I have included in my portfolio the artifacts that helped me
move towards mastery of the course objectives and grow the most as a human
being. First of all, my Beyond Border team prepared and did a presentation based
on the chapter“Conversation”, which enabled us to explore the deep racial
discriminations towards African-Americans in the 1950s. I also included the poetry
explications, which gave me the opportunity to master the use of literary
vocabulary and being able to reference to various schools of criticism. These
artifacts I include in my portfolio will teach incoming students that they will
eventually truly learn from those assignments that challenge them the
most.
The poem Eating without the Poet and the short story How to
Live Without fear and Worry attempt to make a moral statement. The first one
compares the ideal world of the poet and the real world of ordinary people in order to make the
statement that, though it is a worthy pursuit to always try to capture the ideal beauty, there may be far more
important things in life such as family, domestic partnership, sharing a meal.
The second text seeks to demonstrate how dangerous it can be to blindly follow
old, so-called holy ideas without adapting to changes in the environment, because
that can well lead to human tragedies. Both texts can be compared using the
literary theory of reader-response to the extent that both texts are subjected to the personal interpretation of
readers, regardless of the literary theory those readers will resort to in order to give the texts a meaning.
The artifacts on my midterm team presentation indicate that it
was a profound learning experience for me. The team project raised my awareness
on the challenges and the benefits of team work towards a common purpose, which
enabled me to grow as a community member. So, if I knew then what I know now, I
would be a better team member by encouraging myself as well as other members to
brainstorm as freely as possible so that the whole team may select the most
pertinent ideas and the most suitable format for the presentation. My midterm
team project, as well as the background search on the Tibetan culture and the
struggle of the Tibetan people for freedom, deepened my ability to identify the
interplay of key ideas, attitudes and social justice issues related to
nationality, linguistic background, race, class, gender, religion, ability and
sexual orientation within and among the characters, plots, settings of the
selected texts. Moreover, my various poetry explications taught me about the
use of literary vocabulary and the reference to different theories of literature
in discussions. Finally, I would like to leave a message for the incoming
student. The English migrant literature by Dr. Urbina is likely going to be the
least conventional college course that the student has taken. It is really
focused on Socratic learning, rather than book learning, which is likely going
to make the student extremely uncomfortable in the beginning. But the student
needs not give up because there are countless resources that are made available
on Angel in terms of theories of literary criticism, literary vocabulary, and
immigrant literature. These are specifically the resources that I found to be
the most useful. Nonetheless, there are other ones that I did not get to take
substantial advantage of, such as the ones on conversational roles, active
reading, and writing a sestina.
move towards mastery of the course objectives and grow the most as a human
being. First of all, my Beyond Border team prepared and did a presentation based
on the chapter“Conversation”, which enabled us to explore the deep racial
discriminations towards African-Americans in the 1950s. I also included the poetry
explications, which gave me the opportunity to master the use of literary
vocabulary and being able to reference to various schools of criticism. These
artifacts I include in my portfolio will teach incoming students that they will
eventually truly learn from those assignments that challenge them the
most.
The poem Eating without the Poet and the short story How to
Live Without fear and Worry attempt to make a moral statement. The first one
compares the ideal world of the poet and the real world of ordinary people in order to make the
statement that, though it is a worthy pursuit to always try to capture the ideal beauty, there may be far more
important things in life such as family, domestic partnership, sharing a meal.
The second text seeks to demonstrate how dangerous it can be to blindly follow
old, so-called holy ideas without adapting to changes in the environment, because
that can well lead to human tragedies. Both texts can be compared using the
literary theory of reader-response to the extent that both texts are subjected to the personal interpretation of
readers, regardless of the literary theory those readers will resort to in order to give the texts a meaning.
The artifacts on my midterm team presentation indicate that it
was a profound learning experience for me. The team project raised my awareness
on the challenges and the benefits of team work towards a common purpose, which
enabled me to grow as a community member. So, if I knew then what I know now, I
would be a better team member by encouraging myself as well as other members to
brainstorm as freely as possible so that the whole team may select the most
pertinent ideas and the most suitable format for the presentation. My midterm
team project, as well as the background search on the Tibetan culture and the
struggle of the Tibetan people for freedom, deepened my ability to identify the
interplay of key ideas, attitudes and social justice issues related to
nationality, linguistic background, race, class, gender, religion, ability and
sexual orientation within and among the characters, plots, settings of the
selected texts. Moreover, my various poetry explications taught me about the
use of literary vocabulary and the reference to different theories of literature
in discussions. Finally, I would like to leave a message for the incoming
student. The English migrant literature by Dr. Urbina is likely going to be the
least conventional college course that the student has taken. It is really
focused on Socratic learning, rather than book learning, which is likely going
to make the student extremely uncomfortable in the beginning. But the student
needs not give up because there are countless resources that are made available
on Angel in terms of theories of literary criticism, literary vocabulary, and
immigrant literature. These are specifically the resources that I found to be
the most useful. Nonetheless, there are other ones that I did not get to take
substantial advantage of, such as the ones on conversational roles, active
reading, and writing a sestina.