The Art of Language

Before reading, I want you to read both of the quotes and chose the one that you agree with the most.  There is no wrong answer, however, I will be discussing the one that I agree with the most below.  Then, after you are done, please watch the crash course video.  ( you don't have to watch it all, just watch from 1:04-7:23)

So... language.  In all of the pieces that we read this past week in class have focused on how language sets people apart from each other in a negative way.  The first quote highlights this claim.  It implies that if you don't speak another language, the one you speak now is useless because you won't fit in and will not be able to communicate.  In the video, however, Hank Green talks about how people and animals learn to communicate through actions and sylabols when they are young.  And, not only do they learn it, it comes naturally to them, kind of like common sense.  If babies and animals can do it, why can't everyone.  I mean, "everyone smiles in the same language", so why can't everyone communicate in the same language.  On the other hand, I can see how some people could simply think, if I don't speak japanese, then how am I supposed to communicate??? Well, lets break it down.  When you are walking in the hallway at school, you wave hello to someone.  You just communicate without saying a word.  Now, was that so hard???  We have so many different gestures for so many different things.  You can shrug if you don't know and answer, you can raise your hand if you do, you can give a thumbs up if something is good, or a thumbs down if something is bad.  You communicate so many times throughout the day that you probably don't even think about.  So why is language a barrier?  Why does it hold people back and seperate them from eachother?  Why is, "a language we don't know a fortress sealed"?  I hope that this blog made you really think about the real meaning of language and how easy it is to communicate without actually speaking.  If you feel so moved, please leave a comment below and let me know what you thought about this topic, I would love to hear!!!
~Samantha Tousignant :)

The Crucible: the last straw

So, this week has been a long week enduring the ending of the book, The Crucible by Arthur Miller.  As I have said before, I really enjoyed this book, however the ending kind of seemed to get on my nerves.  John Proctor's indecisiveness got a little irritating after a while.  I understand that the situation he was in was very intense and would chose whether he lived or died, but he had a lot of time to think about his decision and yet he was still unsure.  While I was reading, I was secretly hoping for a happy ending where John and Elizabeth would truly fall in love, the witch trials would end, and everyone would live happily ever after. But I knew that this wouldn't be the case, as the unfortunate events earlier in the book boded to.  However, I still don't understand why he would chose to die and keep a good name than live with a mediocre name.  The reason behind this on my view is that he has a wife and 3 kids, with a fourth on the way, so why would he chose to leave them to fend for their own than to live with a dirty profile but be loved and have the opportunity to earn his right back.  Also, I feel that this decision would be extremely hard on Elizabeth because in the tie period in which the book was written, women still didn't have many rights, it was mainly the men.  Therefore, leaving Elizabeth would be worse than staying and trying to help. 

The Crucible

During this week in class, we continued reading The Crucible Acts 2 and 3.  I have been listening to the audio book for these acts, as Ms. Besl told us to.  I have really enjoyed listening to it.  I have talked to a lot of other students who are also reading this book right now but have a different teacher than we do and have to actually read the book.  All of the kids that I have talked to said that they have not enjoyed the book at all.  I, on the other hand, feel the exact opposite and have loved the book so far.  I have been finding it very interesting to learn about how people actually thought of witchcraft.  Before reading this book, I knew that witchcraft was a major issue in America's history but hearing an actual story has been really cool.  The actors in the recording, I feel, have done a really accurate job portraying their characters.  It makes the whole book itself seem more interesting.  The court scene in act 3 has been my favorite part so far.  It is so intense and it was so amusing to just sit and listen to the whole event unravel.  I am so excited to keep reading and see how the whole thing comes together and ends.  I hope that the ending makes sense and ends with a conclusion rather than a sentence that leave the audience hanging and left with a little of suspense still left. 

Satire!!!

This week in class, we began our next book, we were introduced to the unit focusing on satire.  At first, I didn't really get it and I didn't see why it would be an effective style of writing, but after discussing and talking about it more, I am starting to understand it.  I think it is interesting how this style of writing is brought into literature and actual articles.  I give authors of satirical writing credit because it doesn't seem like it would be easy to do.  Since they are making fun of something and being sarcastic, some of the things that will be said or brought up might be found to be offensive to some people.  Because of this, the author must make sure that he/she has talked about the topic a lot, but also make sure that they didn't talk too much about the topic that they could offend someone.  One example of this is in the video from Saturday Night Live that we watched in class with the title Black Jeopardy.  Although most of us found it funny and entertaining, but some people could have easily taken it the wrong way and been hurt.  What I have found is that many satirical pieces focus on stereotypes and generalizations and many of the can be touchy subjects, especially when intentionally trying to make fun of them.  I think that satire is a cool way of writing, but I am not looking forward to having to write one myself. 

