yeah, the orals were surprisingly fun. i didn't like the "literature" we examined. we read house of spirits by isabel allende or something, and i found it pretty dull compared to 100 years of solitude, which i had read on my own time. marquez is much better at "Magical Realism," neither book had a lot to gain from. i wouldn't even dare to really call it literature in the sense of Dante or Shakespeare or even Charlotte Brönte. schools avoid even reading something like "The Lord of the Rings," which has a lot more to offer in terms of style, elegance, plot-building, and dialogue than something like magical realism or the 2 plays we read for IB, "A Doll's House" and "The Visit." with magical realism, the author seems obsessed with making the strangest possible thing happen and pretend like it's absolutely normal. while this is funny, entertaining, and can stimulate some level of philosophical reflection, i really can't say the books seem truly excellent as examples of great writing or great literature. don't even get me started on the plays, either, heh. a doll's house was such a ridiculous sellout of a story as a carefully constructed feminist hell, and while The Visit was heavy on condemning vengeance, it didn't really do much to advocate the opposite of it, redemption. even IB throws you into some literature that is subpar at best, even though they approach it in a better way than other programs.Originally posted by virividox
yeah the teacher makes a lot of difference
but the orals, world lits, and the whole program is better than filling it blank dots and empty lines. at least you get to explore literature as literature was meant to be explored.
i loved my teacher, he rocked!!!
i'm just thankful that my father made me read in the summers when i was younger, and I read good stuff for the most part. sure, there was the occasional tom clancy book, but most of it was more CS Lewis fiction or Dickens or Shakespeare...
That's how you learn to write, isn't it? you read other people's writing--you read books. it's really shocking how few people actually do that, and even the ones who do seem to respond to in in mechanical, thoughtless ways. why don't students emulate the styles of the authors they read?
i don't think teachers even consider advising students to do so. they give you formulas rather than taking styles from authors (of something other than a damn grammar textbook). Ah, government education. we give education to everyone, but the cost is that everyone gets a mediocre (at best) education--unless they have parents who are willing to educate them as well, or a lot of money, heh.