AP Lit: Week 2 - Freedom

As week two comes to a close, we reflect on what we have learned for the last five days. At the beginning of the week, we explicated the poem "The Eagle". This means that we broke down each part of the poem and analyzed its potential meaning. Later in the week, we began discussing the books that we read over the summer. My group read the books "Obasan" and "The Book Thief". What I have learned this week by discussing these works is that everyone interprets literature differently. When explicating "The Eagle", everyone in my group had completely different ideas on the meaning of the poem. It was the same with the two novels, everyone interpreted the books differently. This just goes to show that no one really knows what the author intended except for the author. It is really interesting when you take a symbol in a story or poem and try to break it down into something logical, but that isn't always the case. Sometimes a symbol is just trying to make you feel something that you can't always explain. Authors take copious amounts of time deciding how that they want to say something, and sometimes the reader just needs to accept that it is what it is. There isn't always an exact meaning. It is definitely worth working with others to try and understand what you can from a piece of work. Trying to break down novels and poems really can open your mind to new ideas and meanings.

http://www.crossroad.to/Books/symbols1.html

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