Shakespeare

Shakespeare had a wide variety of experiences during his life. In his childhood, he experienced what it was like growing up in different classes of society. His father was involved in politics, illegal wool dealing, and money laundering; therefore, they were wealthy at one point of Shakespeare's childhood. However, his father was caught and their assets were seized. Shakespeare was also a part of the working class, he worked with leather making gloves.

Shakespeare was also born in a time of religious conflict. Different political leaders had different national religions in place. It would go back and forth from catholic and Protestant.

These life experiences shaped Shakespeare and had a huge impact on his writing. His viewpoints on the people of different social classes differed from that of society. Society believed that social class reflected intelligence; Shakespeare believed that even people of lower classes of society could be intelligent. This is illustrated in his play "Hamlet" when a gravedigger outwitted Prince Hamlet.

Hamlet

Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is a play about Prince Hamlet's life after his father's death and mother's remarriage. This is a life changing event for Hamlet and immensely affects his personality.

Before his father's death, Hamlet was a very charismatic and loved prince. He went into a deep depression after his father died and his mother remarried to his uncle. Soon after the marriage, about two months after, he spoke with the ghost of his father. The ghost of King Hamlet told Prince Hamlet the story of how he was murdered by the prince's uncle that remarried his mom. He told the prince to avenge his death by killing his uncle and leaving his mother alone.

Hamlet decides to trust the ghost but not completely. He devises a plan to put on a play that depicts the murder of King Hamlet and monitor his uncle's reaction to see if he has any guilty expressions. After the play, Hamlet realizes that the ghost was telling the truth, so he decides to go ahead and kill his uncle. However, he has trouble working up the courage to do it.

Hamlet finally gets around to murdering the king by stabbing and poisoning him at a duel between himself and Laertes. At this same duel, the uncle and Laertes had a plan to kill Hamlet with a poisoned sword, they succeed. In this scene, Laertes is stabbed with the poisoned sword along with Hamlet, and the uncle is murdered after accidentally poisoning his wife, the queen and Hamlets mother.

Writing formats

High school students are expected to write in many different formats. A student who excels at writing in one format may struggle writing in another format. 

There are different writing formats for different exams like the HSPAs, AP exams, and the SAT writing section. The format of writing on the HSPA is the typical five paragraph essay that students are taught since fourth or fifth grade. The writing format on AP exams is more lenient but tends to be around 4 paragraphs with a short, effective introduction. I honestly have not gotten a grasp on the formula of the SAT writing.

Students are expected to master these writing formats if they wish to be a successful writer. Exceptional writers master all three styles; however, most students only have a grasp on one or two writing styles.

Devices in literature

Anyone can read a novel, epic, poem, etc., but it takes a dedicated and informed reader to analyze and understand the text they are reading. The author usually conveys their message using devices, and if one can recognize them and how they are used in a story they will most likely understand the text.

While reading Homer's "The Odyssey" I recognized some of the devices he uses; however, I did not even notice others. I made no connection between the landscape and characters of the epic until our annotated bibliography assignment where we read scholarly articles on that exact device. Homer made it so that the landscape reflected the character and vice versa. For example, calypso is a beautiful immortal stuck on a remote island that is also quite beautiful.

Recognizing and understanding devices used by authors is critical in fully and accurately understanding a piece of literature, for they play a major role in the telling of the story.

Stolen English Words

    Learning about words and phrases that we commonly use in English that originate from Latin has gotten me interested in learning more words or phrases that English "steals" from other languages. When a pirate steals something, the object(s) they steal is reffered to as their "loot." The word loot is a seemingly pure-English word; however, its root comes from the Hindi word "lut" meaning an item stolen during a war or riot.
     A common theme in American Horror movies is possessions and poltergeists. Poltergeist is a word we use in english to refer to a supernatural spirit, which is usually negative, that reveals itself by creating disturbances in the natural world. The word itself is derived from two German words, poltern meaning to make noise and geist meaning ghost.
     Words that are very commonly used in popular video games like juggernaut, assassin, and glitch are also taken from other languages. Juggernaut is orignally derived from the Sanskrit langauge, assassin is derived from the arabic language, and glitch is derived from both Yiddish and German from a word meaning to slip or slide in both languages.

