REFLECTING MEMORABLE ASSIGNMENT.

        This is a hard one, but I'm going to say that after recalling all of the assignments we've done this year, I'd have to say that the most memorable was the the Great Expecations annotations assignment. Last summer when I first heard that we had to annotate a book, I was REALLY dreading it. I don't like annotating because usually it distracts me from what I'm actually reading, but not in this case. I don't know, but I guess that Dickens' was just a good writer.
        I think what made this book for me, was because there was so much going on which kept me interested but it wasn't like an overload of stuff that I couldn't keep track. I thought not only was this the most enjoyable assignment for me but also I thought I did a great job on everything that we were assigned to do including the annotating. I did over 150 annotations for that book which I'm proud of for me. I learned so much having to do this assignment, and annotating got a lot easier for me after that which made reading Romeo & Juliet just that much easier.

POETRY

        To speak the truth, I've never enjoyed poetry or have had that great of an experience with it. I was in my sixth grade block class when I first learned about poems and what they are and all there different types. I know this may sound kind of cliche but the first poem I remember listening to (I believe it was sometime in sixth grade even) was "Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein. Now, I'm positive that I heard some poetry of some sort or another before this but this is just the first of the ones that I remember really listening and analyzing to. This wasn't my favorite type of poem to write though was a Haiku poem. I thought it was fun because you had to count the syllables of poetry instead of just writing down words that had a meaning. My first one that I wrote about had to do with trees and birds I remember. I couldn't tell you what it was about though to save my life.
I have to admit that I've changed a lot this year, having to do with the books I read, the music I listen to, what I wear, and even the way I write and analyze things. Poetry has taken some affect to that as well because listening and reading to what other people write in their way is a way that I get into touch with me.

CONFLICT

        At one point or another in this play, a character has a type of conflict whether it's with itself, another person, or society. The one that probably pops out to most people the most because it really is the main conflict in the play is the feud between the Capulet's and the Montague's. This can connect to the love between the two "star crossed lovers" because they're each a child of the families meaning they were born enemies. It's hard for their love to be together because of their parents and/or families hatred for one another. It wasn't helping them be together when Romeo killed Tybalt. It made it that much worse.
        I can't relate to this much at all because my family hasn't ever and I hope will never have other family rivals. I feel like that would make you feel like you have power that you don't actually have because if you have an enemy then it lets you feel like you're allowed to do any mean thing you want to them just because your parents wouldn't care. This isn't a good thing at all either. I'm sure it can still happen now a days but not to the point where whenever you see a member of the other family that you're going to have to kill them. That's taking it a little over the top there. This conflict is both external and internal because there's physical battle going on but yet there is also the hatred/love (depending on the family member) that is happening between the different people.

ROMEO AND JULIET: IT'S EVERYWHERE!

        A song that fits very well to the tale of Romeo and Juliet is the song "Check Yes Juliet" by We The Kings. This song talks about wanting to be together with someone even though other people might dissaprove of your decision. It's a situation where love conquers all and no matter what others do, they won't get in the way of the love. A parallel that I found when I listened to the song was during the balcony scene in the play and the song lyrics "Rain is falling down on the sidewalk...I'll keep tossing rocks at your window". There are many other connections that can be made in modern times.

CONNECTING WITH ROMEO AND JULIET.

        Romeo and Juliet is a very old play. My first impression was "what is this? I don't understand what thy is saying." The majority of the people that I talked to about this book said that Shakespeare is kind of hard to understand and that I would probably have trouble with it. This wasn't necessarily the case though. I had heard that this play has a bunch of humor in it, so I thought if I could find the humor in the book then I would be able to relate it more to modern times because there was a lot of sexual references in the book which many people find humorous today. Which is why I said, easier to relate to. If you can connect concepts of books/plays to something that's connected with you, the plot becomes a whole lot easier to understand than it did in the beginning. I think I could relate to Benvolio because he's there to help a friend in need even if he doesn't want the help.
        First off, I must say that even before starting this book.. I went onto Sparknotes and printed out the summaries for each scene because I wanted to make sure that I understood it fully. I read the Sparknotes summary before I read the scene that we're suppose to read because then I already have some understanding of what the plot is about and I can concentrate more on the language, and hidden meanings within the text. One night this past week, I only had about ten minutes to read the part in the book because I had other extracurriculars taking up my time. I had to speed read the part in the play and even though I read the summary of it, I still didn't understand most of what was going on. This is why reading in class as well helps me. Especially because in class we also talk about what we should be annotating for and we take pauses in the reading to analyze what's going on so nobody gets to lost. We should continue doing this process for the rest of the book because when I'm reading it sometimes I come up with different meanings of what's going on then what other kids in class comprehended it to mean.

WRAPPING UP GREAT EXPECTATIONS

        I believe that the overall theme that Dickens' wanted us to convey was that the things you need should come before the things that you want. Such as the people you love and care for you are the things you need because if you didn't have anyone like that then you would become a very angry and judgemental person. The things you want are things such as wanting to be a gentlemen and be higher up in the social class, or also wanting someone to marry. Mostly just being able to put the people before other things. The things that you want don't have feeling but people do, and if you hurt someone you're going to regret it. I can easily relate this to people who work wanting to get a promotion or something and they'd do anything to get it.. even if it involves hurting people in the process. This relates to Great Expectations because the main character is wanting to go higher up while he was hurting his own family to get there.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS THOUGHTS ON READING

        Great Expectations was the one book that I wasn't looking forward to starting at all. My sister, was in Honors English last year and she had to read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and she said that the book was horrible and it was really hard to get through. Then realizing that this book was by the exact same author, I began to dread the moment of opening to the first page. Very surprisingly though, I found myself intrigued by the entire book itself. I enjoyed the plot until the unrealistic parts began to happen. I mean, how can three unrelated characters(Estella, Molly, and Magwitch) all have significant parts in the book(unrelated) and then all end up being connected in the end? That brought my overall rating of the book down. I wasn't used to Dickens' writing style, which made it hard to get through and really time consuming but I really liked the way that he scattered small hints throughout the novel about little things about the characters.
        I wasn't ever looking forward to reading this book. I mean, I like the book but I never liked it enough to come home and jump right into it. Since, during the week I'm busy after school until about nine o'clock or so. I didn't ever get to do my reading till pretty late at night which is fine with me because I'd rather read in the night. I always jumped onto the fouton/couch thing in my room, grab a blanket and get reading. For the first half of the novel, I placed annotations right away after I found something useful. After I got done reading a chapter I would read the summary on Sparknotes and see if I understood it properly or not. Oh by the way, I printed out all of the chapter summaries off of Sparknotes before even starting the book because in case I ever had to read while I was not at ome then i would be able to have the summaries with me.