![\"\"](\"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1531\/2020\/04\/z0fsHpvJQCOtnnIEohgyw-225x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For each blog post, there is a picture that I took included; the picture is not meant to directly relate to the text, however, the image is meant to accompany the blog post in a way for you to better enjoy the post and for further reflection purposes. While these photos are not directly related to the text, I thought it added an extra element for a reader to appreciate. I always remember the saying, \u201cA picture is worth a thousand words\u201d. This saying, to me, means that each person will interpret the same photo differently and can, therefore, will be able to find their own conclusion to what the photo means. Art is just as powerful as text and I hope to show how both pictures and text together make for a more meaningful combination. The included image is an attempt to give you the freedom to decide what the text might mean to you. This section includes the pictures that are posted throughout my blog but all in one place for your enjoyment. Personally, these pictures are aesthetically pleasing and help me enjoy reading more!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For each blog post, there is a picture that I took included; the picture is not meant to directly relate to the text, however, the image is meant to accompany the blog post in a way for you to better enjoy the post and for further reflection purposes. While these photos are not directly related […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3060,"featured_media":192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-posts","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":126,"date":"2020-04-10T05:14:35","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T05:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/?p=126"},"modified":"2020-04-29T17:21:35","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T17:21:35","slug":"the-character-lola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/2020\/04\/10\/the-character-lola\/","title":{"rendered":"The Character: Lola"},"content":{"rendered":" Chapter two of Junot Diaz\u2019s book, <\/span>The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao<\/span><\/i>, makes the fictional character feel personal and relatable. Diaz accomplishes this by doing a play-by-play of events, describing everything in detail. This chapter is told from the perspective of Lola at the age of around 14. As an 18-year old, I am basically still a teenager who has a fresh memory of living and coexisting with my parents, being a struggling teenager and having many feelings about life on a daily basis. Many times throughout the chapter, I felt like I could easily relate to Lola and some of the things the character goes through in the book. Several places in chapter two, I would think in my head \u201cI completely understand\u201d while reading the text. Diaz writes, \u201c<\/span>This is how it all starts: with your mother calling you into the bathroom<\/span><\/i>\u2026 <\/span>You were reading <\/span><\/i>Watership Down\u2026<\/span> the book has to go back to your brother tomorrow, but then she called you again, louder, her I\u2019m-not-fucking-around voice, and you mumbled irritably. S\u00ec se\u00f1ora<\/span><\/i>\u201d (51). I think every child and teenager has experienced being called by their parents frustratingly. Another spot in chapter two, Lola says, \u201cAll you do is complain, she said to me. But you have no idea what life really is. S\u00ec se\u00f1ora\u201d (57). As a child of your parents, many times you hear how you don\u2019t know what \u201creal\u201d life is and are told that you basically don\u2019t know anything, at least not yet. Although it is understandable and valid because children haven\u2019t experienced what their parents have, it is annoying to constantly hear that you know nothing. I completely felt and related to the character\u2019s situation, thought, and reaction. Another aspect of being a human, but specifically a child or teenager, is feeling like what you are doing is not enough or significant. Often times, parents don\u2019t help this feeling by not supporting the children in an effective way. Personally, I strongly connected to Lola when Diaz wrote, \u201cWhat it\u2019s like to be the perfect Dominican daughter, which is just a nice way of saying a perfect Dominican slave\u2026 to grow up with a mother who never said a positive thing in her life, not about her children or the world, who was always suspicious, always tearing you down and splitting your dreams straight down the seams\u201d (56). This passage is both powerful and informative; I knew exactly what Lola meant and was feeling, not only because I experienced something similar, but because I knew what she was feeling through the detail and tone of the text. In this chapter, there is a lot of talk about change: Lola not only talks about her mother\u2019s being ill but also her feelings of change with her physical and emotional self. Lola says, \u201cIt was a message more than a feeling, a message that tolled like a bell: change, change, change\u201d (58). Change is something that many of us often hope for, often wait for, and also often dread. However, for Lola, she was fed up with her mother and her life, so change was something she wanted. Lola says, \u201cI looked at the girl in the mirror for a long time. All I knew was that