Blog 6

 Goals for this year

Time past so quick; I haven’t realized that the end of the first quarter is coming until I checked the portal last night. After I see today’s assignment, I start to think about what’s my goals for this year, and how many goals I have achieved. However, I find out that I have achieved most of the goals which I assigned for myself from the beginning of this year. Therefore, this blog give me a very good chance to summarize what I achieve this year, and what I can keep working on during the rest of the year. Because of the shortage of the time I have tonight and I have kind of the same topics for both my English and Writing class, I decide to combine both of them and use the rest of time to prepared for my chemistry and Algebra test tomorrow. You can’t imagine how I felt while I knew I have three tests on Halloween with my costume. That’s the mixture of sadness, nervous, disappointed, exhausted which is hard to define by human’s words.

Go back to the main purpose of this blog. First, about the progress I made, I think I improve my Grammar and learn lots of new ways on writing. Although, I know I still have “tons of mistakes” which I don’t notice, but compare with what I have from the starting of this year, It become is much better. For example, I know different ways to write paper for essays, blogs, short stories and book reviews. Through that my logic and connection for the paper has improved, and the class we have about grammar is helpful as well. Become a teacher to teach other students grammar can help myself to find out the mistake which I don’t realize as usual. Also I learned how to read, understand and write about both poems and novels. We have lots of discussions on poems and novels which really help me to understand and give me inspirations on my writing. We even use the words which the poet use to write our own poem that is so much fun and make me start to enjoy writing, but not seeing as a burden and extra work for school.

Finish talking about the goals I achieved and I still need to talk about things I need to work on in the rest of the year. As what I said, grammar is still a big problem for me which block my way to a good paper. Therefore I will keep working on fixing the grammar problems I have, and I am going to work on accumulate more vocab. The reason is that when I am writing a paper I always need to check the dictionary on my phone to find out the word I want. 

As you can see, that’s my goal for the rest of the year and I will keep working on what I have achieved this quarter, because I believed that there is never best but better.

What is it talking about?

My thought about the poem

It is a hard time for me two pick a poem to talk about, because I like most of them. Therefore, instead of talking about the one I like the most, I choose the one which is easier for me to understand. As a result of having more things to talk about, I choose "Ducks".

"Ducks" tell us a story about a girl who's nationality is Irag. She has been separate from her families because of the war between Irag and Iran, so she moved to America. There are three ducks in her house where is in countryside and writer use lots of description on what do ducks do and their relationships.

In my opinion, writer shows two things to us which she think we should know. First, we know that people from Middle East is educated and love to study, but not the terrorists and barbaric people which most of Americans think from 

"In Iraq a book never had one owner – it had ten.

Lucky books, to be held often

and gently, by so many hands.

Later in American libraries she felt sad

for books no one ever checked out."

This quote tells us that most of people in Middle East love to read and the stereotype which given by social media is wrong. Not all the people in Middle East are violence and estremlists, but most of them are normal people like we are who also love to read. Therefore I think writer wants to telling the truth about her country in a way of poem.

Second, I guess that writer use three ducks to show us the relationship between America, Irag and Iran. America is that female duck, and Irag and Iran are the male ducks. The male ducks which  doesn't like by the female duck will be depressed and it is not always the same male duck. That seems to show me that the country which America support will become stronger and give another county a hard time, but America won't support the same country forever. America wants to make a balance between them and keeping the war which won't let one the country be annexed.

As you can see, that is my thought about the poem "Duck".

Poem

A voice comes from sky,
Says "Answer me, are you a dreamer?"
I tell him years ago I was
I dreamed about being a seed,
I could become a fruit,
I could become a tree,
A cherry tree,
Or even a fig tree.
But now, I am just a normal people pass among the street.

Blog 5

In my opinion, Nye write poem 19 Varieties of Gazelle as a response to 911 is because at that time people in Americans have discriminate on people from middle east; They think that people from there are always terrorists, so it is really a hard time for people from middle east who live in America. Therefore writer want to use poems to tell the people in America that people from middle east are kind and peaceful; They like fig trees, believe in God Alah who don't allowed killing and make people be nice to each other. Not all of them are terrorists and extremists. Also writer use examples on herselves and her family members to show the Arab culture to readers which shows that Arab people are kind and love nature. For example from " My father and the fig tree" writer's father said that the figs are the gifts from Alah. From this line we know that Arab culture is like other culture all around world. They have their belif and their favourite things, but not a place which is full of terrorists. Also writer's father told writer many stories about Arab culture, such as "a true Arab know how to catch a fly in his hands." and the story about Joha. As you can see, writer use these examples to show reader about that Arab culture is peaceful, but not dangerous to people. She want people in other countries know more about their culture, and she wants other people to judge them based on truth but not the stereotype and the negative information on TV and Movies which gives people an idea that people from middle east are all terrorists. What writer want to show readers are simillar to another book "Persepolics" in that book the writer also use a true story on herselves to show people around world about the truth happened in her country. She want to show that most of people in her country is kind and peaceful which is simillar to which Nye want to show reader.
As you can see, Nye use poem to show people that most of people in middle east are kind and peaceful, and she want people all around world to get rid of the prejudice and stereotype on middle east people. She gives a chance to let people all around world know more about culture and truth about people in middle east through her poems.

Answer

In my opinion, grandmother is a kind person, for example she follow writer and take care of her when she was sick. Also she is calm person, for example in the poem said " My grandmother's voice says nothing can surprise her."

In my opinion

I think these lines express writer's father's feeling of home. The fig tree become a symbol of motherland to her, because he can't go back anymore. Therefore writer said that' what he always own just like his hometown in the last line.

Questiones

1.What kind of person is poet's father?

2.Why these poems are different from the “ one boy tell me”