VoiceThread: The Big Sleep

Here I leave you an analysis of an extract of "The Big Sleep".

Glogster: The Catcher in the Rye

Here I leave you a glogster about an analysis of an extract of The Catcher in the Rye:

"Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead?"

Analyzing Pictures

Not only text can be analyzed. During the years, people have found different meaning in images or pictures, that have change the way of seen a image. Pictures can also be analyze, and some people said that the content is much stronger than the content of a text. The most clear example is the World Press Photo of the Year, that is chosen every year, and have a poweful content and a lot of meanings inside, very delicious to analyze. 
Now I will comment the World Press Photo of the Year in 1980, taked by Mike Wells.

This image show how far have famine been afecting pople located in the Horn of Africa. Also I think is like a type of comparison between the white and black people, because black people, along human history, have suffer a lot in contrast to white people (who have a "confortable life").
When I see this image I felt kind a responsable in a way, because humans in general don´t appreciate what they have, until they need something. People in Africa who only ask for something to eat, and they saw food as a precious treasure. We have the oportunite of have food in our homes, and we must appreciated how lucky we...

Critical Thinking

The definition of Critical Thinking has been debated for 2500 years approximately. But in 1987, the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking , stated that critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or communication, as a guide to belief and action.


I really agree with this definition, because in my point of view, think critically is to go deeper in the meaning of the text. What the text say isn´t the most important thing, the author, the context, culture play an important role (as we saw, New Criticism establish that the test is the most important thing, depriving critical thinking). Think in a critical way is always important, and I think that in this case that the school teaches us to think critically, is an important tool to develop in other fields.


Sources: http://blog.cicei.com/erubio/files/2012/03/the-critical-thinking-community.png 

Active reading

Being an active reader will help you to understand better the text, and in our case as students it will help us when we have to study. To become an active reader, you must take note of the following steps or tips:

• Make notes: write down the important words or phrases in a text. 
• Underline key words.
• Test yourself
• Question the text: make an interaction with the text.
• Allow ambiguity: try to find both meanings.
• Be attentive to the "rules of notice": try to find the elements that attract your attention, and think about why the author use those words, maybe he try to give some meaning, he those words, color,etc.
• Know when to look for help: is you dont understand something you must use other sources like internet, diccionary, etc. 
• Explain someone else what you´ve read.
• Record yourself.

Now i leave you a video about how to become a active reader. 

Reading Critically

First of all to became a critical reader, we must be Active readers. Nowadays in our society, its important to read in a critical way, to understand better the meaning or the different meanings of the text, to make predictions, conclusions, etc. Below I put some questions that can help you to read a text a critical way:

• What does it say? (literary level, basic elements)
• What does it mean? (ideas, issues, suggestions and purpose)
• Why does it matter? (value, interest, connections)

Sometimes its important to recognize that there are reasons to publish, to post, to write something, and those reason are linked directly to the author and the ideas that he wants to express or inform. In most of the cases, the psychological aspects, influence in a conciderable way, what do a person its going to write.

Practical Criticism

You fit into me

You fit into me

like a hook into an eye

A fish hook 

An open eye.

Questions

1.- What is the relationship between the title and the rest of the poem?

-The title let us know the main topic or theme of the poem, "you fit into me". Reading only  title I thought that was about that someone fits the persona, but when I read the whole poem I understand the real meaning.

2.- What words, if any, need to be defined?

-Hook and a Eye:  A latch consisting of a hook that is inserted in a screw eye.

3.- What relations do you see among any words in the poem?

-A relation between the word "hook" and "eye", and the meaning of this relation, changes as the poem advances.

4.- What are the various connotative meaning of the words in the poem? Do you see various shades of meaning help establish relationships or patterns in the text?

-As I said before, the meaning of the poem changes as the poem advances. First it refer about the "hook and eye" as something related to our clothes, but then it refers to a hook (fishing) and a real human eye.

 5.- What symbols, images or figures of speech are used? What is the relationship between them?

-We can see irony when in the 2 final verse of the poem, the meaning change in a considerable way.

Melancholy

6.- What elements of rhyme, meter or pattern can you discuss?

-This poem is a Free Verse poem, that means that don´t have rhyme.

7.- What is the tone of the poem?

-Maybe sadness,melancholy, fury.

8.- From what point of view is the content of the poem being told?

-From the point of view of a person that ensures that somebody belongs to him (in love). Also taking the meaning of the 1 and 2 verse, the persona established that they are right for each other, as a "hook and eye"

9.- What tensions, ambiguities or paradoxes arise within the poem?

