A Picture Tells 1,000 Words

1. Diana Bayless Mrs. McGee AP English 1A A Picture Tells 1,000 Words

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS Letter to the Reader My Bucket List 6 Word Memoir First Writing – Oscar Wilde Paragraphs Soul Picture Second Writing – The Awakening, Response Third Writing – Response to “Barbie” Option to 1 of 3 Artifacts – Favorite Elementary Book Option to 1 of 3 Artifacts – Favorite Middle School Book Option to 1 of 3 Artifacts – Favorite High School Book

3. Dear Reader, As I look back on the writing from even just this year and last year, I can honestly say that I have improved so much. It is really cool to see all the things that I have written about, and all the stories I have been able to tell through my writing. I hope only to learn more, and to write even better when I get to college. I truly believe that both my eleventh and twelfth grade English classes have prepared me for that. I am really excited to see what I come up with in the future!

4. Have my own personal library with a collection of all the books I’ve read • Stick to a workout plan and a diet (stay healthy) • Live in my dream home • Visit the Louvre • See a Burlesque show • Get a Siberian Husky • Plant my own garden and keep up with it • Take a photography class • Ride on a train for a long distance • Visit Monet’s home, in Giverny • Bike down the Pacific Coast highway • Learn how to ride a motorcycle • My Bucket List • Be a witness to Aurora Borealis • Eat a “Grand Opulence” Sundae at Serendipity in NY • Travel to Alaska (preferably by cruise ship) • Swim with a dolphin • Learn to speak a language, then visit the country it’s spoken in, and be sure to use it… a lot • Ride on a gondola in Italy • Hike up the Cascades • Learn to play an acoustic guitar • Scuba dive off the coast of Australia • Go to Las Vegas • Win something at an art show • Fall in love… deep, unconditional, uncontrollable love • Get a job I actually enjoy doing

5. …AN ENDING DREAM, OR JUST beginning ?

6. Diana Bayless Mrs. McGee AP English 12 1B February 14th, 2011 Paragraph #1 (Page 22) “For nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips and eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh influences were at work within him. Yet they seemed to him to have come really from himself. The few words that Basil’s friend had said to him-words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with willful paradox in them-had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before, but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses.” Paragraph #2 (Page 127) “For years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of this book. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never sought to free himself from it. He procured from Paris no less than nine large paper copies of the first edition, and had them bound in different colors, so that they might suit his various moods and the changing fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have almost entirely lost control. The hero, the wonderful young Parisian in whom the romantic and the scientific temperaments were so strangely blended, became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself. And, indeed, the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own life, written before he had lived it.” Paragraph #3 (Page 219) “A new life! That was what he wanted. That was what he was waiting for. Surely he had begun it already. He had spared one innocent thing, at any rate. He would never again tempt innocence. He would be good.” Wilde develops Dorian Gray throughout these three paragraphs using imagery and artful diction such like, “dimly conscious”, “throbbing to curious pulses”, “prefiguring type of himself”, and “tempt innocence”. The diction in the first paragraph is clean, like Wilde is wiping down Dorian’s slate, and starting him off new, to experience new things, and open up to the world that Lord Henry had laid out for him. The diction in the second and third paragraph is following the obsession of that world that Dorian had thrown himself into, and ultimately the one that he is trying to undo and get himself out of as well. Imagery in the paragraphs is used to depict the situation, for instance, “…the changing fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have almost entirely lost control.” This is like watching a train wreck happen. The reader slowly starts to see Dorian unravel at the seam, Wilde begins to tear apart the main character with his own Hedonistic obsession. By the third paragraph, the reader sees a cry of desperation and for sympathy from Dorian. He would be good, he tells himself. Dorian makes promises as to hope that they will give him a second chance for falling into deception and sin for so many years, and the diction portrayed makes Dorian look innocent again, like his current appearance.

8. Diana Bayless Mrs. McGee AP English 12 1A November 4th, 2010 Response Paragraph to Articles ”The Awakening" poses many questions of women’s role in society, as well as raises controversy about women’s overall duties, especially on the brink of the nineteenth century when the novel was published. In Jules Chametzky’s“Edna and the ‘Woman Question’”, she [Mrs. Chametzky] raises the questions of womanhood and the things that were playing against women in the time period. She also compliments Kate Chopin’s style of looking into things that in that day and age, women were not thinking of, at least not openly. According to Mrs. Chametzky the ultimate question being asked and answered in the novel is “how to be free in one’s self and for one’s self, but still meaningfully connected to others.” (222) This question can ultimately be applied to anyone, but is more directed at women because of Edna’s struggle throughout the story to gain control over herself, and fine a standing ground underneath of her as an artist, a wife, a mother, and a friend. Thoughts and questions that are brought up by the reader are things like; did Edna’s suicide show the true awakening of women? Were her selfish acts and removal from her family a good way to “find one’s self”? In the time period, were Edna’s actions considered outrageous? Finally, the last question posed by the novel, does it answer the “woman question” and portray a good setting for young women growing up in the time period?

9. Diana Bayless Mrs. McGee 1A AP English 12 November 3rd, 2010 Generally, girls, especially teenagers, tend to take other’s opinions too seriously and obsessing over their flaws becomes a bad habit. In Maggie Piercy’s “Barbie Doll”, a young girl, who is just going through puberty (5) becomes self-obsessed as well as self-destructive. The theme of the poem is carried throughout the second and third stanza, and is achieved through the diction and tone. When Piercy refers to the “classmate” that said the mean things to her, it gives that person no importance, as well as the statement that was said. The tone, which is concerned, but almost irritated is what conveys the problem at hand, and makes the conclusion of the poem so dramatic. I think that Piercy greatly achieves her theme throughout the poem.

10. Favorite elementary school book My favorite elementary school book(s) were the berenstain bears books. My mother bought all of the books for my older brother and when he was done reading them my mother passed them down to me. I think I read over fifty different berenstain bear books before I went into the sixth grade. I loved reading them, and each story taught a moral in some way shape or form, I still have all of the books today in a toy box in my closet.

11. FAVORITE BOOK FROM MIDDLE SCHOOL My favorite book(s) from middle school were “the series of unfortunate events”. I read all eleven books, and thought they were the most entertaining books ever! They always required me to use my imagination to put the story together, and were always full of imagery. I could sit in my bed and get through an entire book in one night. They were also always cliffhangers and so I always had to wait for the next book to come out for like two weeks. It was the most terrible wait ever, however not as heart wrenching as when I was done with the entire series.

12. FAVORITE HIGH SCHOOL BOOK My favorite high school book is easily “Before I Die” by Jenny Downham. The novel is about a girl who gets diagnosed with cancer, and so she pretty much does everything she wants to do before she passes away. I started reading the novel when my stepdad was diagnosed with cancer, and I can say it truly changed my life. It gave me a whole new outlook on life and I still read it once a year just to remind myself of the powerful story.