Friday, August 31, 2012

Second Entry


My Five goals are:
  • Read the title every time and keep it in mind
  • Know how to identify what type of poem it is
  • Better understand the themes of poems
  • Learn the literary terms and be able to recognize allusions 
  • Re-read the poem several times to get a better understanding of what the poem means and all of its characteristics
These goals are definitely attainable for me. The first goal will come out of habit, after i remember to do it a couple of times. The reason I have this goal is because, when I read "The Chambered Nautilus" I didn't read the title and was completely lost on the multiple choice. I went back, and re-read the poem and was still confused, until I finally noticed the title. My second came from the multiple choice questions that asked to identify what type of poem it is. I know how to identify a sonnet, like "Sonnet 55" but that ones pretty obvious. This can cured with simple memorization, which I'm sure won't take very long. The themes of poems is something I have always struggled with and will probably take some practice, until I get good at them. I am sure at one point during last school year I knew all or most of these terms, but then summer came and I have forgotten that they existed until recently. I had to guess on the questions that asked "what figure of speech is found in this line?" and sometimes I even got them right. I didn't recognize many illusions in the poems that I read and when a question came up that asked about it, I was completely lost. The fifth goal is one of the tips I read in Peterson's AP English and I think this would be very helpful if I am not being lazy.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

First Entry

I wasn't surprised about the lack of knowledge I had on poems. I really hate poems and don't enjoy reading or writing them. To me they are just a way to write something that is plain, elegantly. I did about as bad as I expected. I didn't really gauge my time, because I did not take the test in one sitting, with it being the summer and having the internet right in front of me. I'm not really sure how long I took and i took the test pretty casually. The ending questions, I thought, were more challenging than the questions on poetry. I figured they would have been easier, since it wouldn't have involved knowledge of poetry. Overall I did well, relative to my standards (32/50) and I took the test very casually, so I'll just use that as my excuse as to why I did bad.