Guide to the Renaissance

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From sonnets to utopia, then to Federigo’s Falcon and Don quixote, we have gone through various literary concepts and techniques throughout this semester. In order to summarize our knowledge we have gained so far, a guide to the Renaissance is request that links as much as connections possible between different concepts and as well inlay with our creative writings in any form we prefer.

I decided to do a series of blog posts on Edublogs initially so that I can take my readers on a four-day-journey to explore the literary concepts during the Renaissance. However, I then realized that Edublogs arranges blog posts in such way that every entry in shown up with title and the text. What is shows us is that if a reader wants to visit a earlier post, the reader has to scroll all the way down interminably. A whim came up in my mind: what if I build a website on my own? By doing in this way, I believe that the texts would be arranged more effective for a journey and connections would be better along with the graphic designs. Though it still needs some improvement, I will work on my guide to the Renaissance with the best I can.

Working on the guide for two weeks, I hope that a coherent piece of work with all the elements connected effectively is produced at the end and as well make all the buttons functional. I also will include my short story and sonnet that demonstrates an engagement with the essential question.

 

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Warriors: Dawn of the Clans #2: Thunder Rising

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Warriors by Erin Hunter has always been my favorite novel series. Starting from my middle childhood, I still cannot stop checking all the bookstores around my house once a new book from Warriors is published until now. Indeed, those are in my mother tongue language.  The reason why I want to continue the series in English is that not because my irrevocable fondness for Warriors (I can get to read new books quickly without translation), but also I truly want to challenge myself to see how far I can get. Starting from a year ago, I am now on the second book of fifth sub-series so far — Thunder Rising.

 

Warriors is a series of novels that follows the adventures of four Clans, which are divided between huge amount of wild cats. At the beginning, I met all sorts of befuddlements such as unfamiliar character names, places, and new vocabularies. Sometimes when a new noun appeared where the cats discovered or entered in the book, I cannot even tell if it is a name of a specific kind of terrain or a just fictitious place. However, as I read more and more, I gradually adapted my mind and get used to it. From bewilderment to pleasure, I found myself enjoying between the words and lines. I especially love when the author used onomatopoeia words such as “purr” and “hiss” to describe how the cats communicate with each other because those words entirely fits the behavior of the cats and has relationships with their satisfying pronunciations, which is the uniqueness I found in English by reading Warriors.

 

Always being satisfied and provoked after reading Warriors, I have bought the third book of the sub-series I am currently on and keen to start a new one.

 

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Passion Project

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Carrying ponderous textbooks back to home at the end of the day, then carry back to school in the next morning by our shoulders — I am extremly frustrated about this. Since the problem will not solve by itself, and there is no point to grumble about it, I will attempt to turn an ordinary school backpack into a smart backpack that can follow a student for my passion project.

Smart backpack aims to prevent ill-effects for student who are carrying heavy backpack everyday. Though I have been warned not carrying to much books may every since I was little because it may compress my spine, I found that this problem becomes more and more inevitable in high school, especially sometimes when numerous assignments have the same due date. In order to carry out my passion project, I have scoured the internet to find out the materials, process, and estimated time. Noticing I am required to write a program so that the backpack is able to follow a moving object, this is an extremly challenging process, which I believe it will become one of the major problems in my plan. However, I have found a downloadable tutorial for the program, and I will put my utmost effort to accomplish it.

I am highly interested in passion project and looking forward to make a smart backpack. Although I have perceived some problems I may encounter in the future, I am glad I noticed them so that I can be fully prepared, and I will try my best to carry out a well functional product at any rate.

 

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The Girl on the Train

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Since last week I have started a phycological thriller novel called The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. The Girl on the Train is about a middle age women, Rachel, took the same commuter train every morning and gradually saw inscrutable senses at a stop. Rachel was keen to collect the senses into a whole story line as if a puzzle since the train only stopped for an minute. Though I am yet to finish this novel, I have several thoughts to share.

My first instinct is that there must be something wrong with Rachel for her to envy ordinary after reading opening chapter. Every morning Rachel saw a golden, perfect couple living peacefully in their relationships and sumptuous house. While Rachel was imaging what their lives would be all day long, she had given the couples imaginary names —- Jason and Jess. As a reader, I do not see any good reason that why Jason and Jess made Rachel envious. Jason and Jess were certainly living in a pleasant lives, and it should be extremly ordinary to maintain a healthy relationship like them. Therefore, Rachel did not envy Jason and Jess. Instead, she was desperate about herself for not having a common relationship like every couple in my assumption. As I read further, I found out Rachel did divorce once five years ago.

The point of view in the novel confused me. There are two narrator in alternative chapters, Rachel and Megan. However, it is as if  a new story began in every chapter. I believe this is because there were no connective relationship between Rachel and Megan until Rachel recognized Megan as her “imaginary Jess”, whom I believe they will meet eventually.

