I met two very interesting people from China during our visit to the C.E.S.L. building on Wednesday. I don't remember either of their names, but I enjoyed talking to both of them about their experiences in the U.S., which were similar in certain ways, but also different in other ways. I learned that, in China, it is a requirement for students to learn English fluently before college. I also learned that there is a long and difficult test for graduating high school seniors to pass in order to be admitted into a college.
On a separate note, I was also somewhat inspired by the vibe in the classroom. It seemed as though the students were all very comfortable with one another, and (at least the two people that I talked to) enjoyed the United States more than they expected that they would before moving here. It is interesting to me to see that I have taken some things for granted, or at least never noticed them, because they have always been there; for example, according to one student I talked to, Americans are very kind and warm-hearted. This somewhat contradicts my experiences throughout my life, but it is still interesting to hear someone say it to whom this country is a new experience.
In regards to relating my experience with the reading, I found that the students I talked to were much more interested in the cultural assimilation than the girl in the reading. In the reading, she seemed kind of put off by both Mexican and American cultures, while the students who I talked to were interested (or at least didn't actively dislike) their own original culture, and were also interested the the American culture.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Persona Text
The text I'm thinking of using is a poem that I wrote on September 23rd, 2009 called "Scarce Harvest."
It is sort of a negative view of myself (which is representative of the time period, although unrepresentative of me generally), but it is also (in my opinion) very well written and it has a ton of aspects worth analyzing.
The poem is in first person and it describes a time in my life in which I was completely devoid of emotion (good or bad) using the extended metaphor of a farmer realizing that his/her crops (presumably) were all gone. The narrator of the poem remembers that he/she had moved his/her crops to another location and consequently lost them. After this realization, the narrator wonders if it was necessarily a bad thing that he/she had no crops left.
My poem is difficult to relate to any particular text from class because the format, purpose, and mood are all so different. Arbitrarily, I will attempt to compare it to Tapahonso's memoir, "What I Am."
Similarities between my poem and Tapahonso's memoir include: a distinct break between sections (creating a sense of time lapse), the sense of reflection upon oneself through describing events of the past, both texts are stated in a sort of matter-of-fact tone, and both allude to a bigger and implied concept.
Regarding the differences, I will start from a broad view and move in from there. First of all, my text is a poem, and so a lot of the literary and analytical devices are in a different format (for example, line breaks, rhyme, meter, and context implications). Also, my text is nearly 100% extended metaphor, while Tapahonso's is considerably more literal. The third main difference is that my poem (although abstract) stays within a single topic in a single time period and attempts to explain the main concept from the same viewpoint throughout the text.
Hopefully the poem that I intend to use will satisfy the requirements of the assignment and also of the readers, who know nothing of the context in which this poem was originally written.
It is sort of a negative view of myself (which is representative of the time period, although unrepresentative of me generally), but it is also (in my opinion) very well written and it has a ton of aspects worth analyzing.
The poem is in first person and it describes a time in my life in which I was completely devoid of emotion (good or bad) using the extended metaphor of a farmer realizing that his/her crops (presumably) were all gone. The narrator of the poem remembers that he/she had moved his/her crops to another location and consequently lost them. After this realization, the narrator wonders if it was necessarily a bad thing that he/she had no crops left.
My poem is difficult to relate to any particular text from class because the format, purpose, and mood are all so different. Arbitrarily, I will attempt to compare it to Tapahonso's memoir, "What I Am."
Similarities between my poem and Tapahonso's memoir include: a distinct break between sections (creating a sense of time lapse), the sense of reflection upon oneself through describing events of the past, both texts are stated in a sort of matter-of-fact tone, and both allude to a bigger and implied concept.
Regarding the differences, I will start from a broad view and move in from there. First of all, my text is a poem, and so a lot of the literary and analytical devices are in a different format (for example, line breaks, rhyme, meter, and context implications). Also, my text is nearly 100% extended metaphor, while Tapahonso's is considerably more literal. The third main difference is that my poem (although abstract) stays within a single topic in a single time period and attempts to explain the main concept from the same viewpoint throughout the text.
Hopefully the poem that I intend to use will satisfy the requirements of the assignment and also of the readers, who know nothing of the context in which this poem was originally written.
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