-The words "Hook and Eye" change their meanings as the poem advances, a clear case of ambiguity. First the Hook and Eye refers to a men in love, but then it talk about the suffering that make to put a hook in your eye, referring to the pain that or delusion that love can make.

10.- What do you believe the chief paradox or irony is in the text?

-Express the suffering, sadness and fury of a person that have been betrayed by love.

11.-How do all of the elements of the poem support and develop the primary paradox or irony?

-In this case, the irony is supported by the ambiguity of the words "hook" and "eye", that let to express the ideas of the persona in ambiguous way.

Pending Activity: The Power of Language.

1) What does the image, and the story, suggest about the benefits of everyone speaking the same language? What are the drawbacks? 


The advantage of speaking the same language is that people can organize to do big thing because they understand each other (for e.x- the Tower of Babel).
The disadvantage is that all people speak the same language, different cultures would not exist, and there will be no ethnic identity.


2) What does the story suggest about the social funtions of language?


As time passed, human groups started having more members, so they need a symbolic language to communicate. Language let us to communicate with each other, and in the case of the Tower of Babel, to organize a huge group of people to reach an objetive.


3) What are some other early stories that deal with the origins or evolution of language? What do these stories suggest about the power of language.?


In classes we saw the history of the Ticuna people (Brazil), the Aztecs (Mesoamerica) and the Bantu (Africa). Another example can be the legend of the Guarani people who said that Ñamandu created love and human language. All these stories or legends agree on something, Language is important to organize group of persons. Do you imagine the world without language?

Reading it two ways.

When we read a newspaper, novels, jokes, or any type of text or senteces, we can find different meanings or points of views that the author may want to give to his text/sentences. But why do author do that? Maybe to create a good and concentrated reading, to generate a ironic situation or joke. Ambiguity is always around us, can be to create hilarous situations, in philosophical treatises, legal documents, etc. But sometimes is difficult to recognize the 2 meanings that for example a sentence may have.
Here are some examples of ambiguity:

• Slow children at play
• Toilet out of order. Please use floor below.
• Quarter of a million of Chinese live on water.
• "I once shot an elephant in my pajamas".

Oral Presentation: Language; A Human Ability

Last week, we did  an oral activity in class. The main condition was that we the topic had to be related to what we saw in classes about language.

Weitz, Elgueta, Hagedorn.

I worked with the same group that i worked in the debate activity, Mr. Elgueta and Mr. Hagedorn. As a group we decided, to do an oral presentation, about: Language; A Human Ability. Prepare this presentation was quite easy, because was to join the information that we saw at classes, and to explain it in from of the class. Basically in our presentation we explain what is language, the 3 theories that we saw (Chomsky, Pinker, Darwin), why animals don´t talk, and we conclude with a personal opinion of each one about the topic.

 It was a very interesting activity in which we show what we have learn during the first month about language and we saw the different points of view from different students about different topics.

Literature through time

Literature has been with humans, through our history. In classes we saw the different points of view or trends about What is Literature, through time. I invite you, in this entry, to read a little about the different points of view, that I put below in a chronological order.

Greeks: in the 5th Century philosophers like Plato and Aristole, debate about Literature in reference to the imitation of life, ontology, epistemology, politics and moralty.


Romanticism: appears in the early 19th century, and believe in poetry as an expression of feeling though common language. Also another characteristics of the Romanticism, are that is stereotypically associated with intoxication through wine; poetic reverie, the beauty of nature and the life of ordinary people).


Scientific Determinism: in simple words, literary text became an object of scientific study (Literature became a science itself).


New Criticism: the text main focus, is self-contained, independenly from all extrinsic forces, including the author. "The only important thing is the text".
Reader-Response: implies a relationship between the reader and the text. The interpretation of the reader, has an important role.

Structuralism: Saussere´s ideas postulate that words are signs, compound by a signifier (sound) and a signified (image).


Poststructuralism: dont worry about what a sing is, but is interested in what a sign isn´t. We learnt by diference. For example, we know love, because we know hate.


Marxism: establishes that all text have  a subtext, which are extension of historical and ideological conflict, that are related to real life (something real).


Feminism: describe and interpreteate womens experience, maybe feelings or emotions, by literature.


Cultural Poetics: it describes History as the body of knowledge. Knowing the history of a particular group, we would know better what they try to explain in their text (relationship between the meaning and the history of a society/group).


