Please provide a reaction to Mr. Hall's classroom visit. What did you think of the analytical methodology (SQFR) presented over the past couple of days? Were there any other thoughts on the short story that you did not get a chance to make during class?
14 comments:
I think that overall SQFR was a useful way of looking at literature but I would never ever use it as in-depth as Mr. Hall has had us do. No offense but when I read the first and last paragraphs of "The Bride comes to Yellow Sky" I assumed the story was about a marriage that was to take place in the west or some couple beginning their lives in the west. I was proud enough that I came to THAT conclusion but we had to get all deep and analytical and talk about how subtly the east was turning the west and modernizing it and...I didn't get that at all. Sorry. But I hadn't read the story either. Plus listening to Mr. Hall made me feel like a worthless loser who knew nothing about English because I wasn't thinking about it mathematically... UMMM MATH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH LITERATURE. And I still don't understand what the "F" in SQFR means because Mr. Hall described it as making hypotheses. Making hypotheses about what??? And why are we hypothesizing when a hypothesis is an a testable if-then statement, as learned in science class? These were probably the most depressing 2 days of my life. If this is what college is going to be like...idk, I'll form a revolution or something.
Mr. Hall was an extremely different teacher than I am used to. But I really thought everything he had to say was very important and the notes that I took will help me in the future. I thought SQFR was a little over obsessive at first, but once I tried it when reading "The Bride comes to Yellow Sky" I realized it will help me in the future if I could actually get it right. all the notes I took on the story for homework were wrong but hopefully with practice ill be able to get it right. Mr. Hall was very intimidating but I believe he got his message about literature out to all of us.
I thought that Mr. Hall's visits were really interesting. At first i had no idea what he was talking about (the whole SQFR method) but then once we actually tried it out it seemed to actually make a lot of sense. I never bother to analyze a work's title simply because im too focused on reading the actual piece and as Mr. Hall pointed out the title can really say a lot. I'm not sure that i would ever read the first and last paragraph. I feel like reading the end ruins a story but that's probably because id rather read for pleasure. Whatever. But overall I liked getting a different teacher's perspective and i think that his visit was certainly worthwhile.
I totally agree with Amanda! SQFR may be useful, but to spend two whole days on a title and two paragraphs? Really? Titles aren't there to be chopped up into little pieces and examined like a diamond through a microscope; titles are meant to sound cool. Plus, SQFR is too tedious. Did the author really intend for so many conclusions to be drawn out of their work, or are we simply inventing a deeper meaning? I'm not saying SQFR is bad; I'll probably use it when writing college papers. The last thing I'd ever want to do is to use SQFR on a novel I'm actually reading for pleasure though; it would ruin the story for me. It would be like killing an animal to examine its internal structure instead of waiting for it to be dead and completely read.
I think its funny that the one thing my dad remembers about Mr. Hall is SQFR... Anyways, I thought that any analysis works better once the literature is already read, particularly with the last paragraph and the title. However, I found SQFR useful when analyzing the title and the beginning paragraph of the work. As for the last paragraph, I personally don't like to read the end of a piece of literature until I've read the rest of the book first. Perhaps after the book is finished, one should go back and look at the opening and then relate it to the ending. Regardless I thought Mr. Hall was interesting and proposed a different way of looking at literature than I was used to and may prove helpful given the right work.
I loved Mr. Hall's visit, to be completely honest. SQFR was actually really cool. I know that it couldn't possibly always work, but when we did it with "daughter" and the bride one i could not believe how much the first and last paragraph (and title) told us about the story. It's kind of fun to make random hypothese about what the story could be about and see if youre right.
however, at some points i felt like there was NO WAY he could possibly have come to those conclusions about east and west without reading the story first. sure...it made sense after. and it takes a long time. and youre not allowed to use outside works so that's confusing. but overall, i really liked it. And i thought mr. hall was a genius.
