In conclusion for this year’s course, I am really glad that I chose this course. It is definitely worth taking and I really enjoyed it. My favourite part of this course in this semester, would be studying The Kite Runner. I really like reading, and have read this book before. However, having the opportunity to study this book in depth, gave me a much better understand of it. I see things that I didn’t see when I read the book two years ago. Also, having enough time to watch the movie in class definitely helped me in learning bout this book. It made me think and able to compare the book to the movie, seeing what’s missing and determine which adaptation of the story I like better. This has trained my reading as well as analyzing skills. I do think some kind of reading should be kept in this course, and it would preferably be a book that has a movie adaptation, so students can compare them.
We did many different writings in this class, and they are really useful in the future, for example the research paper, personal statement and college essay. I found the research paper useful, because it helped me understand the MLA format, something I never came across with. Also, it is something that we will definitely have to do when we go to university. It’s good for us to at least have a chance to do it while we’re in high school, as a preparation for university’s work.
While we were working on our own poetry we didn’t really have time to look at others people work. I found the poetry sharing party a great way to end this course, for everyone to appreciate what each other has been working on for the past few lessons. It was a great experience having Mr. Driedger’s son over to teach us some songwriting techniques and turning some of our poetries into songs. Even though the time he was here was really short, still most of us managed to have a try on turning poems into songs, and the ending result was really cool. Some of the songs are so catchy that they are still stuck in my head. Working with Mr. Driedger’s son also made the poetry unit more fun and gave us the chance to learn more.
For the movie review unit, I think we can shorten the time used on it, even though I enjoyed that unit, I think we should have spent more time on other units instead of this, like for example we could have spent more time on the poetry workshop or on The Kite Runner. That to me would be more beneficial. Or even just spend more time discussing about our works in class, can help us to see what can we improve on in our works while working on it.
In your opinion s it important to still study Shakespeare in school?
I do think it is necessary for us to study Shakespeare in school, even though his works are old, they are classics that everyone knows about. Through studying his works, it helps us understand English literature better, seeing how English used to be in the past, how the grammars were used. In my opinion, Shakespeare is a good storyteller. Although in Macbeth, some of the details seem a bit weird and stupid, that doesn’t change the fact that Shakespeare’s able to write a story that’s so vivid and tragic, that stay in people’s mind for a long time. Lastly, I don’t think stories in general can ever be outdated, for when you read a story, where you are and what century you are in don’t matter anymore. You step into another world- the story’s world when you read it. Therefore I don’t think Shakespeare is outdated.
Comment on the use of film as a learning tool in this class
As I’ve mentioned above at the beginning of my reflection, I think film is a great way for us to learn and develop a greater understand towards the book that we’re learning. Take Macbeth as an example. Even though the film adaptation of Macbeth changed the setting to modern time, the storyline stays the same, so that helps us understand the play better. By actually being able to see the play visually, with music background, it helps us to see the whole picture of the play, enable us to actually visualize the play. Also, by watching the film, it is testing your own understanding of the text, for while you are watching the film, you compare the film to the text, looking at the similarities, the details which the movie captured nicely, or finding parts which you think the movie left out or didn’t do such a great job on.
Why should students write a research paper?
Research paper is something that most of us will come across when we study in university. Before doing this homework, I was clueless about research paper. From the MLA format, to citations, I was completely having no idea of what should I do in order to write a good research paper. It was good that we spent some time learning about the citations. I think that would be the most useful part of writing the research paper unit, as we don’t only use citations in research paper, but it’s applicable to other essays as well. Also by writing a research paper, we had to come up with a good thesis statement on our own, making us think hard. Research paper is not like a book report at all, it is definitely something I think we should learn how to write before graduating from high school.
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