I didn\u2019t want to see her ever again\u201d (59). She is speaking of, what I assume, her reflection in the mirror: the reflection that holds and symbolizes the struggles and frustration in connection to her mother that she wants to rid of. In an attempt to rebel against her mother after being frustrated with her and their relationship, Lola cuts her hair into a short hairstyle that is frowned upon by her mother and culture. This passage and play-by-play of events add to Lola being a personable character. The frustration and feeling being passed through the text make the reader feel what Lola is feeling. The relatable frustration makes the reader be able to connect to the character and understand what she is going through. Lola might be a fictional character, however, Diaz writes her experience and story in a way so descriptive, detailed, relatable, and with feeling that the reader is able to connect, relate, and feel with the character.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chapter two of Junot Diaz\u2019s book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, makes the fictional character feel personal and relatable. Diaz accomplishes this by doing a play-by-play of events, describing everything in detail. This chapter is told from the perspective of Lola at the age of around 14. As an 18-year old, I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3060,"featured_media":232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-posts","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":121,"date":"2020-04-03T14:03:20","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T14:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/?p=121"},"modified":"2020-04-27T18:23:27","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T18:23:27","slug":"primo-levis-carbon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/2020\/04\/03\/primo-levis-carbon\/","title":{"rendered":"Primo Levi’s “Carbon”"},"content":{"rendered":" The story \u201cCarbon\u201d from Primo Levi\u2019s <\/span>The Periodic Table <\/span><\/i>encourages his audience to think about the writing process and the roots by tracing the life of a single carbon atom. Although it seems Levi\u2019s book of short stories is about chemistry, it is not. The purpose of the story, \u201cCarbon\u201d, is to inspire the reader to reflect on writing by looking back to where it came from and how it came to be. Not only is Levi speaking of writing and the writing process, but he is also asking the reader to reflect and trace the same way with anything: to take this story and information and apply it to anything existing in the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Levi traces the life of the periodic element, carbon, as a basis for anything else. Levi writes, \u201cCarbon, in fact, is a singular element\u2026 Therefore carbon is the key element of living substance: but its promotions, its entry into the living world, is not easy and must follow an obligatory, intricate path\u201d (234). At first glance, this quote is simply talking about the element, carbon, its purpose of existence, and some facts about it. However, if you, as a reader, read this passage thinking of what could possibly take the place of the word \u201ccarbon\u201d, you would see that Levi is simply using carbon because it is his way of expressing what he is trying to say. He uses what he knows to get his point across; he knows chemistry, so he uses a single carbon atom in hopes that the reader will know to replace that single carbon atom with their own alternative. In our case, we can replace the single carbon atom with writing. So, what does it sound like when we do this? Therefore <\/span>writing<\/b> \u201cis the key element of living substance: but its promotions, its entry into the living world, is not easy and must follow an obligatory, intricate path\u201d. To me, replacing carbon with writing shows me the same words, but a different meaning that more directly applies to writing instead of carbon. Taking a look at our newly formed sentence, it tells us that we can\u2019t live without writing, but that does not mean how writing came to be how it is today was an easy process. It also says that writing had to follow a required and detailed path to get to where it is. Thinking of what this means, I think of how <\/span>this<\/b> particular writing came to be. Levi might be using the carbon atom, but it is simply a facade for anything else, for example, writing, in hopes for you to think about the roots and process of something.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The second to last page of this story, Levi writes, \u201cIt is possible to demonstrate that this completely arbitrary story is nevertheless true. I could tell innumerable other stories, and they would all be true\u2026 The number of atoms is so great that one could always be found whose story coincides with any capriciously invented story. I could recount an endless number of stories about carbon atoms that become colors or perfumes in flowers\u201d (240). He is saying that you could look at this story, and think that it\u2019s obvious and exchangeable; why write about something that people already know and experience daily? Why try to write about the life of a carbon atom when it could end up anywhere? Levi is speaking on the possibility that you could think this story is pointless due to the fact that he could choose any of the numerous possible places a single carbon atom could