MAY11 English A1 HL P1

[Joanna C]

I did the prose piece- "About the end of History"- and halfway through the exam I realised that I'd already read the damn book! I liked it, and commented mainly on symbolism and references old Cricky made to historical events. Not so much about imagery, but that comes under symbolism, right?

What did you say about the last line (something like "I think, sir, the most important thing about history is that it's probably about to end")

And also the bit about his wife stealing a child? What was the relevance of that?!

[Ritakio]

TZ1 poem, snow. I focused a bit more on the writing style than the actual in depth meanings. In my conclusion I compared reality to fiction (the whole blanket of snow as well as "undisguisable house" or whatever it was). But reading the above posts, I kinda get the impression that I missed the overall point of the thing...

Let's talk specifics, how did everyone structure their essays and what types of things did they mention?

Apparently the poem was published on May 1st so that's why we're having trouble finding it. Also, I basically started out by discussing natural imagery and metaphors found in the poem and how those relate on the journey to revelation of mortality as well as elements of life and death... then I discussed how the diction further supports these underlying meanings etc and finally the structure (although I didn't have time) I'm interested in the fact that you talked about the writing style....what did you talk about? Honestly, no one's sure of their interpretations. It's really confusing. I got to the end of the exam and thought " oh wait...I might have gotten it all wrong"...so I don't know. As long as you supported yourself strongly then I don't think there's a problem...

[AGBellamy]

I did the prose piece- "About the end of History"- and halfway through the exam I realised that I'd already read the damn book! I liked it, and commented mainly on symbolism and references old Cricky made to historical events. Not so much about imagery, but that comes under symbolism, right?

What did you say about the last line (something like "I think, sir, the most important thing about history is that it's probably about to end")

And also the bit about his wife stealing a child? What was the relevance of that?!

I said that it's an ironic statement- if history ends, the world ends- and it's symbolic of the end of old Cricky/Tom's history at the school. What did you do?

[Joanna C]

I did the prose piece- "About the end of History"- and halfway through the exam I realised that I'd already read the damn book! I liked it, and commented mainly on symbolism and references old Cricky made to historical events. Not so much about imagery, but that comes under symbolism, right?

What did you say about the last line (something like "I think, sir, the most important thing about history is that it's probably about to end")

And also the bit about his wife stealing a child? What was the relevance of that?!

I said that it's an ironic statement- if history ends, the world ends- and it's symbolic of the end of old Cricky/Tom's history at the school. What did you do?

Yeah I said something about the world ending - I took it as the boy suggesting the world was going to end, which I was really not sure about. Is that what you meant, or something else?

And yeah, I also said that it reflected the end of an era in Tom's life, but then I didn't really know how to elaborate on that!

[AGBellamy]

I did the prose piece- "About the end of History"- and halfway through the exam I realised that I'd already read the damn book! I liked it, and commented mainly on symbolism and references old Cricky made to historical events. Not so much about imagery, but that comes under symbolism, right?

What did you say about the last line (something like "I think, sir, the most important thing about history is that it's probably about to end")

And also the bit about his wife stealing a child? What was the relevance of that?!

I said that it's an ironic statement- if history ends, the world ends- and it's symbolic of the end of old Cricky/Tom's history at the school. What did you do?

Yeah I said something about the world ending - I took it as the boy suggesting the world was going to end, which I was really not sure about. Is that what you meant, or something else?

And yeah, I also said that it reflected the end of an era in Tom's life, but then I didn't really know how to elaborate on that!

He's being forced into retirement- that may be the ending era.

I went on to say that old Cricky/Tom (for some reason I kept calling him 'old Cricky') was juxtaposed with Price- Price's ignorance aggravates Tom, Tom's enthusiasm bores Price, etc. Then I talked about the significance of their names- they were relevent to a lot of historical events:

Price- French Revolution

Crick- Sir Francis Crick

Lewis Scott- Lewis (as in Lewis and Clark) and Sir Walter Scott (historical novellist)... although I didn't get to talk about this guy

I also talked about the newspaper headline- hyperbolic, makes the wife look stupid, etc.

