Term 1 English reflection

It has been a great start to IB with our first term in English being an interesting and productive one.

To start off, it felt like most of us are proactive and initiative in terms of completing work and meeting deadlines but I believe that the confidence Ms. Abena had in trusting us made that happen too.

However, I still depend heavily on Edmodo as it really helps me to be efficient and be on top of my work at all times.

Just in this term, we've read "A Thousand Splendid Suns", performed our first oral presentation, wrote our first written task and explored many interesting topics such as power and language, gender roles, and vernacular english to name a few. The term has definitely felt productive for me and I feel like I'm on par with what is to done in English at the moment. 

Moreover, I feel that I'm getting more practice in terms of writing through reflections and writing tasks which helps my rusty vocabulary bank to get working back again.

However, what I've enjoyed the most this term in English was definitely our exploration on African-American Vernacular English and having Socratic Circles as AAVE is an incredibly interesting topic and socratic circles help me widen my perspective on many topics through discussion. Socratic circles also allow me to practice my social skills in terms of being patient and being a good listener as opposed to being just a good analyst and speaker and I believe it is a skill that may seem easy but definitely requires practice to be good at.

Socratic Circle Reflection

Today, we discussed about literary criticism as we are starting on the Literature part of our IB English course.

At first glance, these term vaguely make sense to me but when some classmates raise their hands in confusion of the term, I realise that I myself don't really know the term well enough besides the rough idea of some sort of critical evaluation of literature (initially thought as anything that can simply be read).

So, as my circle went first, I suggested that we break down the term into their individual words: literary and criticism. We first discussed the definition of literary as literature, relating it to words such as text, art and written. Upon a quick clear up by Ms. Abena on the distinct difference between literature (work of written nature), text (any work for the means of communication) and art (an expression of creativity), we understood what sets "literature" apart. From there, we further discussed what qualifies as literature.

Before starting on what ideas we came up with, I would like to reiterate a few valuable points from the text to keep in mind:

In literary criticism, the three main points that catalyses the evaluation are:

interpretation: what was the message that the text was trying to convey to the reader?
analysis: how does the author create the effect present in the text?
evaluation: what makes this piece of literature good or bad?

I came up with ideas such as literature needing to contain a sense of extraordinary artistic value that is timeless however another circle member then argued that any text can be a form of literature as long as we have evidence to support the three main points of evaluation as artistic value varies in eyes of the beholder.

In terms of our strategy and techniques for the socratic circle today, it seems that some classmates did not speak up. It dawned to me that sometimes we could be overbearing and this may turn off other circle members from talking due to intimidation and it makes me realise the importance of the circle being a support group instead a fight for power. I realise on my part I had not taken the initiative to be more caring towards others in making them feel more comfortable about sharing their opinions as I was too busy voicing out my ideas.

However, I also recognise myself as being the 'shy' one in certain discussions and it simply shows me how I view the discussion as a competition hence the relenting effort of letting go and showing any signs of being 'lesser' in terms of knowledge. It makes me understand that I should view the circle as a safe zone of breaking down those walls of ego and to feed on the ideas of others as well hence the ability to question with confidence is something all of us should learn.