masterpiece essay

Curious, Nervous and Confused

     I don't remember much about the first day of school, but I know the first few weeks were really chaotic. There was so much work, and not to mention this new "open source learning" thing that none of us had heard of before or experienced. And now we're all expected to adapt to it? Yeah, okay.
     But it happened. I now understand what this course is meant to show us. First of all, we were each made to have blogs and post regularly on them, and--get this--we could post whatever we wanted. Whatever I wanted. As students, we are nearly never given the freedom to do something like that for school, at least not until college. I feel that no one abused this freedom, but wholly took advantage of it when given the opportunity.
     One thing that was different from this course as opposed to other courses was the (somewhat) lack of literature. Whether that is good or bad is open to anyone's interpretation; it was an adjustment for me, still struggling with the concept of how to use a blog. My favorite book this year would have to be Great Expectations. While it didn't necessarily have a cookie-cutter happy ending, I felt satisfied with the resolution. Pip had overcome obstacles and was comfortable with himself and his decisions at the end of it all, which is basically how I feel about the course now. Brave New World, while I strongly disliked it, made some good points that can't be ignored. I believe that what Huxley did was over-exaggerate some of society's characteristics in order to create an unpleasant future image. While this book may not have helped me develop through this course, it has allowed me to see what the future could be and motivated me to stop that from happening. When we had to write about an essay about Beowulf , I chose to write mine from a feminist point of view. It forced me to see Beowulf in a different light and, as a result, I could not say that he was a hero. This has made me more open minded because no matter what one believes, there is always another side.
     For the longest time, I would tell people that English was my favorite subject. But the more I've thought about it, the only things I'm good at are grammar and creative writing. The more I thought about how I hated writing essays about books, the more I realized that English had never been my favorite subject. It was history. I've always loved history, and always just thought I loved English. When it came time to think about a Masterpiece topic, I struggled, but then decided to do it based on something that I loved and was passionate about. I missed having to take a history class this year, and being able to go to a super cool museum for English made up for it. While I would love to be a museum curator, I'm just not sure if it's the career path for me, and I don't know where I'll go from here, but it definitely remains an interest.
     I wouldn't say that there was something about the course that made me laugh out loud, but sitting next to Anaya generated some pretty good laughs, and I'll remember that.
      Every presentation was unique and engaging in its own way. One thing that stood out to me was the level of passion that everyone had. We all chose something that we loved because it made us feel a certain way, or because we'd been working on  it for a long time. Some people's Masterpieces started a few years ago, and they didn't even know it then. Everyone did a great job of communicating why they felt their topic is important and meaningful, and they all are.
     Did I complete the hero's journey? I guess. I mean, I completed the course, and I feel like I got a lot out of it I responded to the "call of adventure", but not so much that I was completely out of my comfort zone, as far as using technology and my blog. I'm happy that I took this course because it was a really different experience. I do feel like I've learned more about myself and grown, and I'm looking forward to bigger and better things.

today's journal topic

Macbeth won't be king, his wife will most likely control him when he's on the throne just like she does when he's off. He'll probably be known as a tyrant because she'll be having him behead people left and right. Shakespeare shows, again, how impressionable Macbeth is, when the three witches are making some stew thing and conjuring apparitions. One of them basically tells Macbeth that he shouldn't fear any mortal man, so Macbeth gets all this bravado and is like, "So I don't need to be afraid of anyone? Sweet." and he says that he'll spare Macduff. I could see that backfiring.

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what about my masterpiece?

I haven't done any work on my masterpiece this week. I have thought a lot about it, though. I'm going to be going to the Getty Museum on (hopefully) April 25th. Anyone who wants to go can contact me at lillieedmondson17@gmail.com for more information. I think I have a really cool idea for how I want to present my masterpiece (no technology involved, which means less headaches for me). Yes, Shakespeare had all the time in the world to write, and we only have so much time to work on our masterpieces. But it was his job to write, and ours right now is to go to school and have lives.

love is blind

For those of you that haven't seen the movie Chicken Run, Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy are two of the main characters and they have striking similarities to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth (in personalities). Mr. Tweedy is afraid of Mrs. Tweedy and therefore does whatever she wants him to, not out of love, but out of fear. So does Macbeth. He views her as a superior, in a way, and the audience views her as a parasite that the world would be much better without. The audience can't comprehend why Macbeth would listen to her, and I don't think he does because "love is blind"; I think he might think he loves her, but in reality he's just scared shitless. Much like Mr. Tweedy.

meet macbeth

Macbeth is introduced indirectly by what others say about him when he is not in the room. They talk of what they have seen him do when he is in battle, which is why the opening feeling about him is that he has a heroic demeanor. Macbeth is easily deceived, and readily believes what the witches say to him. I don't know what direct characterization there is. I don't think that, yet, anyone has called him names or anything.

The witches sort of predict things that might happen. In putting ideas into Macbeth's mind, he probably makes things happen, whereas if the witches hadn't suggested anything, they wouldn't. They say something good will happen, it might. They say something bad will happen, it might. It depends on how Macbeth reacts to what they've said, but what they've said is what provides the foreshadowing.

He sets the play in the most prominent place where the play takes place. He says that there is bad weather, which is foreshadowing. The characters he introduces are usually smaller characters, talking about what's happened in the past. That gives the reader to know about the main characters and who they are, and then the smaller characters give a little bit about current events. Basically, Shakespeare brings the audience up to date about past and present events, but doesn't go into what will happen.

my macbeth resources

(I have no idea how to copy stuff as a link. I'm not technologically gifted.)

This is a link to the Wikipedia page about Elizabethan England. Not only is it super interesting, but it could provide some helpful background to what Macbeth pulls from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabethan_era

This is also a link to a Wikipedia page, this one about James I. Preston was talking about him in class and how the play takes a lot from the king's life, so I thought this might be good to read about. (Also, for anyone else who's a history buff, James I is the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was the cousin of Elizabeth I, daughter of the infamous Henry VIII. You know, the one with six wives? Just fyi)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_VI_and_I

This site calls itself a "Macbeth study guide." Just good for clearing any confusion up.

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/macbeth/macbethresources.html

Schmoop

http://www.shmoop.com/macbeth/