Literature Analysis Video Remix

Literature Analysis Remix (MIndmap)

Literature Analysis #6

Things Fall Apart

by Chinua Achebe

1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read.

Okonkwo is a respected leader in the Umuofia tribe of the Igbo people. Throughout his life, Okonkwo attempts to be his father’s polar opposite. From an early age, he builds his home and reputation as a precocious wrestler and hard-working farmer. Okonkwo’s efforts pay off big time and he becomes wealthy through his crops and scores three wives. Okonkwo ends up adopting a boy from another village. The boy is named Ikemefuna and Okonkwo comes to love him like a son. The tribe decides that Ikemefuna must die. When the men of Umuofia take Ikemefuna into the forest to slaughter him, Okonkwo actually participates in the murder. Although he’s just killed his adoptive son, Okonkwo shows no emotion because he wants to be seen as Mr. Macho and not be weak like his own father was. Inside, though, Okonkwo feels painful guilt and regret. Later on, during a funeral, Okonkwo accidentally shoots and kills a boy. For his crime, the town exiles him for seven years to his mother’s homeland, Mbanta. There, he learns about the coming of the white missionaries whose arrival signals the beginning of the end for the Igbo people. As the Christian religion gains legitimacy, more and more Igbo people are converted. Just when Okonkwo has finished his seven-year sentence and is allowed to return home, his son Nwoye converts to Christianity. Contemplating revenge, the Igbo people hold a war council and Okonkwo is one of the biggest advocates for aggressive action. However, during the council, a court messenger from the missionaries arrives and tells the men to stop the meeting. Enraged, Okonkwo kills him. Realizing that his clan will not go to war against the white men, the proud, devastated Okonkwo hangs himself.

2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.

Igbo lifestyle is highly stylized, from its ritual speech to the actions performed for certain ceremonies. Most of these formalized interactions occur in an attempt to show respect to some external being ancestral spirit, or a god. Respect and knowledge of one’s role in society is very important in determining such customs. Another institution that rituals address and honor is the family unit. Stylized language, in particular, seeks to hold the family together by means of promises.

3. Describe the author's tone.  Include three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).

Achebe narrates events pretty objectively, without many embellishments. Readers are left largely to impose emotion on the text and decide for themselves whether characters are admirable or justified in their behaviors. Achebe begins showing sympathy towards the Umuofia by describing the brutalities inflicted on the people by the white government.

4. Describe five literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the theme and/or your sense of the tone.  Include three excerpts that will help your reader understand each one.

1)Symbolism: For Okonkwo, fire is a symbol of boundless potency, life, and masculinity.

2)Point of View: Though most of the novel is focused on Okonkwo, the narrator generally provides insight into the thoughts of most characters.

3)Allusions: There are allusions to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the Bible: Exodus

4) Writing Style: Achebe keeps it simple, directly to the point, and centered on nature. His goal is to use language to depict how the Ibo view their world.

5) Setting: The setting in Nigeria around the turn of the 19th century is extremely important; it allows Okonkwo’s life to straddle the pre- and post-European imperial era.

Socratic Seminar Notes

What we covered and talked about:

• Playing without having to think allows children to develop
• With guidelines and rules, children start to follow them and don't go beyond that
• Not just kids, but adults too can develop by free-playing
• It becomes harder for adults since they develop ego and self-consciousness
• Free-plays connects with creativity since there are no boundaries
• School takes away free-play and instead tells students to learn in strict and rigid ways
• Students are fed-up with school and don't like to "learn" since it reminds them of school
• They start to lose the passion to "learn" whether it be school-related or personal-interest

How can these concepts enhance your learning as you arrive at a moment when grades no longer matter?

     These concepts can enhance our learning by allowing us to have passion in what we love to do instead of following the institution's guidelines in doing it it's way. Later on in our lives, the A's we learned don't really matter since it doesn't guarantee that we're going to get a good job. It's the passion we possess that enables us to seek what we want to learn about which leads to our career in life.

How can these concepts enhance your ability to master content for the AP exam and other hurdles you have yet to leap?

     Just because the article about "play" stated that "free-play" is beneficial in all ways for an individual, I'm not going to just do things I personally like to do since they are irrelevent to the AP Test. Instead, I'm going to develop my interest in the AP Exam, spend some time reviewing it, and ask questions to Dr. Preston about the content of the exam.

How can you use these concepts to collaborate with and inspire others, to improve the information exchange and overall value of your learning network?

    By utilizing these concepts, we can all benefit by encouraging others and reminding them that we are not doing this for the school, but for our own purpose in learning. However, I realized that not many people ACTUALLY do this and simply state that they will and forget about it. We all need to constantly remind ourselves about this untiil the AP Exam so that we won't lose focus.

Remix Poetry Analysis

Mnemonic device that'll help me remember the 9 point rubric analysis.

1) Dramatic Situation: deals
2) Structure: sell
3) Grammar: grumpy
4) Tone: teachers
5) Theme: then
6) Important Imagery: ideas
7) Important Words: increase
8) Literary Devices: large
9) Prosody: puzzles

9 Point Poetry Analysis

1.                                         Sonnet 29:
                                                                William Shakespeare

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heav'n with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate.

  For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

  That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

1) Dramatic Situation: man telling the story to those who would hear his disdains
2) Structure: consists of 14 lines, written in iambic pentameter, 3 quatrains, and 1 couplet
3) Grammar: written in Old English
4) Tone: depressed, hopeless, fondness
5) Theme: the curative power of love for the man who wallow in miserably destructive self-disdain.
6) Important Imagery: curse my fate, sing hymns
7) Important Words: disgrace, outcast, fate, man, heavens
8) Literary Devices: personification- deaf heav'n; written in the first-person point of view
9) Prosody: the flow of the sonnet is short and simple; even with the shortness of it, the author manages to convey the message

2.                                         Sonnet 106: 
                                                              William Shakespeare

When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights

And beauty making beautiful old rhyme

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their ántique pen would have expressed

Ev'n such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring,

And for they looked but with divining eyes,

They had not skill enough your worth to sing.

  For we which now behold these present days,

  Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

1) Dramatic Situation: probably a man describing the woman's beauty
2) Structure: consists of 14 lines, written in iambic pentameter, 3 quatrains, and 1 couplet
3) Grammar: written in Old English
4) Tone: mellow, calm
5) Theme: immortality of the woman's beauty, but spoke nothing of love
6) Important Imagery: "Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,"
7) Important Words: ladies, beauty, eyes, praise
8) Literary Devices: written in the first-person point of view
9) Prosody: the flow of the sonnet is short and simple; even with the shortness of it, the author manages to convey the message

3.                                          Sonnet 116:
                                                                   William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

  If this be error and upon me proved,

  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

1) Dramatic Situation: man declaring that love stays the same no matter what to the readers
2) Structure: consists of 14 lines, written in iambic pentameter, 3 quatrains, and 1 couplet
3) Grammar: written in Old English
4) Tone: the tone is strong and confident.
5) Theme: love stays the same; it doesn't change and its "an ever fixed mark."
6) Important Imagery: "star to every wand'ring bark"
7) Important Words: love, unknown, doom, alters
8) Literary Devices: written in the first-person point of view
9) Prosody: the flow of the sonnet is short and simple; even with the shortness of it, the author manages to convey the message

Remix the Curriculum

Remix the curriculum.  Using whatever tools you want (from pen/paper to your own computer software to social media platforms--blogs, mindmaps, Facebook etc.), remix the Dickens lectures and/or poetry analysis lectures.  "Remix" means tell the story in a different medium in such a way that it makes more sense to you.

These are the remixes of my version of the lectures: