LA: Great Expectations

GENERAL
1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read, and explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).
A six-year-old boy named Pip lives on the English marshes with his sister and his sister’s husband, Joe. His sister is mean but his brother-in-law Joe is pretty much the best thing that’s happened to Pip.  Pip steals food from his bossy sister (Mrs. Joe Gargery) so that the convict won’t starve (and also so that the convict won’t rip his guts out). By her early teens Pip comes into fortune by means of a mysterious and undisclosed benefactor . He leaves for London to become a gentleman. Pip's life in London is busy, full of dinner parties in castles with moats, encounters with strange housekeepers, trips to the theater, etc. He spends way too much money, so his debts just keep piling up.Meanwhile, Estella is off touring the world and becoming a lady. She’s even more gorgeous than ever, and she moves to the London area so that she can be closer to eligible bachelors.Then, one night on his 23rd birthday This stranger is Pip’s benefactor. This stranger is the convict that Pip helped when he was only six years old!Just as they get ready to make their great escape, Estella goes and marries Pip’s nemesis and Pip is almost thrown into a limekiln by a hometown bully who claims to know about Magwitch. Pip tells Magwitch that Estella is his daughter. And that he's in love with Estella.A few days later, Pip returns home, intending to ask for Joe’s forgiveness and to propose marriage to his childhood friend, Biddy. Upon arriving home, however, he finds that Joe and Biddy have just married. He begs for their forgiveness at having been such a strong head, and then he moves to Cairo.
2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.
A Theme that I like is ambition  it take a lot for Pip to over come some struggles (social classes). He knows what he wants and will do what ever he can go get that. He is a very ambitious character and it goes right along with the theme of the whole story.
3.Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
There is a lot of ups and down to the novel and Dickens makes sure he expressed those through pain and fear. He gets across the point to everyone and you can defiantly feel that through reading

4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)
Symbolism:
Bentley Drummle: Provides a contrast to Pip
Mosts on the Marshes: A very important setting to the novel, it sets fear into the book because any time Pip went there something terrible will happen
Miss Havisham's Wedding Dress: irony for death
Literary Elements:
euphemism -The substitution of a mild or less negative word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one
hyperbole –a deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration
Polysyndeton– the repetition of conjunctions in close succession for a rhetorical effect
Synecdoche – a figure of speech in which a part is used for a whole

CHARACTERIZATION
1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization.  Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?
Dickens explains everyone through action yet I still felt like I knew the characters well and saw who they characters were even though there wasn't to much direct characterization.
2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character?  How?  Example(s)?
The author again explains the character through action so that doesn't change but when I read the characters voices in my head they sound British  but when the author is talking and explaining action I hear it with out an accent. So in my mind it does change.
3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic?  Flat or round?  Explain.
Pip is a dynamic character he formed how he thought and grew up in front of us in the novel. He became a very mature and driven man.
4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character?  Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.
I felt like I knew Pip, but through out the book I felt kind of upset just because Dickens wrote in a dark way and I was worried about how everything would turn out.

Allegory of the Cave Sonnet

The prisoners hang
while others lead lives
What they don't know won't hurt them
or that is what they thought

If you were to take a leap of faith
to find that there is more out there
you may be afraid
but why couldn't it pay off

To try and convince others to follow
then to not know who you are
When a few hours ago they knew you
now thinking your a monster

The cave can be a safe place
but what about all the other space?

