Reading Notes Week 10 Part B

Reading Notes 

Week 10

Part B 

• Higuchi Ichiyo was the first major Japanese woman writer in six centuries. This was such an interesting revelation because she wasn't like most writers that I've read were she was born into money. 
• This was so important because I know right now in todays society without money it is hard to obtain knowledge when your funds aren't as significant as a person who is born into money. But Ichiyo was recognized for her work as a writer and she had to climb from the bottom to obtain this status of first Japanese woman writer. 
• Nothing came easy to Ichiyo and to others she emerged out of the nowhere but she fought through poverty and was barely educated. In her time she was born Japanese women weren't even expected to be educated at all.
• Her stories consisted of real life situations that shot her straight to the top of what her peers considered to be one of the greatest writers. She wrote stories about orphans that were left on the street, mistreated sex workers , and just urban working class life styles. 
• Her skill brought forth all the praise and acclaim she could have hoped for which was cut short when she suddenly died in her prime age of twenty four. Making her rain over the literature would last only a short four years. 
• Reading her works introduction the story of "Separate Ways" interested me from the quick summary I was given because it was drama filled and left me as a reader wanting to know more. 
• In reading we see the two main characters being the highlight of the story. Where a women was left with a life changing decision to either stay in the poverty or be subjected to a life of sexual dependence which would lead to luxury. The other character a street urchin is this women friend who lends support without judging or telling her exactly what she should do. 
• This story is one of the better ones in my opinion because it is in clear english and it makes it even better to read.

Reading Notes Week 10 part A

Reading Notes

Week10

Part A

• As the world made advancements in transportations made communicating from anywhere easy and impacted the literature in a huge way. 
• With more transportation made it easy for writers to get inspiration from all over the world and allowed them to spread their message further. 
• Also it helped writers spread their new discoveries in writing in general. 
• Realism was on of the most influential movements in the nineteenth century which began in Britain and France and didn't immediately cause impact in European influences. 
• An interesting fact was on pg. 626 where they show a realistic masterpiece named "The Stonebreakers" in 1848 and it was destroyed in the Allied bombing in World War 2. 
• This was so interesting because this shows men hard at work which is a realistic everyday site that was depicted in the painted but since it was destroyed it only exist in reproductions and photos. No more originals all because of the war another realistic aspect of life in the time of the war. 
• Realistic writers introduced new techniques to the literary world that drastically changed history of theater in the late nineteenth century. Realistic writers wrote novels and short stories with realistic drama. 
• The novel was new for literature and opened up flexibility for writers to explore different styles of writing. 
• In the introduction of Fyodor Dostoyevsky where they talk about his background it was interesting in how he was fascinated by thought of why do humans have the basic desire of subduing those weaker than oneself.
• Interesting enough his father was a drunk after the death of his mother that spiraled his behavior. He described his father becoming violent and beating his servants and even talking to his dead wife. 
• I also think it was interesting that before he wrote his novel "Poor Folk" that he actually became poor by blowing all of his money then actually writing the novel and not basing it on opinion or others experiences. 

Week 9 Survey On Progress : how I'm doing

Week 9

Survey 

How are you doing?

• I feel that I have made a lot of progress in this class and it has made me use my laptop to the fullest extent. I have progress with my writing since we have so much work. The assignment we have to do that I enjoy the most are the literary analysis since I am able to speak my mind about the text and there is not a lot of structure and rules. Yes I used the extra credit options when I miss an assignment and that has only been once but I am sure I will use more in the future. 
• For the second have of the semester I want to make a change of being on my assignments a large amount of time before they are do so I am not feeling overwhelmed. Also I will just make sure I do all of my work and not miss anything. No matter how small. I want to avoid getting lazy in the end and worrying if I am doing everything perfect and try my best and stick with that. Something new I want to try is doing all my work from the week in one day. 

Project Action Plan Week 9

Project Action Plan 

Week 9
Ghalib And Walt Whitman

• In my project I will focus mostly on the genius of Ghalib and Whitman and using the whole essay to compare both of their styles of poetry. 
• I want to look at both authors life briefly in my introduction and then in body paragraphs I was going to direct both authors poetry mostly from my two favorite poems from their section of readings. 
• Compare and contrast elements of two different texts. For example, explore the similarities and differences between two characters in the text  or examine how one theme is handled in similar and dissimilar ways in two different texts.
• The option above is the one I will be using to anwyslis both texts. And I will use the authors style, themes, structure, and just every aspect of how they published their poems. 
• I also want to save some space at the end of my submission to say which author is my personal favorite but from my writing it may be apparent. 
• Other than the poems I won't be using any other outside sources so my works cited will just be the poems from both authors. 
• My thesis will be something like: Both of these poems from Whitman and Ghalib use imagery to draw readers to read further and then use a message of wisdom to make their poems legendary. 
• Or Walt Whitman and Ghalib are two authors who use their poetry to give readers wisdom and beautiful imagery packed into one legendary poem.  
• I will use the poems "Couplets" and " O Captin! My Captain!" mostly with drawing my textual evidence. 
• This week I will focus more on making sure my project is at 1000 word since I will be using poems and they have less you can quote from but I will make sure to use other poems so I can still can have enough evidence. 

