Directions: Your response will, of course, be determined by which prompt you chose, so discuss, briefly, which prompt you chose and why. Then, reflect on your your experience with the midterm in 200 words or less. Did you feel more prepared this time to discuss poetry? Did the compare/contrast help give you focus (if you compared and contrasted)? Did the feedback from your explication help you perform the midterm better than you might have if you'd gone in cold? Was it useful to have poetry you had discussed in class be part of the prompt or was it easier to choose two poems of your own (again, depending on the prompt you chose)?
Do not write the reflection until after the midterm.
Due by 5pm on Friday, October 17th.
I chose prompt #3 that asked to compare personification in two different poems. I chose this prompt because personification is something in poetry that I understood the most, and both poems were relatively easy for me to pick apart and understand. I felt more prepared to discuss poetry, especially with having the professor’s feedback from our previous essay. The compare/ contrast definitely helped me to focus on specific aspects of the poems. It was easier for me to have poems provided to me to write about because since we had already explicated “The Author to Her Book” in class, I felt like I had a good understanding of it. The hardest part of the midterm was the limited time we had to do it. I was writing my final word as time ran out, and I didn’t have time to go back and revise. My brain is still fried from doing the midterm.
ReplyDeleteAfter a lot of thought I chose prompt #1, I thought the poems were easy to understand and I thought it was helpful that we had gone over one of them in class. I did compare and contrast two poems with similar topics, but they were quite different styles and tone. I feel good about what I turned in, but my grade will be the true determining factor. I prepared and studied for the midterm, and was relieved that we had detailed instructions, and that outlines were encouraged. Had we not already gone over poetry this midterm would have been very stressful; I felt prepared. The time limit was difficult I didn’t revise much. I know having the poetry unit prior to the midterm really helped, I’m not sure the feedback helped, class discussion was most helpful for me.
ReplyDeleteI chose to compare the personification in “The Author To Her Book,” by Anne Bradstreet and Billy Collin’s “Building With Its Face Blown Off. I decided on this prompt because I felt as though I had a strong understanding of personification. I felt moderately prepared; if I would have had more time with the prompt and hadn’t I worried so much, on my part, about the length of my essay, I would have felt more content. Even though I had less time to prepare than I would have liked, my essay turned out to be exactly how I wanted it to be. I was able to adjust to the prompt I chose; I felt focused on what I had to write and how I was going to set it up. Even after viewing the feedback on my explication, I didn’t apply the constructive criticism to my midterm. Though, I did pay more attention to my word choice and how I set up the structure of my sentences. Being given the option to work with one of the poems we had worked on in class helped me compare the two pieces. I could easily look back at our work with Anne Bradstreet’s poem and how we analyzed the piece, therefore making it easier to examine the context of one we hadn’t discussed.
ReplyDeleteFor the mid term I decided to go with the third prompt. I went with this essay prompt because I most understood the personification. All the other poems seemed very challenging and I did not feel prepared. The comparing of the two poems made it easier to compare the poems because it made you look harder at them. I feel it would of been easier to compare two of my own poems because I would of picked something better then "The Author and Her Book".
ReplyDeleteNumber three was the prompt I chose to do. Comparing the two poets with personification came to me a lot easier than the compare and contrast prompts. So this time around, I did feel a lot more comfortable with poetry. Looking back at what I could have done better on the analysis gave me some direction and reassurance on where to go for this midterm. Although I can get wishy washy on choices, I know one thing for sure, going over these poems in class helped a million! Comparing two poets just seemed to be the best route since I'm no expert.
ReplyDeleteI chose prompt three because it was straight forward to me. I did feel more prepared to discuss the poetry but was still very nervous. Comparing personification definitely gave me focus. Knowing exactly what I had to write about was easy to manage. I chose a song for my explication and the midterm was totally different for me, so the feedback on the explication was a little different. The explication did help prepare me though. It was extremely useful to have poetry we had discussed in class on the midterm. It made me feel less panicked because I knew we had picked them apart pretty extensively in class. Having to just focus on personification made it very helpful for me because I knew exactly what I needed to focus out and it reminded me not to stray from personification. The midterm was definitely not easy but hopefully choosing prompt 3 was the best choice for me.
ReplyDeleteI chose to do prompt number four on the allegory comparison of “The Conqueror Worm” and “The Haunted Palace.” This prompt caught my eye as it was the only one that had poems by the same author. I did read the other poems, not assigned, in prompts one through three to see if they would catch my attention. I kept going back to Poe, who does intrigue me, madness and insanity aside. Knowing all the parts of poetry now and being able to focus in on a few did make me feel more prepared. Comparing the poems provided focus for me, since the two poems are very similar. However, finding a moral in each poem proved to be a challenge. The feedback on my explication was practical, as it showed my weaknesses, giving me a sense of what parts I needed to concentrate on more. I found it beneficial to use a poem we had discussed in class, so that poem could be used as a guide for the other poem.
ReplyDeleteFor the mid-term I decided to choose prompt number three because I felt with personification, this seemed to be my strongest area during the poetry unit. Comparing the two poems “Building with Its face Blown Off” and “The Author to Her Book” by noticing personification made the essay more approachable. I did feel confident and calm when preparing for this mid-term not only because the prompts were given ahead of time, but also because reviewing the notes from the poetry analysis which I reviewed and tried to use in the mid-term. However, I believe my descriptions and word choice could’ve been stronger, in the end, Prompt number three was the best fit for me for this mid-term.
ReplyDeleteI chose to compare and contrast the elements of style in the poems “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owens and “The Lynching” by Claude McKay, both because I enjoy poetry that doesn’t shy away from the harshness in life and style is a more apparent element in poetry. After the final paper on poetry, I felt much more prepared to discuss my poems, especially when I read over the sections on style and tone again.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t just feel like the compare and contrast elements of the prompt narrowed my focus; I feel like it may have also limited it. Of course, after reviewing style and tone, I found that word choice and tone weren’t the only elements of style; sentence length, sentence structure, and diction also play a part in style. With this information, I was able to flesh out my midterm. The feedback from the essay helped to address some minor issues, but nothing major was changed.
Having discussed “Dulce et Decorum Est” in class previously helped me to understand the poem in greater detail. In addition, I applied the style analysis from Dulce to “The Lynching” in order to understand its elements.
I chose the prompt comparing "To His Coy Mistress" and "Death, be Not Proud". I had to choose which was more convincing and expand on how tone and word choice affected the conviction. I chose this prompt because I love the art of using word choice and tone to evoke emotions universally in humans. I feel that the class, so far, has covered a lot on how tone affects a written work and how convinced we feel of the work. I felt that previously going over the poems in class made it easier to write a well-thought essay. I was familiar with the works and had already formed opinions in my head; all I needed to do was organize my thoughts down on paper. Overall, the midterm was not as frightening as I thought (other than forgetting to buy a blue book!) and I liked being able to just write an essay, rather than memorize definition and multiple poems.
ReplyDeleteI chose to compare the personification in "Building With its Face Blown Off" and "The Author to Her Book". I can empathize with "The Author to Her Book" as a writer who knows what it is to be her own worst critic, and “Building With its Face Blown Off” struck me as a scene that could otherwise be very peaceful, were it not for the destruction of the war that has swept through. I definitely felt more prepared this time around, and the feedback from my paper helped me express and organize my ideas more clearly. I enjoyed having one poem that we had discussed in class and one that I examined on my own to compare my view of a poem to someone else's.
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