Through reading The Girl on the Train, my initial intuition of the story plot was right, and I was somehow confused by the narrators. I will continue to read the novel since I am always interest in a story plot like this —- finding and revealing a mystery by any means.

 

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Before I Go to Sleep

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Recently I have finished a novel called Before I Go to Sleep by S.J Watson. The novel is a psychological thriller about a woman, Christine Lucas, is suffering from anterograde amnesia. Christine wakes up every day with no knowledge of who she is, but own a journal she has been keeping secretly to reconstruct memory. As her journal grows, it casts doubts on the truth behind her knowledge. After finishing Before I Go to Sleep, I have several thoughts to share.

The author picked an innovative theme to challenge readers. I never know a story can be construct when the protagonist forgets every thing at the end of the day. As I first read the brief information at the back of the book, Awe and doubt went over me to provoke my eagerness. Afterwards, I found that the author solves this difficulty brilliantly by letting Christine to keep a journal under a doctor’s demand privately, which paved a new story line that whether her journal will be discovered. If so, what will the characters’ reactions and the consequences be?  Next, the fresh format impulses readers to leaf more and more. The novel is in a diary format because Christine was keeping a journal. By using a diary format, the plot can be blended naturally with it. Also, because the action of keeping the journal supposed to be a stealth between Christine and the doctor, reading her journal gives an enticing and curious feeling. Last, author questions the readers whether memory define us. Throughout the novel Christine was being jittery and suspicious once she started to write or read her journal because her work would be crumbled if her husband discovered the journal, and Christine’s existence was no longer significant because the value of a person is from what the person has done in the past. Furthermore, at the climax of the novel when Christine’s husband burned her novel, but accidentally broke out a fire, Christine confided that she could frankly die since everything she remembered had disappeared.

Before I Go to Sleep is truly a page-turner. The author chose an explosive theme and fresh format to catch reader’s attention among myriad books. Moreover, he left a controversial question at last for readers to think about. I would like to recommend this book to others.

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Reflection on “Rights and Responsibilities”

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This week we have ended our second unit in Language Arts —- Right and Responsibilities. In order to demonstrate our knowledge and discuss topics with peers, we constructed our wiki space by either groups or individuals, and I chose “The Right to Democracy” as my research topic individually. Spending nearly three months on this unit, I came upon with new ideas from what I have learned, and I discovered my struggle as well.

I found that democracy is so far the best form of government, and we are responsible for those who are deprived by the right to democracy. First, the power of democracy is long-lasting. Citizens have faith in their leader through election because they are given freedom to opt their own leader. This leads to a win-win in citizens and leaders since both sides are completely satisfied and pleased by the unanimous result; therefore, the tendency for democratic governments to last longer increases. Even several non-democratic countries such as China and Russia are gradually moving towards and trying to emulate democratic countries nowadays.  Next, I believe that helping towards who are less fortunate than us is necessary, which I have never thought of. This idea all began when I researched for basic rights in a democracy, but unintentionally encountered a recent news that Poland citizens protested to defend their democracy. Afterwards, I delved into relevant information and felt uneasy for those people. There are thousands of innocents who’s rights are in danger everyday, yet most of us are oblivious. Once we know the information, we cannot furtively let the issue drift away because the issue will involve more and more people and eventually affect us one day. Action must be taken. In addition, mentioning about my new ideas I came up with, I realized my thoughts did change after this unit as I expect from my previous blog post. Before I placed “Responsibility” as the least important among thirty human rights because I cannot perceive any beneficial possibilities for us to help others. Nevertheless, as I discovered that certain people still live in misery day and day, but too powerless to stand up for themselves, I started to be more sympathetic and compassionate in three months.

My biggest struggle is my analysis, which is also the part that needs to be improved. After doing all the work in my page such as introduction, importance, examples, personal opinion, and reference, I had not yet write a single line of analysis. What a foolhardy mistake. Just like anyone else, I added my analysis to my page without a doubt. However, I realized that my page would be too lengthy and dull for my readers to absorb massive information at once, so I must reluctantly merge my analysis as a part of the discussion. As a consequence, this will negatively affect my page because my analysis might be easily ignored by readers. My suggestion for this error is that I should read and understand all the directions thoroughly before starting so that I will not trap into similar situation again.

At the end of this unit, I am truly delighted to engage with the issue of the right to democracy and other’s topic as well. The unit “Right and Responsibilities” made me think that rights should be empowered by everyone no matter which age, gender, nationalities, ethnicities, or social status the person is. Supporting others who are less fortunate than us is also unquestionably significant, too. Furthermore, I found my weakness and perceived a practical way to avoid it next time.

 

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Think; Puzzle; Explore

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In the lesson of this week we worked on our annotated bibliography mostly and had an activity that expressed our opinion about human rights. Based on the thinking routine “Think; Puzzle; Explore” and what we have learned this week, I reckon that I came to the stage of “Puzzle.”

