Chen 1 Sunny Chen Ms.

Wilson AP Literature and Composition 28 February, 2014 Final Reflection So the final presentations are over! It really does seem like such a short moment of time, when compared to all the hours of work and preparation put into it. Looking back on it, it was quite the enlightening experience that, despite the effort, was a wonderful lessonin writing arguments, synthesizing pieces of literature, analyzing an author, and of course, time management. I went about this project in a fairly systematic way, though perhaps not in the same order as presented on the project guidelines. Aside from the due dates for the research paper, I first completed all the necessary charts, both prose and poetry. Then I wrote the essays that went along with it. After that I wrote my multiple choice questions, and then I finally tackled the AP Open questions. I think I did it this way because it went from specific to broad. The prose passages were specific examples of the texts I read. The poetry essays brought in outside material while drawing back to the texts. The multiple choice questions expanded upon themes and things that could be seen on the AP exam. Finally, the AP Open questions dealt with the works as a whole instead of small moments. This helped with understanding and building upon the themes presented in my texts. As for the presentation, I went with the standard Microsoft PowerPoint. To be honest, I was going to meddle with the design of the presentation some more after I put on all the material, but I realized that the simple black and white fit the wedding theme perfectly. In terms of structure and organization, I was definitely looking for a method to

Chen 2 incorporate all of my material without making it repetitive, dull, and obviousfor example, simply going through my passages and poems as if they were in a list. With this objective I came up with the piece, analysis, piece, analysis format, all under an umbrella topic, which was then under one of my texts. This made the presentation easy to follow and the ideas connective throughout. When reflecting on my own performance, I would like to say I did a fairly decent job of getting my ideas across. I wrote out my entire speechcolloquial wording and allin fear that I would forget one of the important points. This did lead me into the pitfall of not making eye contact with my audience, but I think that the tradeoff was worth. If I had more time though, I would have definitely polished upon my speech and presentation skills. I also think I spoke particularly quickly, something I have noticed about my speeches for a while now, and that came from when I timed my presentation the night before. It came out to be incredibly close to twenty minutes with nonstop talking, so I was worried that I might go over time. This led to me cutting out the reading of Sonnet 29 and some of the minor details I had previously wanted to include. Something else I think I could have incorporated was more activities for the audience. I did have some humor when it came to the rules of the Regency erawhich made people laugh, I was gladbut I would have liked to use a class activity that got my peers to think and do some analyzing of Jane Austens works themselves. Besides the things I listed above, some other ways I could have went about this project was to use more engaging material. I noticed that some of my classmates used videos in their presentations. Pride and Prejudice does have many movie adaptations, and I think it would have been interesting and more effective if I showed a clip of one of my prose passages or pivotal moments. I also discovered a modernized version of Pride and Prejudice after my presentation,

Chen 3 which I found highly amusing and one of the best adaptations I have ever watched. This would have added another degree of analysis in my presentation. Something else I could definitely improve upon is time management, as I stated earlier. I admit that I was not too productive on the days we had in class to work and allocated most of the assignments in the last two weeks before the date of my presentation. This was a bad, though not awful mistake on my part. I managed to catch myself before it was too late, and I planned out a day-by-day schedule of what was to be done in time for the presentation. The only problem with that was that I was pretty much writing one to two essays every night, coupled with the work I had from other classes. So if I had to do this project again, I would definitely watch my progress and manage my time effectively in order to reduce the workload the night before the presentation. I definitely found the presentations useful for the AP exam. My classmates blogs are a wonderful tool to come back to when I review for the test in May. They have great examples of works that could very well be on the AP examthat would be some luck if one of them just happens to beand many of the multiple choice questions are good practice for the upcoming test. That being said, there is still a lot that I can do to prepare for the exam: going over literary devices, types of poetic meters, analyzing poems and prose passages, timed writings, etc. However, this project has helped me grasp an understanding of where I am at the moment as well as give me a lot of knowledge that is very useful for the test. And truly, despite all the work that went into it, this project really was a fantastic way to learn about literature!