Thursday, March 21, 2013

Poetry Presentations Responses

Group 2
"Poetry" was an interesting poem because it talked about how poetry isn't all about pretty words, it is about the message. I find this true in all writing, honestly. One can pretty up all the language, but it is about the underlying message. It was also cool how they explained this without specifically saying it through metaphor and imagery such as the "critic twitching his skin like a horse that feels a flea." The presentation was also well done and informative.

Group 3
"The Red Wheelbarrow", "The Great Figure" and "This is Just to Say" were short poems that utilized vivid imagery to paint a picture. None of the images described were particularly out of the ordinary or interesting if one were to just look at, but William Carlos Williams did a good job of making them stand out. I especially enjoyed "This is Just to Say", I found it to be kind of funny and true to life. My sisters are always taking

Group 4
Jonah had a very good reading of "Somewhere I Never Travelled", and put a lot of meaning into the poem. I also found the new term that I learned, synaesthesia, to be interesting. The poem itself was also well done because it has such skillful metaphors that also paint an image. This is seen in such lines as "you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens." Overall this poem is very romantic and a good read.

Group 5
I enjoyed the poem "Red Slippers" because it is so true to life. As people we always find passion in something but drop it as soon as something better comes along. Take iPhones for instance. Obviously people still like their phone, but there quite the number of people who just jump onto the next phone as soon as it comes out. This is seen when the red slippers "flatten out." A small thing I liked about this was that the words red slippers were always written in red.

Group 6
The poem Helen skillfully related the situations of Helen of Troy to feministic ideals. I also liked how they used a movie trailer as their intro, although for such an all-star cast the movie itself looks a tad absurd. One thing I found interesting was how Greece "hates" Helen, for causing a war. I never looked at the situation from that perspective and it makes sense.

As far as my presentation goes, I think we did well. We worked pretty well together and I think we pulled through. We did deviate a bit from the provided format, so it is possible some of our points might not have been as clear as possible. We should have made it clear exactly what our evidence was on the powerpoint instead of just dropping quotes and saying it.

The only complaint I have is that we had a lack of direction until very late. We had ideas about the poems, but they really didn't work until around Monday when we cleaned up our thesis. However, this made it kind of a scramble and thankfully we had Tuesday as well due to class meetings. Again, I think we did well overall but those are just a few criticisms.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Blog #2: Design

This blog most prominently features two different aspects of design: typography and colors. The titles of posts and the blog itself are both written in Paytone One, which is a fun, bold font. It gives a mixture between formal and informal, and isn't so bold that it is unreadable or will go "out of style" quickly. The rest of my text is in the more formal Arial font. This is because my posts themselves are more serious and I want them to be simple, easy to read and in a formal style. They don't need the same draw as the titles do with Paytone One.

My background is a picture of a galaxy, featuring blues and purples. Blues and purples are relaxing colors, making the blog a more cool, relaxed environment. The boxes which hold my text are written in white to emphasize they are the space for the text, the meat of the blog. They also have a contrast with the darker background. Finally, my blog is also arranged in a way so that no colors are too overpowering and the various boxes are all convenient for viewing.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Me In Review


My name is Riley Hulbert. I came into this world a baby, and now I am a teenager. Cool stuff, right? When asked to describe myself I would say I am smart, funny, talented, good-looking, interesting, strong, wise, and of course modest. My family consists of me, my parents, and my 3 sisters, with me as the oldest child. I have two dogs, a cat, and a turtle (note: I do not actually own a turtle, but a turtle sounds more interesting).

I play cross-country and track every day, because I like to move very fast. I might be faster than Sonic the Hedgehog, but I don't know since we've never raced (Sonic if you are reading this hit me up). Naturally, I am a pro gamer with my pro gamer skills. However, I still am a fine arts enthusiast and look at the pictures on Yu-Gi-Oh cards almost every day. Rock on, Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Evidently, I am also an avid blogger now. Blog on, English 3B, blog on.