Postcolonial Criticism: it characteristic from colonized countries. In those text (from colonized countries) we can find topics, such as nationalism, ethnicity, language, history, etc.


During time passes, Literature, have change in a considerable way, so, How it´s going to be Literature in 50 years more? Literature will exist in the future? Something to reflect.

Happy Easter!

In this extended weeked, Christian believers celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ, on the third day after his crucifixion. This celebration varies depending on the country its celebrated. In most of the countries, people celebrated it by going to the church, meat fasting, and childs wait the Easter Bunny, who brings to them chocolate eggs. 

But in other countries, cultural traditions are completly diferent, as we celebrated Easter in Chile. In other countries, specially in Oriental cultures celebrations are very primitive in an agressive way. For example in Philippine, flagellants are crucified and scourged as part of the celebration, something that I consider completly unacceptable.


HAVE A  HAPPY EASTER!

What is Literature?

The meaning of Literature, have changed through time passes and also it change depending the culture.When we heard literature,  we constantly associate to anything "in letters", in other words, all that is written, such a novels, poems, manuals, etc. But Literature is more than only letters that someone put together, Literature, have a meaning, that also have change during time passes.
Here some definitions of What is Literature?


- Writtings in which expression and form, in connection        withideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristicor essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography,and essays.(http://dictionary.reference.com).
- The entire body of writings of a specific language, period, people, etc. (http://www.definitions.net)


 But, what happens with oral traditions? They are not Literature? The answer for this question have varied as same as the definition of Literature have varied, bu  nowadays is correct to considered oral tradition as Literature, but not as Literature itself. It may be Oral Literature, which included all oral traditions. Also film or the visual performing are not like the "written" Literature, or the "Oral" Literature, but are considered as Literature.

Reflection

During the first week, we started seeing what language is. First of all, we saw 3 definition of language. Below I put the 3 definition and a reflection that I did of those definitions.


- "Language surrounds us every day and we know how to recognise it" (Language A: Course Companion)
Language is always with us. Language is in our daily lives, we need it, to communicate, to express something, etc. Language isn´t nonsense sounds, we recognise it, because humans have put sense to those sounds.

- "A word is one or more sounds that in combination have a specific meaning assigned by the language"

http://anthro.palomar.edu/language/language_2.htm
Language assigned the meaning of those sounds. Our ancestors define that some sound (word nowadays) will means something. For example, they define, that "Hello" in English, means to greet someone, and know days all people who know english, knows what that word means.

- "The most powerful tool known is the one we use to build every other tool"

http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/blog/what_language
Language is the powerful tool, that we have, without language everything would have been more difficult. In the past language open the doors to all, it make possible to organize populations, and then to continue advancing in various field like: farming, hunting, then politics, etc.

Stereotypes

What is stereotyping?

 In simple words is to generalize or give to a group or society a cuality, that can be positive or negative. In other words is "to put every together in the same bag". Stereotypes are always, with us, we always used them, to refer to other groups or nations, for example: when we refer to Germans, we instantly said Nazis, and when we saw a person with Asian features, we instantly said that he or she is Chinese.

What are the causes of stereotyping? 

They are different causes, like ignorance (to speak about a group or society you don´t know, will take you to speak wrong things about them). Other cause, is media, when you saw a poster of a car, a Mercedes Benz, for example, it says "Mercedez Benz is luxury in 4 wheels. Here is a stereotypo, saying that all the cars of Mercedes Benz Company are luxury cars. 

Stereotyping can be, as I said at the beginning, in a positive or in a negative way. Ignorance, almost always, leads to create sterotypes in a negative ways. And media, will leads to create sterotypes in a positive way, specially when they try to promote something (posters, comercials, etc.).

What is culture?

First of all, I would like to refer that, language is clearly tied up in culture. Is a fallacy that culture means the same for everyone, because the concept culture, depends on your culture. So the vision of culture, the attitude in front of it, is different for a Chilean in comparison with an Indian. They are many Theories of Culture, but I share more the theory of Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009) in the book Structural Anthropology, which state that:

"Culture is neither natural nor artificial. It stems from neither genetics nor rational thought, fot it is made up of rules of conduct, which were nor inventedand whose function if generally not understood by the people who obey them. Some of these rules are residues of traditions acquiered in the different types of social structure through which.... each human group has passed. Other rules have been consciously accepted or modified for the sake of specific goals. Yet there is no doubt that, between the instricts inherited from our genotype and the rules inspired by reason, the mass of unconscious rule remains more important and more effective; because reason itself... is a product rather than a cause of cultural evolution."