As you read along this week, what did you discover in Faust? What are some of the motifs and themes that Göethe uses and discusses?

In this past days and in the week-end that I have been reading Faust, I am starting to get more interested in this book.I know it is kind of difficult to read it, because there are many words that we do not are familiar with, but researching them we get the meaning of the words. 

In Faust I have discovered that first of all, the name of the book is the name of the principal character, which lead us to a protagonic title, eponymous. I have discovered that Faust is a character that is not afraid of the devil or Hell, and even he has a lot of knowledge, he is unstatisfied because he has no material or "earthly" rewards becuase all of his knowledge. This character is not young, but not too old. Is in the middle of his life.
 Another character that is like Faust's assistant is Wagner, who maybe Gothe put him as a bad imitation of bourgeois. Well, Faust in one Sunday Easter decides to go to town with Wagner and they saw a lot of young people dancing and dancing, which made Faust trying to enjoy compared to Wagner that he was no happy at all. We can say that Easter for Fasut was the perfect time in which everyone "rebirth" from the bad things to become a new one like death. 

In the point of the reading that I am right now I think I have found three motifs and with them I am taking one possible theme. 
First, the three motifs: one is in the begginning of the story with the old magic book that Faust had in his room. This can be because he is searching for more knowledge but because he already has a lot of wisdom, he is in search of something more interesting for him that will be studying that old magic book. Another motif is when Faust explains to Wagner about the two currents of the soul, one tied by pleasures and another reaches to the stars. This can be analyzed in a way that everyone has two different persons inside him or her. The first one is like the bad side, that is related maybe to the Devil and to Hell. The second one we can infer that "stars" can be in the sky with the angels and God in heaven, if we only think about. The last motif that I found that maybe can be something important and a key piece in the future will be the dog that chases Faust and stays with him. This can mean that the bad things ( the Devil and Hell ) were chasing him. Also we need to remember that Faust kind of believed in spirits, so it can be that after this motif about the dog he will meet Mephistopheles.
This three motifs relate to one thing: Faust was in search of something different, something that he have never experienced before: pleasures, commit sins, madness, power, youth, and many others. Getting all of this things could be only by one type of power, the Devil's power. The theme that I will choose or put will be the despair of man for getting material things and power to know everything. 

Well, even if it is a little complicated to read because it is written like a play, I am liking it. I hope that Mephistopheles can appear soon and with his appereance, I am sure that many things are going to change in Faust's life. I will post next week what happened and a reflexion about the first part of Goethe's Faust.

How do you think formalism will help you understand literature (and Faust) better? What have you liked/disliked about Faust so far in your reading?

I think it is time for our class to start knowing new things like literary theories and literary terms. For this second and short partial, in our class we are starting to see about a literary theory named Formalism. Formalism is a literary style that focuses on only the literary text, taking out the historical, social, and biographical context outside of the story or novel. The meaning of why it is called Formalism is because it is essencially the form of the work of literature itself that can be analyzed in a good way.  

 In the novel that we are reading, Faust, I think that Formalism will help us to understand it better, because for understand it, we will need too see only the literary text with its literary terms that there are in the novel. We do not need necessarily to search for the historical and biographical context because for us is easier if we analyze the novel from what elements does it has inside so we can understand it a lot better. Not only for Faust, also for writings that we cannot understand very well or readings that are causing us trouble to understand. 

 Talking about Faust, what I do not like is that I have to search while I am reading a lot of words that are not familiar to the english that I have. Is one of the things that I dislike. I knew that this novel was not going to be in a easy reading because it has to rhyme with the original german version and it has to have the same words that Goethe put on this story. One of the things that I have liked is the way the story is presented. It is presented as a play, so in class I hope we had the oportunity to represent short fragments of the novel. More about characters, I like a lot the devil Mephistopheles, because Goethe represented him as a real "devil": evil and mocking. Even if I have to search a lot of words while I am reading, I am liking a lot this german story. 

What do I expect to learn next term?

Hi people! I hope that you are having a good week-end and enjoying it. For you to know it yesterday our classroom decided what novel we are going to read for second term. The novel is named "Faust" and it is German but we will see it in English because first, most of our classroom do not know German and second, we are seeing translated words. 

 Why do I told you about what novel me and my class are going to read this partial? Well, because I will tell you what do I expect from this novel and this classes of this partial. I know second partial is not long, it only last two weeks but I think that if we work together and in order, we will read the book and comment it in class.

 I expect to learn this partial more about elements that are in novels and what we need to take in consideration. Also, I want learn about German culture and the historical and social context of that time to know and analyze better this novel. Finally, I expect to learn about how to make and write more academic works that will help us in this Literature class and for our future works. I know that we have little time, but I do not see it as a difficulty for us to learn and apply all our new knowledge of this future partial for our works. 