Week 9 Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis 

Week 9 

Ghalib "Couplets

This poem by Ghalib is a pleasure of mine to do a literary analysis about because of how great the poem is and how the reach of the poem is endless. The section I want to focus on is on pg. 594 and the poem named "Couplets". The beginning of the poems starts like the author Ghalib is speaking to himself and in the poetry I have ever read the style is always first person but this one started with the author first speaking to himself internally to talking to God. My favorite thing about the beginning is the line where it say's "Ghalib, it's no use forcing your way with love". Reading this made me feel the wisdom implanted in the sentence to wear Ghalib that love is not something you can just control you have go about obtaining it another way. It was like the author was the character in the poem speaking to himself internally then it turned from a talk with self, to a talk with God. "Dear God" is the way the third stanza begins to make the poem even more interesting defining the norm of a poem only being able to interpreted only through deep thought but this poem was straight forward. Although it does have hidden messages in the stanza they still are straight forward enough for anyone to understand them. For example it says "but what can I do if the heart itself proves to be an enemy of freedom?". Clearly the author is trying to express his confusion of love because a heart that is enemy of freedom means it rather be locked down or I'm guessing in a relationship so that would make it not a free heart. To me this gives a transparent understanding that Ghalib was looking for love in the poem and trusted in God to give him the key to his love dilemma so his heart could continue being the enemy of freedom and locked down with another persons heart. This poem does a great job of imagery and introducing readers to a new style of poetry. 

Week 9 Reading Notes Part B

Reading Notes 

Part B

Week 9

• Ghalib was the most famous routinely quoted poet of both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And most people who were fans knew poems by heart. The style of writing Ghalib practiced was one of making his words become an image for his readers. 
• While reading the poems flowed so well they made me feel Ghalib was ahead of his time because I understand his focus of the poem and actually get lesson from reading. 
• This type of writing on pg. 594 "Ghalib, it's no use forcing your way with love: that doesn't catch when lit and doesn't die when doused" Ghalib leaves readers with images running through the brain of a boy trying to catch his love which is the flame. Well at least thats what I am getting from the poem. 
• Also while reading I catch the theme in the poems of the author Ghalib talking in third person and although that is a new way of poetry I have never witnessed. In a way it made me feel like he was having a conversation with me. 
• "Tonight somewhere, you're sleeping by the side of another lover, a stranger: otherwise, what reason would you have for visiting my dreams and smiling your half smile". Reading this part of the text made the poem feel more like a conversation or a text message exchange this day in age. 
• The short couple of poems in the beginning of the reading also caught my attention on page 591 and it goes a little on to pg. 592. "Now go Live in that place" was an interesting one because it was such a harsh punishment given to whoever in the poem. One part says " and if you die, no one to mourn you there". 
• Such a harsh punishment but given in such detail with only six lines of poetry which is beautiful I wish my communication skills were that good to where I explain something like hate into six lines of poetry just as Ghalid on pg. 591 did. 

Week 9 Reading Notes: Part A

Reading Notes

Week 9

Part A

• pg.537-541 is information about Vietnam,India, China and enjoy the addition of the map on pg. 540. The map gives me a picture of the settings and how at the time these empires were so close to each other. Allowing them to not see eye to eye causing tension to run high between the two. 
• On pg. 541 it shows a French Colonial family posing next to a machine gun. The picture even had the kids in the picture making me understand how at the time war was normal to the citizens, that huge guns were backgrounds for a picture. 
• Also on the same page it explains how Vietnam was ruled by China for over a thousand years and it took until the tenth century were in a famous Battle of the Bach Dang River ending the golden years of Chinese rule. 
• Explains how Indians in the 19th century "passed from one vast imperial power to another". 
• In China they proved to me strong and independent and Europeans wanted most of the products they manufactured especially the beauty care but their money flooded China's system I believe and caused China to isolate themselves. This ended in the 19th century though. 
• "The Tale of Kieu" is the master of Vietnamese literature and many people that are Vietnamese can recite the full 3,000 lined piece of poetry. 
• People even used this text to define their future and how they continue life. 
• A story of a young women forced into prostitution and slavery but has to come to the stand for her nation that is being attacked by foreign enemies and tyrants flooded the land to control the people. 
• The story is also a love story that has many themes and is just a great piece of Vietnamese literature.  
• Nguyen Du's "The Tale of Kieu" is considered the best of Vietnamese literature. 