[Joanna C]

I did the prose piece- "About the end of History"- and halfway through the exam I realised that I'd already read the damn book! I liked it, and commented mainly on symbolism and references old Cricky made to historical events. Not so much about imagery, but that comes under symbolism, right?

What did you say about the last line (something like "I think, sir, the most important thing about history is that it's probably about to end")

And also the bit about his wife stealing a child? What was the relevance of that?!

I said that it's an ironic statement- if history ends, the world ends- and it's symbolic of the end of old Cricky/Tom's history at the school. What did you do?

Yeah I said something about the world ending - I took it as the boy suggesting the world was going to end, which I was really not sure about. Is that what you meant, or something else?

And yeah, I also said that it reflected the end of an era in Tom's life, but then I didn't really know how to elaborate on that!

He's being forced into retirement- that may be the ending era.

I went on to say that old Cricky/Tom (for some reason I kept calling him 'old Cricky') was juxtaposed with Price- Price's ignorance aggravates Tom, Tom's enthusiasm bores Price, etc. Then I talked about the significance of their names- they were relevent to a lot of historical events:

Price- French Revolution

Crick- Sir Francis Crick

Lewis Scott- Lewis (as in Lewis and Clark) and Sir Walter Scott (historical novellist)... although I didn't get to talk about this guy

I also talked about the newspaper headline- hyperbolic, makes the wife look stupid, etc.

Oh yeah, that's what I meant by the 'end of an era' in his life.

Looking back, the reference to history ending must have been pointing out that in the boy's opinion, history is irrelevant because by the time it's happened it's already in the past, but at the time I just didn't get it. Oh well!

[Snowflake]

I wrote about "Snow" as well, didn't even read the prose section until I'd finished my Snow commentary because I'm so bad at prose... I blathered on about how snow symbolized death and happiness and life, and that life and death are interconnected, or something, I don't even know and in hindsight it does feel a bit stupid... but I still think (hope) I did well. Poetry commentary is one of my stronger points in IB. Unlike math, ugh.

That's pretty much what I wrote! Yay, at least I know I'm not alone

Unlike you, though, I've always been better at analyzing prose. Such a shame that I didn't manage to understand a single thing from the history-prose-piece-thing.

[ib_girl]

Our class got TZ1 - "The Sea" and "Fishing on the Susquehanna."

It seemed like the majority of our class did the poetry piece. Like ib_girl above, everyone I talked to about the poem had a different interpretation of it.

The main criticism with the poem was that it was too straightforward. Our class is used to more traditional, and I would say more denser poems, and from what I've heard, people had difficulties picking out a thesis that could be supported with sufficient textual evidence. I usually get poems fairly quickly, and had to go through this one about 5 times annotating before I was ready; most times 2-3 run-throughs is enough for me.

I interpreted the poem as representing how humanity seeks to re-create and capture reality through artificial constructs, as well as how complacent man is to such acts. I also pointed how the entire tone and narrative of the poem (emotionless, anecdotal) is conveying how the poem itself is a re-creation of a memory, so that the poem in its entirety is an example of its own theme.

From what I gathered from the prose piece, it seemed to be about familial relationships, and perhaps the distortion powers of memory? I didn't go deeper than a quick skim, but I don't think the prose is nearly as open to various interpretations as the poem evidently is, and the people that wrote on the prose all seemed to centre their thesis around family anyways.

i talked about the river as a symbol for what the narrator wanted but could not have and used the differences in tone when he describes his experiences v. the paintings to show that.

i've heard arguments about living vicariously through art, the problems of being passive, and the need to know what you talk about.

SO MANY CHOICES.

[supercool <3]

so English paper 1 was on may 3rd, and it is now the 5th. Just wondering if people chose to to the poetry or the prose and what everyone thought about it... I was one of the few who chose the poem from my class

[supercool <3]

I did TZ1 poetry. It was "Fishing on the Susquehanna in July" by Billy Collins. There was a good amount of stuff to talk about there. I don't get how you all did the prose. That text is just the perfect size that I start staring at it and I get completely lost in it. haha.

same here the poetry was simplistic, but it was a lot easier to analyze in my opinion

[Hypnotica]

I wrote about "Snow" as well, didn't even read the prose section until I'd finished my Snow commentary because I'm so bad at prose... I blathered on about how snow symbolized death and happiness and life, and that life and death are interconnected, or something, I don't even know and in hindsight it does feel a bit stupid... but I still think (hope) I did well. Poetry commentary is one of my stronger points in IB. Unlike math, ugh.

