Over the past few weeks I have been able to get more comfortable with identifying DIDLS within pieces of work. Annotating The American Dream helped me in picking out these elements and learning how they can impact a piece of writing. Before doing this assignment I was able to find the different elements of DIDLS within work but I had trouble understanding why the elements were there. Now, with all the practice in The American Dream I have more confidence with using DIDLS. The best example in I found in The American Dream was the use of diction that Albee used. This diction also tied into the different literary terms that we have learned and studied. The use of "bumble" instead of "bundle" was an example of malapropism and diction found in The American Dream. This was important to the story line. Because this diction was not used properly it made the baby seem less important and shows how Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma de-humanized the "bumble".
After doing the essay for Chapter 4, I also realized how important an author's tone is to a piece of work. Though writing all about the same topic, the literature in Chpt. 4 all varied greatly because of the different tones found in the poem. Some of these tones I was able to recognize because of our tone challenges in class. I explored this idea more in my essay by comparing The Last Colossus and Let America Be America Again. Even though the author's wrote about the same topic one had a very positive tone, and the other very negative. Now when writing essays, I will be very careful as to what tone I write with based on the essay at hand.
However, what I found most helpful in the past few weeks has been tying everything together as one. It seems that with every assignment that we do somehow corresponds with something else that we have done in class. After writing our chapter 4 essays we created a skit with a character of The American Dream. This has helped me greatly. By comparison, I could understand the character of Grandma more. When we first compared Grandma and Langston Hughes, I had believed that they were more similar than different. But by the end of the conversation I had began to change my mind. Grandma knows that the American Dream once existed but also recognizes that it is beginning to change now, but Hughes on the other hand does not believe that it ever existed. Looking back now, this makes the most sense when comparing the two.
As the end of the quarter approached, it was once again time for the terms test. After getting a not so great score the first time I was determined to do better and I did. I believe that by applying the literary terms to different passages in class and annotating I was more familiar with how to identify them within a passage.
Hi Gabriella- I'm glad to hear that you now have a better understanding of DIDLS. I agree that The American Dream really helped illustrate those points. Great job incorporating an example too! It certainly does seem that whatever we do in class has a connection with another piece of class. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI liked how you used examples from the American Dream when talking about how how the play helped you understand DIDLS. I agree with you on a lot of the things you mentioned, like how every assignment corresponds with another and how the annotations helped with understanding DIDLS more.
ReplyDeleteNice work!