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"I believe the greater the handicap,
the greater the triumph."
John H. Johnson
the greater the triumph."
John H. Johnson
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Reflection
This is my blog assignment #15 and am glad that I have been able to come this far. In this blog I will be reflecting on what I have learnt in my English Composition 100 class. I am focusing on the following as a writer such as: My author identity and how it has changed me during this period, My theory of writing and how it has impacted the way I define writing, The composition concepts or terms that I value most. My growth as a writer, how much I have grown in terms of my writing skills compared to when I first started the class. Lastly, how I intend to transfer the knowledge I have gained to future writing situation. I will be using my blog assignment #7 that talked about the afore-mentioned which was mainly vblog as a guide or reference. A lot of things added to my growth in the class especially with the help of my lecturer. The assignment blogs really challenged me in writing, I am still struggling but I am not where I used to be in terms of writing. I now know the different ways of writing especially when it comes to memoir writing. It is an amazing experience. I now know how to create a Weebly Website, Multimodal, create blog, vblogging, four principle of design and all that. Also, the relationship we have established in class among us students has been a wonderful one, this was made possible because of the way the lecturer relate with everyone by introducing to the class the importance of discourse community. Lastly, is the research project, the lecturer made us understand that for whatever topic you choose as a student, you can decide to co-author with one or more students. The opportunity was made use of by three of us students in class, and it is a memorable experience knowing or having the idea of co-authoring. Everything I have learnt in this class has been with the help of the lecturer who did not only see us as students but as people with purpose and brighter future. I am going to move on by using everything I have learnt in this class for the future.
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masculinity impact on American boys for a positive society Reflection
This is blog post #14 which talks about the research project and other related issues. When the responsibility came to do a research in any topic of choice based on some the outlined ones. With two of my classmates as co-authors (Francis Bracewell and Zahedu Islam), the choice of writing about “how American parents can redefine masculinity in their sons” was concluded. Picking a thesis statement was one of the major challenges that came up and with the help of the instructor, Sabatino Mangini who has always been there for everyone in class rescued the situation and a thesis statement as well as major points were born. It was not an easy road though but the amiable co-authors with a bond among us made the road smoother than it was thought. The deadline was something that was another challenge but for the fact that each and every one of the trio who co-authored has special and unique skills for making the project a success was tirelessly involved. Arguments, misunderstanding all came up but it was towards a successful result. Fortunately, the deadline was meant and the first draft was posted with so much sigh of relief from the trio. Honestly, this is the first experience of co-authoring and interestingly, it would be a memorable one especially working with these two geniuses (Francis Bracewell and Zahedu Islam), these guys are just awesome and patient because ordinarily, it can be difficult working with a woman and these guys were and still and will be willing to patiently co-author with a woman like Florence when such opportunity arises because it would be another great experience to do it all over again with them. Reflection
The Mask You Live In, happens to be one of the documentaries watched by the English Composition class, and it dwelled on teenage boys with pains and emotions enveloped on the inside of them without even the parents sensing such issue. This, most often lead some of the male teenagers into some awkward situations in life as a result of the fact that the boys keep everything to themselves and act as if everything is alright. This is the idea they got or keep getting from their parents that boys don’t cry, boys don’t accept defeat. The Mask is an object which could be physical or abstract, covering the real person because of fear of exposing who they really are or the pain they are going through. This singular issue end up destroying some young and vibrant teenage boys or adults. You Live In is another powerful words. When someone is forced or voluntarily live in a place or situation or life. When the two sentences come together it becomes living in a place of discomfort while presenting a different picture of self. One major thing that caught so much attention and concern was the situation some of the boys end up. What seems to be a bit of struggle in writing this project is getting facts that would convince parents and children as well as teenagers that living in such situation is detrimental to the future of that child. To work on such project with a successful feedback professionally, funds will be required which is another struggle. Comparing this research project to other ones that have been completed, this is more emotional and very much personal because of the way some children or teenagers have wasted their lives due to their predicaments. This research work will be very educative and informative to everyone. My writing goals is to write to change lives thereby deriving joy. The only way that can be done is to always write based on realities of life. The overall reflections is basically on the amount of pain and heaviness this teenagers go through. Also, the state of their parents seeing their children live. Unfortunately, the boys think keeping things to themselves will help them get over their situations. But it does not work that way rather it destroys, and that is why young people must learn to open up to their parents. Reflection: My English Comp. Class