Unlike the first few days of the unit, I started to think some questions such as “Why are human rights important?” and “How is democracy related to human?” instead of  “Human rights are important because I have heard people said that before.” With the different thinking methods, it is because of doing annotated bibliography. Sources are not only formatted, which contain general information, but also our own evaluation and their usefulness to our research topic. Therefore, by reading and evaluating various websites, books, and videos, I began to understand new information and came up with some questions in response. Also, the activity on Friday provoked me about the general idea and controversy of human rights such as “How can we do to protect human rights?” and “Are we responsible for those misfortune people?” (I cannot recall the exact questions on posters.) Moreover, I might somehow reached stage of “Explore”, if not fully. Indeed, I am interest in the topic of human rights and responsibilities, yet I am still a little uncertain about what and how should I do in order to explore.

Altogether, I have gained some understanding this week although I am still in the middle stage, but keen to explore about this topic.

 

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Initial Thoughts


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This week we have begun a new unit — rights and responsibilities. From the information given in the class, we will learn what are they, who has and who does not, and debate. Also, knowing factual, conceptual, and debatable facts are one of the important part in this unit.

In order to begin this unit, each of us received a simplified version of universal declaration of human rights, then sort them by the importance we thought. Finally, I came up with my decision; I placed “We Are All Born Free and Equal” as the most important and “Responsibility” as the least. The reason I chose the former one as the most important is because I have read numerous novels that are based on the alliance of  social class, personalities, and ethnicities, thereby causing discriminations. Therefore, I deem that the everyone should be entitled to an equal start despite of the disparity. Choosing the latter one as the least important, it was a struggle for me. However, in my opinion, the responsibility of helping others  is a pleasant action, but it must be based on the premise of the safety and satisfaction of ourselves. In addition, I chose “The Right to Democracy” as my initial research topic because I am highly interest in the difference between democratic government and monarchy government, and knowing how the right to democracy applies for every person is the part I want to investigate.

In sum, I was greatly surprised by the variety of human rights because I thought was just the freedom to speak, think, and move. Also, I came up many thoughts that I would never consider about like placing responsibilities as the least important. I look forward to learning more about this unit and see if my thoughts will change afterwards.

 

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Reflection on “Culture”

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By the end of the week we finished our first unit, culture; in order to have a deeper understanding, we read different cultural background of novel, story, and poems. Hence, looking back the past few months what we have done, it can be divided into three parts: connect, extend, and challenge.

First, this unit is connected to my known knowledge of the differences between countries. Remembering few months ago when teacher said “In this unit we will be talking about culture.”, my mind immediately had the image of countries’ flag, ethnicities, food, and languages because obviously these differences made different cultures. Also, we made posters about our home countries at the beginning so that by putting those posters on the board, I can compare the differences between one and another. Next, as we dug in about culture, my knowledge was greatly extended by the The Serpent’s Children, The Loaded Dog, and several poems. I am no longer to solely recognize the modern cultures but ancient cultures, and I found out that the differences in cultures may cause conflicts whether in an individual or a group. Finally, what challenged me in this unit was to perceive the connections in cultures.  Before I used to think that cultures are just different groups of people with different ways of living, so as the time past, the differences became more explicit. However, by the time we started to make connections in essays, I found out that cultures are not only the diversities but also the similarities such as the same formations of cultures and the effect of one’s culture.

At the end of this unit my thoughts about cultures changed by understanding and summarizing materials. Moreover, I made new discoveries from my knowledge which I would never thought about before.

Progress on Essay

In the past few months we have been discussing the meaning of culture by reading different cultural background of novel, stories, and poems. In order to demonstrate our knowledge of culture, the requirement of consolidate our concepts into an analytical essay is made. From forming a thesis statement to the process of writing, then revising and editing until it is fully satisfied, several thoughts came up during the process.
First, I came up my thesis statement by drawing a table. Initially, I was by no means to figure out the connections among the novel, stories, and poems to establish a strong statement. However, by drawing a table for comparison and contrast, the idea gradually emerged. I discerned that different cultures are fundamentally found in different living styles from the natural environment, but they all lead to the same direction, thereby forming my thesis statement “Different cultures are formed by different living styles which all create an extreme feeling”. Next, in the duration of the process I was full of eager discomfort because there were lots of uncertainties. Say, the focus, the usage of language, the connections, or the balanced portion between explanations and evidences. These were the main point I tried to achieve in my essay. Last, my biggest concern is the portion between explanations and evidences. Due to the reason that, from the language art class today, I realized that the portion in my essay are highly unbalanced. Unnecessary waffles covered the evidences; moreover, the evidences are not analytical without giving any quotations. Therefore, I will edit my essay in the following days.
In short, these are the progress about my essay by gathering the knowledge of culture so far, and I will revise my essay in order to improve it.