Close Read of The Bluest Eye!!

So far, I have found this book to be very interesting and a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I haven't gotten as far as I should be in the book, but have really liked how the author uses the different seasons to tell the story. Iconography plays a HUGE role in this book, which, in my opinion is really what makes the text so powerful. The ideas about the dolls and Claudia's hatred of white dolls, actually has to do with her resentment of white girls. The symbolism and iconography of this book are what I like most about it so far.

Working Thesis

I'm not really sure exactly what I am going to be working with yet but something along the lines of iconography. Maybe a question like, how is iconography used in comics, by the author, in order to give the reader a better understanding of the text? And then since I will be focusing on comics, I will talk mainly about American Born Chinese and McCloud's Text. That's pretty much all I have so far. Any suggestions would be great!

Being True to You

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion..." -Ralph Walter Emerson

I noticed a lot of conversation and similarities between this quote by Emerson, with two of the characters in American Born Chinese, and in the Dove ad we watched today in class. The basic meaning that we came too, for this quote, was that you shouldn't be ashamed of who you are and you should never try to be something or someone you are not. Beauty is within and we need to remember that in order to maintain who we really are. This quote works directly in conversation the a couple characters in American Born Chinese. The first character is a monkey. He doesn't want to be a monkey so he tries so hard to turn himself in to something that is unrealistic. He begins taking on human characteristics, one being wearing shoes. He then tries to become a God, but in the end is buried by rocks by an actual God; the moral being being something you are not never gets you very far. There was another character in American Born Chinese that came to a new school from San Fransisco, but because he is Asian it was assumed he came right from China and many other stereotypes were placed upon him. He was treated poorly and constantly insulted by classmates. Later on, another kid comes from Taiwan and is treated just as badly by his classmates. The boy tries to make friends with the kid from San Fransisco but he is turned down and treated poorly. This shows that the kid from San Fransisco is being someone he is not because he is acting in a way that he thinks his classmates want him to act. He didn't like being treated badly, yet he is doing the same thing to someone else. Eventually he realizes he can be himself and the two become friends. Finally, there is also a conversation with this quote and the dove ad that I noticed. The entire dove ad is about staying true to yourself. It shows an average girl who is literally transformed by makeup and computerization's to become, what looks like a completely different person. The purpose of this ad is to show that even with all the make up and what not it doesn't make the person who they are. We cant look perfect because the perfection we see on billboards isn't even real. It is fake and computerized but it makes us feel like we need to look like that to feel OK about ourselves. All in all, all of these pieces of literature are conversing with each other about the importance of staying true to yourself and that beauty comes from within.

American Born Chinese

After finishing McCloud's book and starting the book, American Born Chinese, I am really beginning to take a better understanding for comics and am beginning to have more of an appreciation for them and what the bring to me as a reader. In comparison to McCloud's book, I found this book as a much easier read and way easier to follow. The panel I would like to focus on and which I found very interesting was the panel where the boy, Chin-kee, goes to school in America for the first time. First of all, his name is Chin-kee, which the word "chink" is often referred to as a dereogetory comment towards Asians. I was shocked at the fact that the author would go that far, but I think it does an excellent job of expressing stereotypes against Asians, in general. This panel/section shows a young, Chinese boy, and his first experiences in an American school, while visiting his cousin in the US. I actually found a lot of what was happening in this section and the expressions used to hold very true in a sense. In my own experience, when people from other countries come in to the United States for the first time they are so excited to do so. A lot of times too, they are eager to learn. In this panel Chin-kee is so excited to learn and participate, while the other kids are so used to the education they are given that they show no enthusiasm to learning, what so ever. In every class they show him in, he is always raising his hands and answering questions. I also liked how it actually showed Chin-kee's difference in dialect because I feel it really held true. He knows English, but it's broken English, which is what you see a lot of times with those who have not been in our country for too long (I am impressed, none the less, because I don't think I'd ever be able to pick up a language as fast as a lot of people do).  The multi modality used in this section I chose, doesn't exemplify as much as in other parts, from what I noticed, but multi modality is used in the classroom setting, where most of the section I chose takes place. In the science classroom, a human skeleton is used as a visual aid. In English, the teacher is reading out loud to the class and in math equations are written on the board by the teacher. This portion of the text actually truly does exemplifies multi modality in the classroom and the different ways of learning and teaching that honor all of our different senses.  So far I have really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading the rest of it! 

Bell Hooks

I found Bell Hook's views to be very interesting and posing much controversy. I think the way she presented these concerns for racism and gender inequality, and what not, through the media is a very good way to go about it. After viewing all the clips shown through out the segment we viewed, it is all the more evident of what society makes us believe, and that the media is such a strong source that it can alter out actions, that much, SO easily. Her point on how the media is everywhere, and we all see it makes us feel as though we need to act in a certain way, or the person with this color skin is seen as a negative person amazed me in how true it actually is. Even after viewing all of those clips, I myself have seen how movies and entertainment can portray negative light on such sensitive issues, but haven't realized this so much in the past. I think all these topics of gender, race, etc, are very important to discuss, especially because of how the media often goes about portraying these issues. If we choose not to discuss them, then the images we see through the media are the ones that will stick with us and we will most likely believe to be true. I don't necessarily believe we always do what the media tells us to, but we see it and often act unconsciously after viewing it. 

