DISHONESTY IN THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.

        A large theme in the play The Importance of Being Earnest is the dishonesty. Almost every character in the play probably lies one time or another. Whether it's lying about your whole name, or just a little white lie about why there aren't any cucumber sandwiches. It's difficult not to lie, we all do it. The characters seem to have a lot of trouble with not lying though. The dishonesty of the characters add a good amount of humor in the book. An example being that when one character dislikes another, the act overly nice to them that it's to the point where they're over the top. It gets to be funny in the actions that they make. Being satirical about social classes also incorporates into the idea of being dishonest at times. Such as when Lady Bracknell doesn't like or find Cecily attractive until she finds out that Cecily has 130,000 dollars in her funds. After Lady Bracknell hears about this, she starts being extra nice to Cecily as if she is just going to give it all away to her. John Worthing is dishonest about his name/brother throughout the entire play. He lies about his bunburying deeds and makes up a character named Ernest. You'd think that if there was a character named Ernest then they'd be earnest themselves. However, Jack lying about Ernest isn't being earnest at all. Many characters in the book make up other people that they pretend to be or they just lie about their identity. They do this just for their own pursuit of pleasure.
        During the time period that Oscar Wilde wrote this play, people acted way different then they do today. He is making fun of the upper class and how ridiculous they had been about their everyday issues. One being all the lying they did. They even lied about their age! Another issue being that women and men acted so differently. When getting married, they sometimes weren't even allowed to choose their partner. Men got married to one women, but yet he went out with another women to fulfill his pleasuring needs. When Gwendolen and Cecily found out that both their Ernests' weren't really who they said they were, they forgave Jack and Algernon a little to easily. Oscar Wilde seemed to be stereotyping each of the genders.

ANIMAL FARM PROJECT EVALUATION.

1. Name: Kady
Type: Movie
Comments: This was very well made, you can see that it took a lot of time to make. It showed that she understood the story and that showing the cruelty of animals and then having them befriend the humans.

2. Name: Maddie
Type: Picture
Comments: Maddie showed what the animals were feeling all throughout the book. She used arrows to show how the storyline went. It's easy to tell what's happening because they start off sad, then get happy because they're equal, then sad again because they're being ruled over.. again. Great understanding!

3. Name: Meghann
Type: Picture
Comments: Her picture was very creative and well thought about. It looks nice because she used actual pictures instead of drawing them. The elements were all shown well, but the words were a little hard to read because it was so small.

4. Name: Jake
Type: Picture
Comments: He showed how Napolean was the ruler and that Snowball was innocent. Also showed that Napolean had his guards and that they were a big part in the Revolution also.

5. Name: Nic
Type: Picture
Comments: Nic's project was nice and simple, but he added the writing to explain his thoughts. It symbolizes all the different parts of the pigs wanting to be human.

6. Name: Aaron
Type: Picture
Comments: You can tell he took time planning out the cycle in this. He used the literary elements and showed which characters are parallels to those in the Russian Revolution. He showed all the different animals instead of just the main ones talked about.

7. Name: Kyra and Amaya
Type: Video
Comments: I like how they used puppets. It was something I hadn't seen yet. I enjoy how they showed the commandments and how the pigs disobeyed them and changed them throughout the book.

8. Name: Daryl
Type: Picture
Comments: Very creative, and used sort of an advertising thing instead of just drawing out the plot. He showed the different parallels and he also showed the irony of the different animals.

9. Name: Olivia
Type: Picture
Comments: Nice, and shows how the pigs start acting exactly like humans. Shows the irony but not really much else.

10. Name: Emma
Type: Picture
Comments: I like how she had the truth smudged out because there were some many lies that Napolean was telling. It also shows the parallels to the Russian Revolution.

After looking at my classmates projects, I really don't think my project met the standards. I did something simple and easy and should've thought of something else to show in the picture to show more of the literary elements instead.

EXTRA CREDIT - NEW YEARS RESOLUTION.

        So, for 2011 I'm going to start taking control of my life. The first thing is that I made a list of resolutions/50 things to do before the end of 2011. I'm not finished yet, but I'm not going to start any of it until February. The main thing that I'm doing is making a big list of all these different books that I want to read this year. Last year, I wasn't that big of a reader. This year, I'm going to expand my books and try to read at least fifty! I think it's good to read a lot because you expand your knowledge on all different types of subjects and it never hurts to take in good literature.

ANIMAL FARM CREATIVE PROJECT.

        So, for my Animal Farm project I created an image of the how during the beginning of the book the farmer is the leader/ruler over everyone and all the animals. But as the book progresses the pigs take over the farm and are starting to run it just as the humans did. They act so human like that all the other farm animals can't tell the difference between the pigs and the humans.

POETRY OUT LOUD: MY POEM.

