Month: October 2017

I took a literature exam when I was in high school. One of the questions was controversial around the students. There were many students who thought the given appropriate answer was wrong and I was one of them. The question was asking which word in the passage most relates to the word in a poem. The character in the poem was mentally ill, and he meets an old doctor who had white mustache. After a while the character realizes the doctor was an old friend of his father. He felt better after having long conversation with the doctor. The question connects this poem to a passage of Greek Mythology. It asked which word relates to the role of the doctor in poem in the Theseus

Myth. The answer was ‘the temple of doom’(3). The poem can be divided into three parts, which is the character(problem), the doctor and father(solution). The ‘doctor’ can be understood as a pathway of leading thoughts about ‘father’. This explains the reason of given answer, because the purpose of Theseus is to get into chamber of secret and the temple of doom is what makes this possible. However, my answer was ‘thread’(5). The doctor instinctively has positive image. Theseus finally gets out from the maze through the ‘thread’. Opinions between teachers were divided. Some said the answer was number three, while others said five. After long discussion, both answers were admitted. What I felt after this was, the literature is not made to have a standardized lesson, and you can never objectify the meaning of literature. Everyone can have their own interpretation

I was learning Chinese when I was in middle school. It was one of the mandatory subjects that I had to learn in school. I had no interest in learning Chinese at that moment, but my teacher made me realize the importance of Chinese. It was when I was preparing my speech for the mid term that I knew I had improved my speaking skills. I could never speak Mandarin before I took that class. For over three months I was following my teacher’s directions and did almost every assignment she gave to us. I learned from how to introduce my name in Chinese to explaining what a story in Chinese says. Even if I didn’t keep up with my Chinese skills, I still feel the importance of learning it again. I still remember vividly how satisfied I was after presenting the speech in front of my teacher and the classmates. If it wasn’t for the enthusiastic teacher, I could not even feel the need to learn Chinese.

I met a teacher when I was in middle school. She once took me to the “War Memorial of Korea”. The place was made for the soldiers from over 20 different countries who fought for the Korean war. Since then I started to think more about the Korean War. She recommended a book and told me to write about it. After writing, I realized that it influenced on my value system. How I looked at things changed from the past after reading the book. The title of the book “The Monsoon Season” is similar to the time when the Korean war began. No one can be free from the damage and pain it entails. The endless boredom of the rainy season is what the war shows to us. Two conflicting family in the novel reconcile after a tragic event occurs. I thought it is impossible to get over the idealogical difference between South and North Korea. However it was same that they had to go through this tragic war. It is unnecessary to conflict with same people who are only going to be harmed from the war. The difference can be overcame by the cultural homogeneity between South and North Korea. This will someday lead to the unification of Korea. If it were not for the teacher who told me about this book, I could not have made an opportunity to learn a lesson from it.

ly ill, and he meets an old doctor who had white mustache. The doctor had long white mustache and looked like he was an imagery man. He examined the man’s pulse and after a while asked where he came from. After realizing where the man came from, the doctor suddenly asked if the man know someone he knew. Soon the character realizes the doctor was an old friend of his father. He felt better after having long conversation with the doctor. The passage I had to connect to this poem was about Theseus Myth, a part of Greek Mythology. Theseus is trying to enter the chamber of secret through the temple of doom. In the chamber there is a beast man called ‘Minotauros’ and he eats human. It is easy to get lost once you get in there. The door to the chamber is not open to everyone. It is only open to the ones who are attempting to get in. Theseus somehow gets into the chamber using his prediction and instinct. He kills the beast man and gets out following through the thread he put when he came in.

 

He examined the man’s pulse and after a while asked where he came from. After that the doctor asked if the man know someone he knew. Soon the character realizes the doctor was an old friend of his father. He felt better after realizing this fact. The passage I had to connect to this poem was about Theseus Myth. Theseus is trying to enter the chamber of secret through the temple of doom. In the chamber there is a beast man called ‘Minotauros’ who eats human. The door only open to the ones who are attempting to get in, and it’s easy to get lost. He somehow gets into the chamber using his prediction and instinct. He finally kills the beast man and get his way out using thread he used to get in.

I summarized this part and put the poem and the myth into a paragraph. I tried to make other parts to take up more parts to weigh more on the lesson.

I came up with three concrete ideas for revision based on what my peers had offered. First I decided to work on explaining the general background of the literacy. Mike quoted that he wanted to know more about how they met and where this occurred for this sentence in the literacy, ‘The doctor had long white mustache and looked like he was an imagery man’. I will describe more about what ‘imagery man’ implies in this story. Also Shaylee said I may want to add why I was taking the test and which grade I was in that time. I think adding this will help readers understand more about the background.

Second, I will paraphrase a little where I’m explaining the reason of the decided answer. Shamus wanted me to paraphrase that part so it does not look too long. I wanted to introduce the readers the specific reason but I will make it shorter without deleting the essential part.

Last, I will bring more details into explaining why this lesson is so important. Mike said I can definitely expend more on this literacy lesson. I will tell more of why literature education should not be aimed for teaching stereotypical lesson. I will also explain more reasonings where there could be some questions to be asked.

 

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