You just made me feel better! I wrote about something similar and how the fact that the snow is personified and then it melts (the hills turn to water and the windows crack or something like that) indicates mortality and the end of life and how the snow does also symbolize this revelation of mortality and in the beginning how snow is sort of compared to a graveyard through an underlying metaphor " you are the country of ghosts" as well as the thing with the magician with the handkerchief...another metaphor...the handkerchief is white = snow...and how when a magician pulls away his handkerchief something usually disappears...so i talked about the suddenness of death...

I don't know...I usually score 7s and 6s on my papers but this is the first time I feel completely at loss...and the poem is nowhere to be found online!

P.S. Math also makes me cringe.

Double P.S. I didn't even look at the prose section.

I had the exact same interpretation! The poem was really vague, you wouldn't know for sure what Smith referred to by "snow", but I put pieces of the text together and basically paraphrased the poem part by part, including my interpretation at the end of each paragraph. I contrasted the beginning of the poem with the end too, the illusion of immortality and the "shattering of the fairy tale windows." English HL Paper 1 scares me, you wouldn't know for sure what mark you'll get. The texts for the exam were a lot more difficult to concretely interpret than the ones from previous years, here's hoping we do well!

[L_ramirez92]

Hi guys, I did TZ 2 Snow...and I was so sure about my interpretations until I walked out of the exam and someone told me they wrote about the man's life and stuff. There were so many different interpretations that could have been used, but I used snow as a metaphor for death and the coming of summer as life...reincarnation possibly after death because the poet said "migrate back from" or something in the first stanza. And the coming of snow could be used for again, a metaphor of death - how some people ignore the idea of it and play in it until they are brought back to 'adult gravity' and seriousness, or they look in the mirror and fear death. Snow- time for introspection of life or time for playing in the snow= attitudes towards death. I don't know, I felt really certain while I was writing it until the last few minutes so we'll see

[skindisease]

Arright well since this is a Tz2 blog, i thought i would share some of my ideas

1st, did anyone talk about free verse in their analysis?

i talked about how it resembled something of a jornal entry which gave structure to the whole poem

2nd, Anyone delve into mythological stuff? I mean it was obvious to say life/death but i kinda went a bit further by talking about the Bhagavad Gita

I thought it fit in well with the whole concept of souls and "soul-knowledge"

actually the poem was an epitome of the scriptures teachings.

THANKS

[kasandude]

TZ1 poem, snow. I focused a bit more on the writing style than the actual in depth meanings. In my conclusion I compared reality to fiction (the whole blanket of snow as well as "undisguisable house" or whatever it was). But reading the above posts, I kinda get the impression that I missed the overall point of the thing...

Let's talk specifics, how did everyone structure their essays and what types of things did they mention?

Apparently the poem was published on May 1st so that's why we're having trouble finding it. Also, I basically started out by discussing natural imagery and metaphors found in the poem and how those relate on the journey to revelation of mortality as well as elements of life and death... then I discussed how the diction further supports these underlying meanings etc and finally the structure (although I didn't have time) I'm interested in the fact that you talked about the writing style....what did you talk about? Honestly, no one's sure of their interpretations. It's really confusing. I got to the end of the exam and thought " oh wait...I might have gotten it all wrong"...so I don't know. As long as you supported yourself strongly then I don't think there's a problem...

I focused on talking about the boring mechanical aspects of the poem. The structure of it (shorter stanzas for the questions in the middle, which adds to the effect), the literary features (the magician metaphor, the "cacophony" sounds somewhere in the beginning) and the tone of the thing (vocabulary mainly). I think I tied the meanings behind the literary features into the essay, but I mainly wrote about the meaning and message at the end, which I combined with the personal response.

I think my thesis statement was something like "through the use of literary features, structure and tone, Smith supports the content of the poem to great effect." And then I basically showed that. I wrote 7 and 1/3 sides on in in medium-ish writing, and I had it clearly organized into [intro+thesis]-[structure]-[literary features]-[tone]-[conclusion+meaning+personal response], so I think I'll get decent marks.

