IOP Journal #5

Tonight is the last night before I present my IOP, thus my last journal entry will also be posted up today!

IOP

O Motherland, Dear Motherland

§ Title imbued with adoration and love for homeland (motherland)

Motif: Pain and sacrifice throughout poem for loved ones/things

· “I am the old broken waterwheel beside your river, That has composed a centuries-old song of weariness […] I am poverty, I’m sorrow, I’m bitterly painful hope.”

o “Old broke waterwheel beside your river”

A. Referring to time of work in poverty-stricken countryside

I. Worked in Textiile mill, Light bulb factory, and cement factory

II. Work has drained all energy due to long hours….??

o “Composed of centuries-old song of weariness”

B. Sacrifice for country

I. “Composed” à Work for the better of china

II. Change outer image, stronger nation

o “poverty, sorrow, bitterly painful hope”

I. “poverty” à poor, hopeless, life of country

II. Contribute effort to country to make it stand forever

Tone: Pride, proud to be part of country

· “From my body of flesh and blood, you might eke out Your prosperity, your glory, and your freedom […] My dear motherland”

o “Eke out your prosperity, glory”

I. Have pride to be part of wonderful nation

II. Wishing china to spread out power

Structure: Shows feelings towards country

· “O Motherland”

A. At end of every stanza always a dash at end

I. Dash then line (-)

II. Hesitation in poem

III. Shows worship like feeling almost

There is more to the analysis, however it is too long to write out.... so i will not

IOP Journal #4

I realized that now it is really late so i must do my journal entry before midnight, otherwise this journal entry and the next one will be considered as two journals in one day and that would be going against what mrs. wecker has said. Therefore i am doing it now to get it done and over with. During the IOP presentations today I realized several things.

1. the IOP is not so bad after all

2. It looks hard and it probably is but if you practice then your IOP will result in a positive overall score

3. Be confident in yourself and your presentation in order to prevent yourself from looking extremely nervous and possibly losing points because of stuttering

----> now to the important observations

1. Memorization is key, if not all of what you're saying then at least most of it

2. Different methods of presenting my IOP will not work out for me unfortunately such as.....

- Making paper slips like matt khoo today

- Powerpoint because my computer prevents me from doing such things without wanting to destroy it

- Either lecture or discussion is the best way. I'm leaning towards Lecture

3. It is best if i only compare two of Shu Ting's poem because using several will perhaps confuse class or worse: Me making my presentation messed up everywhere

4. My outline for the IOP will be written in bullet points like how i usually make for history class, however the bullet points will have to be incredibly detailed in order to explain my thesis, ideas well

5. My final analysis will be harsh but truthful. I'm not sure how well i will be able to explain how well or how bad i did without being a bit unrealistic but i will try my best to stick to reality

6. PRACTICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IOP Journal #3

I think that i can still make it on time for my IOP along with my other homework for other classes such as the OHP for history..... if i work like crazy this week! so, thats good news... however, IOP is still kind of difficult right now..... anyways, I am struggling after having analyzed the poems of Shu Ting that we have not done in class and i discovered that the very last one, the fourth poem is the poem that i had to do for the poetry commentary today in class. I would like to look at that one and compare the two poems, but i don't think that that would work out because for one thing, i don't have the poem that i analyzed in class today, and another is that what i am planning, i'm not sure if it has to do with what i originally planned to do with Shu Ting's poetry. So it would be branching off in a completely different area which would turn my grade into a zero meaning fail. That would not be very good at all. Continuing onto my main point of this journal entry, I am struggling between two options on how i will present my IOP. I was thinking of either doing a class disscussion but i don't know how that will turn out because my voice alone is not all that loud and i don't know if i can keep the questions interesting enough to get the class engaged in the discussion.... so my second and last choice would be to just lecture but i don't know how that will turn out either because i don't think that i can keep up a lecture for 15 minutes about poetry.... maybe i can add in pauses here and there to extend my time like Gavin when he was talking about the "triangle" that you control.... I think that i just might bring in Shu Ting's background by using a few pictures of her if i can find some and talk about the time period that she lived in. I will probably end up doing a speech and if not a discussion and hopefully the class will find my questions interesting enough (I have to make sure that they have a wide range of answers so i will go for broad questions). Hopefully my time limit will be over 10 minutes.

IOP Journal #2

I have not yet come up with my thesis exactly but i know that it will have to do with how the country that a person lives in and their background can affect their writing (specifically Shu Ting who lives in a communist country). More specifically how society limits people by restricting them to its rules. Continuing with that thesis I will look at how Shu Ting incorporates nature into her poems. Nature could represent how she longs to be free and express her ideals openly just like how nature takes its course everyday.

IOP Journal #1

My first thought for my IOP was to do Pablo Neruda. However, I have decided to do Shu Ting instead because of her background and culture. The other works that we have read such as Brave New World, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and The Stranger are much too complex and confusing for me personally. I prefer analyzing poetry because the meanings and ideas shown in the poems are much more easier for me to grasp. For my IOP I am planning to look at Shu Ting's life and background to see how she incorporates it into her poems. I will also be looking at how the strict society in China influences the author and the ideas that she weaves into her poetry. Chinese culture and society is very restricting and there is no such thing as freedom. Independence is seen as rebellion and therefore does not exist. Everybody is bound by the rules of the society and they cannot think differently against it. They are left with only one choice which is to follow the rules. By reading and analyzing several of her poems that we look at in class and the poems that we do not look at I will show how society limits people. That is all I have for now...