        I scrolled and scrolled through all of the poems, clicking almost every other one to read. None, stuck with me and None I connected with. I was staring at the screen for almost an hour and still.. nothing. I decided to give up that night, and try again the next day. But, this day was the day that the group poems were being read in the class. When the group read the poem, "The Road Not Taken", everything seemed to connect to me instantly. I connected with the poem and I knew that it was the poem that I'd wanted to recite for the competition. Robert Frost is a very famous author, which is kind of odd for me to do considering I like things out of the ordinary and things that people haven't ever heard of before.
        Robert Frost was writing down his thoughts about having to make a very difficult decision in his life and no knowing which to chose. I know that I can't relate to this exactly, but there have been times when I've had to make a hard decision; just not one that was life changing. Taking his time is something that he did a lot of. Studying which choice to pick because he know he couldn't chose both, which I can relate to with many different reasons. I'm going to use my voice to show when things are good and when things aren't. I'm going to try my best to show that there're two different path right in the room I'm standing in while still reciting my poem.

EXTRA CREDIT - ONE DAY ONLY.

        As I review, my old post about 5-part pargraph, I'm also glancing over at my new 5-part paragraph and making sure to have everything that I got critiqued on last time. The number one thing that I had that was needed the most out of the whole class was to embedded quotes, which I have checked off. I don't think that I did as good of a job this time since I didn't have a whole book of material to use and only a little poem to work with now. On the other hand, I had a large problem of using those stupid, past tense words. I've grown to realize that while you're typing, make sure that all your words are in the present and make them happen "now". I actually, just proof read mine again and made sure that I caught all my errors that I had which were slim to none since I was thinking about changing the words while I was typing my paragraph this time. Also, including the plot summary was an issue of mine that I had in the first go-around. An easy way to clear this part up in your commentary is to not think literal always but to also think out of the picture while writing. When I think more literal, it comes to it where I just start restating what the text said in the first place which is what I'm trying to avoid.

POETRY OUT LOUD.

        PART ONE:
The poem that I picked that begin with a 'J' because it's the first letter of my name is "John Lennon" by Mary Jo Salter.
The poem that I picked that starts with 'F' since it's the third letter of my last name is "Four Portraits of Fire" by Lorna Dee Cervantes.
The poem that my friend Maddie suggested to me was "Romance" by Claude McKay
I recommended her the poem called "First Poem for You" by Kim Addonizio.
The other two poems that I picked out for myself to read were "Traveling Through the Dark" by William E. Stratford and "Eating Poetry" by Mark Strand
        PART TWO:
Out of the all these different poems I enjoyed almost all of them besides "Romance" and "John Lennon". I enjoy poem that you can easily relate to and these two weren't them. I'm not that all of a romantic type since I'm still kind of young, which if you read the poem you would understand. I don't listen to John Lennon's music all that much so they were just words that didn't really mean anything to me. I enjoyed the rest of them because they were all well written and I enjoyed trying to figure out the meanings for each of them. I am most interested in reading about "Four Potraits of Fire" because it hooked onto me. I like how it's actually broken up into four distinct parts. I also enjoy the way that everything flows together.
        PART THREE:
Two things that'll be hard for me are first having a good physical presence because I have a good posture usually, but having to look out at the judges and the audience isn't really my thing. I usually end up staring off at the ground or at the wall or something. Also, the Dramatic Appropriateness because I'm not the best at talking with my hands or with my body unless I'm having to physically point at something or someone. Two things that should be easiest for me first include Voice and Articulation because I'm usually a reader that has a low mumbling voice that nobody ever understands, but I have a loud enough voice for people all over the room to hear it but it still won't sound like yelling. I'm not quite the sing-song type of person so if there were rhyming it'd be easy for me not to make it sound like a song. Also, I think that Evidence of Understanding would be easy for me because once I get into the work, such as studying it for homework, I will find out what it means for sure before I'm going to have to read it because otherwise I wouldn't even understand what I was saying.
        PART FOUR:
I chose "Danse Russe" by William Carlos Williams. William Farley has a great stage presence. He gives just enough pause between each line and he's looking throughout the entire audience during his entire recitation. Also, I chose "I Am Waiting" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Madison Niermeyer understands what her poem is about because she gives her dramatic-ness whenever it's needed. She isn't overdoing it at all. Also, she's looking at most of the people in the audience which is a very good thing.
        PART FIVE:
Now for my summary. I think that the competition isn't going to be that nerve-racking because we're only doing it in front of our class which takes off a lot of the pressure since we already know everyone in our class. I think that I'll do alright actually since I'm not that great of talking in front of large groups. I mean, I don't that I'll do the best but that's okay, at least I will be trying. I, as I stated earlier, will be memorizing the poem 'Four Portraits of Fire" by Lorna Dee Cervantes. I chose it because it intrigues me. I think that the website is very easy navigated and there is enough information on there so that there won't be a reason for you not to do good on this project thing.