American Gothic

I chose to interpret "American Gothic."  A lot can be taken from this picture when applying Molly Bang's theories and even some theories of my own. Judging by the positioning of the two people in the picture, I took from it that they are a married couple. Eye contact says a lot in this image. The man is looking directly at us, as we view it showing a clear sense of dominance. Where as, the woman's eyes are veered off in another direction, not making direct eye contact, thus exemplifying inferiority to her male partner and that clearly she is not the dominant one in this relationship. Her not looking directly ahead shows, to me, insecurity, and that she knows who is boss and that indeed it is not her. Molly stated that the top half of the picture is a place of freedom, happiness and triumph where as the bottom half feels threatened, heavier and sadder. This is definitely exemplified in this picture. The bottom half is where the couple is located and they look extremely unhappy. The top of this picture is surrounded by landscape and a nice house. Its odd too because Molly talks about how we feel more threatened by pointed shapes and more secure by rounded ones and I find this to be true as well. The pitch fork, for example, actually is a curvy shape and doesn't seem to scare me as a reader. I feel if it was more straight edged I would definitely feel more threatened as a viewer, but it doesn't at all scare me as a reader. I found this to be a very interesting picture to interpret and although I interpret it one way, I'm sure others may see it differently. 

What's Are Real Books?

Real books, to me, are anything you can open up, read and get something from. Anything providing some kind of information or some sort of story about something, I consider to be a book. A book doesn't have a certain length or certain requirements, in my opinion. When you think of a book you don't tend to think of newspaper articles and magazines, but I feel these are just as important as books, because they are providing some sort of information, therefore I classify them with books. I try not to show prejudice towards literature I am unfamiliar with, such as comic books, because, as stated in my definition of a real book, a comic book is included. Although I don't really enjoy literature like graphic novels and comics, in no way does that mean to me that these aren't books. If I read these types of literature, I may not particularly enjoy them, but ultimately I will get something from them. Whether I liked what I read or not, to me it is nearly impossible to get absolutely nothing from reading. 

Multimodality

As stated in the second paragraph of the article,

"Multimodality, multisemiotics, and multiliteracies emphasise the many ways and contexts in which people experience communication and come to develop understandings." As the article goes on it discusses more in depth how these different concepts do exactly this. Multimodal learning is everywhere and most of us don't even know it. In reality we are actually experiencing it all the time. School is the one place that is most obvious, where we experience these ways of learning, because of the many forms of communication that are presented in the classroom. We have lectures, readings, writings, etc which are all different forms of communicating and getting points across to students; This is exactly what multimodality is. It is the different ways of communication leading to the different understandings we take from what is being taught. 

The author himself actually speaks about how we are beginning to shift away from the traditional written and spoken words as means of communication and move in to other forms film, music, multimedia, etc. This article was especially interesting to me. Even though we are constantly living and learning in a multi modal way, we don't necessarily realize it, or at least I don;t anyways. It gave me a different out look on how many different ways there are to learn, which can defiantly make things more interesting and exciting. Rather then sticking with one way of learning all the time, there are so many other ways of communicating things to people leading them to many different understandings, which can actually be a good thing. It was really cool to me to think about how we use all our senses for communication because typically that is something you look past in everyday life. It's shocking to me all the other ways of communicating there are now (the Internet, multimedia, etc.), but I actually thing it's a good thing. I think the more ways there are of communicating, the more opportunities for people to understand what is coming from what is trying to be taught. I thought McCloud's text was rather confusing to me. A lot of it didn't really make sense to me and I think the main reason for that is that I am not one for reading comics. I was very distracted by the pictures, which interested me a lot more than what was actually being stated in the comic itself. Over all, I thought this was a very interesting article!

What is an American?

Many people define being an "American" differently. To me being an American doesn't necessarily represent the color of your skin or if  you originated from the United States of America. To me being an American means taking pride in the country you are living in. I think being proud of our country exemplifies the character of a true American. I believe a true American must also show a great amount of  respect for their country and the people in it. If you don't respect the land you live in and the people you live among, than I don't feel you are appropriately representing the United States and to me this is truly not American. Being an American means supporting your country and doing everything you can to make it the greatest country possible. Being an American has to do with loving the country of the United States, supporting it  always, and respecting it and taking pride in it. To me, this is truly how an "American" can be defined. 

USA Gymnastics

I chose an image of the 2008 Women's Olympic Gymnastics Team. I did competitive gymnastics for thirteen years, so I am a very big fan of the sport. I love keeping up with the sport, watching meets on TV, and even attending meets myself. Gymnastics is definitely my favorite sport!

USA Gymnastics 

Literary Theories: Assignment for 9/8/08

Though I found many of these theories very interesting, the two that I found the most interesting were popular culture and biographical. I am very interested in popular culture and what is going on in the world. I try to pay close attention to what is going on in the media and reading about what is popular among what types of people in the world and things of that nature often grab my attention very quickly.  The biographical theory is another theory that really catches my interest. Reading about people and their real life struggles, accomplishments, successes, etc. is just fascinating to me, what is probably why biographies are one of my favorite types of literature.