Week 8 Reading And Writing Survey

Reading And Writing Survey

Week 8

My reading and writing assignments are going well this semester and they are going smooth. I am happy to see that I continued to improve the way I wrote things in my post and put more care into my pages. My favorite reading so far has to be The Royal Slave and the story of the Prince it was very inspirational and made me understand how back then nobody cared about my people. Also I understood how no matter what anyone did to us altogether we still are here today standing strong. A new reading strategy I developed reading this book is to read every introduction for each author because it makes it that much easier to understand their literature. I am happy with my class project I feel I did a way better job than I though since the hardest part id finding fictional stories when most of the readings be real life. I feel my submission was strong though and made a clear argument throughout the whole essay. My biggest accomplishment will be when I see a passing grade from this class on my report card since it difficult to understand your true grade in this class but I'm sure I have a good grade. 

I want more control on what I am able to pick for my project because the fictional stories are cool but if I could attack some of the real life issues they present in the book would make my projects even better. 

Topic Brainstorm Again Week 8 Project Work

Topic Brainstorm

Week 8

Project Work 

My first topic could be about the author William Blake's work and pulling themes and meaning from his poems to compare and contrast with the poems of author Walt Whitman. Both have literature that takes time to understand the true meaning but at the same time they used this type of inscription to talk to readers who took the time to dive into their work more profoundly. I would use the first topic choice of course to compare and contrast the elements of two different text. Looking at the poems "The Little Black Boy" Or "The Lamb" from William Blake and "O, Captain! My Captain!" from Walt Whitman.

My second topic I could use the text I could use for my project is the "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave" and using the text to take on the topic of how does this story teach us about a time or place differently than a history book. This narrative would be perfect for a topic like this especially since Fredrick Douglass was such an interesting story to read even as a younger child so writing about what his story teaches us would extremely enjoyable. Especially since in the history books they lie because white english people most likely wrote our history to make them look like hero's and not monsters but this narrative is history I actually can believe in. 

For a final topic I could use the text from the author Percy Bysshe Shelly and how he used his poetry to paint a picture as it does on his "Ode to the West" poem. This poem was laced with imagery and I could just use this poem and compare and contrast the elements with another story or poem and explain the ways they do this well and the things they do differently in writing. 

Week 8 Literary Analysis: Close Reading

Literary Analysis 

Close Reading 

Week 8

On pg. 465 the last poem in Walt Whitman's collection was very interesting to me. Most of his poems left me puzzled a little just trying to follow the topic of the poem. However this last poem "O Captain! My Captain" grabbed my attention because it was clear and towards the beginning the poem rhymed which was pleasing for me as a reader. And after rhyming for a while Whitman began painting a picture of the ship these sailors where aboard and how the Captain was dead. Ironically the trip they went on as a crew was difficult, prolonged, and the Captain dies right when the ship arrives to shore. "he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done"pg. 465. Even after going through so much on their voyage the Captain was dead and the unnamed character narrating is heart broken that the Captain is no longer with him. "But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead". This crew member was close to the Captain and was not taking his death well. Reading this poem felt more like a homage monologue for the Captain explaining their voyage and the way their dead Captain looked. This poem also was very interesting to me because it has my name is incorporated in one of the stanzas "From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won". My name means winner so their ship was the victor and after all of there travels and victory their Captain dies at the home stretch. The imagery and descriptiveness of this section of writing make reading this easy and it could also have a different meaning. This voyage and Captain could be a symbolic meaning for something different like something meaningful to Whitman and is letting his readers interpret their own meaning of his poem. After reading this I looked at the very bottom of the page and it say's that this was paying respect to Whitman's favorite public figure Abraham Lincoln who was assassinated. Making a huge connection to my last point of Whitman having a different meaning for this  poem. And honestly writing this close reading I looked back at the poem and is the only reason I saw the note on the bottom telling who the Captain signified. 

