Reflection On The Art Of Being Human

At some point in time we have all wondered what it means to human, and what we are supposed to do with our lives. Throughout the centuries, there have been gradual changes in what it means to be human. Through Pico della Mirandola we will how man became the measure and took the place of God, through Charles Darwin we will see how nature and science began to take the place of man, and through the art of Friedrich we can visually see all of these changes.

My English Literature major has helped me to achieve an outstanding level of appreciation, enjoyment, and knowledge of both American and British Literature. As a high school AP English student, I struggled through great works like Hamlet and To the Lighthouse. My teacher’s daily lectures (there was no such thing as class discussion) taught me merely to interpret the works as critics had in the past. I did not enjoy the reading or writing process. As a freshman at Loras, I was enrolled in the Critical Writing: Poetry class. For the first time since grade school, my writing ability was praised and the sharing of my ideas was encouraged by an enthusiastic and nurturing professor. Despite the difficulty of poetry, I enjoyed reading it.

Literature is such a beautiful thing because it does not give us an answer to it's questions. There are so many iffy spots that leave us to develop our own thoughts and feelings toward the piece of work. This is an interesting factor because at many times it affects us in a different way and can develop us as an individual. When reading a piece of literature, one person can interpret it in different ways than another person reading the same piece of work. I remember analyzing poems with my English class in the previous years and when we were asked to interpret it, we all had different answers. Sometimes what I got out of the poem didn’t even go close to the direction that my classmate

Poetry, what first comes to mind? If your anything like me, poetry can seem somewhat monotonous, rather like a locked door exclusive, complicated, and hard to understand. I think poetry tends to be a big game of “Guess what I’m thinking!” and I hate that game. I’m not a mind-reader. I think a lot of people who get excited about poetry are really pretentious. This possibly comes from believing that they actually can guess what other people are thinking. When we think poetry, we tend to know poetry by it’s traditional forms of having sonnets, ballads, often rhyming (but not always) and they tend to have a specific and symmetrical structure (APA). Throughout this essay I wanted to consider poetry through different explorations and how subverting the traditional conventions of poetry might be an effective way of engagement or in an opposing way of demotivating the reader.

Before reading this, I was less than thrilled to have to read a book full of poetry. Poetry is hard to relate to and hard to understand. It is typically very personal which makes it less enjoyable to read since it leaves

I must say that I really do have a greater appreciation for literature now than what I did in the beginning. I came into this course expecting to have to say things about stories that I didn't really believe. For example, in "Say Yes" the gray dish water could be interpenetrated as symbolic of a gray dull uninteresting marriage. However, in my opinion the dish water was said to be gray because that’s the actual color of used dishwater. I think there were several examples of getting things out of the story that the author didn’t really intend, and that was one aspect of literature I historically didn’t care for. However, after reading stories particularly “The Swimmer” I still think this, but weather the author meant for things to be interpreted in such ways I really had a fun time trying to decode each story and trying to get my own meaning from each one. I think how good of a time I had writing stories that I got my own meaning from was surprising. I

“What does it mean to be human? To be human is to think, feel, create; to find joy in song and sunset; to share with others moments of inspiration. We need to know what is in the humanities and, by extension, in the world around us” (csun.edu). The art of being human was the discussion in Humanities 210 and following each lesson, my understanding of each aspect of the art of being human dove into the works of music, film, literature, but into personal ideals such as philosophy and religion. Through this, a higher understanding was developed along with a different perspective on each aspect of the human life that one interacts with everyday.

1-2). Poetic language, according to Britton, is on a continuum with "transactional language" being on the far left, which is used as a mean to inform and/or perused, "expressive language" in the middle, which can be understood as common forms of language, and poetic language on the right used for the purpose of art and reflection (2015, Talbot, p. 1-2). If this was part of the situation, then this group may have had little or no point of reference to base their character development on, nor would they have a foundation of literature to build-on when approaching the story writing aspect of the assignment. As Write reveals, regarding reading aloud to students, (2005) "listening to a novel may be as close as some of your pupils get to the enhancing experience of being in a theatre audience. . ." (p. 111). Granted this quote is an indirect correlation to the topic at hand; however, Write's observation does show that as teachers we must never make assumptions about what our student's experiences in relationship to literature. In the 'Character Journal" assignment, as teachers we asked students to make a large leap and move from expressive language towards producing work in poetic language, without providing any preliminary literature for the

