Literary Fiction & Empathy

Reading fiction can help you understand people by helping the reader notice the way the character acts and comparing that to the way that the character is feeling. By doing this the reader is able to do this better in real life situations. It also makes you use your imagination more and think more about what might be happening in real life situations. From Hamlet, you can take away that even when people seem like they are okay they may in fact be hiding something that they are feeling. You can infer that it may be important to ask other people how they are feeling frequently to know what is truly on their minds.

Hamlet Act 1

-the changing of the guards is taking place at the beginning
- the guards are talking when they see a ghost
- the audience does not learn much about the ghost or anything else during this scene
- they realize that the ghost looks like the dead King Hamlet
- King Claudius decides to marry Gertrude
- Claudius seems to ignore Hamlet
- Hamlet does not like how quickly the marriage happened
- Claudius does not want Hamlet to return to school
- Hamlet hates the situation that he is in
- Hamlet is informed of the ghost that looks like his father
- Ophelia is warned that she should not fall in love with Hamlet
- the ghost speaks to Hamlet and says that he is in fact his father and that he wants him to avenge his death by killing Claudius
- Hamlet swears to obey the ghost's wishes

Phonar Assignment

It was a sunny day at the top of china peak. I could see the fresh green pine trees covered by the minimal amount of snow that had fallen the previous day. The snow and trees seemed so perfect that there was no way that a picture could be taken. There were not many people skiing or snowboarding at the top of the hill so it was almost silent. The only real sound that was audible was the sound of the empty ski lift creeking and moaning. As I got ready to ride I felt the cool sweat and snow that had gotten inside my thick jacket. As I began my run I took a deep breath and took in the fresh mountain air, ready to begin my run.

Canterbury Outline

1. Knight. We chose the knight because he was described by his actions than his personality and there seemed to be more to the character.
2. In this tale the knight is the main character. He is chivalrous, brave, upper-class, noble, accomplished, Christian, fighter, hero, modest, polite
3. Chaucer uses an anecdote to talk about all of the accomplishments that the knight has and this creates a tone of admiration for the knight. Writing it in a poem makes the story seem more noble.
4. The author indirectly characterized the knight through the anecdote in the beginning of the story when he talks about the battles and wars that the knight has bravely fought in. He used direct characterization by describing the knight with adjectives like truth, honor, and generous. The author mainly used direct characterization.
5. The genre of this tale is a moral tale because it talks about ethical dillemas like how he is a gentle knight yet he always gets his man. Juxtaposition of moral right and wrong in one man.
6. The characters in this story do not hold up to the ideals that the audience has about them. The characters are different than we would typically expect. The characters are also described with juxtaposed ideas.
7. To improve the tale the author needs to talk about who the knight is, instead of what he has done.
8. If the gender was different in this tale, the story wouldnt exist because women could not hold the position of knight. If the social status changed the narrator probably wouldnt admire the knight as much.
9. I think the anecdote that the author uses is the most effective in what the author is trying to tell the audience about the night.
10. I think one thing that I could take from Chaucer and put into my own writing is the was he juxtaposed ideas in each character which is unorthodox in my opinion.

Canterbury Tales Narrative

      It was a warm Saturday morning at UCLA and Jacob was riding his bike to the local coffee shop to study, like he does every Saturday so that he can get his homework done early. As he was riding he’s bike he began to zone out. He often had problems with zoning out because he constantly had things on his mind. He was very observant and often thought about some things maybe a little too hard. As he was thinking about things and zoning out he didn’t notice a car that had pulled out in front of him. He was going so fast that he barely had time to get out of the way but by some miracle he was able to miss the car, but he wasn’t out of danger. He had swerved right into a pole. Feeling very embarrassed and in quite an immense amount of pain, he slowly stood up to look at the stupid pole that had knocked him off his bike. As Jacob looked at the pole he noticed a brightly colored poster that was attached to it. It read BATTLE OF THE BANDS. As soon as had bestowed his eyes upon this sign, Jacob knew that he had this pole for a reason. He had to enter the contest.