[L_ramirez92]

That's an interesting structure...I just hope all our interpretations are correct! That poem was just full of possible alternative meanings but I wrote really in-depth about my one so I hope it's good enough..but as for my structure, I wrote 6 pages on both sides, in medium-ish hand writing, and I talked about the structure, tone, and language and continuously related it to the meaning - I went on a part by part analysis, which is a style that usually works really well for me so hopefully it turns out and P2 is easier!

[L_ramirez92]

Arright well since this is a Tz2 blog, i thought i would share some of my ideas

1st, did anyone talk about free verse in their analysis?

i talked about how it resembled something of a jornal entry which gave structure to the whole poem

2nd, Anyone delve into mythological stuff? I mean it was obvious to say life/death but i kinda went a bit further by talking about the Bhagavad Gita

I thought it fit in well with the whole concept of souls and "soul-knowledge"

actually the poem was an epitome of the scriptures teachings.

THANKS

Yes I did talk about free verse and the lack of a rhyme scheme...but I talked more about how it sounded almost like a prayer at some parts, particularly when he references 'snow' himself, but that was just my personal view. I also talked about reincarnation, and life about death, but didn't apply it to any specific religion except Catholicism/Christianity? Although now that I think about it, it could have applied to a bunch of religions so *facepalm*.

[Julieee]

I did the prose (About the End of History), but I didn't really understand the last line, which is a bit of a bummer. What did anyone else say about it?

Also, how weird was the whole wife stealing child thing? Didn't quite know what to make of that.

Analysing the first half was alright, but it went a bit downhill towards the end, and I didn't even get to write a conclusion. Hopefully the first half will pull me through!

I chose that one too. The only other person who chose prose in my HL class interpreted exactly the opposite of how I did. I basically understood that the author doesn't really care about history and thinks we need to focus on the "here and now" because essentially that is what is going to make history one day. But my friend interpreted it as if the author does care about history. How did you understand the text? It would be good to hear someone else since as I can see not that many people chose prose.

Edited May 9, 2011 by Julieee

[KyleAdams]

I did the poem "Fishing on the Susquehanna in July." I talked about how the author is a very imaginative person that lives life vicariously through art. He won't ever go fishing on the Susquehanna, but he is fine with that because he can imagine it through the painting. I also talked about how it was humorous, and how the structure showed his free imagination through enjambment, and the possible rigidness of his real life based on the regular stanza lengths of 3 lines each.

Overall it seems to be a poem about imagination and living life and experiencing things through art.

[ibcheering]

I had "Fishing on the Susquehanna in July" too! I talked about the reference it kept making to the United States, and the authors use of stream of consciousness gave it a dream like quality. I concluded that this entire poem was about an "American Dream" the author had which was underscored by the use of the colors red, white and blue, references to Philidelphia and July, oh and there were also 13 stanzas like the 13 stripes on the American Flag and the way he made his "dream" appealing to the reader.

[Joanna C]

I did the prose (About the End of History), but I didn't really understand the last line, which is a bit of a bummer. What did anyone else say about it?

Also, how weird was the whole wife stealing child thing? Didn't quite know what to make of that.

Analysing the first half was alright, but it went a bit downhill towards the end, and I didn't even get to write a conclusion. Hopefully the first half will pull me through!

I chose that one too. The only other person who chose prose in my HL class interpreted exactly the opposite of how I did. I basically understood that the author doesn't really care about history and thinks we need to focus on the "here and now" because essentially that is what is going to make history one day. But my friend interpreted it as if the author does care about history. How did you understand the text? It would be good to hear someone else since as I can see not that many people chose prose.

Hmm well I have to say I thought that the author DID care about history - I mean Price was arguing that we need to focus on the "here and now" but Crick was arguing the opposite wasn't he? I can't really remember exactly what he said now though. I didn't actually talk about the importance of history in my essay, mostly because I just didn't really understand the ending (about history being "about to end"). Oh well, at least with this paper you can't get marked down on all the criteria for misunderstanding or not mentioning something.. Hopefully we'll be okay?!