end up and just end the story with that. But that isn\u2019t what Levi wants nor is that his purpose of writing this story in the first place. He continues to write, \u201cInstead, I will tell just one more story, the most secret, and I will tell it with the humility and restraint of him who knows from the start that his theme is desperate, his means feeble, and the trade of clothing facts in words is bound by its very nature to fail\u201d (240). This \u201cone more story\u201d is how this writing came to be, the process of the writing of his you are reading right now. This story he speaks of is himself writing this story which we realize when he ends the story saying, \u201cThis cell belongs to a brain, and it is my brain, the brain of the <\/span>me <\/span><\/i>who is writing\u2026 issuing out a labyrinthine tangle of yeses and noes, makes my hand run along a certain path on the paper\u2026 guides this hand of mine to impress on the paper this dot, here, this one\u201d (241). Levi finally clearly tells us the purpose of telling this story. He used a single carbon atom to get the reader to reflect on where things come from. His writing that is being read takes you back to how this writing even exists: a single carbon atom that became a part of a cell within Levi to make him write this story. From Levi\u2019s writing, the reader not only is forced to reflect on how Levi\u2019s writing literally came to existence but also why Levi wrote this and why \u201ccarbon\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n To look back at a single carbon atom and to trace it all the way until it is time to choose what it becomes a part of, we are forced to reflect on how it got all the way to us. Here, we explore how Levi\u2019s writing, out of all places, came to right in front of us to read when it all started as a single carbon atom that could\u2019ve become anything and could’ve gone anywhere.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The story \u201cCarbon\u201d from Primo Levi\u2019s The Periodic Table encourages his audience to think about the writing process and the roots by tracing the life of a single carbon atom. Although it seems Levi\u2019s book of short stories is about chemistry, it is not. The purpose of the story, \u201cCarbon\u201d, is to inspire the reader […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3060,"featured_media":76,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-posts","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":103,"date":"2020-03-27T17:03:34","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T17:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/?p=103"},"modified":"2024-05-03T21:07:23","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T21:07:23","slug":"kingstons-no-name-warrior-from-the-novel-the-woman-warrior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/2020\/03\/27\/kingstons-no-name-warrior-from-the-novel-the-woman-warrior\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingston’s “No Name Warrior” from the novel, “The Woman Warrior”"},"content":{"rendered":" Maxine Hong Kingston\u2019s \u201cNo Name Warrior\u201d story from her book, <\/span>The Woman Warrior<\/span><\/i>, tells a story filled with culture, irony, detail, analysis, and fear. The story is told from the perspective of the daughter who is assumedly Kingston, the author. She tells us about the story taught to her by her mother. The story is about her aunt who had been purposely forgotten by the whole family because of what she had done: gotten pregnant while her husband had been gone for years. The opening of Kingston\u2019s story is somewhat ironic. From the perspective of the girl, her mother says, \u201cYou must not tell anyone…what I am about to tell you\u201d (1). This is ironic since she is literally telling us this story while she supposed to never mention it to the family or to anyone else. I think this story, \u201cNo Name Woman\u201d was told to her by her mother, in hopes that it would scare her, prevent her, and teach her a lesson of the consequences that she would face if she got pregnant or did anything in an untraditional way.<\/span><\/p>\n Kingston tells this story with storytelling techniques in order to represent the Asian-American experience to its full extent. The structure in which stories are told and sentences are built has a lot of effect on how the reader intakes the things they are told. Throughout the chapter, Kingston takes pauses from telling the story of her aunt once in a while to speak on the Asian-American experience she faces in relation to the story. When Kingston\u2019s mother says, \u201cNow that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don\u2019t humiliate us. You wouldn\u2019t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born\u201d (5). This shows us her mother told this story as a warning and preview of the consequences she would face if she broke tradition. Kingston then goes on to tell us about the stories her mother told \u201cto grow up on\u201d and that \u201ctested our [her] strength to establish realities\u201d (5). This all leads to one of the places where she gives insight on the Asian-American experience: \u201cChinese-Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories from what is Chinese?