At the Cinema: The Great Gatsby

This week in class, since it was a short week, we started to watch the movie to the novel, The Great Gatsby.  I knew that the movie had gotten amazing reviews before we has started watching the movie, but I was curious as to how well the movie actually followed the book.  Now that we are almost done with the movie, I can say that it closely mimicked the events that occurred during the book.  I thought it was interesting how differently the movie portrayed different scenes than I had imagined in my head.  The biggest and most relevant example of this was the character Nick Carraway.  When we were reading the book, as mentioned in an earlier blog, I liked his character, but I enjoyed his character even more in the movie.  While reading, I saw Nick as a shy and an easy 'push-over' person, but in the film, he is more of a wing man or a loyal friend rather than a nobody.  He also played a bigger part in the film.  My favorite moment shown of Nick was when Gatsby asked him to ask his cousin, Daisy, over for tea.  I really liked the actual scene where they are preparing the house and Daisy walks in and Gatsby doesn't know what to do or how to act.  I thought it properly showed the real kind of person Nick is during this scene.  I especially liked how he just went outside and stood by the tree.  However, when I read this part during the book, it didn't quiet play out this way.  I portrayed it as Gatsby telling Nick what to do and how to act, not the other way around.  I also liked how the movie showed Gatsby and how he acted when he was around Daisy.  When I was reading the novel, I thought that Gatsby wanted Daisy because he wanted it to achieve his dream, but in the movie, it showed Gatsby as being truly happy.  Throughout the progression of the movie, Gatsby is shown as a very mellow guy, and even when he is throwing an enormous party at his even more enormous house, he still has very dull expressions.  But, when he is with Daisy, he is usually smiling and he looks genuinely happy.  This gave me a different impression of Gatsby than what I had read in the book.    I cant wait to finish the movie and see how the producers see the ending scenes. 

The Great Gatsby: Book Review

This week in class, we finally finished with our Great Gatsby unit, not that I am complaining.  For being a 'school book' I really enjoyed it.  Usually for me, when I am forced to read a book, I don't enjoy it as much as I normally would if I got to read it on my own at my own pace, but this book really surprised me.  I loved how Fitzgerald incorporated colors into the book.  This acted as my focus throughout the book.  Although there is no correct answer to what the colors mean, I thought it was cool how different people could see the meaning of the same color in extremely different ways.  My favorite character while reading the book started off being Daisy, but during the middle of the book when her character changed, I lost interest in her and began following the character of the narrator, Nick.  Although he didn't usually play a large role in the story line, he acted as a 'rock' and never changed even though everyone else around him was.  He told the truth, whether it was positive or not, and gave the reader a break from all of the things going on around him.  He also never had an opinion.  This gave the reader a chance to think for themselves and form their own opinion about what was happening.  I really liked this feature about Nick.  After reading this book, I would probably give it four out of five stars. As we start to watch the movie next week,  I hope that the movie will follow the story line of the book and keep some of the features in the book that made me enjoy reading it so much.  But, as long as Leonardo is in it, I'm sure it will be great!!!

Daisy

This week in class, Ms. Besl brought up a cool idea about the character Daisy.  She asked us why we thought Daisy stood for.  Well, I was curious about that, so I looked it up and the results were actually very interesting and I wanted to share them with you.  First of all, the actual daisy flower is a white flower with a yellow center.  So far, in our discussions, we talked about how the color yellow means wealth, but it could also mean death or tragedy.  In the case of this example, we will be talking about the yellow that symbolizes wealth.  White also stands for innocence and purity.  The flower represents that Daisy is sweet, innocent, and pure on the outside, but on the inside, she is really only paying attention to money and wealth.  I think that this statement matches Daisy relatively well because one of the main reasons that she stayed with Tom and was attracted to Gatsby was because of their wealth.  Another symbolism that I found while looking around was that the actual daisy flower, when sent to someone from another person, symbolizes that the sender of the flower can keep a secret.  I found that the most interesting thing of all because it made sense.  Gatsby and Daisy's relationship was always a secret and no one knew about it until near the end of the book.  Finally, and probably the most intriguing fact, that a Daisy can also symbolize a gesture of departure.  I really liked that because Daisy was the reason for Gatsby death/departure.  If Daisy hadn't gotten in the accident with Jordan Baker, then Wilson never would have been angry and Gatsby never would have died.  Also, when Gatsby did die, Daisy ran off.  I am not quite sure why I found that so interesting, but I hope that didn't bore you with my blog this week.