My few first few attendance in the English Composition class were strange and different from other classes because of the things my lecturer asked us to do. The first one was for us students to write things about ourselves and drop on the lecturer’s table which were later exchanged with other students. Once the student that picks your paper reads what is written, the class would guess who has the paper. I have attended different classes at different times in my life and it has always been the same traditional way of attending classes. The most unique thing that could happen would be for the teacher or lecturer to ask us students to introduce ourselves, which would end there without further interaction with anybody except otherwise fate brings two people together to become friends, other than that you may not have any closeness. Interestingly, in my English Composition class as anchored by my amiable lecturer, used the above introduced caption to bring the class together as one happy family called “the discourse community” which is different from the traditional student-to-student or student-to-lecturer relationship. After the first experience other things started coming up weekly which made the class become more interesting and lively. We have been doing lots of emotional writing that are helping students bring up personal issues and life experiences. My lecturer could ask us to write about our personal objects or come up with things that would bring out the best in an individual students, he also encourages use to do things and at the same time praise you for the effort you are putting in as students. He has helped us become friendly to one another in class. Any time I come across other students we always stop to say “hi” to one another because I realized that a kind of bond has been created among us students. We do not feel ashamed sharing our personal issues in the class or on our individual blog pages as a result of the fact that we see ourselves as one family or members of a discourse community. I usually look forward to attending classes every week because of the joy I personally derive for being around my classmates and lecturer. It is so emotional and fulfilling being in class because of the way we hug ourselves, smile and render assistance to one another within and outside class. Unfortunately, this is not the only class I attend but it will always be the class that changed my life as per relationships with classmates. I would wish that the School authority can make such innovative idea compulsory in every class so as to create good relationship among student, help reshape individual emotional state, thereby eradicating or minimizing emotional bottle-up in an individual student that could lead to drug use, suicidal, shooting or other negative vices. I personally benefited from what my lecturer made us do in class because I was relieved of the emotional stress I was carrying with me I look forward to keeping the relationship going among us students while we organize a reunion ten (10) years after this class as members of the discourse community, with our lecturer present. This can be achieved by collecting individual details while we create a database. I would also make use of the opportunity I got from this class into other areas like my job and business or with other close friends and family members. Reflection
As few of us women of about 60 in number sat to discuss the funeral arrangement of one of the brothers in church who just passed and how the women have been working so hard to give the brother a befitting funeral ceremony, a lady raised her voice that “with all our efforts as women, men still see us as being less than them.” I asked about the pain and confusion that has also enveloped the deceased son. Is anyone concerned about his emotional moments or trying period? This two important issues brought my mind back to the documentary on Miss Representation and The Mask You Live In. After watching Miss Representation which talked about the misrepresentation of women I asked myself these three questions: how has the documentary impacted my being, knowing and doing. How it impacted my being, I have always told myself that women are specially created by God to be strong, builders, intelligent, multitasking, home organizer, great mothers, sisters, aunts, great friends and supporters. By subjecting women to be less than men or object of ridicule without encouragement from the men is totally wrong and unacceptable. How has it impact my Knowing, the documentary has not really changed anything from what I am already aware of about how women are being treated or looked upon. I have worked with women who are at top management levels, and my very own sister happens to be one of them whom her husband divorced because of her position and influence Will the miss representation of women affect my doing negatively, I would say “no.” I look at men or other women who bring strong women down as being weak and less confident. Woman or women is just an identity, women are not created with a tag on their heads as less human or less than men. We are just the architect of all these believe about women being subject to the men. The media as an entity needs to stop blowing the issue of miss representation of women out of proportion, and begin to portray women positively to the world. Once that is done and great things are promoted especially about great women, people will begin to see women from a different perspective with lots of respect. The Mask You Live In which was the second documentary, talked about male kids with pains and emotions enveloped on the inside of them without even the parents sensing such issue and this mostly lead some of male teenagers into some awkward situations in life. How has this documentary impacted my being, knowing and doing? These are issues that I have dealt with as a journalist as I researched on why some teenagers or even grown up men do the things they do. It was discovered that about 85% to 90% of male children lack attention and affection from their parents. As a result some of them end up miserable or join bad gangs for solace. How has it impact my knowing? Like I said, it is not something new to me but I am glad that some other people in our discourse community will learn from this and begin to pay more attention and show affection to their children irrespective of their ages. I met a 6-year boy during