Dark, depressing, and violent - welcome to AP English

Everything we’ve read so far has been dark/depressing/violent. Is this the true nature of literary fiction?  If so, why?  If not, why would our literature anthology be so imbalanced? - Mr. Mullins

The purpose of literary fiction is to educate or reveal something deeper about life than what is on the surface. I think that the reason our stories are depressing/violent is because it is very hard to learn anything from a happy ending. And additionally, you don't stop to think about why there was a happy ending. If the ending evokes some kind of emotion, you have to (or at least I have to) go back and look at it. 

For example, in "Where are you going, where have you been?" I needed some answers. I wanted to know why the author wrote that story, and whether there was a deeper meaning, and what some of the symbols are, and what was the purpose of the character Ellie was. None of it made sense until I looked at SparkNotes for some answers, and then as we spoke in class it became even clearer. 

Since we covered most of the other topics, I want to talk about Ellie. He's a character that has very few lines, but he accompanies Arnold Friend on his expedition to go attack and possibly kill a child. Now, right off the bat, why on earth would anyone ever agree to go on that trip? It's ridiculous. But of course, this is literary fiction, and everything has a meaning. What my group and I decided on is that Ellie represents society overlooking horrible events. He ignores the events going on for the most part, but doesn't exactly encourage them. Society also seems to pretend that bad things aren't going on rather than helping. I believe the author is pointing this out along with the many, many other things going on. 

So, we got a little off topic, but basically I think that we don't learn much from happy stories, so that's why all the ones we read are depressing. 

Evaluation Elaboration

So, on Monday, we did a warm-up that involved evaluations of our English class this year. And there wasn't a lot of room or time to explain a lot of them, so I'd like to take this opportunity to elaborate a little bit.

I said that I didn't like the lectures. I wasn't very specific, but what I really disliked was when we had a review of the reading we did last night. I don't need a lecture on what I've already read. If our lecture is more in-depth or has more insight on the topic, then that's great. Honestly, I don't dislike getting the lectures, they're just boring when it's a repeat of what you already know. It's like watching the previews for a movie you've already seen, but the preview takes longer and has less information than the movie.

Second, I mentioned that I disliked blogging. It's a little ironic that I'm writing my complaints about blogging in blog form, but I just don't always have something to talk about! Sometimes I actually have good thoughts to share about a subject, but if I don't have anything to talk about the blog is super forced and probably not very good.

On a completely different subject, I can't even wait for the volleyball game tonight. If we win, we'll be ranked first in our district tournament. So we better win. And I'm going there in about three hours so it's pretty much all I can think about and you're lucky I got this blog post to even relate to English because all I'm thinking about is volleyball, volleyball, volleyball.

Leaving Characters Unnamed

The short story we most recently read in English class to discuss characterization had a very unique feature: only one person's name was ever mentioned, and they weren't involved in the plot.

The story centers around a granddaughter who has recently come to live with her mother's mother, who is only ever called "granny" or "the grandmother". The granddaughter doesn't want to live there on a farm, and especially hates doing work, so she runs away. The grandmother goes to get her, finds her on the back of some biker's motorcycle, and they get chased by these two guys with a gun (who also never get named).

The person who is named is the mother, the link between the granddaughter and the grandmother (her name is Sylvie). They visit her grave at one point during the story, and reflect a little bit on her and what she meant to them. I think it was a very interesting idea to do this, because in most stories the important characters would always have a name.

Some other books employ this strategy, but usually at least some characters get named. This strategy can be used to help readers identify with the character or to make them representative of anyone in a similar situation.

Something further I would like to know is why Sylvie was the only character named; she seems less important than the grandmother or the granddaughter. We haven't discussed the book in class yet, so hopefully we'll go over it.

That's really the only thing I had to talk about today, so have a nice day everybody! :)

English Short Stories - What the?

So here's the thing about English short stories. They don't really make sense unless you look for the deeper meaning. The first time I read most of these stories (especially "The Child by Tiger") I just end up asking myself why this is considered good literature when it's so ridiculous.