\u201d (5-6). Kingston taking a pause in the story to analyze it for us, allowing readers to both reflect and take in what has happened so far. The question she poses shows the identity crisis Asian-Americans may face while having deep expectations to follow Asian culture and traditions but also living in the American culture. Without her taking time to express this thought by Chinese-Americans, we might have been able to assume the same, however, her doing so gives us the opportunity to actually think about the Asian-Amerian experience in relation to the story. In addition to taking pauses throughout her storytelling, she also speaks on her realizations and takeaways from the story she was told. Kingston creates powerful sentences that both effectively and efficiently show us her thoughts. For example, Kingston says, \u201cThe real punishment was not the raid swiftly inflicted by the villagers, but the family\u2019s deliberately forgetting her…she would suffer forever, even after death\u201d (16). This passage talks about how her aunt was not only purposely forgotten for the rest of her life but beyond that as well. Kingston tells how for the rest of her aunt\u2019s after-life, she will suffer because of what she had done. The quote that I mentioned, I think, is created with powerful words such as \u201csuffer forever\u201d to effectively reflect her aunt\u2019s forever pain and shame; her punishment will never leave her. Kingston, as a Chinese-American is torn between the tradition of Chinese culture and current American culture. Kingston also writes, \u201cMy aunt haunts me- her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her\u2026 I am telling on her, and she was a spite suicide, drowning herself in the drinking water\u201d (16). This quote is not only intense but also ominous and scary. She talks about how her aunt haunts her and I believe she feels this way because she fears to experience the nightmare of her aunt\u2019s fate. Kingston ends this story by saying, \u201cThe Chinese are always frightened of the drowned one, whose weeping ghost, wet hair hanging and skin bloated, waits silently by the water to pull down a substitute\u201d (16). Ending with this powerful sentence, it both sums up the purpose of her mother telling her this story and her inevitable fate if she were to do something similar. This sentence is wildly descriptive, detailed, and frightening. To think that one mistake might lead to being \u201cpull[ed] down [as] a substitute\u201d is frightening. Her saying \u201cpull down a substitute\u201d includes her fear to experience the punishment similar to her aunt and her fear that her family would be quick to do the same to Kingston if she were to break tradition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In conclusion to Kingston\u2019s way of storytelling, she uses powerful sentences and structure of her storytelling in order to express the Asian-American experience throughout re-telling us the story told by her mother. The majority of the text is the story of her aunt told in her own words, however, she occasionally takes a pause from telling the actual story to give her insight and analysis of the perspective of a Chinese-American individual, such as herself. This method allows us as readers to take a step back from the actual story to think and reflect on what it means and what it is like to be an Asian-American. Other than that, when Kingston is giving her own insight and showing her own fears and thoughts, she builds powerful sentences that efficiently reflects the experience of a Chinese-American girl. Personally, I relate a lot to Kingston\u2019s experience and story being an Asian-American individual myself. In my opinion, Kingston\u2019s powerful wording explains perfectly how an individual immersed in both Asian and American cultures might feel and fear in a similar situation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maxine Hong Kingston\u2019s \u201cNo Name Warrior\u201d story from her book, The Woman Warrior, tells a story filled with culture, irony, detail, analysis, and fear. The story is told from the perspective of the daughter who is assumedly Kingston, the author. She tells us about the story taught to her by her mother. The story is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3060,"featured_media":128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-posts","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":49,"date":"2020-02-28T07:40:28","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T07:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/?p=49"},"modified":"2020-04-27T18:24:25","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T18:24:25","slug":"coates-letter-to-my-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/2020\/02\/28\/coates-letter-to-my-son\/","title":{"rendered":"Coates’ “Letter to My Son”"},"content":{"rendered":" In Ta-Nehisi Coates\u2019 \u201cLetter to My Son\u201d, he tries to explain the numerous difficulties, hardships, and what it means to be black in America through his own knowledge and experiences. While the majority of the letter and advice to his son is told by sharing his own stories and the experiences of himself, family members, and people he knew, Coates also attempts to tell and use complicated material in a way that can be comprehended by a general audience including his son. While explaining how black bodies were never represented or celebrated from television to textbooks to important figures in history and government and how his parents banned toys and movies with white faces from the house in order to rebel \u201cagainst the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental \u201cfirsts\u201d, Coates mentions text from the novelist Saul Bellow. He writes that Bellow\u2019s text made him understand how this hierarchy of race connected to the fear that black citizens of America hold; \u201cTolstoy was \u201cwhite,\u201d I understood him to say, and Tolstoy \u201cmattered,\u201d like everything else that was white \u201cmattered.