Hello, students at Burncoat High School! As the 2014-15 school year winds down I finally have some time to post some thoughts to my blog that I would like to share with you. Hopefully my blog becomes a resource to you as your educational journey resumes in September (or through the summer should you need to check in). If you haven't already heard (from an older sibling or someone who has already had me as a teacher), I am totally IN LOVE with the English language! It is just amazing! English gives us awesomely expressive ways to communicate and provides us with a creatively figurative voice to convey the most complex ideas. It lets us explore the human condition and reveal emotions shared with all humanity throughout history. It is immensely broad in scope, but so exacting that there is a specific, perfect word for each and every human feeling, thought, and situation. And because I love the English language so much, it only stands to reason that I also love the way authors, poets, and playwrights use it. Yes, I AM ALSO IN LOVE WITH LITERATURE!! I can't help it. I'm thrilled at the way writers manipulate the language to create conflict and drama or to make me laugh and gasp in surprise. I get giddy over the way authors urge me try to ferret out the hidden meaning in a text or the way they bring nature, life, love, history, and the human mind into vibrant, tangible being.
You might share my affection with the English language and literature, or you might not. But in the coming months, I hope to instill in you, if not an affection, then an appreciation for the creative expression of the history's best writers and thinkers, like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Bacon, Donne, Edwards, Poe, Wordsworth, Browning, Bronte, Dickinson, Miller, Faulkner, Chopin, Collins, Walker, and many, many others. I hope you will give yourself the chance to get to know some of these authors and their works. You will be better for it!
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ReplyDeleteToni Brennan- Period 1
ReplyDeleteI love English. Whether it is writing, reading, or discovering what the author of a story or poem was trying to convey to his/ her audience. I find reading to be thrilling, contrary to popular belief of it being boring or a waste of time. Each time I complete a book, I always feel like I discover a new part of myself, as if my potential has increased with each word I relished in. Writing plays an enormous role in my life, as I keep a journal, write down anything that makes me feel something, and even writing short stories. Eventually hoping to finish and publish a book one day and have it be successful, it won't be about the money or the fame for me. I want to make someone feel something. To make people think like Shakespeare, to make someone's heart race with nervousness like Poe, to create something purely beautiful like Frost. With English, beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. I want to be intoxicated with English. I want to learn, execute, and display in words what my mind has concocted. I can't wait to learn everything the literary world has to offer in teaching me, influencing me, and striking my emotions in a way where I have to decipher what I just felt. English to me is like a really good home cooked meal. It allows you to indulge, taking in as much as your heart desires to later on have this full feeling leaving you warm and content on the inside.
I love your enthusiasm for literature and writing!
DeleteI like to read as well. My readings aren't the very literature type but I enjoy reading out loud anyways.There is a magical feeling I get from reading a feeling of expansion with words. I find the English language to be very interesting later in my life I am happy to keep expanding my knowledge. here is mt comment Mrs Henrion with only a couple spelling errors. Luis Delcid period 2
ReplyDeleteGood job! I'm glad you like to read. It often teaches you things you don't learn in school.
DeleteMany people don't know this about me, but I love to write. Not essays but creative writing pieces. To me writing is a lot of fun because you get to make up things or write something that happened to you but you can say you just came up with it somehow. In the English language there is a lot of different ways of writing, and rules that can be tricky but I look forward to improving my writing skills this year along with my vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteBrandon K.
Though we don't do creative writing in English IV, you will have the chance to develop and polish a writing "style" that you can carry over into any kind of writing.
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