Reading Notes Week 8 Part B

Reading Notes 

Week 8

Part B

• Walt Whitman left an astonishing legacy by bringing free verse poetry to modern practice. He saw poets as leaders and fighters. Whitman strayed away from poetry ordinary rhyme and meter approach. His poems also included a heavy sense of prized free and sexual pleasures. 
• With this bubbling new era of poetry an era that was laced with poets who before Whitman would have no place in poetry those who were defiant, energetic, and willing to experiment. 
• Born on Long Island and moved to Brooklyn as child Whitman dropped out of school at the tender age of 11 to work random odd jobs. As he became older he worked jobs as a school teacher, builder, bookstore owner, journalist, and poet. 
• Whitman personally loved the South but imposed its slavery and petitioned against it and looked up to public figures at the time like Abraham Lincoln. 
• In 1865 he met Peter Doyle who eventually became his lover and he moved to Camden, New Jersey were he resided at for the rest of his life. 
• He worked on poet at a young age and wrote a bunch of good and bad poems and eventually came up with a collection that was titled "Leaves of Grass" which he had to revise man of times probably till his death just because how bad the critiques attacked his art but in future time he would be appreciated call Whitman ahead of his time.
• I like how Whitman structured his poems they are spaced perfectly and are long stanzas like a story. But it is truly hard to follow the meaning of his poems or should I say understanding the meanings of the poems. Starting with the titles being the subject of the poem in the beginning and as you go on reading in my experience the subject of the poem got farther away from how it was started. 
• pg. 465 this poem has to be the easiest to follow and is like a song in a musical which in the beginning introduction said Whitman enjoyed theater. says it on pg. 447 at the mid top of the left side of the page. 
• And on pg.  399 is a start of a poem that is quiet familiar to me I don't know from where but I felt like I have read it before 

Reading Notes Week 8 Part A

Reading Notes 

Week 8

Part A

• Frederick Douglass was the most important African American public figure during the nineteenth century. Even though Douglass was born into slavery and was subjected to manually labor instead of being on school. Douglass's perseverance allowed him to teach himself to read and use that to shortly become a powerful anti slavery speaker and writer. 
•  Full name Fredrick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in Talbot County in Maryland sometime in 1818. He barely knew his mom and his dad was most likely his slave master. At the age of six he had lived with his grandmother but soon went to live in his owners house. Douglass's owner at the time was one of the most wealthiest men in Maryland. 
• In this period of time Douglass recounts countless routine heartless consequences for the plantain slaves. For the better his life turned in 1826 Douglass was sent to live with a relative of his owner in Baltimore. There Hugh Auld's wife began to teach Douglass how to read and when Auld discovers his wife is teaching the slave boy how to read he becomes enraged with anger yelling that literacy would make Douglass unmanageable, not content, and would make him never be able to be a slave. 
• This knowledge changed Douglass's life find out that the key to freedom was through reading and obtaining knowledge he saw his clear pathway to being a free man. 
• Later he was send back tot he plantation where he got in to a long physical altercation with his master and freed himself by force. Although not lawfully free Douglass went back to live in Baltimore where he began to learn and work sending his wages back to his master. 
• In 1838 Douglass managed to escape and at first in his book he didn't list the strategy he used to escape slavery for good. Although after many years past he reveled that he dressed as a sailor and a free black slave gave Douglass his free papers to make it to New York where he married the women he previously met in Baltimore. He worked odd jobs and changed his name while helping the abolitionist movement.  
• Soon Douglass would begin to read an abolitionist newspaper and by chance met the editor who offered him a job and this became the start of greatness for Fredrick Douglass. 

Week 7 Analysis: Close Reading

Close Reading

Week 7

I wanted to focus my close reading on the bottom of pg. 98 the last paragraph of the section of text. This short paragraph grabbed my attention by how the words brought the act of reading to life with the language used. "And I had a great curiosity to talk to the book, as I though they did". Reading this made me wonder if this section the writers point of view is from one of a person first approaching learning how to read. The word curiosity shows how the experience with books was a new one and seeing "master" and "Dick" read it had our writer interested with the skill of reading. This section is profound in my opinion from the mystery it creates while reading, making readers puzzled on this odd ending of the chapter. Imagery helps this section stand out also causing slight glimpses into the reading forcing your mind to imagine just what the character was doing or how he did it. "And then put it to my ears to, when alone, in hopes it would answer me". After reading this made me wonder the movement the character in this scene and the faces he made waiting for the book to somehow speak to him. Allowing him to indulge in reading just like his "master" would do in his downtime. Or another way of thinking about this section is it could be used not literally and showing someone who can read but not as well as "master" and "Dick" in the story. This could be a short section of someone trying to understand a book but in being perplexed chose to listen to the book in hopes it would speak the words from the page "And I have been very much concerned when I found it remained silent". I interpreted this thinking it meant when the books made sense they would talk but the concern came about when they were silent or in other words hard to understand. Lastly I believe my first suggestion is more correct because of the newest of the language given in this section when it comes to reading books. 

