and the AP test isn't going to markedly improve the writing itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment