DIDLS was one of the first things we studied this year: diction, imagery, details, language, and syntax. As I've been writing, I've found that diction, imagery, and details have been the ones that come most easily to me, depending on the work. Language (as in metaphors, similies, personification, etc.) was one I didn't really understand at first, I just sort of skipped over it, lumping it in with diciton and syntax but now that I read about it in the chapter, I realize its really quite simple, you just have to look for it. Syntax, then, it the difficult one. I understand that it's the "arrangement of words into phrases or sentences", in the words of our text book. It's just a little bit harder to recognize and use to show effect and overall meaning in an essay. The more we talk about it and work with it, however, the easier I think it will be become.
Close reading has also been a big topic. I never though about annotating text before but now that I've begun, I think I enjoy it. I haven't thought about it much in any novels I've been reading but I did annotate a few poems by Allen Ginsberg in my copy of "Howl" and Other Poems. Nerdy, right?
As far as writing the essays, its very hard to get used to and I've always had difficulty writing a thesis. However, the idea that an intro should consist of only three parts (opener, background, thesis) is definitely helping. As for the thesis itself, breaking down the prompt as we learned is making it a little bit easier. It helps to be able to recognize the goals of the prompt and find the techniques, effects, and overall meaning (sometimes, the hidden "so what" question). Overall meaning is probably what many of my theses have been lacking or at least, it was something I certainly didn't understand. So far, I don't think closed prompts are easier or harder than open prompts. They're just very different. On the one hand, its nice to have the text in front of you for the closed prompt but its also nice to be able to choose a work that you might know fairly well. Putting DIDLS into my essays has helped give them a focus and annotating the closed prompt texts is an obvious advantage, as well as marking up the prompts themselves.
Poetry is a genre of literature that, although I've always appreciated, I've just started to really enjoy reading. I was blown away by Rossetti's poem "Promises like Pie-Crust" in the text book. Because of her poetic techniques as well as her powerful meaning. So far, I've found that close reading a poem is just like close reading any other text (annotating, looking at DIDLS, techniques to effects to meaning, etc.) except that you have to be aware of poetic techniques that wouldn't be present in prose, such as meter, rhyme, and form. We talked about reading sentences on a first read and then going back to look at line breaks. Reading a poem in sentences instead of lines has never been an issue for me. In fact, I find I have to remind myself to go back and see if line breaks are significant.
Overall, what we've gone over in class so far has gotten me excited to keep getting better at close reading and analyzing texts, as well as simply being exposed to new literature. I love talking in class about certain pieces and techniques used in them to create meaning. I think talking out loud about a text is one of the best ways to get new understanding out of it, especially after you've gone through on your own first, annotating and seeing what you can find.
Hey Emily!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I just wanted to comment on your writing style. It's funny, the way you write is so similar to the way you talk. This makes your writing seem so smooth and it gives it a natural feel.
Anyways, as for the actual content of your post, I'm glad you were so thorough. I feel like you covered everything we've done and provided in-depth responses as well. I agree with your comment about diction, details and imagery being the easiest of the five techniques we've learned so far. With language, it can be difficult to unveil the meaning an author wants to convey as sometimes language can have many different interpretations as in the case with symbols. As for syntax, it never occurred to me that a author would deliberately manipulate sentence structure in order to convey a deeper sense of meaning. However, as you noted, I'm sure it well get easier as the year progresses.
The fact that you have no preference between the two essays will probably turn out to be a good thing. For some reason, to me, I'm always much more comfortable knowing that all of the material that I need is right in front of me. Meanwhile, during the open prompt I'm at odds and ends trying to think of the last book I read and if it had "literary merit". Your approach is probably more balanced in that you are probably equally comfortable with both.
It's interesting that you're so comfortable with poetry. To be honest, I don't think I usually really understand most poems in all of their artistic madness although I often find them inspiring. As far as analyzing poems, I feel like they're much more complicated than analyzing general text because there is so much depth in meaning packed into each line.
To wrap things up, your blog was fun to read and flowed well. Good job!
Hi Emily!
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your opinions on the first four parts of DIDLS. To me, "language" seemed to be such a vague idea, but when it comes down to it, the whole idea doesn't seem to be anything that we haven't seen before. When it comes to syntax, lately I've found that it helps to look for things that are dramatically different. Start by looking for weird things like fragments, really short sentences or interjections. That's helped me get a good start on looking for diction, and I think it would be only a small step from the simpler parts of syntax - or the parts easier to find - to the more complex and confusing aspects.
I agree with Jessi that you're probably much better off not having a preference for closed or open prompt essays. I feel so much more at ease having something right there to refer to when I'm writing, but you seem much more confident with the differences in styles than I am.
Just like you, I found myself struggling a bit with the idea of "meaning", but I think asking yourself "why does this thing actual matter??" helps with finding that out. Because, in the end, the AP people want you to actually get something out of it, so what you actually take away from your reading and re-reading and re-re-reading is what I feel like should be put down as "meaning".
I found myself agreeing with a lot of your thoughts on class, and hopefully my comments will help in some way! Nice job with it all!
I definitely agree with you about language at syntax. At first it seemed very nebulous, like it was no different then diction or imagery, or i thought it could just be a subcategory of one of those. The chapter cleared that up for me as well and I agree that syntax is the one with the most work involved to generate any meaning from it. After this week of class though, and the use of syntax in famous pieces of writing, I think we will all find that it is a lot easier to understand and apply. I agree with your concern about adding meaning to thesis statements. To me it seems awkward to address part of a question that isn't really part of the question. I wonder if by the end of the year the closed prompts will become easier for us as we will have a larger chance of being exposed to pieces that we have already encountered during class. I'm envious of your love for poetry. I can see where your coming from though with the poetry we been reading thus far because this is certainly more meaningful and enjoyable than stuff I have read previously.
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