Week 7
This week we finished talking about literature and started some wrap up. We did some questions, analyzed texts and pictures and prepared ourselves for our cumulative test on Monday, when our blogs are going to be evaluated. The best thing was to talk about "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger, book that some of us read last year and for me it was one of the best books I've read. Remembering some specific facts about the book and the story in general was great fun.

Analyzing a text

Practical Criticism

You fit into me

You fit into me

like a hook into an eye

A fish hook

An open eye.

1.- What is the relationship between the title and the rest of the poem?
The title expresses the idea of the poem "you fit into me", which is later developed in the poem by similes.


2.- What words, if any, need to be defined?
Hook, which means and object consisting of a small blunt metal hunk that is inserted in a corresponding loop or eyelet.


3.- What relations do you see among any words in the poem?
There's a strong relation between "hook" and "eye". Both words have different meanings but in the text this meanings are changed or used in a metaphorical way.


4.- What are the various connotative meaning of the words in the poem? Do you see various shades of meaning help establish relationships or patterns in the text?
In this poem, Margaret Atwood uses different shades of the word "hook" and "eye"

5.- What symbols, images or figures of speech are used? What is the relationship between them?
The whole poem can be understood in different ways, the relation between words is changed during the poem. In the last two verses, the words "hook" and "eye" are used in a different ways than in the first two lines.

6.- What elements of rhyme, meter or pattern can you discuss?
This is a free verse poem. There's no rhyme and the syllables vary in each verse.


7.- What is the tone of the poem?
The poem can be interpreted in a stressed way. A little bit furious.

8.- From what point of view is the content of the poem being told?
The poem was written by a woman, who maybe had a love problem, like "the perfect couple" but suddenly something happened and everything ended the other way around. Maybe a fight or something else.


9.- What tensions, ambiguities or paradoxes arise within the poem?
There's an ambiguity between the first two verses and the last two. The words hook and eye are used in a different way. The first to verses may be interpreted like "the perfect couple", the last two verses are maybe representing a fight or something else.


10.- What do you believe the chief paradox or irony is in the text?
The chief paradox or irony is there to represent anger and fury toward the person who did the situation that may be inferred. The person who was supposed to be the best one for her, turned into the worst enemy, thus, the persona expresses this feeling.


11.- How do all of the elements of the poem support and develop the primary paradox or irony?
They are all there in a specific way, nothing is there by casualty. Everything supports the hook and eye ambiguity expressing a paradoxical reaction of love.

Wrap-up questions about theories of studying literature

1. From all the approaches we studied today, with which one do you feel more comfortable? Which one was the most difficult to understand? 

The one that a feel more comfortable with, but also the one which is the most difficult to understand for me is the structuralism because the concept is difficult to get, about a signifier and signified. 

2. Think you will teach one of the approaches to a 6th grader. How would you make it easier for him to understand? How would you teach it? Pick the one approach you like the most.

If i had to teach the structuralism, i would ask everyone to  draw the first thing that comes to their mind when I say a concept and then, I'll explain them the relation between the signifier and signified.

Active reading

To be an active reader we should:

• Underline or highlight key words and phrases of text as you read. When you return to the text to take notes, or to research an assignment question, you can easily see which points you identified as important at the first reading. Be selective, as too much highlighting on a page won't help you.
•  Make annotations in the margin to summarise points, raise questions, challenge what you’ve read, jot down examples and so on. You can do this in books or etexts. This takes more thought than highlighting, so you'll probably remember the content better.
• Read critically by asking questions of the text. Who wrote it? When? Who is the intended audience? Does it link with other material you've studied in the course? Why do you think it was written? Is it an excerpt from a longer piece of text?
• Try using sticky notes if you don't want to mark the text. Jot brief notes on one and add it to the page, partly sticking out so you can identify the page.
• Test yourself by reading for half an hour, putting the text away and jotting down the key points from memory. Go back to the text to fill in gaps.
• Look for ‘signposts’ that help you understand the text - words like ‘most importantly’, ‘in contrast’, ‘on the other hand’.
• Explain what you’ve read to someone else.
• Record yourself reading the course material or your notes, and listen to the recording while you’re travelling.

Activity

Text 1: This text says that pubs will be closed because of cruelty ti animals (Crayfish in this case). This means that animals also have rights and cruelty towards them is illegal. Fishing crayfish with claws is prohibited. This matters because this is a world-wide issue and it should be solved.

Text 2: This text says that both Mrs. Joe and her brother were raised up "by hand" and so, her reputation was to have a heavy hand. This means that they might be raised up in a strict way and they were or were going to be the same.

Tex 3: The text tells us that about a group of people drowning, which means that they didn't know how to swim. This matters because many people don't know how to swim and metaphorically, people sink in their own lies and have no protection at all.

Analyzing Pictures

This picture represents a union between white and black people, we are all the same and have the same duties and rights. This picture represents the point of view of someone who wants everyone to help African people maybe for a United Nations Campaign trying to help this people who have several issues with famine and mainly economic problems. We are invited to see the situation in a way that we understand the pain and suffering of African people and feel a need to help them. The picture is not clear at all because the faces are missing, hence, we may think that is just an old white man who's giving his hand to a kid.

Critical Thinking and reading

Critical Thinking : The ability to think critically, as conceived in this volume, involves three things: ( 1 ) an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one's experiences, (2) knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, and (3) some skill in applying those methods. Critical thinking calls for a persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends.  (Edward M. Glaser, An Experiment in the Development of Critical Thinking, Teacher’s College, Columbia University, 1941).

