Elements of Poetry:

When analyzing poetry use these:

Dramatice Situation

Structure

Theme

Grammar and Meaning

Figurative Language

Important words

Tone/ Mood

Literary Techniques

Procedy

Active Reading Notes: Kafka on the Shore

Kafka: main character
- tough fifteen year old who has run away from home in search of himself.
Symbol: the crow that pops up throughout the book telling kafka he is a "tough fifteen year old"

Satoru Nakata: Nakata lost many of his mental faculties when, as one of sixteen schoolchildren out on a mushroom-gathering field-trip toward the end of World War II, he was rendered unconscious following a mysterious flash of light in the sky.

* Satoru Nakata's experience could be from a UFO. He is able to talk to cats, as far as Kafka knows.

Oshima: kafkas friend

Hoshino: bus driver who befriends Kafka on his journey

Sakura: friend of Kafka. Forms relationship with him. Finds out later possibly his sister.

*cats continuously show up for reasons I don't know yet.
Satura is able to communicate with these cats(Goma,Mimi,Okawa,Toro,Otsuka)

Kafka goes through a journey. The garden. The book store becoming a peaceful place for him. Foreshadowing?

** the kids from the field trip made Kafka sad. We were able to see his compassionate side not only with this but with his interactions with Sakura.

Poem Interpretation

The poem I chose is about ambition and the desire to succeed in any goal you make for yourself. The poems dramatic situation can be told by the speaker. The speaker is one of optimism, he is the author and example of his own words. He writes as if he has achieved success and is determined to get there again. The structure of the poem is there are numerous stanzas, each with four lines. Each line in a stanza rhymes all through out that particular stanza. The author completes his thoughts not with the breaks of stanzas, but with the ending of a sentence seen by a period. With in the poem there is a central message, a message the author wants to convey. This message is to achiev you goals through difficult times, do what you have to do to succeed. Have ambition all the time. I feel the author plays with the meaning of words, as well as used simple language or words to convey a bigger and deeper message. In the poem the author uses a lot of personification by giving the poem itself human characteristics. Last is the tone of the poem. The poem seems very optimistic and happy to me. It has a bright outlook on life and it's tone reflects the reader as they read.

Micro AP Part I

-What was easy/ expected?
-What was difficult/ unexpected?
-What did you learn about the AP questions?
-What did you learn about your own performance under pressure?
-How will this experience influence your preparation for the actual exam?

The easiest part of this was just the fact that we basically new the novels we were writing about.  We could use any of the two novels we were reading and build off of that, and that made it a lot easier for me

The Micro AP test we took wasn't necessarily hard, but it was unexpected. I thought we were going to have one solid topic and were going to be writing on just that. To my surprise we had many topics which was hard for me to organize my thoughts.

I learned that it isn't quantity it's quality. I always get stuck explaining things in depth when i should really just find one or two great sentences that convey my meaning with out being lengthy.

I learned that I need to be able to work a little bit better under pressure. I tend to get frustrated and kind of start just writing, and not necessarily thinking clearly.

This experience will allow me an incite on how things work on the AP exam and that is just the start. Since i know how things work now I just have to master my techniques and my performance under pressure.