Wednesday, August 5, 2020

How To Write An Example Essay

How To Write An Example Essay At seven o’clock the first evening, I was treated to my first seminar, and I fell in love with the school as well as its location. We discussed Herodotus’s description of the Battle of Thermopylae. Our tutor, Ms. Shukla, posed the question, “Is bravery reasonable? ” My fellow students and I talked more quickly than I could jot down notes, and I left the classroom feeling more energized and awake than I had two hours before. On our way back to Murchison, my dorm mates and I compared notes on what we had discussed in our different seminars and talked about Leonidas and the Spartans until lights-out. The most important aspect about the Summer Academy was finding my people, the ones who talked about Nietzsche and Plato at lunch and had long debates and poetry slams after Seminar. Making friends was never an easy feat for me, but at the Summer Academy, I found everyone I talked to felt like we had been friends for years. I made an even more intimate group of friends who I still keep in touch with because they are more than friends to me, they are family. What excites me about St. John’s the most is that I have some previous exposure and that familiarity will improve both my understanding of these texts as well as my ability to discuss them. I was able to share my obsession with reading and the knowledge I gathered on any subject I put my mind to. After I came home, I knew I needed more information. I wanted to know more, I wanted to experience it myself. The summer after my Junior year I signed up for a Summer Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. I immediately found my people and a continual comfort of my environment which automatically equated to the feeling of being home. Home is the feeling of being comfortable with the uncertainty and uncomfortable situations. The feeling of being involved, nervous and excited all at the same time. After some rough translation and a lot of thought, they realize the slab talks about the logic process of classifying numbers. Neither of the two are mathematicians but they take upon the task and try to glean everything they can from the inscriptions. Somehow, I found the way this scenario was presented to be engaging and allowed me to be drawn into the story. Their first simple conclusion was that any number is the pair of sets to the left and right of that number. The inscription stated that any element of the left set is not greater than or equal to an element of the right setâ€"a very simple idea upon which to build a number system. At school I would have despised the lesson about water displacement but when I was given the actual works by Archimedes and had to follow the logic on my own it made sense. During the tutorial I loved how the tutor went line by line asking questions for us to discuss and I loved drawing out the diagrams. An easy focus of Rowling’s accessible wordplay are the spells. Usually a crafted mix of Latin and English, their verbalization sounds “magical” but still allows readers to suss out a guess as to the spell’s purpose. My favorite aspect of studying at St. John’s was the environment of free discussion. I love that teachers and students alike go by the simple formal address. This practice helps to foster an atmosphere of respect and equality in the classroom, giving students the confidence to take intellectual risks. The students’ intellectual freedom lived on outside the classroom, inspiring our discussions of the readings over breakfast, during our afternoon free period, and during our evening group meetings. As a high school Latin student, I find this especially impressive. Rowling’s incorporation of Latin, the foundation of many modern languages, lends the spells more universality (who wants spells in English, anyway?) and adds to the realism of the series. As a result of reading this book and the Meno, I have a much different perspective on how knowledge comes into being and how it is communicated, or in the case of my public education, not communicated. I find it very intriguing that with the right story and progression, anyone can be led to not only a deeper understanding of a subject but also a greater appreciation for one. Surreal Numbers follows a couple on vacation on an island. They find a rock with inscriptions written in Hebrew. I have already read some of the books in the curriculum once, and so now I will be able to ‘read a book,’ during my second round of reading and discussion at St. John’s. My junior year in particular was my most interesting round of humanities. It focused entirely on Greek works, starting with Homer and the playwrights, transitioning into Thucydides, and then on to Plato and Aristotle. I enjoyed reading and discussing these works very much. St. John’s is appealing because I will get to read some of my favorite texts for a second time, as well as many new works. When I went to the Summer Academy program last summer in Santa Fe, I found myself most looking forward to the math and science tutorials. While some others groaned that it was time to do our Archimedes reading for the next day, I excitedly isolated myself in the back of the library. I loved reading so closely and spending the time discovering Archimedes’ theories.

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