Final Post

     Remember two years ago, I was so confident that I was going to be a scientist, so in the day that upper-classmates introduced Literature and Performance SL to us in the black box, I was thinking, "ok, it sounds interesting, but can I not take an English class?"  I asked Mrs. Griesbach, my English teacher in sophomore year, whether I cannot take any English class since my ambition was not in the literature.  Ms. Guarino was there as well, and her face turned seriously black after she heard my words.  I remembered Mrs. Griesbach said that the course definitely fit me.  The scene was kind of funny when I looked back because it reminded me how arrogant, ignorant, and ridiculous I was.  Thanks to Mrs. Griesbach and Ms. Guarino's advice.  They are right.  I enjoyed this two-year course, and it changed me.

     I have to say that I am not afraid of acting, because I started acting before junior year.  The funny story also related to Ms. Guarino.  In my freshman year, because I wanted to improve my English speaking, I signed fall drama.  The fall drama was Peter Pan, and I played an Indian queen.  I thought the role at least is a queen, so the queen must be somehow strong and important.  However, the queen basically did nothing in the play.  All she did were kneeling to Peter Pan, being robbed by the pirates, and being killed in the end.  She was so weak that she lost every battle.  In my hometown, we don't kneel easily because the old tradition regards kneeling as our reputations and sometimes self-esteem. The tradition tells us not to kneel easily if they are not gods, or parents.   I did not care about the tradition that much, but back at that time, I still felt uncomfortable with kneeling.  However, after a while, when I saw how much efforts and passions the others dedicated, I was moved and then I found out the interest of acting.  Acting asked actors to not show themselves but be the others that they depict.  Therefore, once you are on the stage, you cannot have so much self-consciousness.  After the show, I began to enjoy playing different roles.  This lesson made me be more outgoing and helped me think out of the box.  Moreover, it caused me to want to challenge playing the roles that are totally different from me.  The class provided chances for me to act.  We performed a monologue, straight play, speaking poems, and we played theater games.

     For the theater games, I remembered the educator I researched was well-known for theater improvisation game.  Viola Spolin, a beautiful lady, the educator who created theater games for acting training.  I first picked her as my presentation is not because of her well-known theater game or her beauty but her name.  Viola, the name of a string, got my interest immediately.   Viola Spolin

I remembered our presentations of acting pioneers should be 10-20 minutes long.  However, I used a whole class presenting her ideas and led the class play theater game for a long time.  I like the mirror game.  The game is about two people face each other, one of them starts telling a story while doing movement and the other should imitate the person's movement and retell the person's words.  I also liked the game that says only one sentence, "How are you?", in different situations.  

     For the performance, I enjoyed the game that acting out Romeo and Juliet in 3 minutes, 1 minute, and 15 seconds.  We were divided into groups, Yun, Aaron, and I were in the 15-second group.  When we were heard that we were going to act out the entire story in 15 seconds, I was so shocked that I cannot react.  I was like "What?" "How can it be possible?", and then I was so excited, "Yes! It is so fun!!"  In the end, we acted out in exactly 15 seconds.  I played Juliet, Aaron was Romeo, and Yun was the person who split us apart.  We did not speak any word.  In the 15 seconds, we acted out how Romeo and Juliet fall in love in first sight, and how they are separated and died one after another.  That is the first silent show I acted, and it was exciting that I can never forget.  

     I love acting, and I love watching movies and understanding a character.  It is my interest.  Therefore, there is no success or failure for me to discuss since I did not take the class as a "class", or a "task".  Instead, the class is more like a platform that allows me to perform and have fun, and the class is more like a library that enriches my analysis skill.  I enjoyed the whole process and had precious time in the class from the beginning to the end.   

Sample Question

Colour and sound provide some of the most vivid effects in poetry. How have at least two poems that you have studied used such visual and auditory aspects as these to enrich their poems?


"The Words Under the Words" and "My Grandmother in the Stars" used many visual aspects to poetry the figure of the author's grandma vividly. Since they are the autobiographic poems, the author wrote the poems mostly by recalling the pictures. Therefore, visuality is strong for readers. For example, in "The Words Under the Words", the author described the scene that her grandmother bakes, "My grandmother's days are made of bread, around pat-pat and the slow baking. She waits by the oven watching a strange car circle the streets." It actually also guides readers to think of the smell of bread, and the line shows the auditory aspect first. It shows the warm picture that grandmother is baking bread and waiting beside the oven. The smell of the bread escapes from the oven and fills the room. The heat and the smell warm your heart. It represents the grandmother's figure: a warm and kind woman. Then, "She waits by the oven watching a strange car circle the streets. Maybe it holds her son, lost to America." We can know that the grandmother's son "disappears" in America. At least the grandmother lost her connection with her son, and that is the reason that the grandmother stares at the cars, hoping her son will show up in the car. The cars are angularly cold, which contrast to the bread, and the picture is clear. Therefore, the visual reveals the strong feeling of solitude strongly.

