Third Quater Reflection

Blogging, to me, is a very new experience. I have never submitted my written work electronically. In the past it has always been hand written and then submitted to the teacher. This is not a bad thing though. I enjoy blogging very much. It is very valuable to me. Typing is one reason, I work so much better typing then writing. Also, none of your work can be misplaced if you use blogger. It cant just get up and walk out of the web site. It is stuck there for your teacher to grade. Knowing that my class can see my work pushes me to make my piece of writing even better. I like my writing to be critiqued my fellow classmates. Continuing this method of work is no problem for me. In former English classes I never experienced anything like this. When writing a paper we would receive an outline on what to do. This would sometimes get lost and this was a horrible experience. We would have to go to the teacher to get another one and he/she would complain about it. This isn't a problem with blogger, it is on the website and it will stay there no matter what. We would also have to print our paper, and with this, there was a chance that it could get lost too. Then we would have to print it all over again, wasting our ink. Ink, brings up another problem we constantly have to use it to print papers and when it empties, we have to buy more. With blogger, there is no ink necessary, we simply electronically submit our work. I think the way we blog now is perfect and it is unnecessary to tamper with. When it comes to getting graded, I think we should not get graded on the format of our paper because when it is posted, it goes right into the blogger.com format. There is nothing we can do about this. Doing this type of work has changed our classroom community. We now can look at other classmates writing, this isn't cheating, but simply admiring their work and getting some ideas on how to start your paper.

The first few chapters of "The Great Gatsby" are an introduction to the main characters Nick, Tom, and Gatsby. Nick previously lived in the Midwest and just moved to West Egg. He is contacted by his former friend Tom Buchanan. I feel that Nick is nervous to arrive here because he has nobody except for Tom, who he hardly remembers. Although, the main reason he came to West Egg was to get into the bond business and make some money. Tom invites Nick over for dinner and as soon as he walks in he senses pressure between Tom and his wife Daisy. This is because Tom is said to be having an affair with a mistress in New York. This I feel, makes Nick even more uncomfortable it his arriving at West Egg. It is also in these first three chapters that Nick first lays his eyes on Gatsby, he was on the lawn across the street. In the second chapter, the relationship between Tom and his mistress Myrtle is finally released. Myrtle is a woman in her mid thirty's who lives with her husband Wilson who owns a garage. I like that they have an affair because this gives Gatsby and Daisy a better chance to get together and live happily ever after. The only reason I know that they had a past relationship is because my class spoiled it. In chapter three, Nicks relationship with Gatsby starts. He is invited to Gatsby three day weekend party. He arrives and there are hundreds of people drinking and socializing. This I feel, is so typical. A rich man having a party and half of the people don't even know him, but yet they are there having fun. When this party comes to an end on Monday, Nick sees Gatsby's servants fixing the place up.

Anne Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreets- "To My Dear and Loving Husband"- http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/to_my_dear_and_loving_husband.html

Anne Bradstreet was born in Northampton , England in 1612. Her familys position caused her to gorw up in cultured circumstances and she was very smart for her time. Anne happened to be a very sickly woman. Despite this, she still managed to have eight children. Along with smallpox, Anne soon was a victim of paralysis of the joints. As the years progressed, Anne became even more sick and died on September 16th, 1672 in Andover Massachusetts at the age of 60.
The rhyming in "To My Dear and Loving Husband definetely contributes to the "cuteness" and "happiness" of this poem. It draws you in and makes you anticipate the next rhyme that goes with the previous line you have read. Also the metaphor " I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold" is excellent. It obviously shows how much she loves her husband.

Anne Bradstreets- "Upon Some Distemper of Body"-http://www.annebradstreet.com/upon_some_distemper_of_body.htm

This poem is about Bradstreets body being in pain and from what I got out of it, God taking the pain away. In the first half of the poem she describes all the symptoms of her body being in pain. In the second half, she describes it being taken away by the help of a greater power. I really liked reading this because I am in pain alot from all the physical acitivties I do. This gives me some hope that maybe a higher power will help me out one day. Once again, she rhymes in this poem. Rhyming to me, is a key factor of making a poem good and not boring. Like I said in the previous paragraph, it draws you in and keeps you wanting to know the following rhyme.

"Is there anything about the works of this poet that makes them distinctly American?"

From what I've read, nothing makes this poet distinctly American. She focuses on love, pain, sadness, happiness etc. These subjects do noty make any poet distinctly American. i am not saying she is your average poet, but she is not classified as distinctly American.