my research on “Why some children put up some weird behavior”, the boy narrated how he has been neglected since his younger brother was born and that the only thing that comes to his mind was to get rid of the younger brother so as to win his mother’s love back. How has it impacted my doing? There is need for media awareness campaign on how to have a good parent-child relationship. I already know this but for the purpose of the discourse community, parents need to do more work of being friends to their children by going very low to their levels in order to get the best out of them. It is also very important to know that no matter how young your child is he or she deserve respect with dignity. Reflection “A discourse I will mean: a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or “social network” James said. While we pulled our chairs to seat at the writers’ conference where I met James Paul Gee the author of “What is Literacy” among other great writers. “Does it mean it covers all facets of life in terms of specialization, because my lecturer also explained to us in class that my English composition class is a discourse community” James nodded to affirm the claim as we sat and went on discussing on the subject matter (Our Discourse Community Values). It was very obvious that James knew much about writing as he explained more to me about Our Discourse Community Values. As we went on discussing, another prolific writer and poet Pablo Neruda writer of “We Are Many” joined us in the conversation. “This is Pablo Neruda” James introduced him and vise-versa. Pablo lit up the conversation with jokes and fun but James quickly interjected by telling him that I want to be a writer and to also know more about discourse community values. Pablo was pleased to hear that while he promised to help in whichever way I feel he would be of assistance which I was glad to hear. Some of the values as writers James and Pablo explained were certain guidelines as a writer which they said include ones identity; that I must derive joy in writing; I must also know why and how I am writing; I will need to specify my target audience and lastly, my writing has to be based on past, present and future connection so as to have meaning among other values. Furthermore, Pablo asked if I have ever felt something each time I write and he explained to me how he usually feel using this statement “while I write, I am far away; and when I come back, I have already left. I should like to see if the same thing happens to other people as it does to me, to see if as many people are as I am, and if they seem the same way to themselves.” I was quick to answer that the same thing do happen to me when I am writing especially my emotional scenes in my English writing class. That was when James jumped to my question of that as writers we belong to one discourse community because we feel and reason the same way because we are in the writing community with the same value. That was when the discourse community thing really started making meaning to me. James went further to explain it with this follow-up statement “Discourses are inherently ideological, they crucially involve a set of values and viewpoints in terms of which one must speak and act, at least while being in the discourse, otherwise one doesn’t count as being in it.” I wanted to be clearer as I asked this question “Which means, one has to be fully involved just the way I am in the English Composition class or as a writer.” I could not thank them enough for these information and the opportunity and privilege given to me to be in their midst. James, finally added that “there are many points one can make about discourse” and he also stressed it that one of the values of being in the discourse community is involvement and commitment depending on where you belong. James, Pablo and myself later joined in the open conference after the 20-minutes interaction with one another which was the opportunity I had to speak with James and Pablo. I also met other writers too at the conference. Reflection
The purpose of the digital post is to reflect on what I have learnt so far since I started the English composition I00 course based on my blog. I am going to explain three major concerns as regards to my blog which include suffering, flourishing and functioning in relation with my website design. The design that are segmented into Home; About; Narrative Project; Research Project; Contact and Blog are what I would base my assessment on using the above three criteria (Suffering, Flourishing, Functioning) to judge my performance. Home Page: Functioning I would say it is functioning because quotes, photo and my three goals as well as the welcome write-up the background are done but not as expected especially with uploading pictures to the background which I am still struggling with. I am still improving by the day to make it better. About Page: Functioning My about page is functioning because I being able to do a few things to the best of my knowledge or ability but will continue to improve on it as time goes on. Narrative Project: Functioning I think I would say it is functioning because activities are taking place on the page, but I know there are still more to be done particularly my drafts which I keep working on. My background image is messed up and cannot fix it properly, which why my personal photo is yet to be on the background until I am able to get it fixed. Research Project: Functioning Is this page up to date? That is the question I am asking myself now. I would say not quite but there is certainly room for improvement because I definitely know how I started and where I am today as per what I can now do on my web page. Contact Page: Suffering Honestly, regarding my contact I do not know what to do aside from the my photo, quotes I have not added any other field but I would ask question as I have always being do so as to be sure of what needs to be done on this page. Blog Page: Functioning This page is functioning because this is the page where almost every of my posts go to for blogging. My photo, quotes are there but just like I said concerning the other pages there is room for improvement. Reflection Before now, I never knew the difference between genre of writing in terms of fictions or non-fiction, and specific style of writing. My identity as a writer is now becoming clearer and more meaningful to me and I have been able to identify my style which is more of non-fiction and emotional scene. I see myself in the future being a motivational speaker and writing my memoire based on my emotional life and experiences. Bellow is my video on reflection and I hope you enjoy it. Introduction
