My achievements of the first marking period

According to the first marking period, I did a lot of works for all of my lessons, and I think I learned and achieved a lot. I said I wanted to get a good score and some good feedbacks from my classmate and my teacher at the very beginning of this marking period. Till now, I’m still work so hard. At least it was a lot better than what I did for last year.

For the first thing I did, I tried to write details in my works, especially for when I wrote book reviews or wrote for characters. For example when I wrote a book review for Persepolis, I found many details from the book to support my ideas. Also, I found many quotes to state my points. I wasn’t a good writer before because I found that thinking of details are too boring when I was writing. As I was a fast writing and reading person, I just want to say what I thought in a quick and easy way instead of using a long time to express my emotion and express my characters’ emotion. Then, I changed in this marking period, I started to think of more details to make my essays a full and colorful one.

On the other hand, I wanted to improve my grammar also in the start of this marking period. In the meantime, I did a lot. For each essay I wrote, I used a long time to revise it and I usually asked my friends to help me fix it. It’s because people were always good at finding others mistakes instead of finding their selves. Even though there were still several grammar mistakes with articles, tenses and sentence fragments, it’s already getting better. Also, I would keep working on it. I believe that I would do even better later.

The reason why I got these developments should be that I was hard-working enough and I was focus on my projects so patiently and carefully. I had never doubted that I could achieve my goals and I was keeping working on my grammar and details for the formal essays and stories. I had never forgot my goals that I wanted to achieve in every homework or participation in this class. Then, I improved the quality of my essays and the ratios of my essays were higher and higher. Lastly, I think I achieve what I wanted for this marking period, a nice grade and some good feedbacks.

To conclude, I want to give myself some other goals. As a reader, I want to improve my vocabulary to understand the books better and not using too many time for looking up words. Also, I wish I would participate more during the class period. No matter the answer was right or wrong, I must think about more. Last but not least, I think I should paying more attention when others speaking, then I would notice more good ideas from other people. As a result, I would do better for class in the next marking period.

In class writing

1)  Review these lines:

Skin had hope, that's what skin does.

Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.

What do you think these two lines mean? Offer an interpretation and back it up using specific evidence in the poem.

People that are in different countries have different culture and different skin colors. For these two sentences, Nye is a half American half Palestinian; she might show the hope of the countries and different skin color. For example, she said, “Love means you breathe in two countries.” The long years brought her the touch and she felt the hope between the countries.

2) What could skin be a metaphor or symbol for?

The skin could be a symbol for the countries. The countries have different skin color, the Palestine were in middle east and could have skin of yellow and people in America were always white people. The Author Nye only mentioned “country” once in the whole poem. As a result, for other places, the “skin” was always referring to country. Skin helped her to discuss what skin meant in the poem.

3) Why do you think the poet is thankful for "travelers that people go places larger than themselves"? How can travel (physical or metaphorical) help heal the divisions between people, countries, or cultures?

In my perspective, Nye is thankful for the travelers that go to other places because those travelers can see the different and advantages of each culture in different places. The countries are always having divisions, so if there’s no traveling, then no one can see what truly happened in a culture. Nothing is totally right or wrong, anything that people do could have a reason. As a result, travel is the thing to help to see the divisions between cultures, countries or people, and is also the thing to spread the true culture to other places.

Discussion questions

Why The Art of Disappearing can help that person so much?
Why Naomi Shihab always uses simple words but still can move people?

My Grandmother in the Stars – Summary

My Grandmother in the Stars is a poem told about Naomi Shihab Nye’s grandmother. In the first part of the poem, the poet said people would not meet again on the earth, it might cause by death. People would leave each other forever by many reasons, and the most common one is death. Her grandmother might not meet her again. This made her felt really sad. Then she found that only some natural things, such us the sky, or the universe might connect she and her grandma.

In the second part of the poem, she showed something might happen in a normal morning in the place that her grandmother lived. She thought at that time, the neighbor’s horse would wake up and wait for the start of the day. She wished she would hear her grandma to talk about the stories of the horse or maybe the story of the heroic cow in the village. She just wanted to hear her grandmother’s words. She admired her grandmother, and wished she could see her again and bow to her, to the elder with rugged feet and old scarves.

Lastly, she knew that her grandmother and her were always in different places, and they never stayed together. However, she still wished that they could connect by their heart and she wished her grandmother could feel her heart, which missed her so much. She knew that they are calling each other in the distance with two different languages. The memory would last forever in both of their mind.

Poem

I am in a long journey,

A journey that is too long and too important.

A journey with strong emblems and assurance.

It's mysterious and it's like a miracle.

It never ends

The information in poems

In the poems that Naomi Shihab Nye, an American-Arabic mix-blooded poet, wrote, 19 Varieties of Gazelle was the response to 9/11 and an excellent show of the Arabic culture. Nye’s father was a Palestinian that went to America before she was born and her mother was a normal American. In her poems, there was a power that influenced people.

In 19 Varieties of Gazelle, she wrote many sentences that were related to death. For example in “My Grandmother in the Star”, she wrote, “It is possible we will not meet again in the earth”, it implied that the death in the event of 9/11. Then, in her poem called, “The Word under the Words”, she said, “our voices are short and would get lost on the journey”, and “My grandmother's eyes say Allah is everywhere, even in death”. This showed her helpless and her unwilling for seeing the death and explaining the death in the event. She would think people are too small to stop these events and she wished things would at least be better. So, this was the response from Nye of the 9/11.

After that, she also showed the information about the Arabic culture in her poem. In her poem “My Father and the Fig Tree”, she wrote her mother’s sentence, “What a dreamer he is. Look how many things he starts and doesn't finish". She firstly didn’t understand her father and thought he’s a dreamer. However after her father lastly found a fig tree that was spontaneous grew in the native land of America, she understood what her father wanted were just the feeling of his hometown and she found the importance of the concept of hometown for Arabic people.

In the mean time, she wrote many poems to show her blood of Arab in her poem “Blood” and implied Arabic culture in writing “Arabic Coffee”. She said, “Like clothes on a line saying you will live long enough to wear me, a motion of faith. There is this, and there is more” in “Arabic Coffee”. She showed the precipitation of culture of Arab. It was a long culture that Arabic culture was deep and serious. Also, she wrote, ”I drive into the country to find sheep, cows, to plead with the air: Who calls anyone civilized? Where can the crying heart graze? What does a true Arab do now?” She explained the civilization of Arab and she explained many other things of the Arabic culture.

To conclude, she was an outstanding poet that wrote deep poems about the serious events and showing the culture of his hometown. She implied lots of information throughout her poems. As a result, I highly recommend people to read her poems for understanding more about her thinking and the culture she showed in her poem.