\u201d And this view of things was connected to the fear that passed through the generations, to the sense of dispossession. We were black, beyond the visible spectrum. Beyond civilization. Our history was inferior because we were inferior\u2026 our inferior bodies could not possibly be accorded the same respect as those that built the West,\u201d Coates writes. I hate to include such a long quote, however, I think every piece of this quote from Coates is important because it shows how uses the complicated materials that he has encountered to guide us, a general audience, through his thought process in reading that material and to reinforce his points. Although he only included a single question quote from Bellow\u2019s novel, his explanation and thoughts of it help us understand why he would think this way and how this complicated material helped himself to this conclusion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Coates also talks about an essay that he discovered by Ralph Wiley; the specific quote that Coates brings up is when Wiley writes, \u201c<\/span>Tolstoy <\/span><\/i>is the Tolstoy of the Zulus…Unless you find a profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership\u201d. In response to this quote from Wiley\u2019s essay, Coates writes, \u201cAnd there it was. I had accepted bellow\u2019s premise. In fact, Bellow was no closer to Tolstoy than I was to Nzinga. And if I were closer it would be because I chose to be, not because of destiny written in DNA. My great error was not that I had accepted someone else\u2019s dream but that I had accepted the fact of dreams, the need for escape, and the invention of racecraft\u201d. While Coates thought this quote from Wiley was extremely important to mention to further explain his point, many people, myself included, might have a hard time understanding both the quote alone and the full essay as well if a general audience were to read it. Coates provides us with both an explanation and his thoughts on the quote; he explains how in connection and combination of Bellow\u2019s and Wiley\u2019s complicated texts, Coates was able to come to the conclusion of why \u201cTolstoy of the Zulus\u201d was so important to the comprehension of the hierarchy of race and what that means for him, being black in America; as he tells us, it means that the way to beat this unfair established hierarchy is to dream, have hope, do better, and work harder because his destiny isn\u2019t written in his DNA unlike \u201cTolstoy of the Zulus\u201d. Although there are more examples throughout Coates\u2019 text, I chose these two connected examples because I think it sums up and shows how Coates uses both his own experiences and reflections of complicated material he has come across to help us as a general audience to understand the purposes of those complicated materials to his main points that he is attempting to instill in his son.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Ta-Nehisi Coates\u2019 \u201cLetter to My Son\u201d, he tries to explain the numerous difficulties, hardships, and what it means to be black in America through his own knowledge and experiences. While the majority of the letter and advice to his son is told by sharing his own stories and the experiences of himself, family members, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3060,"featured_media":78,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-49","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-posts","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":45,"date":"2020-02-07T04:01:24","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T04:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/?p=45"},"modified":"2020-04-27T18:24:45","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T18:24:45","slug":"the-bite-of-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/2020\/02\/07\/the-bite-of-music\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bite of Music"},"content":{"rendered":" My music, you inspire me to work.<\/span><\/p>\n How I love the pressure you put on me,<\/span><\/p>\n Taking over my mind, all with a smirk.<\/span><\/p>\n Always run me as busy as a bee.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Compare you to a scorching summer day,<\/span><\/p>\n You are more biting, fighting, and intense.<\/span><\/p>\n But there is the joy seeking through to stay,<\/span><\/p>\n Is it worth it? Does it make any sense?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How do I stand you? Let me count the ways.<\/span><\/p>\n The discipline, my drive, beauty, and sound.<\/span><\/p>\n The passion, better than writing essays.<\/span><\/p>\n I love the intensity all around.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now I must continue with my practice,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mark my words, before it gets suspicious.