Participation: 12 Reasons Why

Participation is always an important part of any English class. In order for a class to discuss a topic, everyone must participate. I believe that throughout this first trimester, I have earned a high participation grade. I do not believe I have earned a perfect, 100 percent average for participation because no one is perfect, but I do think I should receive a generally high grade. In order for me to justify this belief, I have compiled a list, which I have entitled the “12 reasons why I should receive a high participation grade.”

1. I pay attention in class
2. I am always prepared, and have everything I need for a particular class day
3. I contribute to class discussions
4. I think about what is being said, and bring up new ideas or questions for discussion
5. I do not talk over my classmates
6. I do not talk over my teacher
7. I do not discuss anything that is off topic
8. I partake in games when reviewing for tests/quizzes
9. I do not act out of line when participating in above mentioned review games
10. I do not have side conversations with the people sitting next to me
11. I take notes during class discussions, powerpoints, etc.
12. I do not do anything that would be a distraction from what we are doing

In addition to this list, however, I know that there are factors that reduce my participation grade. I have not compiled these into a formal list because I do not feel there are enough of them to need a formal list. These factors are that sometimes I do not participate completely during a discussion or offer to read a passage in class. I can provide justification for these reducing factors, however.

Most of the time, I try to participate in class, but sometimes I feel that some of the other students in my class make it difficult to participate. My class has a tendency to get off topic. As a result, I feel like it is difficult to participate. This is one of the reasons why I sometimes do not fully participate in a discussion. When my class gets off topic, I usually do not have anything to say about the new topic, so I do not say anything. Another reason why I sometimes do not participate fully is that I like to think before I speak. When I want to contribute to a class discuss, I want my point to actually have a point, so I usually take a minute or so to think about what my point is, and what importance it has. This thought process can have a tendency to keep me quiet for portions of class discussions.

In conclusion, I believe that my participation grade should be somewhere between an 85 to a 95. I do not think my grade should be higher than a 95 because I do have factors that probably reduce my grade, and because no one is perfect. I think my grade should be higher than an 85 because I believe that I participate in class more than some of my classmates, and my list of 12 reasons justifies this.

Final Thoughts on The Stranger

In my last two blogs, I talked about how Camus’ random and confusing style of writing caught my attention in the first five chapters of The Stranger. After now having finished the novel, I understand Camus’ style of writing better, and I am able to form an opinion on the piece as a whole.

The Stranger is one of the only novels that I have read that has caused me to ask so many questions. There were several instances throughout the book that made me think “why did he say that?” or “why did he do that?” For example, on page 35 in chapter 4, Mersault states that Marie asks him if he loves her. He says “I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so.” This moment was a “why did he say that?” moment. Mersault went out with Marie, kissed her, and did other things that would make it seem like he loved her. For him to say he didn’t think he loved her, and that he didn’t know for sure confused me.

A moment in the novel where I thought “why did he do that?” occurred in chapter 6 (of part 1). In this chapter, the magistrate is questioning Mersault so that he can create his defense for the trial. Much to his dismay, however, the magistrate does not get all of the answers he is searching for. As a result, he pulls out a silver crucifix, and begins to question Mersault’s faith. This moment confused me because it seemed so random. The magistrate practically threatens Mersault with the crucifix just because he is not responding to questions. This seems like a very rash and radical decision, and makes me view the magistrate as crazy. It also makes me view this part of the novel as a section that only catches our attention because of how unprecedented it is.

This section also brings up another theme in the story that confuses me. Even though this moment, for me, was memorable for its extremity, it did not appear to affect the plot much. After this moment, you never really hear about it again. I have noticed this theme in most of the novel. You read a section, and then it ends up having no affect on how the story turns out, or never is mentioned again. This theme bothers me because I believe that memorable moments in a book should have some significance to how the story ends or reaches a climax.

Based on the points I have made, I think it is obvious that this novel generally confused me, and left me asking questions. Despite all of the confusion, however, I liked the novel because it kept me thinking, and the random moments did capture my attention. My final thoughts on this novel are that I probably will not read it again any time soon, but I will definitely remember it and I would suggest it for people who would like to read something a bit different.

Random But Captivating

In my last blog, I discussed how I was both confused and captivated in the first two chapters of The Stranger. This blog is going to be similar. Instead of being confused and captivated for pages 25 through 47, I was captivated by a different theme. Camus can be quite random.

While reading, I also found two ways of classifying Camus’ random points. I will call them “storyline random” and “just plain random.” Both classifications are exactly what they sound like. Storyline random is a random point or statement that moves the story to the next plot point. Just plain random points are points where the narrator adds some insight into something that really does not seem to have any importance, or move the story along.

