Poetry Out Loud Performances

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins (performance by Carolyn Rose Garcia)

Her performance was done well. She did well on level of difficulty and evidence of understanding. She conveys the meaning of the poem by making inflections in her voice, changing the pace of delivery and tone which strongly communicates this poem to the audience. Her soft sweet voice made the poem very easy to understand and interpret.

In this poem, the author describes things that would not normally be called beautiful such as the hide of a cow or the coals of a fire. In the beginning of the poem he describes what things he thinks are dappled such as the blue and white sky, and the colors of a trout. He then goes on to explain that the wings of a finch multicolored as well as the lands of men whether they are planted and green or freshly plowed. Lastly it describes man and his rich diversity in materials and equipment. In the last part of the poem he attaches a moral meaning to them. It then becomes an apology to the abnormal things he described before. He then says that they are not all thought beautiful by all. He then explains that they are all creations of god which then points to unity.

Mockingbird Motif

The book To Kill a Mockingbird has enhance my understanding the meaning of the word "motif" by giving multiple meanings to one motif. Such as the mockingbird motif. There were many people you could say were associated to the mockingbird motif such as Boo Radley or Tom Robinson. The mockingbird motif is a repeating meaning that represents innocence throughout the book. Then came the idea of "If you kill a mockingbird, it's a sin." So to kill something innocent, it would be like killing a mockingbird.

It's level of meaning is layed thickly in the book. Such as when Boo Radley came out of his house in the last few chapters of the book. Boo Radley seemed more innocent than Jem and Scout would've thought. The motif also came through after Tom Robinson's death, Mr. Underwood wrote that it was like senseless killing a songbird. The mockingbird motif added a great deal of symbolic meaning giving the book literal meaning and a deep meaning.

Life Lessons

When me and my friend Mikaela were in this little quarrel, my mother told me: "Friends come and go, but family is forever."At first I really didn't consider it being a vital thing to resort to. When me and my friends fight got to the point where we were spreading nasty rumors about eachother, I decided to actually talk to my mother about it and how she could help me fix this relationship.

She listened very well to what I had to say. She said that she could sit me and Mikaela down and we could talk and reason out our problems. I said that was a very reasonable idea. It turns out we ended up talking to eachother before we were all supposed to sit down and talk to each other. We told eachother we were sorry and that we would never fight like this again. I find this life lesson to be very true and I feel that I have learned this the hard way.

My Best Friend =]

Berkano, my best friend, is one of the people I most admire because he mainly shares the same characteristics as me. He is shy and quiet at times as well as being very outgoing when he's only around me. He has a very artistic feature about him. He always draws what he imagines like his famous angel (my favorite). He natural hair is this mix between blond and brown, but he has died it recently to black. He always tickles me in the weirdest places like on my palms or on the back of my neck. He is very nice to people besides me. Every time we walk down the hall together, he either says hi to someone or someone else said hey. People mostly call him a vampire mainly because his dark hair, pale skin, and not talking to many people.

He is timid mostly because the last school he went to they didn't talk at all inside or outside of school. He is also an ambivert which is a very good characteristic in a person. When you really get to know him he has a very innocent mind and he babbles a lot. He once drew me many pictures of this angel that adore so much and I think it shows his caring side because the angel reminds me of him. He is very interested in dark colors even though his favorite color is crimson. He is certainly different from many guys I know and its what I like about him. In his classes I think he has accepted the fact that making friends makes you more of an extrovert.

First Person: Early Childhood Memory

When I was about the age of four, I used to go to a day care because both my parent's weren't able to watch me during the day. My ethnicity is Native American and traditionally babies are not supposed to cut their hair for the first time till someone in their family passes away. At day care, all the kids would play with my hair and brush it with their icky fingers.

I got so upset that when I got home, I would complain to my mother about it and I would cry too. My mother made an exception. Since i got so upset over the fact that the children wouldn't leave me alone, she would cut it for me. She braided my hair, took the scissors and cut it right off. After that my hair went wavy because all that weight was lifted.

Dracula: Imagery

The author used imagery mainly because there are not that many characters. The two main characters are the narrator and Count Dracula. If the author didn't use imagery, it would probably sound like those children books. For example: "The cow jumped over the moon." That really doesn't give me much of a picture. What color was the cow? What kind of jumping? Thus, it would be incredibly difficult to have an amazing, yet interesting book without imagery.

He could have also used the literary term because using all of your senses helps us relate to the characters. What they smell, taste, feel, see, hear. One part that really accentuated that was when the main character was looking out a window from Dracula's castle. Count Dracula would lock many doors to keep his guest in a certain wing of the castle. The thing is, he couldn't leave at all. When the main character went upstairs to get a breath of fresh air from the window, he saw a cloaked man climbing out from a window a story below him. The character then recognized the way the cloaked man moved his arms and hands and that he was so limber. He then assumed it was Dracula that was crawling out of the window. The author's grotesque way that he described how the Count climbed out of his window and crawled along the outside wall was so detailed. It helped me observe the event/situation from the man's point of view.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

I'm actually glad that I picked this book. It's very interesting and the most descriptive book I have ever read. I'm a visual learner and helps me with picturing the characters and their surroundings. Of course if i had picked this up by random choice, I would've finished it. Surprisingly it is easy to bury myself into because it's not completely and utterly boring. The characters are easy to understand and relate to, but it's definitely not because I'm a vampire fanatic.

The most dominant literary element is imagery. The author describes things down to the nub. Such as the shape of a women's skirt or the length of Count Dracula's canine teeth. It is very obvious and it shows in about every one to three pages. Stoker takes a noun and adds multiple adjectives to create a complex yet obvious descriptive language.

The author may have been using imagery to create a descriptive picture and to help you understand and feel the experiences of the main character using all the five senses. He also might have used imagery to give the book character because it is written in diary form.

The tone is somber yet dramatic at the same time. The characters are solemn and yet they have so much personality. It does not change because the book is very constant.