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I created a Shakespearean sonnet about music and my relationship with music. I chose to create a Shakespearean sonnet rather than a Petrarchan sonnet because I felt as though the Shakespearean sonnet rhyming scheme and structure was more fitting for my idea. Throughout my sonnet, I was trying to describe and show the intense and difficult side to music while still presenting reminders that music is beautiful and joyful even though it is hard. I was also trying to convey how the difficult side is a good thing for me because the difficulty and discipline force me to work hard and give my all. While creating my sonnet, I was attempting to choose the best adjectives and words that will explain what I\u2019m thinking the best and most efficiently since each line can only have 10 syllables. I thought the hardest part of writing the sonnet was picking what words to convey the message I\u2019m trying to say. Since there are restrictions to syllable count, line count, and rhyme scheme, each word has much more value and you are not able to run on and on with your words. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My music, you inspire me to work. How I love the pressure you put on me, Taking over my mind, all with a smirk. Always run me as busy as a bee. Compare you to a scorching summer day, You are more biting, fighting, and intense. But there is the joy seeking through to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3060,"featured_media":28,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-posts","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":37,"date":"2020-01-31T05:49:24","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T05:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/?p=37"},"modified":"2020-04-27T18:24:59","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T18:24:59","slug":"prose-versus-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/2020\/01\/31\/prose-versus-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"Prose Versus Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":" After reading an excerpt from Dorothy Woodsworth\u2019s \u201cGrasmere Journal, 15 April 1802\u201d and William Woodsworth\u2019s \u201cI Wandered Lonely as a Cloud\u201d, it is clear that they had varying perspectives of the same experience. As a reader experiencing Dorothy\u2019s story, I had a sense of worry at the beginning followed by feeling hopeful, then feeling relieved at the end when everything resolves and turns out to be fine. In the beginning, our sense of worry builds up along with the suspense of the situation; for example, she writes, \u201cIt was a threatening misty morning\u2026 The wind was furious\u201d. Towards the middle, the daffodils represent hope and even her language in describing the setting is more positive, using words such as \u201cfancied\u201d and \u201cbeautiful\u201d. At the end of the story, Dorothy writes, \u201cWe had a glass of warm rum and water. We enjoyed ourselves and wished for Mary\u201d; while it is apparent that their situation has not fully resolved, we get a sense of conclusion and hope that they will be okay. While Dorothy told the story as an overall positive, hopeful and resolving experience, William Woodsworth had a differing perspective. William\u2019s poem not only shows themes of isolation and envy but also content. Starting with the line \u201cI wandered lonely as a cloud\u201d describes his loneliness in comparison to the others. \u201cFor oft, when on my couch I lie\u2026 And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils\u201d, William writes. What started out as a lonely and somewhat envying experience, ends in a feeling of happiness for others which makes himself content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Prose and poetry are two ways of expressing feelings or telling stories; while both may convey the same message, I personally am more drawn to prose. Prose and poetry have the potential to represent our experiences the same, however, oftentimes, prose shows more detail to the story than poetry and poetry expresses more emotion than prose. For example, Dorothy\u2019s prose told more of the story than the feeling although we made our own assumptions of her feelings based on what we are told. William\u2019s version in poetry conveys more of the emotion that he felt during the situation rather than the actual events of the story. I like to imagine and wonder the thoughts and feelings of the person in the story so I tend to enjoy prose more than poetry. However, the beauty of poetry is telling the gist of a story while spilling all of the emotions that came with it. I think I will be able to fully appreciate this beauty of poetry when I am exposed and introduced to more poetry rather than always choosing prose over poetry.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After reading an excerpt from Dorothy Woodsworth\u2019s \u201cGrasmere Journal, 15 April 1802\u201d and William Woodsworth\u2019s \u201cI Wandered Lonely as a Cloud\u201d, it is clear that they had varying perspectives of the same experience. As a reader experiencing Dorothy\u2019s story, I had a sense of worry at the beginning followed by feeling hopeful, then feeling relieved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3060,"featured_media":80,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-posts","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":17,"date":"2020-01-24T07:05:10","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T07:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/?p=17"},"modified":"2020-04-27T18:25:15","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T18:25:15","slug":"thinking-through-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/2020\/01\/24\/thinking-through-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking