I believe the work that was most successful for me was the flyer. The flyer was very fun to do, having myself pick a great poem to type about was interesting. I enjoyed reading different poems in order to find the right one. I got a pretty good grade, I forget some couple of things but overall it was easy, creative and fun work. I feel like I could’ve done better is the discussion board and the quizzes. The discussion boards were somewhat difficult for me to understand which stopped me from completing some discussion boards. For the quizzes, I also had difficult times trying to get a good grade on it, when doing the quiz I always felt like I am going to get a good grade but at the end it ends up being a bad grade on it. A specific skills that I learned in this class was definitely rereading a story or poem and going over every sentence or paragraph. It made this class easy for me to understand these stories that had difficult wordings. I am going to use this in the future because in the future I do want to become a teacher and it is really important to reread and understand papers that are given to me.
Arely
When I was reading each vignette the one that really stood out to me was ” Hairs” by The House On Mango Street. The vignette hairs resembles a lot like my family, in this vignette Esperanza describes each of her families hair type, each hair type is resembling their personality. In my family my older brother hair is short but straight and very well styled everyday meaning is an organized person, my dad hair is short to the side and always with gel meaning his life is very put together, my mom hair has beautiful brown hair, always have beautiful hairstyles meaning she is a great sweet person. This, reminded me of how Esperanza described her mom hair., and for me my hair is mostly let go frizzy meaning lazy or unorganized at times as well as Esperanza saying her hair defined her as a lazy person. It really interest me how hair defines everyone personality whiteout actually knowing a person.
When reading Raymond Carvar stories, I noticed right away how different this story is then the ones we have read this past semester. Raymond Carvar style of writing in more smoother and easy to understand right away. Usually reading stories or articles it takes me twice to read to fully process what is happening. His method of writing is very specific where you can picture the story, and very straightforward. When reading the other stories such as “Oedipus the King”, it is more advice writing that lots of metaphors is being used to describe a problem. “Many, my children, are the tears I’ve wept, and threaded many a maze of weary thought” ( Oedipus). This is expressing the feeling of grief. Reading Oedipus the king, I had to read back many times and search up many words for their meaning, I did have several troubles understand the story when I read it once but when I read it twice and understand each problem of each line it got more easier.
When reading “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, the narrator puts in a lot of imagery and wording to describe scary situation like Arnold in the story. When you’re up to the part where Arnold starts being weird and creepy you get some type of chills for a bit and makes you want to read more to see what will happen next. When reading you are learning about the situation at your paste, taking time reading and processing what is actually happening and trying to imagine it. But, when watching a terror movie you are actually seeing what is happening. All of the loud creepy sounds, the gore scenes is what brings people actual fear when watching. You can’t process the situation at your paste but have to process it quickly and understand it quickly. Also, when watching scary movies you end up getting scary dreams but when reading it is less likely to happen because you are not actually seeing the situation happening.
Fairytales has always been a little girls dream. Since I was little every fairytale I had heard of and watched was about these princesses meeting their Prince Charming but always had an evil person trying to stop them. I remember fairy tails have always been sweet and heartwarming. This week we had read the original story of snow white. In what I remember snow white is this beautiful princess who had a step mother that had been jealous of her beauties, ends of poisoning her daughter and only can be revive by a kiss from a prince. Reading the original really surprised me, I was confused on how was this fairy tale made for kids. It made me rethink about all the original fairytales stories, most stories are very gruesome for children to be reading and hearing about. What really caught me off guard were reading that the evil stepmother thought she was eating parts of Snow White to get beauty into her. `
When we first started reading this story it was confusing. I felt lost not knowing what the true meaning behind this story was. Reading the article written by the author, he said there would be goodness in the story eventually. Continuing reading the story and stopping to talk about what has happened already. More towards the end the grandma’s words to the Misfit changed the way he is, it had him rethink about the life choices he has made. The first time reading the story I didn’t understand what happened at the end but when I read the article written by the author when he mentioned about a situation where there will be goodness made me realize the goodness was in the Misfit. All throughout the story the family but mostly the grandma did not have any goodness in them. But, the misfit after hearing the grandma last words he changed his mind and told himself that there was no joy in killing anymore.
I would rate my ability to read and understand Oedipus the king is a good 8.5/10. The parts of the act that were very straightforward were the easiest part that I could understand. When their were parts hat the Chorus would elaborate made it also easy to understand what is happening at that point. The hardest part while reading this act were the metaphors that they would use to describe a feeling or situation, and difficult language that I have to go back and reread a couple times In order to understand what was happening. I really enjoyed reading this act but this act needs to be reread a couple times to really understand the situations, at first it was getting boring but the more I was reading this act it got more and more interesting that I wanted to read more and more. I would want to portray Oedipus in the act because he was the main character and a strong character in which we see how his traits has changed throughout the play, I would like to act with passion and anger like Oedipus.
When reading poetry I had always had trouble understanding what it is about. The wording that authors use when writing poetry always gets me confused. After these past weeks my understanding of poetry has became semi easier to understand. I have learned to break it down by each line and pay attention to every wording they use, sometimes it can be difficult but recalling paying attention it gets easier. I feel like poetry has grabbed my interest again, and made me want to read more poems because now I know how to understand poetry more better. I am not the best at reading and understanding poetry yet but I do know these ways in trying to understand. I think I need more practice with the wording they are using to write poetry, and also more patience trying to figure out each meaning of every sentence. I also need work on paying attention, every stanza has a bug meaning to the story.
When reading the story “Araby” I see how this boy has a crush on this girl but doesn’t; feel enough for her to like a kid like him. I can sort of relate to this story because during my 9th grade year I always admired this guy who was In 10th grade. Everyday going to school when the bell would ring I would see him walking through the same hall as me going to my next class. I never had the courage to actually speak to him, I always had that mindset of no one ever wanting me and not feeling enough for someone. Everyday I tried to “impress” him with the way I dressed but noticed he never looked at me which I felt invisible. Later on I heard stories of the type of person he was which made me feel different, he was way different from what I expected. It was disillusionment, ever since that day I lost all interest in impressing a person because you never know how they really are.
The story “Araby” by James Joyce is about a little boy who has a crush on this girl, he decides to buy something for her but it didn’t go as what he expected. The meaning of the story overall is everything that you want may not be what you intended to be. In my perspective, I had always had situations in which the outcome wasn’t planned to happen.
Hello, my name is Arely Vaquero. This is my second semester in BMCC. I am majoring in early childhood education. In the future I would like to become a kindergarten teacher.