Critical Reading:  It is a form of skepticism that does not take a text at face value, but involves an examination of claims put forward in the text as well as implicit bias in the texts framing and selection of the information presented. The ability to read critically is an ability assumed to be present in scholars and to be learned in academic institutions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_reading)

Then why is it necessary in today's society to be a critical thinker?

It is important to be a critical thinker in today society because we've got to know who to believe by identifying and analyzing his/her arguments in a rational, logical and critical way. To be critical we need to be clear, accurate, precise, talk about the relevant things in a deep, logic and breadth way.

Do you think?

Language and Parole
Which comes first: Thought or language?

Here's the link to the voice thread explaining the controversial question:
Voice Thread: Language and Parole

The power of language

1. What does the image, and the story, suggest about the benefits of everyone speaking the same language? What are the drawbacks?

        If everyone speaks the same language, we can all understand each other and work together for a better world. By the other hand, it wouldn’t be good to speak the same language because we would lack of ethnical identity and we would all have basically the same pas and culture.

2. What does the story suggest about the social functions of language?

Language is used to communicate with each other. If we can understand our peers, we can work together for the same objective.

3. What are some other early stories that deal with the origins or evolution of language? What do these stories suggest about the power of language?

Mesoamerica: The Aztecs told the story of CoxCox (a man) and Xochiquetzal (a woman) survived the horrors of the earth by floating on a bark. Then, after they had their first children on land, they found out these were unable to speak. Such feature changed when a dove landed upon their heads, granting each one with a different language.

Brazil: The Ticuna people from the Upper Amazon tell the story that everyone was  one united in a single tribe, all speaking the same language, until two hummingbird eggs were eaten (the legend doesn't say whom). After this event, the tribe split into different groups and dispersed across the globe.

Africa: The Bantu people from East Africa tell the story of a severe famine that struck the first people of the world (who spoke the same language at the beginning). This drove everyone to madness, causing them to wander in all sorts of directions, mumbling strange words not know by men before.

All of these stories suggest that language is the main tool needed to build an organized society and without it we wouldn’t be able to communicate with each other and work together.

Reading in two ways 

While we read different types of articles, novels or even short sentences, we can find different points of view and different ways of understanding what it says. This is due to connotation and denotation:

Connotation: The associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning: A possible connotation of “home” is “a place of warmth, comfort, and affection.” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/connotation)

Denotation:  the explicit or direct meaning or set of meanings of a word or expression, as distinguished from the ideas or meanings associated with it or suggested by it; the association or set of associations that a word usually elicits for most speakers of a language, as distinguished from those elicited for any individual speaker because of personal experience. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/denotation)

In class we saw different texts were ambiguity was obvious and in some occasions hilarious. Examples of this were:

·         Hospitals are sued by 7 foot doctors.

·         Slow children at play.

·         Iraqi head seeks arms.

·         Toilet out of order. Please use floor below.

In all of the examples above, ambiguity made the sentences not clearly enough to understand what the author meant. I can think that in the hospital the doctors are 7 feet tall, whereas another person may think that the doctors in the hospital have 7 feet.

This image presents and ambiguity because it can be seen  as a young woman or an old woman.

Week 6: Speaking and Literature.

This week we had a speaking test. My group made a forum about Stereotypes and how they can be good, bad, help us or lead us to misunderstandings. There were many funny presentations like the one of the "Tower of Babel" and in general all of them were very good. On Friday we finished with the different ways of studying literature in the past. We studied the Greeks, Romanticism, Scientific determinism, New Criticism, Reader Response, Structuralism, Post structuralism, Marxism, Feminism, Cultural Poetic and Post colonial Criticism. My favorite was Structuralism because it is hard to understand but coherent with what we are studying in other subjects like philosophy and Theory of Knowledge.

Week 5: New Teacher and Happy Easter!
This week we had a listeting test about language and on tuesday, miss Veronica Cordero started her practice and is now teaching us. We Started talking about literature and arranaged a speaking test for next week. My group is going to talk about Stereotypes in the way of a forum: each one is going to give their own opinion and experiences about stereotypes.
We didn't have classes on Friday because of Easter Holidays.

Week 1 and 2: Entering to the IB Programme

The first week of classes I felt like it was very long but also very entertaining because of the IB programme that we are going to course for 2 years, starting this year. Many changes were made in school but soon we will know them all.
The first activities done in English class were the introduction to the new programme and the explanation of how we were going to work. We saw videos liek Why do we talk? The history of Language and learnt stories like the tower of babel to explain how language began.

Week 3: Debate!

This week we were debating about the motion 'Humans are born with ability to create language' v/s 'Language is a learnt construct like the rules governing a sport'
Many debates by groups of two or three were organised and my partner was Mr Gre.
We were defending that language is a learnt construct liek the rules governing a sport and although it may seem more difficult than the motion for our counter part, we managed to prove our motion correct and somehow Mr Leniz from the other team ended accepting our posture because of some fallacy questions we did to him (yes or no questions). This was very fun and the first thing Mr Calderon said to him was to never accept the other posture and defend your own, it doesn't matter if you think they're correct.
Finally I was part of the group of students that had to evaluate the last debate between our classmates.
It was a very good experience not just for our learning but also because it was really fun and interactive.