Through Writing"},"content":{"rendered":" After reading William Hazlitt\u2019s, \u201cOn the Pleasure of Hating\u201d and Marcus Aurelius\u2019, \u201cThe Mediations (Book Two)\u201d, I\u2019ve realized that there are many different ways of expressing thought into text whether it is in a more casual voice or scholarly voice. The stylistic choices and voices of the two authors\u2019 works are very different. However, I resonate more with Hazlitt\u2019s way of putting his thoughts into his text because I had forgotten that it is okay to express your thoughts in a more casual and narrative tone as if you were speaking to your audience directly or having a conversation with them. I\u2019ve always thought of writing as a useful tool for both expression and education. On the other hand, I have been thinking of writing only in its scholarly and academic forms after constantly writing different types of essays for academic purposes. Reading Hazlitt\u2019s text made me realize that it is okay to write in a tone that is more casual and that doing so may even enhance the effect of getting your expression and point across to your audience without misinterpretation. In my opinion, putting your thoughts in writing actually helps your thoughts expand and widens your perspective. I have heard that writing things down helps you remember better; I agree with this statement and also believe that writing things down helps you realize the positives, negatives, and faults to your thoughts. Writing things down can help organize your thoughts and potentially aid both your thought process and conclusion. We have so many thoughts that run through our minds every day; it is hard to believe that we can process and organize all of them without some sort of help. I believe thinking through writing is useful because putting your thoughts in writing helps your mind process, organize, and realize even more than if your thoughts are just being stuck in your own head.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After reading William Hazlitt\u2019s, \u201cOn the Pleasure of Hating\u201d and Marcus Aurelius\u2019, \u201cThe Mediations (Book Two)\u201d, I\u2019ve realized that there are many different ways of expressing thought into text whether it is in a more casual voice or scholarly voice. The stylistic choices and voices of the two authors\u2019 works are very different. However, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3060,"featured_media":79,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-posts","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":13,"date":"2020-01-17T19:03:09","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T19:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/?p=13"},"modified":"2020-04-27T18:25:29","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T18:25:29","slug":"aspirations-as-a-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/2020\/01\/17\/aspirations-as-a-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspirations as a Writer"},"content":{"rendered":" Although the majority of my writing has been for academic purposes, I have always enjoyed writing as a way to express my own thoughts, experiences, and perspectives. For me, having to write my thoughts down forced me to learn how to organize my thoughts and how to compose them to convey my purpose. My goal as a writer is to express my perspectives to my audience in the most effective way possible. I would like to continue learning the numerous ways to improve the effectiveness and clarity of my writing. From this course, I hope to practice the skills I learned in the Writing-100 course such as writing strategies from Graff and Birkenstein\u2019s \u201cThey Say, I Say\u201d text. I also hope to explore new ways to better myself as a writer. Some of my biggest weaknesses as a writer are repetition, clarity, word choice, and paragraph and sentence structure. Since I have always thought of writing as a form of expression and communication, these specific aspects that I would like to work on are very important to my writing skillset. In order to achieve my goal of improving as a writer, it is essential that I gain and practice new writing techniques that I am unfamiliar with at the moment. I am here to better myself as a whole and writing is a part of that; to me, my thoughts and perspectives are useless unless I know how to correctly present it to others, whether that be through the form of writing or speech. Through this course, I am ecstatic to acquire further knowledge on how I can become a much better conveyer of my thoughts.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Although the majority of my writing has been for academic purposes, I have always enjoyed writing as a way to express my own thoughts, experiences, and perspectives. For me, having to write my thoughts down forced me to learn how to organize my thoughts and how to compose them to convey my purpose. My goal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3060,"featured_media":30,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-posts","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/bl2951a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1531\/2020\/04\/47sx7vzSFB4b5nOw8Tg-300x225.jpg\")
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