Each year, a collective sigh rings out in high school classrooms across America, brought on by what is arguably the greatest beast students are forced to grapple with every single year: the dreaded Poetry Unit. While the previous statement is most definitely dramatic and not always true, it is a fact that many students have been tricked into thinking that they dislike poetry by overzealously technical teachers. I was once one of those students. The mere mention of a Poetry Unit brought war flashbacks of tedious analyses of rhyme scheme, meter, similes, metaphors, and more that took robbed me of the ability to enjoy reading poetry. Perhaps the greatest crime against poetry that certain teachers commit is the lie that they tell students every time the Poetry Unit rolls around: “There is no right answer.” Teachers who say this almost always, without fail, have a right answer in mind and will not hesitate to penalize students who naively believe that there isn’t one and, therefore, fail to find it. I didn’t realize that poetry was readable and even, dare I say, entertaining, until I took my first college English class, where I was able to read poetry without worrying about the technical aspects of it. My goal in teaching a Poetry Unit is to free students from the baggage that is all too often associated with learning poetry and allow them to discover how meaningful it can be.

Take a moment to consider this lesson’s objective. What do you already know about poetry and its conventions? Are you familiar with fiction and historical texts for meaning? How can you use that knowledge in this lesson? Think about songs that you listen to on the radio – how do you decipher their meaning? How will that ability help you today?

I was taught just the basics in literature like basic literary devices and concepts. I was never taught anything about the canon. I had no idea that the was something like a standard for English and that they were many other different dialects of the English Language. I was taught basic literary devices like metaphor, simile, personification, rhyme, rhyme scheme, alliteration, audience, anecdote, bathos, ballad, conflict etc. and their uses in literature. Personally, I did not like poems because I could not write any. It was a minor setback that I had. My personal favorite was when we compared characters in plays and short stories and their roles. My instructor made it very interesting and I began to like literature, although I had no plans of pursuing it further. Initially, I thought it was very boring because we were just learning English but in a more detailed manner. I also felt it was a waste of time, but later realized I misjudged the subject. I felt it was too complex and had a lot of rules, especially when we were asked to analyze simple sentences. For instance, the sun smiled at us and waved like the heads of wheat. This simple sentence was to be analyzed with the basic concepts of literary devices, but it was very difficult during those days to come with the right results. I remember writing “personification” as an answer, but I was not given the full mark because “simile” was an answer too. I did not enjoy

In the first semester of Mr. McGee’s class was a very educational one. For the first time in my entire life I actually finished an entire textbook! The junior english B class had plethora of really amazing stories and poems. However, there was only a handful of stories and poems that really stood out for me. These stories and poems had a deeper meaning to them then the rest. Being in Mr. McGee’s class really helped me dive into a better understanding of even the most simple lines. I believe that this has also had an impact on the type of music I listen to as well. For the longest time, The sound and beat of a song was what made me fond of it. However, I am more drawn to songs with meanings now. I also believe that in benefited my reading techniques. The problem that I had with standardized testing for reading was not being able to focus on stories that had bored me. There were some stories that still made me feel this way, but at least now I can read through it and understand the basics of the text. The following paragraphs give a very opinionated reason as to why these poems and stories i choose were some of the best texts that we read in this semester.

When I first realized I would be taking a class where I would analyze texts from all around the world I was excited. I had never paid attention to the origin of writer’s, because until that point most all of my readings were based in the United States of America, or from American authors. I do not feel that all the books we read as a class left me with greater knowledge or a different outlook on the world but some did. I will never forget reading A Tale For The Time Being because it changed me. Reading a coming of age story about suicide, family issues and cosmic intervention opened up my mind. It was my first time reading and needing to put a book down to further process what I had read. I recalled the questions from Humanities I: Who am I? What is my place? What does it mean to be human?, and most importantly How then shall I live? I found similarities between myself and Nao which made me uncomfortable. She had no clear answer for any of the above questions, and neither do I.

Across the world, students and adults alike struggle to read poetry. Theoretically, reading poetry seems like a simple task, so why do so many teenagers and young adults consider this to be such a difficult task? Some may consider poems to be difficult because of the vague titles, strange layouts, and uncommon language. However, many consider the main reason for poetry being difficult to understand because many pieces of poetry are symbolic. Because a majority of people are not accustomed to thinking symbolically, they often find poetry to be confusing because they take each word in a poem literally. In other words, people who read poetry cannot read poetry like they would other literary works because poetry should not be taken literally. To read poetry, one must have an open mind and think uniquely about each setting and plot of a poem. A reader of poetry must be able to take chances on a

If I had to choose one thing in particular that I enjoyed the least, I know you’re going to hate me for this, but it was probably the poetry. I know you have said that it is a cliché to say, “I have never really understood poetry,” but for me I still feel that is relevant. I have never really been exposed to poetry to be honest. Throughout elementary, the only time I was ever really exposed was during speech competitions my small private school put on in which we had the option to try and memorize. In upper