Chapter two ends with the statement “nothing had changed.” This statement itself and the statement before it is, in my opinion, the most thoughtful thing the narrator has said the entire book, so far. He suddenly switches back to his indifferent self at the beginning of chapter three.

This random jump into a new subject captivates me because of its placement. To go from a thoughtful statement such as “nothing had changed” into “I worked hard at the office today” sets you off your mindset, and that is what captivates me. It sort of keeps me guessing as to what the narrator might say next, and how it will relate to the story. This random switch is storyline random because it moves the story along.

Another random moment in chapter three is when the narrator says that he really enjoys washing his hands at lunchtime, and not any other time. This statement is just plain random, and most likely has no impact on the story. Unless his love of washing his hands at lunchtime becomes what the story is about, I am pretty sure this statement is just random and not necessarily needed. This statement, however, peaks my interest because it provides us with some insight into the character. It gives the narrator another dimension while it has no importance to the plot whatsoever.

Similarly to my last blog post, I wonder whether the author had reasons for these random points, and if he did, I wonder whether they will come around to have some sort of pertinent plot point.

Confusion and Captivation

The next novel I am going to discuss in my blog is The Stranger by Albert Camus. I have only read the first two chapters so far, and I am already feeling mixed emotions about the novel. I am confused and captivated by it at the same time.

The first sentence in the book is “Maman died today.” After reading this sentence, I immediately felt sympathy for the narrator, and expected him to go into some sort of explanation of the death. After this sentence, however, he questions whether his mother died today or yesterday. These statements confused me because they gave a sense that the narrator did not even care his mother was dead. These statements also captivated me. Even though it seems that the narrator does not care about his mother’s death, I was captivated into reading more of the story to find out how she died, or just more about the situation in general.

In addition to the beginning statements, the set up of the rest of the first two chapters confuses me. To me, the story, at this point, is just the narrator’s stream of consciousness. I see no plot or point to the story yet. Usually when I read a book, I can sort of get an idea of what the plot might be like, or what the point of the story is quickly after starting to the book. So far, the narrator’s stream of consciousness has not shed any light on what might come in his story.

I am again captivated at the same time though. As I have been reading, I have not seen any real change in the narrator’s way of expressing his story, and none of the plot points have really connected to one another. I believe that this lack of change and connection is what has captivated me into reading the story more. I want to see if the narrator will tell part of the story differently, or suddenly connect two seemingly different, unconnected plot points, and turn them into a prominent part of the story. My hope or wonder as to whether a change will occur captivates me into reading the story.

After reading the first two chapters, I know that while I continue to read this novel, I am going to want to continue to feel confused, but at the same time captivated. I feel that if the narrator continues to tell his story how he has told it in the first two chapters, I will initially think that he is crazy, and I just want to stop reading. Ultimately, I think that I will always have the tendency to stay captivated also, despite the lack of continuity. I am excited to see whether the novel does ultimately culminate into one large plot point that makes all of the previous discontinuities connected.

Enjoyment and Confusion

Blog number two of the day!

Grace Ogot’s The Rain Came is the story of a village that has not had a plentiful rain supply. The lack of rain is causing hunger and suffering. The only way for the town to get rain is if the chief’s daughter, Oganda, sacrifices herself to a sea monster.

I really enjoyed reading this story up to a point. I liked the beginning because of the vivid picture the descriptions painted with statements like “everyone moved aimlessly and fussed in the year without doing any work.” I also like the description of how chief Labong’o acts. He is supposed to be brave because he is the chief, but his own daughter is set to be sacrificed. With this burden on his shoulders, he cannot help but weep, and question what to do. I like this description of him because, to me, it gives him more depth. In some other stories, the chief fathers might just say that it is their daughter's fate and she must carry it out. In this story, however, Labong’o truly cares about his daughter, and this is visible his description.

The story continues on to describe Oganda’s actions whilst the family is discussing her fate. When I was reading the story, I started to view the scene through Oganda’s eyes at this point. I could see that she probably guessed her family was talking about her marriage because they excluded her from the discussion, and how when she heard the people singing that she must die, she was upset and scared. I liked the story at this point because I was able to get into the character's head and see the scene through their eyes.

The last thing in the story that made me enjoy it was the description of the start of Oganda’s departure. The picture is painted so vividly. I was able to see the villagers watching her and her mother hugging her. I also really liked the use of her song. Having the specific words to her song to read helped to visualize the picture that much more. The author could have just as easily said “Oganda began to sing a song to keep herself company,” but this would not have given any real meaning to the point of the song.

