This text focused on how the teaching of English and literature has changed over time, which was especially interesting to me as an aspiring middle/high school English teacher. One idea in particular that is worthy of note is the idea of "right vs. wrong" in the study of literature. So often from friends or classmates that are less inclined towards these kinds of studies, I hear that the study of poetry or novels makes them nervous just because they are afraid of not having the right reading or interpretation. This text got me thinking, though, that if one of the main purposes of literature is to reflect humanity or human nature/thoughts/emotions (and I think it is), then to call a certain interpretation "wrong" doesn't really seem fair; you read it that way and you're human, so why not? I think the diversity of possible views of a text even further demonstrates the diversity of human beings and their reactions to life.

I really like the imagery of perseverance created by these small but mighty trees, persisting through the winter with little nutrients. I wonder if this is meant to foreshadow the father and son's fierce and unyielding efforts to discover the answers behind the mystery of the mother's attack.

Why do you suppose his father would want to replant the tree? If it was causing so much destruction to their home and yard, it's interesting that they would want to continue the tree's growth, even in a controlled environment. I looked up catalpa trees, however, and found that these trees are believed to help one connect with the spirit world and express oneself. These are ideas that are often very important in Native American cultures.

This is an interesting style of writing for a story. In giving an outline of what will be discussed in the following pages, it reads almost more like a manual or a guide than a work of fiction. In short, there aren't many stories that are this matter-of-fact and logical. (However, this orderliness seems to decrease slightly as the story goes on and Bartleby's manner begins to have an effect on the narrator.)

I think it's important that the narrator has elevated Bartleby's life to the level of literature. This allows the readers to know that Bartleby's history is either so fascinating or important that its loss is crucial to the academic world.

I think this is a curious thing to add to the title. When I read this story for my American Literature survey last semester, I don't remember this being a part of it. The story itself seems to have little to do with Wall-street at face value other than location. We do get insight into the mind of a prominent Wall-street man and the way he views others, as well as several other quirky Wall-street characters, but the place itself didn't seem to be overly prominent in the story, except perhaps dictating the social fears the narrator had about what Bartleby was doing to his image.

This father seems extremely strict, particularly about wasting food. My own grandmother was very strict about wasting, but that was because her family lived through extreme poverty and the Great Depression. It really makes me wonder what this man went through in his past to make him behave this way. The strictness of the father also seems to be physically represented by the unyielding metal pole.

It's curious that the dad uses "Rod's helmet" to decorate the pole for the Super Bowl. Is Rod his son? It's extremely ironic that he would name his son Rod given his unnerving obsession with this pole.

I think it's interesting that this story is in a collection of stories called "Tenth of December." At first, one might think of the exciting time when Christmas is nearing and the overall holiday season is already upon them. However, the negative tone of this short story makes me think that the tenth of December is more a sign that we are getting closer to the dead of winter. Personally, I'm one of those people that is rather ill-tempered all winter because the cold and short few hours of sunlight just really affects my mood. "Tenth of December" may then rather suggest a bleak, cold connotation.

What does it mean to infringe on this right? I think this is what most people argue about. Does not infringing mean the absolutely unregulated right to bear arms or can there be some regulation?

My AP US history teacher in high school brought up an interesting point about this part of the second amendment. One of the reasons I admired her was that she would always be very careful to keep her personal views private so that we could form our own opinions, but she would still introduce questions for discussion. In this case, she discussed how some believe it is possible that this amendment actually only gives the right to bear arms to local militias, not just anyone. Others argue that militias ARE the people, being formed spontaneously by the people, so everyone's right to bear arms still stands.

I think it is very telling that this is the second amendment. The founding fathers must have believed this to be a very important issue to have it at the very beginning of the Bill of Rights, right after freedom of speech and religion. On the one hand, it shows how powerful they believed speech really is--more powerful than weapons, apparently. On the other hand, it also shows how strongly they still believed in bearing arms and how much they must have felt threatened and been taken advantage of by Britain who would allow soldiers to just come into the homes of colonists and do as they pleased (hence the third amendment).

In the pervious version, this verse says, "but do not have charitie." This creates a slightly different focus, at least in my mind. Discussing charity brings more of a focus towards service and generosity, while discussing love makes my mind think of all that entails, which would, of course, certainly include service and generosity. Love is just a little more all-encompassing.

I assume that this word is an old spelling of the word "tinkling" to make the more modern version of this phrase "tinkling cymbal." This is a very interesting difference for me personally because the version of the Bible I read says "clanging cymbal." This creates a very different connotation and overall mood. Tinkling is a lot softer and sweeter than clanging.

Similarly to the references to water, the imagery of gardens and growth woven throughout the song echo the changes and growth the singer seems to be experiencing in her own life.

There are several references to bodies of water throughout the song. Water is essential to life, so it seems fitting in a song that seems to reflect deeply on life. Water is also matter that is in constant change; it's always moving, flowing, or even changing states of matter. It's clear that the singer is experiences some kind of change or self-realization in the song, so the constant references to water emphasize this further.

