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[juankzaz]

Reflection on Songs & Music

Hello everybody!

It has been a while since the last time I wrote, almost 5 months. It has ended another period in school and I am starting my final period in high school. During my first weeks, I have learned a lot about music and how different artists portray their style and meaning on their songs. 

Since the beginning of the course, we have mainly talked about music and all its elements. The way it is created, compositions and performance, and the communication of messages or meanings. There was an activity that I really enjoyed, which consisted in creating a creative presentation in order to communicate the elements of a certain song. In our case, my partner and I worked on Yesterday and it was a wonderful experience because we really took our time to discuss the proposal. We finally decided to do a type of role play between Paul Mcartney and George Harisson. It was a little bit funny but great. However, it is important to mention that our classmates did not look well on our presentation because they argued it was not creative enough. But, my partner and I do enjoy doing this type of activity. Through this activity, I could see the importance of being conscious about the elements of a song because it implies a better understanding of the message and it can provide a better experience while listening. Also, it is important to mention that the literal phrases and sentences of a song (lyrics) do not always express or describe the real message an artist is trying to convey. In fact, it might be the opposite because there are several interpretations of one text. However, we can know the original message by knowing more about the author’s inspiration and relation to other texts. 

Finally, all these weeks have really helped to understand many things I used to ignore. For example, musica can be often underestimated but it can be considered as a complex method of communication about feelings, thoughts and even abstract things. And I hope this knowledge contributes in order to achieve good scores at IB and parcial exams.  Thank you for reading until this part. :))

[juankzaz]

Reflection 1 - 5th

Hi there!!

I’m finally back after being absent for almost 4 months :0000, I’m so sorry my dear fans. I have learned a lot during these last weeks, since my semester started at my English lessons. We have discussed advertising and discourse, as the main topics and the ones I can remember better. :D

At the beginning of the course, we talked about advertising but, specifically about advertising commercials. But this does not mean that we do not discuss other social media, in fact, we talked about print and posters advertising. There was an activity that I really enjoyed, which consisted in a ranking of my favorite 10 advertisements. At first I was looking at YouTube but, as I was browsing, I started to remember some commercials I used to watch and enjoyed since I was little. This was a really enjoyable activity. I could see the importance of advertising in order to achieve some goals that might encourage the public to buy a certain product or even an ideology. And this is directly related to the next topic, that was discourse. 

After the advertisement topic weeks, we talked about different types of discourse and how it can be so important to identify each one of them, as well as, the subtext of them. We had done many activities about this, but a few days ago, it was liberated as an activity that consists in analyzing a discourse and identifying all its elements. And sincerely, I have not finished it because the discourse to analyze is very long, and the process has become a little bit tricky. However, I’m really sure I am going to do it very well and that will contribute to my development at parcial IB exams. Also, this activity helps in a certain way with my Extended Essay, which my topic is related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the recognition of USA in 2017. :D 

Also, something we have been doing since the second week is elaborating an advertising campaign and my team have decided to buy a service. This service basically consisted of the rent of a girlfriend and boyfriends. I think it’s a really good idea and that we are going to expose ourselves and the service very well. After deciding on the service, I sincerely matched this idea with another one from an anime known as Rent-a-Girlfriend. It’s really great and I totally recommend it. 

Finally, all these weeks have really helped to understand many things I used to ignore and do not give them the real importance. And I hope this knowledge contributes in order to achieve good scores at IB and parcial exams.  Thank you for reading until this part. :))

[juankzaz]

3

Hi everyone, I’m back after almost a month :0. I have done and learned many things through these 4 weeks. In my english lessons I learned more about the cinematography and its visual elements. 

Since the first period of the semester, we talked about the visual elements and how they can create meaning in visual texts such as manga. And in this second period, we have been talking about the visual elements but in cinematography and photography. Sincerely, those clases are very interesting because they give me another perspective on how to see a movie or a shot. 

At weekends I usually see series and movies and when I was watching them I started to focus and analyze the scenes. I reaffirmed that visual elements help to interpret the theme of a movie. Also, I started to identify the type of shot used on scenes and films. 

The visual element that caught my attention and for me is easier to identify, was the type of shot. Since the previous semesters I studied them in Creativity classes, and since then I like them very much. For some people they can be smaller things in comparision with the whole movie and even irrelevant but I think they can make a huge difference on the final result. 

I have been working on my second Term Essay and it’s been easier for me because since the beginning I understood the purpose of it, so I didn't have any confusion this time. :) 

Also, thanks to the lessons about visual elements on cinematography and photography, doing my Term Essay isn’t difficult anymore. I hope and I am sure that I will have a better grade on my final delivery of the Term Essay. 

Finally, I recommend you guys to search about visual elements in a film, I am sure you won't regret it. Thank you for reading until this part. :))

[juankzaz]

Hi :)

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I uploaded my first blog on Tumblr. In the last three weeks, I had worked very hard on my Term Essay of English and that’s why I couldn’t write new blogs.

First, when I saw the activity of the Term Essay I was a little bit nervous because writing in English is very difficult for me. However, when my teacher said that we were going to do some drafts, I felt more confident. Then in the first draft, I didn’t get the idea of the activity so my feedback was huge. As time passed, I was understanding better the activity and that was reflected in the second and third drafts. Finally, last Friday I uploaded the Essay and I felt sure with my development. My writing skills are better than in the first weeks of the semester. I noticed that on formal essays I must eliminate the contractions and the vague words. Also, I saw the difference between interpreting an image and telling what happens in the image.   Last week I finished Monster, the manga that I had written about in the previous blog. In that graphic novel, I had learned a lot of things. One of the most important things is that in every human there is a sense of humanity and goodness and the disposition of helping others. Yes, it’s right that it can be bigger or smaller in each person but, in the end, there is always gonna be the idea of helping others. Also, I had learned that how people act depends on their atmosphere. The environment in which a person lives, it’s very important and that can define their behavior. If a person sees war, death, or something uncommon, this person might be influenced by that and probably those situations are gonna be ok for him.

I recommend this manga and I hope I can read more texts like Monster. This would be all, thank you for reading until this part. See you on the next blog.

[juankzaz]

My first blog :)

Hi everyone!

This is my first time here on Tumblr so I don’t know how it works but I would like to talk about me. I am going to talk about what I have learned in my first 3 weeks in the second year of high school. I hope you enjoy it. :)

In my first lessons of Literature, we had an activity that consisted of answering the question: What is literature for you? First of all, I want to tell you what my answer was. For me, literature is any type of text that can transmit you something, that you can get a message or that has a value. However, I saw that this can be very subjective depending on each perspective. After that activity, we had a group discussion and I heard some of my partner’s definitions, and in most of them I coincided. I changed my opinion after the discussion, I noticed how subjective the literature can be.

Also for the first time, I read manga and I was impacted. I didn’t use to see anime or read manga because I thought it was boring but now, after reading many chapters I can see that it can be very interesting. I’m reading Monster, by Naoki Urasawa and I am amazed, all the plot and the character's history, with scenes full of action and suspense, make this graphic novel a very good one.

I considered this graphic novel as literature, yes it’s not the same as reading a book than a manga, because a graphic novel isn't as constant as a nongraphic novel. But I think this type of novel can make you feel something, can transmit you something and for me, that’s the most important thing to be considered as literature.

I have too many expectations from reading this novel and I hope I can read more interesting texts in class. I recommend this book to all people.

I will continue talking about my life but not in this blog. Thank you for reading until this part. :)

[juankzaz]

Buenas a todos !!