Close Reading - Assignment 4

Why is Dance So Good for Children? 
http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-is-Dance-So-Good-For-Children?&id=2700572

Children getting enough fitness and not becoming overweight at to young an age is one of the top issues today. Many articles have suggested various activities for kids so see that they have fun while they get fit at the same time. Researchers are finding that dance is both a good social experience where children can exercise and not even know it. The author of this article, Keen, gives a new voice to child fitness and how it can be very easy for a child to become fit and have fun by being involved in dance.

The first thing that jumped out to me as I read the article was Keen's language. The article is a combination of sophisticated and casual language making it very easy to understand both to an adult as well as a child. Near the end of the article she talks about how the brain works when involved in dance which would be hard to understand by younger children. Keen also constantly talks about how dance can be a good social experience where children can make new friends and learn to work together with others while staying fit. While children understand how to form new relationships through activities such as dance only older children and adults would understand the "fit" part.

Keen's detail also struck me while reading the article. She expands on the idea that dance is a healthy activity by giving numerous examples oh how it can improve a child's brain, body and social skills. As part of her research Keen includes a quote by the the National Curriculum which believes that "by providing rich and varied contexts for pupils to acquire, develop and apply a broad range of knowledge, understanding and skills, the curriculum should enable pupils to think creatively and critically, to solve problems and to make a difference for the better. It should give them the opportunity to become creative, innovative, enterprising and capable of leadership to equip them for their future lives as workers and citizens" (National Curriculum). Many researchers agree with this statement which can leave the reader thinking about other activities, in addition to dance, that are healthy and fun.

For many younger children staying fit is of the lowest concern. They may not understand what it is to be fit or how to get fit by participating in various activities but in the end it helps them to stay fit. Parents have many options to involve their child in fit activities and dance is only one of many.

 

Response to Course Material - Post 4

One of my favorite things in AP Lit are our small group and class discussions on the novels that we are reading this year. We have a great selection and the two that we have read so far have both been outstanding. After reading Albee's The American Dream, which I had never heard of and was quite surprised I liked, I was excited that we would be reading Death of a Salesmen next because I've heard such great things about it. Once we had watched the movie and annotated independently we began one our best class discussions about possible religious allusions. Our class discussions have given me a variety of opinions concerning the book and made me think more about the book as a whole.

Another thing I continue to improve on is my essay writing. Continuing essay practice and self-grading in preparation for the AP Lit test are helping me more and more to find the areas that I struggled with and what I can do to fix them.

AP Lit takes a whole new approach to literature that I never thought of. I continue to love the class and material that  will help me in the end as we approach the AP Lit test.

Open Prompt - Essay 5

2005, Form B. One of the strongest human drives seems to be a desire for power. Write an essay in which you discuss how a character in a novel or a drama struggles to free himself or herself from the power of others or seeks to gain power over others. Be sure to demonstrate in your essay how the author uses this power struggle to enhance the meaning of the work.

What would you do if your personal power and individualism was taken from you? Some could find a way to regain lost freedoms while others may just give up on life completely and find it is better to be dead than alive.  Offred, the protagonist of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, finds herself in a constant struggle to break free of the power over her and regain the freedoms and individuality she has been stripped of.

Offreds struggle begins when she is captured after trying to cross the boarder out of the Republic of Giliad and is told that she is part of a small group of women who are still able to bear children and will serve their country by becoming handmaids. It is when she first learns this knowledge that a dominating power now has control over her decisions and life. This supreme power becomes reality when the wife of the Commander taks Offred with giving her children. It is now that Offred begins a struggle within herself about weather to resist and attempt to regain her freedom to do things or do as she is told.

Offred's struggle increases as she that her "encounters" with the Commander are unsuccessful and she cannot conceive with him. She feels that she has regained some of her individual power but fears for her life as she cannot complete the task she has been ordered to do. Things take an odd turn when the Commander's wife suggests she try another man and give that baby to the Commander as his own. Having this opportunity to break the rules and rebel against the values that she was  forcibly taught is somewhat foreign but reminds her of the life she used to have. It is here that she decides it is better to live life as an individual and wont give up the baby that she is about to have.

Her ultimate struggle for power comes when the Commander learns that she is going to escape with her baby and the man she loves. Offred feels that by escaping she has regained some of her power from the supreme authority and gained a different sort of power over that authority which commanded her to do these things. She believes that she can once again have a normal life in a world that used to exist but no longer does.

The internal struggle of power from authority is one of the many themes found in Atwood's novel. Individualism and freedom are strongly enhanced through the characters and their situations while they may not break through to the world they live in.