The song as a whole is of a slower pace, but these two lines in particular slow down even more and cut short. This creates a more pensive, distracted tone. It also allows for a pause in which the audience is prompted to wonder, "What is it she wants?"

Up to this point, the song has been very fast-paced, but this part suddenly slows down and almost hangs in the air. This gives the audience a moment to linger on this pivotal moment where "the balance shifts."

This is a really satisfying use of alliteration. The really hard and repetitive c sound mirrors the abrasive sounds of battle and also adds an extra level of intensity as the song starts to build and build with tension.

The way this song ends leaves the entire thing on the edge of a cliff in a way. The speed of the song has been increasing throughout and then comes to a screeching halt with "Alexander..." Washington and Lafayette have made their cases and now the audience is held in a sort of satisfying suspense as they wait for Hamilton's reply.

This poem is largely iambic in rhythm, but, scattered throughout the lines are moments where the rhythm is broken with two unemphasized syllables together or an extra syllable here and there, almost like little "skips." It's almost as if the poem were painting a picture of the speaker strolling along, occasionally doing a little skip in glee the isle brings him.

The three stanzas divide the poem into a sort of plot of the speaker's focus. During the first stanza, the speaker describes the changes he will make and the life he will build on the isle. The second stanza focuses more on the nature of the island (both in the biological sense and the characteristic sense), like the animals and the color and the light, as well as the feelings of peace they bring. In the final stanza, the speaker dwells in the sounds if the isle, especially the sound of the lake "in the deep heart's core."

"Wan" is an old-English word for "dark," "pale," and "lacking luster." This is a noticeable contrast with the vibrant language of the rest of the poem, especially contrasting the sorrowful artist with his vibrant muse.

The word "mirror" (derived from the word for "look" in a variety of languages) can have a variety of meanings, each enhancing the implications of this line. Obviously, there's mirror the object. Mirror also means to reflect, represent, or model. In the sense of the poem, then, mirror could mean the paintings reflect back the loveliness of the artist's muse. On the other hand, the paintings could merely be a shallow model of the girl's beauty. This seems likely given later lines of the poem that describes how the artist "feeds" daily upon these images, insatiable, and how she fills his dreams.

This adjective is particularly effective here. Hayes could have just as easily said "singing loud on his knees," but calling them "manic" helps foster this mood of recklessness and movement.

The content and mood of this poem is very action oriented; there is a lot of movement. The poem is written almost entirely in the present tense, which I think helps keep it feeling like it's moving, creating that restless tone. The moment the speaker switches to the past tense is when he reflects on past summers with his brother, effectively slowing the reader down for a moment.

I had to look this word up because, at first, it only looked to me like someone had misspelled "resting." As it turns out, "wrest" is a word that means "to forcibly pull (something) from a person's grasp." This choice in words adds to the restless mood of the rest of the poem and maybe even perhaps eludes to a feeling that the speaker's brother has been "wrested" from him to war.

Hayes has chosen to split this sentence between two stanzas right at this point. I think one possibility for this choice is to let the reader linger for just a moment on irony of medics smoking (something a health professional would likely know to avoid). The whole poem feels like a collection of recklessness and this helps contribute to that.

The rhyme scheme of the first stanza is ababcccd. Each stanza begins this scheme over again, but the rhyme of the final line of each stanza remains consistent throughout the whole poem. The steady rhyme scheme to me seems to mirror the steady changing of the seasons and passing of time. The rhyme at the end of each stanza also clued me in to some of the central themes of the poem (the "prime" of life, wishing "time" were frozen, no one has ever written in"rhyme" that they were able to forget passed joy).

In this spot in the first stanza, Keats uses a dash, but here he uses a semicolon. A dash is also used in the third stanza. The switch is odd to me, especially because a semicolon would make more sense grammatically in the first stanza anyway. What, if anything, might be meant by it?

fun fact: named poet laureate of England in 1843

Wordsworth is known as one of the founders of English Romanticism (prominent during this time)

One definition of the word "diurnal" is "of or during the day." A second definition is "daily; of each day." The overall diction of this line paints a picture of daily life or daily routines as a monotonous "course" of which we just have to make it to the end. "Rolling round" in one's diurnal, or daily tasks feels like a very dreary way to describe life. Also, the word "diurnal" does have the word "urn" in it, but this could just be a coincidence that works well.

I read that, as a youth, Ezra Pound resolved "to know more about poetry than any man living," which I just thought was interesting. He was also well-known for his critique of poetry as well as his actual works.

A bough, or tree branch, would probably not normally be described as black unless it was decaying. Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of this, but this sort of gloomy diction leads me to feel like the speaker of this poem is not creating a fond image of the metro station. Earlier in the poem, "apparition" also has a ghostly feel to it.