The end of the story, however, I did not like as much. For some reason, it bothers me that Osinda comes and saves Oganda. I feel like it does not entirely make sense. We know from the story that Osinda is the man that Oganda really would like to marry, but he is not really mentioned that much. I think that because of this, it seems random that he just appears out of nowhere and saves Oganda. In addition to thinking Osina’s appearance is random, the very ending does not make much sense to me. He saves her, and takes her to the water. Then, all of a sudden, it just starts to rain. Oganda’s fate was to die so that her village could receive rain. The ending to this story just leaves me asking the question why did it begin to rain if she did not die?

Similarities of Two Stories

Two blogs in one day. Ready, GO!

The short story No Music Before Mosque by Zebun-Nissa Hamidullah is the tale of a young man named Ali who plays his flute before prayer. This act is unholy, and he gets severely punished for it. While reading this story, I thought of a few similarities between it and A Thousand Splendid Suns. These similarities lie within basic story line similarities, and conceptual similarities.

The first story similarity I noticed between the two stories is that they both have similar settings. A Thousand Splendid Suns is set in Afghanistan during the late 1900’s and semi-modern day. No Music Before Mosque is set in Pakistan. The short story was published in 1992, so my guess is that it is set in or around that year. These settings are similar. Afghanistan and Pakistan have similar cultures and communities, and the time periods of both are the similar. The second of the story line similarities lies within the end of No Music Before Mosque and quite close to the beginning of A Thousand Splendid Suns. In end of No Music Before Mosque, Ali, the boy who played the flute, was found hanging from a tree. At the end of chapter five in A Thousand Splendid Suns, Nana is found hanging from a tree. This similarity is not really a huge comparison, but it relates the stories with the concept of the “jinn.”

In the beginning of A Thousand Splendid Suns, Nana continuously mentions an evil being called the “jinn” that will come to possess her if Mariam does not do as she is told. Mariam does not do as Nana tells her, and when she returns home, Nana has indeed been possessed by the jinn, and has hanged herself. In No Music Before Mosque, Nazo, Ali’s niece, goes to a tree by a pond, which is said to be haunted by the jin (spelled with only one “n” in this story). Even though it is never said that the jin had to do with Ali’s death directly, the mention of it in the story at all makes me believe that it could have had something to do with his death.

Another conceptual similarity I found between the stories was the characterization of Mariam and Ali. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam is called a “harami” by her mother, which means she is a bastard child. This phrase puts a lasting shame on Mariam, and often in the novel she refers back to this shame. In No Music Before Mosque, Ali has a similar characterization. While he is not a bastard child, it is revealed that his playing the flute before prayer in the story is not the first time he has done this. His father is extremely angry with him, and continuously says he will severely punish Ali. This compares to Mariam because Ali has also had to grow up being punished for expressing himself with his flute. His father is putting shame on him by punishing him.

Forgetting and a Goal for the Year

For my first blog post, I decided not to start directly with discussing A Thousand Splendid Suns. I though about what to write in this first post for quite a long time, and I came to the conclusion that just jumping right into the novel was not the way to go. Although the novel is set in the present, it is not set in our country. Because of this setting, some of the customs, words, themes, etc. in the book are not what we are used to. This being said, I have decided to start my blog by discussing an interpretation flaw that I have noticed within my class. We forget.

Everyone in my class lives in the United States. Living in this country gives us privileges. We have material possessions, equality between men and women, and equal opportunities for everyone. Many countries do not have all of these qualities. My class, myself included, often forgets this. Forgetting that the characters in A Thousand Splendid Suns do not have these privileges is a major flaw in our interpretive skills for the novel. For example, if a character in the novel needed some medical attention, most likely my class would say something like “then why didn’t they go to the doctor?” The answer to the class’ question would be that they couldn’t go to the doctor because they can’t afford it, or they don’t have one close enough to them. This answer could lead into more questions from the class, but all of them would be answered in the same way: whatever it is that they need, it is not available to them. The class forgets this unavailability, and it makes discussion and interpretation of the novel futile until we remember that we have privileges.

This forgetfulness also affects our interpretation in another way. It sort of puts us on the outside of the novel. We observe things from out own point of view, which is not necessarily effective for interpreting A Thousand Splendid Suns. The book is not set in the United States. The characters are not living the same lives we are. They are suffering. They cannot even go outside without fear that they will be killed. We are not accustomed to these feelings because of our lifestyle, so trying to interpret the novel from our own lifestyle does not put us in a place in the action of the novel.

Forgetfulness is a common trait within our class, and I am sure that it is also present within the other senior English classes. In order to interpret a novel such as A Thousand Splendid Suns, however, we must completely rid our minds of our own lifestyles and privileges. We must become the characters that we read about, and look through their point of view so that we can completely understand what their lives and the choices they make. I have decided to make this a goal for myself throughout the rest of the year. I am going to try to be aware of the differences between my world and the world of the characters I read about, and through this awareness I am going to try to see the stories through their eyes.