“My mother passed this evening at about 4:30pm and I am so confused that I do not know how or where to start from, this is totally devastating for me, too much for me to bear Shade.” Tears rolled down my cheeks as I spoke with my colleague on the phone that evening. Remembering My Dear Mother I can still remember that very evening when I got a phone call from my uncle that my mother passed a few minutes after I spoke with her on the phone. The pain, the confusion, the fear of handling the loss kept running through my mind, yet I was determined to give my mother a befitting funeral that she asked for. My mother had the premonition that she was going to die and based on that, she started telling me how she wanted her funeral to look like. She had even called a professional photographer and took photographs that we would use during her funeral, but I could not believe everything she was telling me until it happened. She had been sick for close to three months and at first we thought it was just minor pains, until she kept complaining of seeing dead people coupled with all kinds of dreams that she could not explain. My mother was on and off hospital bed without solution or any form of diagnosis. It was a very trying period for me, my uncles and siblings because of the fact that the Doctor or laboratory report could not find any specific problem other than pains. “The pain is getting worse by the day, I don’t think I can bear this anymore, it is better to go be with the lord” was what my mother told me on the phone one Saturday evening “mummy you will be fine” I replied. After that conversation my mother would call me and begin to tell me how she would want her funeral to be, the kind of casket; the people that would take the readings in church as well as the Rev. Father to lead the funeral Mass because she was a catholic. I remember then when I was scared of how to go about everything my mother told me before she passed, my friend, Jennifer was the one that stayed with me during that trying period. She kept encouraging me that I am a strong lady with a strong will. Jennifer said one that that gave me courage “Ebun, if your mother did not see you as being capable to handle her funeral with details she wouldn’t have been telling you because you are not the only child.” That was when I started getting my confidence. It is precisely eight years that my mother passed but the first one year was one I will not forget easily because I was close to my mother and we were used to speaking on the phone at 11pm every night and when she passed the vacuum was there which became difficult for me to erase but as years go by it keep fading away. A True Story Of Two lovers In Relation To The Story Of A Boy And A Girl In The “Hills Like White Elephants” Written By Ernest Hemingway. Introduction The night was long gone as we could only hear the birds sing, yet it was a sad night for me and maybe for Wale because it can be difficult to predict the man when such situation arises. A very sad and emotional true story of two lovers like the girl and the boy in the story “Hills Like White Elephants” written by Ernest Hemingway. This Is My Story I was bleeding profusely in the middle of the night and this time I could not talk because I was weak. “I have been here from 10:PM, there is no improvement,” Wale said. “Should I call your parents or your sister” I still could not talk. Wale picked the phone and called my sister. “Hello dear, how are you feeling, do you want to see Dr. Aina?” my sister asked me on the phone but I could not respond, so she decided to speak with Wale. “Okay ma, I will call mummy to send a car and driver" "am not in the right sense of mind to drive” was Wale’s response to my sister. “Eby, Eby, I will call mummy to send us car so we can go to see the Doctor” “Hello ma, Eby is not feeling good" "she has been bleeding since I got here last night” Wale told mummy on the phone. At the hospital, all necessary tests were going on as I was taking drip. “What is the problem Doctor, is she okay” “Will she make it?” “Is the pregnancy still there?” “Doctor, please, I don’t want her to die” “She has been bleeding since I got to her place last night” Doctor Aina finally responded “she will be fine, it is just a matter of some hours” “What about the pregnancy” asked Wale" “do you really feel you are ready to be a father” but Wale kept quiet as Doctor Aina asked him the question. “I really love Eby but we did not plan the pregnancy” I was scared of losing her if I suggest we get rid of the pregnancy” “She is just three months gone” “Any time I remember she is pregnant I get confused because am not ready.” “Anyway, Eby is okay and the pregnancy is fine” said the Doctor. “Doctor, I thought Eby lost the pregnancy due to loss of blood” Wale said. Three days later, Eby was discharged from the hospital but two week after Eby was discharged, she went for another test to confirm the pregnancy but unfortunately Eby lost the pregnancy. Eby was devastated as well as her parents and other family members. Wale on the other hand did not show any form of loss rather he was just his normal self. A few days later when Eby went to visit Wale, she was surprised to hear what came out of Wale’s mouth on the phone with his friend. “I should be going to see her later in the day if I don’t see her here by 4:PM” “I hate to say this Pius, am so relieved that she lost the pregnancy” “I have lots of plans ahead of me and not child bearing” “I was only pretending” As a matter of fact I put a substance in her tea and food the previous day” “I only went to her apartment that night to confirm if the drug worked” “That was why it took me long to call her family members” Immediately Eby heard this conversation, she turned back and never returned to Wale. This is a true story that happened to me 2007 in Nigeria. I still want to have children and I know I will very soon. |
Ebun jossyI am making this blog to do more research on writing Archives
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