"My Grandmother in the Stars" is written to remember the author's grandmother.  The author first described her mournful heart thinking of her grandmother.  Then, in the second stanza, she described the picture that after her grandmother left, "Just now the neighbor's horse must be standing patiently, hoof on stone, waiting for his day to open.  What you think of him, and the village's one heroic cow, is the knowledge I wish to gather."  Every subject in the author's eye reminded her of her grandmother, and it also recalled her memory being with her grandmother, "I bow to your rugged feet, the moth-eaten scarves that knot your hair."  In this poem, we can know that the author's grandmother is nice to not only her family but also respect to every living thing.  In the grandmother's world, there is no war, and people are welcomed to live in it no matter speaking the different languages.  

The Words Under the Words--Reading Notes

The Words Under the Words

for Sitti Khadra, north of Jerusalem

My grandmother’s hands recognize grapes,   

the damp shine of a goat’s new skin.   

When I was sick they followed me,

I woke from the long fever to find them   

covering my head like cool prayers.

My grandmother’s days are made of bread,   

a round pat-pat and the slow baking.

She waits by the oven watching a strange car   

circle the streets. Maybe it holds her son,   

lost to America. More often, tourists,   

who kneel and weep at mysterious shrines.   

She knows how often mail arrives,

how rarely there is a letter.

When one comes, she announces it, a miracle,   

listening to it read again and again

in the dim evening light.

My grandmother’s voice says nothing can surprise her.

Take her the shotgun wound and the crippled baby.   

She knows the spaces we travel through,   

the messages we cannot send—our voices are short   

and would get lost on the journey.

Farewell to the husband’s coat,

the ones she has loved and nourished,

who fly from her like seeds into a deep sky.   

They will plant themselves. We will all die.

My grandmother’s eyes say Allah is everywhere, even in death.   

When she talks of the orchard and the new olive press,   

when she tells the stories of Joha and his foolish wisdoms,   

He is her first thought, what she really thinks of is His name.

“Answer, if you hear the words under the words—

otherwise it is just a world with a lot of rough edges,   

difficult to get through, and our pockets full of stones.”

Sample Paper 2

2. Structure matters!

        “I'm Nobody! Who are you?” and "Tell all the truth but tell it slant--" have great structures to grab readers' interests.  "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" is divided to two stanza and four lines each stanza; "Tell all the truth but tell it slant--" is one stanza only that has eight lines in total.  Two poems both have good arrangement, because in "I'm Nobody! Who are you?", the first stanza sets up an environment and the second stanza mainly reveals the strong emotion.  In first stanza, it is like a scene that one person introduces herself/himself and excitingly find that the other person is similar with her/him.  The first stanza is more setting up the background of the poem, and the fourth lines of the first stanza transits to revel the emotion from describing the pictures.  Emily starts two exclamatory sentence "How dreary" "How public" to show a strong negative feeling of being public or being "Somebody".  Moreover, Emily used a metaphor to compare the action of self-exposure to public with the frog, and it help readers to understand the theme of the poem more.   "Tell all the truth but tell it slant" is in one stanza only, because it is the poem that seeks to persuade people that people are too fragile to receive all the truth at once because truths sometimes are explicit and cruel enough to hurt people's values.  The idea is too abstract to be portrayed in details in another stanza.  Besides, when the stanza is long, readers' minds are concentrated.
        To make the poem more persuasive, capitalization plays an important role.  In "Tell all the truth but tell it slant--", Emily Dickinson capitalized every word that describe light and truth, such as "Truth", "Delight", and "Lightning".  The poem we know focus on persuading how bright the truths are, and the capitalized adjectives emphasize the theme of the poem and also grab readers' attentions.  Therefore, the poem easily convinces readers when the readers notice and pay attention to the idea.  Capitalization also works well in "I'm Nobody! Who are you?"  In the poem, Emily changed every "nobody" to "Nobody" and "somebody" to "Somebody".  Reader can interpret "Nobody" and "Somebody" as names, and reader can also interpret the two words as other meaning.  Whatever the interpretation is, the author's goal is achieved, which is engaging the readers to compare and contrast "Nobody" and "Somebody".  Therefore, capitalization successfully cause the readers' interest.