Blog Post #3: Group Roles

My tasks roles within our group are initiator/contributor and evaluator/critic, and my social role is the gatekeeper. My job is to contribute ideas and suggestions, analyze my group's accomplishments and suggest ways to do better, and to draw quieter members of the group into the conversation. My roles create a group member that others may not inherently like but is necessary for the group to be successful. Because of these traits and my perception, I most closely resemble Moses regarding the task roles I have within the group and Aaron, Moses's brother regarding my social roles within our working groups.

Like Moses, I guide my group by starting them off in the right direction with meaningful ideas and help keep them on track by evaluating and critiquing their performance. Moses warned Ramses and gave him ideas and suggestions to avoid the destruction of Egypt by the plagues but his ideas went unheard. Similarly, If my evaluations or contributions are not considered and go unheard it can lead to disaster for the group because it would be easy for us to get off task or start on the wrong path. It is my responsibility to begin the journey as well as evaluate how far we've been and how we can go farther. Although we may not want to continue working, I have to make sure that we reach our daily goals.

Similar to Aaron, my social role requires me to provide a voice for the silent and include them in the conversations and discussions if they are not willing to speak themselves. Instead of Moses speaking at large gatherings and encouraging the Israelite people, Aaron was the voice for Moses and conveyed his ideas to the audience. My social role requires me to do the same. By doing this, a greater number of ideas can be shared and productivity will increase because of the greater number of people working towards the same goal.

Blog Post #2: Test Reflection

The practice AP English and Literature exam had many more similarities to the Composition exam than I expected. Both give samples of text, ask you to analyze writing techniques, and evaluate how they relate to the author's purpose. The questions feel similar and the wording is also familiar. The English and Literature exam, however, throws a curveball at the test taker in the form of poetry.

Analyzing the other pieces of writing was not overwhelmingly difficult and the I could use the same test taking strategies used on the Composition exam. I had a fundamental understanding of the types of questions that were on the exam based on keywords within the question. For example, questions 37 and 39 were examples of determining the author's meaning because of key phrases like "According to Shelley". Because of my previous knowledge of writing techniques, when close reading the selections, I was able to mark these devices and easily find them when needed. The general questions, asking author's meaning or purpose, I found easier than questions that asked specific details or characteristics of the writing.

As I stated previously, the most difficult part of the exam was the poetry. Multiple times questions were asked regarding what type of poem was presented. A "Spenserian sonnet", "Petrarchan sonnet", and "sestina" don't currently have any meaning to me and I was not able to differentiate between these answer choices. In addition to the types of poem, I was unfamiliar with some of the literary devices as well (ex: "caesura"). Even though we learned these terms during Language and Composition, I definitely need to relearn these concepts and their application not only in prose writing, which I am somewhat familiar, but also poetry. Since I don't have a full understanding of some of these terms, I could not find them during the first close reading of the piece. When asked later about their function, I neither understood what was being asked nor knew where to find it within the piece.

To perform my absolute best on this exam come May, there are numerous things I need to learn and do. First, I need to expand my knowledge of literary devices. I can accomplish this in two ways. By memorizing the definitions of these terms and by finding examples within literature. In addition to marking devices I already know when reading, I need to seek out those that I don't know so that I can understand the application of these literary devices and strategies. Second, I need to study more poetry. My current knowledge of this type of writing is no where near sufficient to excel on the exam. Specifically, I need to learn the different types of poetry and how to sift through the metaphors and allusions to determine the author's purpose. Third, I need to read more literature. Like it says in How to Read like a Professor, the more you expose yourself to text, the easier it is for patterns to be seen and connections to be made. With this knowledge, I can find connections between the text on the test and the text read in class. From there, the author's purpose and meaning will become more clear and some of the allusions made will also make more sense.

Blog Post #1: Design

I designed my blog to have both an informal and formal tone. I wanted viewers to feel comfortable opening my blog by having an informal title font and also informal titles for the individual posts. But, I also wanted viewers to know that the actual posts are professional pieces of writing by using the Times New Roman font for the writing in the blog posts. The background also clearly and immediately identifies that the majority of writing will be about literature.
The oranges used to design the blog catch the viewers attention and promote a mood of warmth and excitement while the browns reiterate the warmth but also create a mood of comfort. These colors remind me of a library or coffee shop where both writing and reading take place. I did not want extremely bright colors on my blog because it draws the viewer away from the focus of the page, which is the writing. The colors I selected make the design interesting an inviting without being overwhelming or intrusive.