 

What have I improved so far this semester? How did I improve?

Just yesterday I have finished my first partial exams and with that, the first partial is over. I have never been in an English literature class, at first I was nervous because literature in my language(Spanish) for me is pretty simple, but reading literature in another language and try to understand it is a challenge. I am in English A1 and I have learned new things and thanks to that, I have improved my writing skills and grammar during this classes. 

 In my Literature class, thanks to my teacher and classmates I have improved in two specific things. The first one is to read a lot without seeing it as an obligation. Before this semester, every time people invited me to read a book or every time teachers in school made me read one, I was not really content. I did not had seen reading as a pleasant thing to do. But I think that reading during this first partial a manga, that is popular literature, was a good start for me to start reading more and not seeing it as a duty or as a homework. I have seen that reading is more than that, reading can take us to different worlds and places with our imagination. Maybe seeing that I have improved in this for many people will be silly, but for me it was a good way to start changing my way of thinking about reading.

 Secondly, I have improved on my writing skills and organizing my ideas. This was due to our teacher that help us during this partial to arrange our ideas with certain rubrics and writing outlines. Specifically I have improved on writing essays. Before this semester, I had no idea on how to write and essay. I didn't knew what things were necessary in an essay, but thanks to the the notes and tips that the teacher gave us and the essay I made, I know better what an essay is and how to write it. Obviously, I have to keep practicing and write more essays to be improving and with time, to know perfectly what I have to put on an academic essay. 

 I think that for being the first partial, I have improved in little things that for me are very important. With this two certain improvements I can progress in my academic works and in my literature classes. Not only in school, but I hope that my improvements that I have made this partial will help me in future situations and to make new habits and will be good for me in life.

For me our first term was new knowledge!

Hi people! I hope you are doing fine. I just want to share with you what do I have learned this first term in my new class which is Literature. On the first week of classes, I was a little nervous because I was supposing that I will be reading boring books and copying many literature theories. Fortunately that was not my case. I really love my Literature class because I have learned a lot of interesting things. 

 First of all, I saw the narrative structures. Even if many people know about them, they do not know how are they named or what are their real purposes for each narration. Also, in this term we read part of a manga called Naruto. At first I was not convinced to read it but, believe it or not,it is popular literature that can also be analyzed due to its content related to Japanese culture.

I have learned that Naruto was a great way to start this semester. We have been analyzing Naruto's story and we were learning about the Japanese and not so Japanese themes that are in this manga. I think I am becoming addicted to reading the chapters and commenting them with my friends! We also learned about Japanese art forms, that are: novels, haiku, nontheatre and Kabuki theatre. Even the professor taught us how to write our names in Japanese!  To finish , we saw about how to write an academic essay and how we have to structure it. 

 Now I know that even mangas or comics can be considered literature. That knowledge I can share it with my friends or with people that consider it the opposite, like I was in the start of this period. I thought Literature was very boring but I have changed my perspective about that. Is about analyzing and relating all the elements that you can see in a literary work in order to understand it better. This new knowledge I had I will relate it to understand better throughout this semester future topics. Also this knowledge and perspectives will help me during the writing of my final essay. 

 Literature has make me more critical about literature works and to analyze them for me to enjoy better the readings. I cannot wait for knowing which literature work we are going to read on the second term! I hope each term of this semester will become better and full of new things for us to learn in Literature. 

Why do I think essays are such a prevalent endeavor in learning? What have you discovered about yourself so far in writing your essay?

For high school students, essays are the key for us to be good at writing texts about any kind of topic. Essays are very useful not only in this stage of life, also in our future jobs maybe or when we want to express some point of view about something we are linked to. 

 Essays for me are one of the most important elements in the learning process. We can say in that writing our perspective of something or a theme. It can be from literary essay to even a political essay and so on. Expressing ourselves so people can read it and agree with our ideas or not. Essays also help us in learning because they are not only an opinion. I have seen that for making an essay we have to investigate about the topic that we like and  try to convice the readers about our ideas based on true facts, data and truthful information. 

  In this past week, I have seen that writing an essay was not as easy as I thought it was. First of all, nobody in my life had explained me was an essay really was and what do it needed to have. Thanks to our literature teacher now I really know that do I need to make in an academic essay. I have discovered that I have to make research about some of the topics. This is because if I only put what I think about it, it would be an opinion.Also I am seeing that for an essay we have to have an specific order and topic sentences so your thesis statement can be proven. I know this next week I will be working hard so I can make a great essay about Naruto. But for that, I got to keep writing and writing so I can leave a mark and little by little be improving on making essays.