Reading Notes Week 7 Part B

Reading Notes 

Week 7

Part B 

• In London 1840 two women were denied the right to speak at a World Anti Slavery Convention, outraged by the bigotry eight years later in Seneca Falls New York,  Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton held a Women's Right Convention with over 300 delegates at attendance. 
• They came togethers  to discuss their need  for a right to vote and more equal rights for women.
• The plea for women's rights made the press and many religious leaders feel shocked and against the terror women voting would bring. 
• The fight for women's right to vote would take another seventy years to be a reality in the US
• pg. 51 "the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands". 
• Women were being to start a new conversation using their knowledge to learn the laws and challenge the inequality's that were clearly against women having any say in anything. 
• The law basically made men all powerful in the eyes of society 
• "He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education-all colleges being closed to against her". pg. 51 
• On pg. 52 "He  has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself".
• "we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges, which belong to them as citizens of those United States". 
• Herman Melville wrote the most famous book "Moby Dick" but his "Bartleby" included a character to remember Bartleby who raises multiple philosophical questions 
• Walt Whitman and Herman Melville were both nineteenth century Goliath in literature also both born in New York in the year 1819.
• Both democrats and opposing slavery
• "Or even the narrator concludes, Bartleby can-not be interpreted at all: he is an unknowable cipher, one of the enigmas of a plural and puzzling "humanity". 
• A complex character who is also hard to forget after reading this story of rebellion that takes place in a dark office on Wall Street. 

Reading Notes Week 7 Part A

Reading Notes 

Week 7

3/6/18

• After Toussaint's exile the an ruthless second in command obtained charge in the raging revolution, Jean-Jacques Dessalines successfully defeated the French in 1803.
• After his victory he claimed a new nation and named it Haiti.
•  Dessalines crowned himself emperor and then in 1804 wrote "Liberty or Death" or the "proclamation"
• Dessalines was a former slave who was given no schooling but didn't let that fact prevent his document he created that had been laced with both cleverness and intelligence
• pg. 36 "the ancient tree of slavery and prejudices, "
• Compared the slave trade to "cannibalistic consumption of fellow human beings" 
• His proclamation made it to about 50 different US newspapers 
• In 1806 Dessalines was assassinated and left a complex legacy behind (described well on pg.36 as well in a bout a sentence)
• "Yes we have rendered to these true cannibals war for war, crime for crime, outrage for outrage; Yes I have saved my country, I have avenged America.
• Dessalines was passionate and very blunt in speech but also looked at issues through a stern but wise view point. A humanistic view point. 
• Olaudah Equine was the first freed slave to write an autobiography and was pleased to have it challenge the views of pro-slave writers at that time who believed that Africans were not human beings.
• His writing was profound, Olaudah was barred from education but still wrote his own autobiography that showed "extraordinary intellectual powers" and this was bad business for the debate on slaves not being people. Because how can an African who is not a human being writing so intelligently. 
• His book had about 39 editions before 1857 and was translated into German and Dutch And Russia. 
• Not only was the topic of slavery making his book so popular but the places he traveled were exotic and he went all over the world. Which was intriguing to read and gained Olaudah white audiences who were fascinated by his travel and intelligence. pg. 73

Literary Analysis Week 6

Literary Analysis 

Week 6

3/1/18

Ode to Tropical Agriculture

In this section of text on pg. 388-389, "Ode to Tropical Agriculture" is an imaginary rollercoaster of a poem while reading. I really appreciate the theme of showing love for the beautiful surroundings us humans live in everyday. The words are jumping off the page and shows the connection and time the author Andres Bello took in writing his poetry. Although in the short introduction before the poetry on pg. 388 it says that in the poetry "what he praises is not wilderness but human cultivation". Or in other words he most likely appreciated the beauty of the wilderness but in his poem he was focus on how great humans take the wilderness and transform it into even more beauty. Although I believe that he was praising the wilderness in saying things like "it ask no care by human arts, but freely yields its fruit". Then continues the admiration in the future lines by using literary devices like metaphors to describe the growing process the plants go through, "It grows with swiftness, and when it is outgrown its full-grown children take its place". In this excerpt from the poems gives readers a bit of text to read between the lines to understand how he talks about the children of the plants. This type of writing being the most popular because it makes readers like me think and dive deeper into the poem of what it means. The last sentence of the introduction paragraph for Andres Bello explains how poet's should be in touch with their surroundings because it can play a huge role and gaining inspiration from "their native landscapes". Bello believed that geography will shape the future for extreme and profound art for future artist. As a fan of poverty I understand the inspiration you can absorb from the setting you are in and it can inspire some powerful imagery poems that Andres Bello sees taking over the future of how artist approach their craft.