       There is something you should know about Jacob, he is a good guitar player but never really performs for anyone else but he really wants to. When he saw the sign he knew that this is what he was meant to do. The only problem was that he didn't have a band, he hasn't even thought about making a band because he thought that it would take away too much of his already precious time. 

       When he eventually got to the coffee shop he sat down and took out his laptop, but did not study like he usually did. Instead he went onto social media sights and began to look for possible friends that he could have in his band. He looked through quite a few friends when suddenly he had come across the friend that he knew was perfect for the job. His name was Joey, Joey Buelow. Joey had been one of Jacob's friends in high school who had wanted to play the drums, so he contacted Joey and asked him about drumming in a band together. Joey was very interested and thought that they should meet in person. So Jacob and Joey decided that they would meet back in their home town at the well know restaurant Orcutt Burger.
       At Orcutt Burger, the two friends from high school caught up with each other. Both mainly asking questions about the colleges that both of them were now attending. After the casual banter back and forth they began to get to the real reason for the meeting. The band. After some discussion Joey finally decided that he would join Jacob in creating a band that had potential for greatness. It all sounded great but there was a problem. How were they gonna get the money for a drum set? After this question came up things seemed to get a little bit more difficult. They tried brainstorming ideas for awhile until they finally found that they might be able to make the money by selling old things that they no longer needed.
        Eventually the two boys made enough money to buy a drum set. As soon as the drums were purchased they knew that they had to get practicing immediately if they even wanted to have a shot at winning the competition. So they practiced for at least a few hours everyday until the day of the competition.
         The day of the competition was very stressful for the two young boys who were dreaming about being an awesome bad the played some awesome music. So Joey and Jacob began to setup up for there performance that could potentially be amazing and they could actually win some money if they did well so they were trying to pump themselves up and give it their all. When they got on the stage they felt confident and were ready to play. When they began to play immediately the crowd reacted and began to move with the beat and cheer. At this instant Jacob knew that they were going to win the contest because he hadn't seen the fans react like that with any of the other bands.
         After they're song the contest was over and they were going to announce the winners. The boys waited backstage feeling very confident that their name was going to be called. After a moment that seemed to last forever the winner was revealed and they had not won the contest. Jacob, Joey, and the fans were in shock but they still congratulated the winners.
        As they packed up and got ready to leave a man in a suit approached Jacob. He said, "I think you two have what it takes to make it big and I would like to offer you a record deal." After hearing this Jacob was stunned and didn't know what to say. They had only played one song and this guy already wanted to sign them. After saying yes instantly Jacob told Joey who also became overwhelmed with excitement. It looked as though they just might make it in the music industry.

Vocab 5

shenanigans - noun mischief; prankishness
ricochet - noun a glancing rebound; verb spring back; spring away from an impact
schism - noun division of a group into opposing factions; the formal separation of a church into two churches or the withdrawal of one group over doctrinal differences
eschew - verb avoid and stay away from deliberately; stay clear of
plethora - noun extreme excess
ebullient - adj. joyously unrestrained
garrulous - adj. full of trivial conversation
harangue - noun a loud bombastic declamation expressed with strong emotion; verb deliver a harangue to; address forcefully
interdependence - noun a reciprocal relation between interdependent entities (objects or individuals or groups)
capricious - adj. determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason; changeable
loquacious - adj. full of trivial conversation
ephemeral - adj. lasting a very short time; noun anything short-lived, as an insect that lives only for a day in its winged form
inchoate - adj. only partly in existence; imperfectly formed
juxtapose - verb place side by side
perspicacious - adj. acutely insightful and wise; mentally acute or penetratingly discerning
codswallop - noun nonsensical talk or writing
mungo - noun a cheap felted fabric made from waste wool
sesquipedelian - adj. given to using long words
wonky - adj. inclined to shake as from weakness or defect; turned or twisted toward one side
diphthong - noun a vowel sound that starts near the articulatory position for one vowel and moves toward the position for another