Your Weekly Dose of Sawyer

In class and in the 2nd discussion, a question and debatable topic that stuck out to me was the thought, are we stuck in our habits or are we actually aware? I thought this was a great question because I personally have never really thought about this idea and honestly, I would say that I'm stuck living my life through familiar habits.  With this being true and pondering about this topic, I now acknowledge that I've most likely missed out on situations in which I could have set up myself for enjoyment or more opportunities. With this truth not only being applicable to myself, I began to wonder, why do we allow ourselves to get stuck in these never-ending cycles if they are not, in most cases, bringing us much happiness? Overall, it all leads to the topic of familiarity. We tend to stick to what we know and what we're comfortable with because obviously, it's the easier way to go about it and requires no extra effort. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that having...

Today in our present-day society, there is no doubt that many social issues are unsettled. While many of these social issues will remain unresolved for a long time, given that everyone has the right to their own, individual opinion,  poetry could possibly help.  I feel as if when we discuss and inspect these social issues we are only viewing the simple, head-on interpretation of what they mean, how they affect society, and so on. However through the use of poetry, authors are able to capture and portray a complexity of the issue that was not being seen before. Poetry invokes empathy, compassion, connections, and just overall helps us to realize the pieces that we missed. With this in mind, I believe that it becomes more clear that maybe many of these social issues do lack these components that could prove to be beneficial. When our society talks about and wishes to resolve such social issues, we want one answer because it seems to be our human nature to wish for simplicit...

Poetry is intimidating and difficult to understand but is that because only certain people pick it up or because we tend to avoid it? While poetry is not my favorite topic, I will definitely agree that it is quite underrated. However, whenever poetry does present itself to me, I always find myself wondering, why would anyone wanna sit down and write this? With the handy web, I found multiple ways in which people use poetry, some of which I would've never thought of. One being, it can help you understand your emotions and how you feel towards something. Using this individualistic, no-rules type of writing allows people to break free from boundaries and dig into something deeper. With endless freedom, poetry becomes a way to express yourself in any way you want, making your emotions, motives, and intentions so much clearer to yourself.  Sitting down and taking the time to try your hand at poetry also allows yourself to notice things or see things differently than you had seen them be...

Poetry- the unit that most students dread to learn about in their English class. But why is poetry so disliked among high school students? A few of these reasons, and that I can attest for personally, are that poetry is seen as old, it can be quite difficult to understand/interpret, and we just fail to see the point of it. However, after interpreting some poems in class, my perspective began to shift (only slightly not significantly though). While I am still not the biggest fan of poetry, I am beginning to see a different side to it.  Yes, poetry is all of the negative things that I stated above (at least in my opinion) but once poetry is understood, the lesson becomes that much clearer and applicable. Understanding and correctly interpreting poetry is not only a beneficial skill to have but it also opens your eyes to a deeper understanding to things that are important in terms of culture, history, and etc. For example, poetry has effectively been used to advocate and teach about i...

Who would've ever thought that a philosophical fiction novel and a science fiction, action movie could be so similar. To my surprise the foundation behind both are quite equivalent. Both focusing around the journey of a hero who is essentially on a quest to find themselves and their purpose. The basic boring setup: the boy leaves home, discovers something beyond himself, runs into some trouble, and then finally recovers and discovers the best version of himself. While teaching different lessons and going through different scenarios and interactions, "Siddhartha" and  Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope  are still inherently intertwined. Portraying a hero's journey as the focus of a piece of literary or cinematic work is a technique used in order to "add clarity and interest and depth to the task" all while teaching a lesson. From Siddhartha us readers are exposed to the reality that materialistic values and living in the "plastic world" is truly not ...

During this past semester, I have grown as both a reader and a writer, mainly due to the differing types of literature that we have covered and studied in class. Reading pieces such as "The Stranger" really opened my eyes to another side of literature that I have not seen before. I have never witnessed or read a novel that has a writing style similar to Albert Camus's. Camus's unique way of writing challenged us readers given that most of us have never seen a character such as Meursault. Typically when reading a novel, I am able to connect and understand the protagonist and the reasons behind the way they act. However, when I read about Meursault, I found myself confused yet at the same time, astonished. It became clear that even when a character has an unusual mindset, a theme or message is still able to be portrayed through the author's work. As I was doing my research for the midterm paper and digging into the psychology of authors to understand further why the...