Immigration Project Reflection
I had a great time reading this book because it really interested me. It was a true story for most parts of the book which I didn’t like as much as the scenes where Maxine Kingston is training to become a woman warrior. I am glad that I chose this book because I always wondered how Chinese got to America. I learned a lot about the Chinese culture. For example the discrimination against girls in the Chinese community. The Chinese would put down girls all the time for not being able to be good at anything which isn’t true. I learned this because in the book the parents never really paid attention to Maxine Kingston (main character). I also learned about the focus in education in the Chinese community.
If I were to add something to the literature circle process it would be the meetings. I think that meetings are a good time to discuss the book with other people. Also it is a great time to listen and share opinions. I think that blogs are just like reading it by yourself. It was good that we had responses though because it was a way of getting peoples opinion in some ways. I think that it would be better if we were able to have the posts due later in the night. This would be good because it is hard for some of us to get it done because we have extra curricular activities. Yes we could do it later in the night, but it doesn’t work with our reading schedule. I also think that if you extended the due date than we would have better quality work.
I got a lot of my group member’s opinions by reading their blogs but it wasn’t as fun as just talking with the person. I was able to really focus on what they had to say because we had to right a response on it after words. I think that the lit circle meetings with the vocab and character analysis were a little much. It seemed as though people weren’t focusing on the book but on what they had to do for the lit circle meetings. The problems with the blogs were that they were all located on various dates so I think it would help if we could pick two specific dates in the week that were good for blog dates.
I think what we could do is keep the literature circle meetings and the blogs but we shouldn’t have anything due for the literature circle meeting and we could just talk about the book.
There were a few options that we could pick for our painting signifying our book. I decided that the book cover had to include words which I didn’t want to do. The the interpretation of the novel had more force on symbolism so I picked a specific scene that struck me. I chose this because I could incorporate some symbolism into my artwork and still just have some important parts of the book in my painting without having to describe symbolism. My painting could be considered a interpretation of a novel because I have a lot of symbolism in it but there are some parts of my painting where the title “interpretation of novel,” wouldn’t work out so well.
I think that the book that I read and my painting closely resemble each other because if someone were to read the book and than look at my painting they would easily remember some specific and symbolic moments from the literature. I have a lot of scenes that are intertwined with symbolism. For example the bunny of fire is a scene in the book but it also represents a metaphor in the book. Some of the images in my painting are just random things from the book. For example the 13 beads that Maxine got in her fantasy life for every year she trained with an old couple to become a woman warrior.
I feel like I tried my best on my painting. I feel like I incorporated as many important and representative scenes in my painting as I could. I also felt like it was a good painting for me because usually I don’t put my full effort into art pieces if I am forced to do them. I like creating things myself and painting them. It usually turns out not as good as it would if I had passion for what I was doing. I must say I didn’t have many feelings when making this painting because I couldn’t see myself in Maxine at all so I was just painting what scenes I remembered.
If I had to enhance the quality of my art piece I probably would have taken out the beads and ghost and put in some things that were more important to the book. I think that if I were to do it again I would have painted the lighter colors and than paint the black background so it would look crisp. I good thing that I did with my painting was that I was the first one to start so it was easy to make mine look good. A few minor changes that I would have made would to make the orange in the fire yellow and to make the red in the fire, orange. I also would change the eyes on the ghost. I would take the red off my swords.
When I was brainstorming all the scenes I wanted to do, I was thinking a lot about metaphors and symbolism and I found parts of the book that could relate to a small portion of the book.
The interview portion of this project was my favorite because my interview went smoothly and I met a nice guy who was very friendly and cooperative. I loved how I got to organize everything and it made me feel like an adult because I was talking and scheduling with them.
I really enjoyed interviewing multiple times because it was good in several ways; it gave us time to think about the next interview, we became friends with our interview partner and we were able to talk to someone in all kinds of different strategies using the modern-day technology. I could see how this would be hard for someone who is really busy and doesn’t want to commit to you but since the person I interviewed was very friendly and flexible it was a easy process. In the email interview I send questions to my person and he answered them in an easy format with complete sentences, proper grammar and colorful writing. When I was on the phone with my interviewee I was able to ask him a lot of questions with follow-ups and he answered them exactly how I said; slowly and clearly. The in-person interview was originally going to be at starbucks but we agreed that it would work better at my dad’s office because he worked there. He and I were able to get personal and talk about things that we couldn’t exactly express through an email or over the phone. I was able to read his feelings through are facial expression, body language and hand gestures. We talked about girls to the problems in the Middle East and my interviewee didn’t hold back. At one point we got in a great conversation about the problems in Lebanon and the middle east in general where I really got to pay attention to what my person was saying without having to write it all down. I think that was one of the things that wasn’t good about the in-person interview was that you had to be writing what he was saying which wasn’t polite at times because we should have been making eye contact not facing down towards your piece of paper.
In the email interview I learned the basics about Lebanon which were the religions (Muslim, Judaism, Christianity) , languages (Farsi, Hebrew, English). In the over the phone interview I learned about his experience coming to America which was good and he said he was treated nicely despite his appearance and accent. In the in person interview I learned about his place on the problems in the Middle East. Basically he has given up all hope on the resolution of the problems.
I think that hearing about my interviewee’s life back in Lebanon helped me understand how different cultures can be. I also learned how it could be rough and nice for some people who come. For example my interviewee has to stay employed to stay in the country but he found friends and started a new life for himself from scratch.
I haven’t given my interviewee his present yet but I really think that I did a good job when I painted the product that I will eventually be giving to him in person at my dad’s office