It was actually really cool having Mr. Hall come in and teach. It was interesting to get a new version of analyzing literature and to get a fresh face up there(no offense Mr.Cianflone). I like SQFR. I would have never thought to break down a story just by the title alone. I was able to expand on the titles with just one word adjectives and nouns. As Ellen said, I thought he was a very different teacher he was unlike any of the other ones I've had. But still, I actually payed attention the whole time and it did pique my interest to learn something new. I liked analyzing the beginning paragraph but not the ending. I find that reading the ending kind of spoils the excitement because you read to get to the ending of a story but I guess I'm like nicole and I read for fun too. Overall, I enjoyed the visit and the new perspective the class was able to hear
Mr. Hall was a blast from the past, but nothing is wrong with that. Sometimes, the strict old-school is a fresh retreat from today's new wave of teaching. Going to a Catholic middle school, I had a few teachers that were like Mr. Hall. A lot of students didn't like them but that was because they didn't appreciate the genius of their teaching. Mr. Hall is no different. I admire the methods and insight he provides in his lessons and he is an extremely brilliant man (and funny too). The only minor complaint I have is against SQFR. It's definitely a brilliant concept to teach students how to pick apart Literature but I think it's a tad too linear. A lot of people get turned off from using a SQFR in analyzing literature because it's too structured and most want free room to pick apart literature. Nevertheless, SQFR is a great guideline and process.
ok, well the sqfr thing was useful, and i thank him for that. but, i don't think math has a place in literature, if i wanted to take another math class, i would. since i don't, i took AP English Lit with Mr.Cianflone and i would never have taken Mr. Hall's class, or would've and been miserable for 44 minutes everyday. i live my life to be happy...that is my goal, not to become a machine. ever.
I think Mr. Hall's visits have been helpful in providing a different way to analyze a story than we are all used to. I thought it was interesting how the title of a story could provide so much information about the actual plot...although I usually wonder if the author meant for the title to have that much meaning or whether we are stretching it a bit. I definitely think it is easier to SQFR after reading a story rather than before. Overall though, I think Mr. Hall's lessons are worth listening to and gaining a new tool to use when analyzing pieces of writing.
I think his sqfr was something.. different. mr. hall has (obviously) a lot of knowledge and experience, so he does know what he is talking about. but, i don't think i will be using it to such passionate extent as he does. knowing he spends SO much time on the title/first&last paragraphs makes me hesitant to see how he interprets the other 1000 paragraphs in a novel. there wouldn't be enough time in school to interpret a whole story, the way he is going, so i think he means for us to take the experience (and the sqfr thing) and work with it. he broadened my perspective on how to decipher a novel, and i appreciate that.
Well unfortunately, I wasn’t able to hear Mr. Hall’s presentation because I was at orientation for UConn, but I was able to learn about SQFR in class on Friday. I didn’t get to learn in in-depth like Mr. Hall would have explained it those two days, but I thought it was a really interesting way to look at analyzing literature. I liked how in class Friday we applied it to the AP exam question. I think it could have helped me pick up a bit more about the importance of certain parts of the excerpt. I think I should have paid more intention to the title of the novel and looked at it more critically, like we did in class. I think that this method seems like a really good way to go about analyzing a work of literature, it gives you a good idea of what you are going to read.
I'm going to have to go with interesting... Mr. Hall's "squiff" technique was interesting. It did provide a different way to analyze literature, and provide an opening into the depth of the author's message and theme within the first few minutes of looking at a novel, however, the way he presented his technique was questionable. He presented it on a story that Mr. Cianflone identified as well-known to him, after years of teaching it. And the stories that we SQF'd in class were ones that we had already read. In both cases, the stories were already read... we already knew what it was about. So, I'm not so sure that SQFR would work so well on novels that we haven't read. Ofcourse it works well on something that Mr. Hall knows inside out, but is it really that helpful to something we don't know anything about? Oh and the whole extrinsic intrinsic situation... I think that as long as its relevant to the piece of literature we can bring it in to SQFR, unlike Mr. Hall said. It's unreasonable to forget that the author who wrote the story was obviously influenced extrinsicly in their way of writing.
I really enjoyed Mr. Hall's presentation. I never realized that we can analyze and basically summarize an entire story just by readying the begining and the end. When I did my homework, I was happy when I found a few little points because I thought they were good. I was shocked when he criticized almost every idea I had. By "yellow sky" i was thinknig corruption. When Tony said that he turned her down. This showed me to read differently. I should put aside ideas and techinques I got from other novels, and read open-minded now. I enjoyed his presentations, although i did find him a little intimidating.
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