the Lady and the Tiger

In the short story "the Lady and the Tiger", by Frank Stockton we use several of our pacing guide strategies in order to pick apart the text and decide some kind of overall tone, because in this story the ending is really all up to the reader. Stockton give us some defining character traits of the princess, such as the fact that she is proud, and seemingly quite selfish in her hatred for the maiden, but she is also very compassionate and cares for the boy a lot which she shows just by attending his "trial". The strategies from the pacing guide that i felt aided me the most were these:


1.b We used context clues to define unfamiliar words, especially in exercises 1&2 where we decided what vocabulary from the word bank best fit a given sentence, as well as in exercise 3 where we take words and short phrases out of context and define in our own words what those things mean.


2.d we worked together in a group of 4 in order to help each other with definitions as well as to come up with contextual ideas we might not have come up with individually. By combining our unique ideas and thought processes we are able to gain multiple perspectives about certain elements of the story, giving us a much more complete image of what the story is saying.

6.a tells us to explore personal issues through the text. Based on the text, its hard to infer what decision the princess might make, she loves the boy, but hates the maiden. To answer this question we have to think introspectively, and decide weather or not we world forsake our friend just to get in the way of our enemies.

This I believe

1.a Is an important part of the 'This I Believe' unit, it says we must be able to think about the thought process involved in writing (otherwise called metacognition) to help us relate to the authors, and the diverse backgrounds from which they write. Metacognition helps us to realise that writing is part of human expression. Being able to relate your own experiences or other things you've read to the current text shows us that no matter where we come from most people deal with a majority of the same problems we do, just to a different degree.


6.c Is also a big one, it says we must be able to compair different forms of literature, from different eras and regions. This more or less goes hand-in-hand with 1.a, because by compairing different froms of literature we can see how much someone from Pakistan might have in common with someone from Chile, or from Alaska. This also exemplifies our personal or conditional differences. We can better relate to humanity as a whole using this methode because we can identify factors that may cause them to think differently or believe things we don't.

Introduction

From this course I would like to learn to be able to write a little bit more impulsively. I read a website of one of my favorite authors, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes , who published her first book when she was 13. One of her biggest pieces of advice is that writing is just like a sport that you have to practice to get good at. She goes on to say that if you hit a writers block the best thing to do just put something on paper so that later you can go back and change it just as long as you keep your momentum. I'd also like to learn how to research my creative writing a little bit better to give the things I write more content.

One of my greatest strengths in English is reading for content. Whenever I read I always look for ways to relate to the writing, as well as what the significance of what is happening. My 8Th grade English teacher drilled these ideas into our heads to make us think about literature. I thought that was too demanding of 12-year-olds at the time but learning to do so at a young age really benefited me. I'm good at reading recreational, I'm at least partially involved in reading 4 different books right now ('Lisey's story'- King, 'when will Jesus bring the pork chops'- Carlin, 'Necronomicon'- Alhazred, 'sacred journey of a peaceful warrior'- Millman). Usually I skim almost anything in front of me, which causes me to read a lot of pointless -and a few interesting- articles on msn when I open Internet explorer.

I would have to say my greatest weakness in English is in coming up with ideas. Non-fiction writing is easier for me because I can go online and research facts about whatever it is I'm writing. When I'm writing creatively, or about my own personal experiences I either can't think of anything sequentially to follow or I have too much going on in my head. Or when its in my factual writing I often know exactly what I mean but can't articulate a good way to say it.