For example, the short story we discussed on Wednesday was "The Destructors". It's about this gang of teenage boys in London who goes around and causes trouble, but a new kid in the gang decides to take it to a whole new level. Trevor, who gets made fun of for having an upper class name, wants to tear down this old man's house just for the fun of it. He really stresses that he wants it destroyed, gone, nothing left. They break all the glass, tear down all the furniture, and ultimately pull the house apart.

At first glance, that story is just ridiculous. The kids are stupid, there are better things to do when you're bored, and why did they even put in the effort to pull that off? But you have to know a little context before you judge the story like I did. This takes place just after WWII ended in London, after some horrible bombings nearly destroyed the city. So these kids grew up in a time and place where things just got senselessly destroyed. There's also probably a bunch of symbolism and hidden messages, but like I said I'm not an expert at this yet, and even if I tried to explain it I'd probably be wrong.

Anyway, I feel like after some explanation I'll start to understand these better, but it's going to take some work.

Thoughts on Senior Year

For most of us, it's still hard to believe we're seniors. It's the biggest cliche, but high school really does fly by. We're just beginning this last year at Dunbar, and I figured I'd share my thoughts about the college search, the new rules, and senior year.

The changes we (or at least I) have gone through in the past four years are unbelieveable. At first, high school seemed huge and scary, and now it feels like I might as well live here. The teachers, students, and coaches that have been with me along the way have affected me in ways I couldn't imagine. I've learned how to think for myself, how to do math that used to seem impossible, and to not be afraid to speak in front of people.

Senior year is way different than my first three years at Dunbar. For one thing, almost all my friends have graduated, and while I knew most of the upperclassmen, now I know almost no one in the grades below me. It's a weird feeling to see all my friends growing up and living on their own, making their own choices. Also, now that I know a lot of the teachers at Dunbar I understand them better, and they're less intimidating. Being a senior on the volleyball team is also amazing because not only do I love my team, I get to play with the other four amazing seniors and bond with them on and off the court. Also, I have a lighter schedule this year than I have before, so I don't feel overwhelmed with AP classes and homework and can enjoy myself outside of school instead of stressing out.

We just had a meeting with Ms. Long about the college search, and it's very intimidating. I still feel too young to be making such important decisions about my life. The scariest thing is, nobody can make this decision for me. I'm applying to about 10 schools, and assuming I get in to at least 7 or 8 of them, I'll have a lot of choices to make. The schools I'm looking at range from mid-sized to huge, and from ten minutes away to 12 hours. Most of them are good schools, but a few are ridiculously hard to get in to.

No matter where I end up next year, college is just the next adventure. I can't wait to live on my own and make my own decisions, but I'm in no hurry.

Literary/Commercial Fiction

So, first post: We've set up this blog for AP english, and we're supposed to talk about what we've been doing in class. Right now we're still getting used to things, but one thing we read about was the difference between literary and commercial fiction.

Normally what I would have split those two categories into is "boring" and "actually good books" because even though I used to read all the time when I was little, I never cared about anything we read in English. But I think I'm starting to see the merit of literary fiction after doing my summer reading. The Art of Fielding was seriously a great book, and part of what made it great was its connection to life.

The book is about a baseball player who is underrated because of his size, but he works so hard and finally gets to play for some terrible D3 school in the middle of nowhere. And he loves it. Now, the main reason I'm not playing volleyball in college is because I refuse to go somewhere where sports don't matter. So I really respect him for wanting to succeed so badly he'll go anywhere, not that it was a bad choice. It's just different from what I would have done.

After he builds up some bulk and trains really hard, this baseball player ends up literally smashing up his friend's face with a throw, and it messes up his game pretty badly. He psychs himself out and begins to play horribly, right when he's starting to get noticed by scouts and coaches. The struggle he goes through is just painful to watch (you know... read) but it makes you cheer that much harder for him.

So even though this book was really good and had a great plot, I can also see that it has more value. The author didn't just write this book because he felt like telling a good story --- it took him nine years. He had a lot more planned out.

The moral of the story is: Literary fiction doesn't have to be boring (even though it sometimes is)