Erica's Blog

When I first started this unit, I was scared and sure how I would analyze humor. Analyzing humor is much harder than analyzing other texts because it’s more dependent on the author and not always interpreted correctly. Therefore, my SMART goal for this unit was to be able to identify and analyze humor techniques used in different writings such as plays, poems. After analyzing Confusions and the Poetry Anthology – two different type of texts – I think I’ve accomplished my goal.

There are many different types of humor such as satirical humor, dark humor, etc. There are also lots of different literary techniques that can be used in humor. The main three techniques I learned about is, playing with words, using exaggeration, and using satire.  The poem “Sick” by Shel Silverstein uses a lot of exaggeration such as “[her] temperature is one-o-eight.” (line 26) Exaggeration is a great tool in humor because it plays around with what the readers think as absurd. Humor is necessary to lighten the mood, but also to convey deeper messages in a natural way. It contrasts with the serious tone when expressing darker themes. This delivers the message in a different way. For example, in the play Mother Figure, Ayckbourn conveys the theme of sexism and toxic masculinity in society.

I would like to learn more about how poetry is written and how humor is added onto poetry. Poetry seems very easy, but once you write it, poetry is much harder than it seems. Since most poems are short, the writers have to make sure that every word and punctation is placed and chosen for a reason. There is hidden meaning behind poems that most times only the authors are able to decode.

The hardest thing about humor is that it is subjective. Every has their different taste of what they think is funny and what counts as humor, so it is harder to learn and teach because we have different opinions. For example, the poems in the poem anthology were supposed to be humorous. However, I only found a few to be funny, and only felt comfortable analyzing the humor in those poems, which affected my ability to analyze all types of humor.

One of the successes I’ve had in this unit is that I’m now able to annotate poetry and plays to help my understanding of them. Attached below is a picture of my annotations for my chosen poem.

I think I am exemplary in responsibility and attitude for student as a learner. I have grown during this eLearning period and I have learned to manage my time productively at home. I have a positive attitude towards eLearning, because I appreciate this opportunity. However, I believe I can still improve by asking more questions that can benefit the class.

Overall, I enjoyed the humor unit because I learned how to analyze something subjective and got to read many humorous things in the process. I think I’m ready to move onto 10th grade English, and look forward to analyzing more challenging things next year!

Works Cited:

Silverstein, Shel. “Sick.” English 9 Poetry Anthology, edited by Allison Marz, International School of Beijing, 2019-2020, p. 4 – p. 5.

Ayckbourn, Alan. Mother Figure.Confusions, edited by Russell Whiteley, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013, 7-19.

This week I started working on the essay “What I’ll Give Back”. At first, this prompt seemed easy enough. However, when I actually got around to working on it, it proved harder than it looked. Therefore, I brainstormed of ideas to help me stay on track in the essay and not veer of course like I usually do. The topic of giving back has always been on my mind for the past few years, because every time my parents buy me something new or I complain about something, I feel extremely guilty. Hopefully, the essay will help me rein in all the thoughts and clearly explain how I’ll give back and my perspective on this topic. I think my essay has reached a good draft 1 and I hope to send it to Mr. Dilts to get feedback, so I can improve it before the final submission date.

E-learning feels normal now, almost like it’s a part of my life, and I wonder daily if this is what home-schooling feels like. My stress levels have definitely gone down, but I still hope everyday that I get to sleep more. I’m looking forward to getting back to school and helping middle schoolers in classes!

This week, I didn’t work on any Tutor Training online course because I finished it last week. So this reflection will be regarding e-learning in general.

Since it’s already our 6th week of e-learning, I have gotten much more comfortable with it and have developed a routine. My sleeping habits have also adjusted to fit e-learning, so I’m feeling much happier and less stressed than I was a few weeks ago. I think the workload sometimes can get a little stressful, especially since the summative tests for different courses all land around the same time (math, English, science). However, with a bit of effort, I will probably be able to manage them fine. The more time I spend at home, the more lonely I get, and these are times when I wish I have a sibling. I have interacted with my friends frequently on WeChat and zoom, but it’s not the same as talking to them face to face.

Apart from e-learning being a bit stressful, I learn a lot from e-learning, and although the support isn’t as much as being in an actual class is, it’s still very beneficial. I hope that school will start soon and everything will return to normal.

I have just submitted the Final Exam for the tutor training course and am looking forward to receiving my feedback. I think over the course of this online course, I have learned a lot about tutoring and truly think that I am prepared to help people in a classroom environment. I feel comfortable with the material for the online course and grown as a person. Although a lot of the writing prompts challenged my critical thinking and creativity, I’ve pushed through it and reached the end. I’m proud of myself for putting a lot of effort into the online course and using proper time management when often I am prone to procrastination.

I can’t wait until things are back to normal, and look forward to joining middle schoolers in their classes and aiding them.

I think I have gotten used to the flow of the Crossroads online tutoring cross. I have learnt a lot over the course of 4 days about tutoring, and it was surprising for me to see how much went into being a model tutor. There are so many aspects of tutoring that I had never even thought about prior to this course so I’m really glad I had the opportunity to learn about it. Some of the writing prompts have been challenging, but, I have pushed through and improved because of them. I really like the way they have recall quizzes to test if we really understood the information. These quizzes challenge my memory, and I think by doing them, the information I’ve learnt actually retains in my brain instead of being forgotten after a short period of time.

At this point in time, the workload for the course is still a little scary, but the module section which shows me all the future assignments helps me plan and organize ahead of time. After doing the math, I have calculated that as long as I dedicate around an hour to the course (3-4 assignments) per day, I should be finished by the deadline (March 1st).

I really look forward to applying the skills I’ve learned in the online course to a real life classroom setting!