Slang

     Slang has become a normal part of communication in America. However, the specific slang depends on the demographic. There are slang terms that combine two words that flow together such as y'all, wanna, gotta, and c'mere. These are combinations of "you all," "want to," "got to," and "come here." We commonly use these slang terms because it is easier than saying the two words separately.
     Slang also comes in the form of "texting slang" which is mainly acronyms standing for short phrases. Some examples of texting slang are LOL, BRB, BC, and GTG. These stand for laugh out loud, be right back, because, and got to go. This type of slang is common in the younger demographic because it is used in communication through texting and messaging.
     There are some slang terms that are used by the older demographic also. Examples of this would be slang terms like stompers, ankle-biter, and crash pad. These terms mean shoes, children, and a place to sleep. They are slang terms from the 1940's, 50's and 60's; therefore, most young people would not use them now-a-days.

Spellcheck

     Recently I have noticed how much I rely on spell check when typing papers, labs, and even text  messaging. Since I'm not the best speller, spell check is a very useful tool; however, this may not be such a good thing. I can type something like "comunication" in Microsoft Word, and it will automatically correct the spelling mistake. My iPhone even goes as far as to turn something like "Wdchhb" into the word "Exchange." If Word does not recognize the word you're trying to spell and correct it instantly, it will give you suggestions on what it thought you meant to spell. Spellcheck will turn contractions like youre into the correct version, you're.
     A service as helpful as spell check is very useful. However, there are also downsides to it. Spell check has desensitized me to making spelling errors, for they will all be corrected. I no longer have to worry about spelling words wrong while typing; therefore, I have no need to concentrate on becoming a good speller. It can also guess what you meant to say wrong. For example, I sent a text to my girlfriend that meant to say "I'm going to hang out with John this weekend" but I hit one wrong letter and the text ended up saying "I'm going to make out with John this weekend." A tool as useful as spell check has both pros and cons.

     Every year, thousands of requests are sent out to members of literature acadamies and societies, literature and language professors, former nobel laureates, and presidents of writers' organizations for nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy receives these nominations and by May, there is a list of five names that have been approved by the committee, and one must be on this list twice before they can win. Members of the academy vote in October; the candidate who receives more than half of the votes is named the Nobel Laureate of Literature.

     This year, the names on the list include the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, Chinese writer Mo Yan, and American novelist Thomas Pynchon. Whoever wins the prize this year will receive a gold medal, a diploma bearing a citation, and a certain amount of money. The amount of money oscillates up and down from year to year; the 2012 prize money amount is about $1,100,000.

     I personally have not heard of any of the authors, novelists, or writers on the list of nominees for this years Nobel Prize in Literature, or many of the past winners. However, it should be clear to everyone that there is only one obvious choice for Nobel Laureate in Literature for 2012, J.K. Rowling. Are there any other suggestions excluding the authors of Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey?



There are many little known grammatical errors that are very common in everyday life. Try and spot them in this blog post. I am anxious to see if you can, but I could care less if you do.
In the above paragraph, there are three major grammatical errors. One wouldn't "try and" do something, they would "try to" do something. I don't try and walk away and stumble; I try to walk away and stumble.
The next grammatical error is a common misunderstanding of the meanings of anxious and eager. You can be anxious about something but you can't be anxious to do something. You are eager to do something; therefore, I am not anxious to see if you can, I am eager to see if you can.
The final grammatical error in the first paragraph is one that doesn't make sense logically. The phrase "I could care less" is commonly used to express that you don't care about something. If you could care less, it shows that you do care at least a little bit. The correct phrase in this situation would be "I couldn't care less."
Try and think before you make one of these grammatical errors again.

Harry Potter Alliteration

In "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" Professor McGonagall must teach the students to dance and encourage them to do so at the Yule Ball. She makes dancing seem both girly and manly through her descriptive alliteration. When targeting the females in the room, she states "inside ever girl a secret swan slumbers"; when targeting the males in the room she states "inside every boy a lordly lion prepared to prance." She uses alliteration as rhetoric to persuade the students to dance, and her message influences the girls more than the boys. She also uses alliteration to convey the seriousness of the situation to the students. She doesn't want them to act like a "babbling bumbling band of baboons." She gets her point across to the students, for at the Yule Ball they all dance. It took the boys longer to get the message because they were all hesitant about dancing at first, but Professor McGonagall effectively got the students to participate at the ball.

"Literature is the new Latin"

Literature, specifically books and novels, are comparable to the Latin language due to the fact that it is slowly dying out. "We have entered the three-minute world. Anything that takes longer is just not worth it" says Michael Reist, author of "Literature is the new Latin."  The reading of long novels, especially in school, is being replaced by students watching the movie or reading the summaries. Contributing to this shorter attention span is the amount of distractions like television, the computer, and cell phones.  Novels, and their summaries, are available in the palm of one's hand now; this is bringing about a change in the curriculum of English class. In some schools, literature has been replaced by literacy activities used to engage students online. Soon, the reading and studying of novels may be replaced completely by electronic alternatives.