Plato Study Questions

1. According to Socrates, what does the Allegory of the Cave represent?
The Cave represents the people that are enlightened (being outside the cave) and those who have to teach the people who are not enlightened.
2. What are the key elements in the imagery used in the allegory?
Fire is a very important imagery to the allegory it represent knowledge which the prisoners don't recognize only thinking it is a shadow.
3. What are some things the allegory suggests about the process of enlightenment or education?
The First Step would be to "turn your head" or believing that you can do something and wanting to be enlightened. Then once you take that leap jumping outside could be scary but when you adjust you realize how much better it is because you know more then you did before.
4. What do the imagery of "shackles" and the "cave" suggest about the perspective of the cave dwellers or prisoners?
The prisoners were comfortable in the cave because that's all they know. They don't know there is more out there are that because they are shackled they think they can't do anything about it. But if they just turned their heads.
5. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?
What can shackle the minds today is adults or others telling you you can't do something or that you are too dumb, when in reality if you try hard enough you can succeed.
6. Compare the perspective of the freed prisoner with the cave prisoners?
The freed prisoner is happy (enlightened) and wants to share his experiences with the others. When he goes back the cave prisoners (unenlightened) won't believe because they are to set on what they already know.
7. According to the allegory, lack of clarity or intellectual confusion can occur in two distinct ways or contexts. What are they?
They are when the freed prisoner was trying to convince the others that there is more out there but they don't even know who it is or that he is a friend.
8. According to the allegory, how do cave prisoners get free? What does this suggest about intellectual freedom?
They got free by turning there head and the shackles breaking off (easy as long as you think you can) This shows that intellectual freedom is there and that all you have to do is be determined.
9. The allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. Do you agree? Why or why not?
I agree there is a difference but there isn't much. Only you know what is real and fake to yourself. It is all what you want to think.
10. If Socrates is incorrect in his assumption that there is a distinction between reality and appearances, what are the two alternative metaphysical assumptions?
That everything is real or that individuals performing their own reality bound to what they know.

Mind Maps

This mind map is the same program that Ian used to make his for Preston plus has 7 mind maps in one. I like this because it shows you can branch off and keep branching off with different ideas all springing from the same thought or concept. What could have made it better would be adding pictures, visuals always help me and most people I feel.

http://www.mindmeister.com/14250024/7-mind-mapping-examples-in-1-map


Since we are most likely going to use mindmeister as our site I decided to take another one off of this mind map site. I like this one because it gives more reason as to why teachers should use tools such as mind maps or blogs and the benefits to it. Also proves that Dr.Preston is one the right track. Again I think that more visuals would be helpful and to spread the map more, we obviously saw that it can spread very very far.

http://www.mindmeister.com/143278182/how-mind-maps-help-teachers


Thanks Duck Duck Go!

The Big Question

After talking it over with my fellow classmates we had several "big questions" about life. Though my favorite one of the conversation was:

Why are a good amount of people not motivated in things they do?

AP Hamlet PNL

http://mrgunnar.net/ap.cfm

This one seems alright, He at least has an updated website!

http://www.mvla.net/teachers/HectorP/Language%20and%20Comp%20AP/Documents/AP%20Test%20Prep/master_ap_english_language.pdf

This one isn't great for Hamlet but really good for practice AP exams!

http://paulgutbrodapenglish.blogspot.com/2012/11/hamlet-act-i.html

I really like this one! Super helpful and easy to understand

http://englishau.blogspot.com/2012/11/hamlet.html

more notes on this one, not as good as the one before though

http://madwilmoth.edublogs.org/hamlet-diary-1/

this one is great also! Does the remixes for Hamlet like us!

Vocabulary #11

Affinity- relationship by marriage
Bilious- of or indicative of a peevish ill nature disposition
Cognate- of the same nature
Corollary- A proposition inferred Immediately from a proved proposition with little or no additional proof
Cul-de-sac - a dead end
Derring-do- a daring action
Divination- The art or practice that seeks to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge due to the interpretation of omens
Elixir- A substance capable of prolonging life indefinitely
Folderol- a useless accessory
Gamut- an entire range or series
Hoi polloi- the General populace
Ineffable- incapable of being expressed in words
Lucubration- to study by night
Mnemonic- intended to assist memory
Obloquy- abusive language
Parameter- an independent variable used to express the coordinates of variable point and functions of them
Pundit- a learned man
Risible- provoking laughter
Symptomatic- having the characteristics of a certain disease but arising of a different cause
Volte-face- a reversal in policy