Lauren Pearson | June 28th 2022
In Mr. Cohen’s grade 12 English class, I had the pleasure of being exposed to a variety of different writing styles and texts. Throughout my time in this course, I feel grateful to have furthered my knowledge in the field of English literature. Regardless of what I end up pursuing in the future, I feel as the course content in this course will be vital to my success in my future endeavours. I hope to pursue a career in medicine and a crucial part of being in the medical field is communication. Communication is important in all aspects of life, especially in medicine whether that be: verbal, nonverbal, written and visual etc.
Poetry Essay Assignment: Romantic Era and Nature
For the poetry assignment, we were tasked with the idea to explore the question “How was the importance of nature represented within writing from the Romantic Era and writing from Canada?”. I then started to explore the ideology of having both authors with differing opinions on the subject matter of nature. However, they both seemingly came together and had a unanimous topic in common… that being both of the authors would subside to nature for a somewhat therapeutic escape. My writer from the Romantic Era, William Wordsworth sought out nature as a method of escapism from the mundane experiences of his day-to-day life. Whereas my indigenous author, Emily Pauline Johnson often found elements of the natural world in her indigenous culture. She took inspiration from outside of her traditionalistic views that accompanied being a female in her culture. To connect both of these ideas, I used my overarching thesis to introduce both the writers in a collaborative manner.
The importance of nature is of vital representation within writing from the Romantic Era by Woodsworth and Emily Pauline Johnson through the comparison of the varying quantities of power in nature.
I think I am particularly proud of my structure and language analysis pieces in this essay. If you are not familiar with this concept, I had to find elements such as the usage of enjambments and symbolism.
Here’s an extract that demonstrates this:
In Emily Pauline Johnson’s “The Song my Paddle Sings”, she states “Swelling the song that my paddle sings,” (Johnson 2010, line 53). Through this line, she has the paddle representing the members.
Here I’m proud of my analysis, through using my ability to deeply grasp the understanding of the context and connect it to the larger ideology of being a part of something bigger than yourself. For Emily Pauline Johnson, this means being a part of a greater community in connection to nature.
I am also proud of my ability to utilize a third secondary source in the comparison portion of the essay. I decided to use the source “The New Nature Poetry” written by Robert Langbaum which was reliable as it was a part of an excerpt from the American Scholar. This explored the idea of ecopoetry, which represented the concept of environmentalism and the tactic of embracing the ideology surrounding the understanding of environmentalism.
2. Shakespeare Adapting Famous Writers
For this assignment, the instruction was to write as if we were a civilian in Shakesperean London, England. I chose particularly to analyze the ideology of being a female of low social hierarchical status during this time. I explored the topic of feminism and toxic masculinity which impacted the so-called character that had implied. I also mentioned the “female hysteria” which was a social term plagued by toxic masculinity. I felt that I accurately displayed the emotional demeanour of the female that I had depicted within the text.
One of my favourite lines in this piece includes: “The constant pressures of the house weighed on me like a ton of bricks. It was almost like the drama within Shakespeare’s play correlated with the complicated morals of our patriarchal society.” (Pearson)
Here I connected societies’ views on women and the pressure that subsided within them throughout this piece. In addition to this, I added the idea of the context of Shakespeare’s play and the interconnection with morals that reflect the patriarchal divide. This is seen in King Lear, as King Lear let himself outweigh his political power over his daughters.
3. Analytical Writing Assessment: A Christmas Carol Extract
In this assessment, I discussed the ideas regarding the social divide in the text A Christmas Carol. In particular, the problematic concept surrounding the self-centred entrepreneur, Scrooge, revolved around the legislation of the Poor Law Act of 1834. This was created to direct funding that was previously used to help poor individuals, the money was then allocated and put towards the creation of workshops and labour camps. As a result, these actions were somewhat supposed to help these individuals out of poverty. Throughout the text, I use various descriptive words and language features to further describe what the author (Charles Dicken) was trying to convey through his text. The keyword that I focused on was “disjointed fragments” which was used to mention Marely’s internal views on the political situation of the world at that time. This offers a self-explanation for how Scrooge views Marley something which I believed was vital to display in this analytical assessment. I examined the limited knowledge that allowed Scrooge to likely agree with the negative stance that the narrator infers about him. For another interpretation, I decided to think if the author was to make Scrooge a likeable character due to his use of honesty within his views regarding the poor. However, this was not the case. Instead, the author intentionally made Scrooge less favourable due to his negative opinion of humanity which acts as a physical reminder of Dickens and his political scene during that period.
4. Travel Writing Assignment: Why you should visit Palo Alto, California
I decided to use my travel aspirations for this assignment, based on my selection of using Palo Alto, California as my chosen location. I have dreams of attending Stanford University and due to this, I poured an immense amount of passion and excitement into my creative writing piece. For the criteria, we were directed to utilize adverbs, adjectives and language features. I used relevant evidence based on the companies located in Palo Alto, California. I also decided to compare the ideology that Palo Alto embodies by mentioning a book entitled Move Fast and Break Things written by Jonathan Taplin.
After the introduction to this piece, I described a physical location and then I went on to bring up the second location known as Silicon Valley. I then went on to mention the reasoning behind the name of Silicon Valley which was due to the production of silicon chips in this particular location back in the 1970s.
To further add to my accuracy in my assignment, I used statistics offered by Stanford University.
I stated that the “…undergraduate enrollment of 6366 (fall 2020)...” (U.S News) adds to the credibility of my text as it was from a reliable source, U.S News.
5. Adapting Famous Writers: Emily Bronte
For this task, we were supposed to re-write the ending to one of the selected ISP extracts. I wanted to select a text that I was not familiar with, therefore I chose Wuthering Heights written by Emily Bronte. I soon learned about the main characters in this text which included; Heathcliff, Catherine and Nelly. The narration style is in first person which is displayed through the character, Nelly. She is known to be the servant of the family, she seems to be subservient which is expected due to her being a female. I rewrote the internal dialogue to allow the reader to see the difference between my extract and the original text.
Catherine stated – “Without you, I would sob myself self into a world of only melancholic memories. So why is it so hard to continue to sacrifice my moral intentions in order for us to remain together? You have quite frankly murdered yourself for me, so please forgive me for my wrongdoings. Please.”
This is different from the initial text as Heathcliff is the love-crazy character who comes from a lower hierarchical status, unlike Catherine. However, to make the change required for this assignment I decided to twist it, therefore I made Catherine the hysterical one while Heathcliff is from an upper-class perspective.
6. (Honourable Mention) The Creation of my Website
I wanted my website to reflect the fundamental values that I appreciate myself. Therefore, through the creation of my online blog, I utilized my favourite colours, images, assignments and goals that I have in mind for my future self. I specifically used light light blue/turquoise to create a claiming atmosphere which allows the reader to focus on the text easier. I added this due to my personal experiences with being neurodivergent (as I have ADHD and autism). I added an image of myself in the about me section to make it impersonal which allows the reader to get further interested in my writing and myself. I also added an image of a few physicians in an OR (operating room) which displays my aspiration of becoming a neurosurgeon! I decided to showcase a few of my assignments that weren't a part of this list as I felt that I still needed to do due diligence on them.
Overall, I'm very proud of my progress in this course. I cannot thank Mr. Cohen enough for his patience to teach me and all of the other students in this course!
This is super cool!!