Week 6: Reflection

Week 6 was different from all the other weeks because this week we didn’t meet for our face-to-face instead we had an online discussion on Monday from 12pm- 4pm. This week we covered dramatic and lyric poetry. Dramatic poetry involves a narrative poem of a person in a specific situation. It can involve emotions, but has so much more to it. We were to read two poems and watch a YouTube video on Islam Against Terrorism Poem. After I had read both poems and watched the video we were now to go to the discussion forum and discuss with our groups about our reactions to both the poems and the YouTube video.

We were broken up into 3 groups and I was in group 1 and my group leader was Talia. Talia posted a bunch of starter questions to get the discussion going, and we all answered and responded to each other’s thoughts and opinions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGe0nl-wSyU

A lot of my attention went toward the YouTube video on the poem about terrorism. I discussed my reaction and how I felt about the poem. I feel that having this discussion online was a great success I seemed to have learned a lot and was able to work well with the group getting and giving great answers.

Some of my posts from the disscussion forum:

Re: Islam

3. After listening to the poem written by Dr. Rafey Habib it has brought to my attention many other stereotypes that we see on a daily basis. Pretty much every ethnic group has a stereotype. For example when someone thinks of someone Jewish they joke about money, they stereotype that Jew's are cheap. When in reality it’s just a stereotype because not all Jew's are "cheap". Another stereotype that you will see almost every day is that against African Americans, some people think that because someone is black that they are a gangster or not smart, which is obviously a false judgments.

Re: Islam

1. What effect does seeing and hearing the poet have on the poem and the emotions it illicit?
Being able to see and hear the poet gives you a better image of what point the poet is trying to get across. You can see the poets face showing his emotion and his voice brings out his true feelings. Without seeing the poet and hearing him you would have too envision in your mind of what he looked like giving a different outcome to your feelings on the poem.

I agree the poem was amazing and it makes you think before judging someone because of their ethnic group. I believe Dr. Rafey Habib was trying to make a point when he wrote this poem. He was trying to say " Dont judge a book by its cover" , meaning don’t just judge someone because their Islam not all Islam's are terrorists many of them are actually frown upon the terrorists.

During week 6 we were also responsible for submitting our National Writing Day submission. For this I chose to submit an old essay that has always meant a lot to me. I wrote the essay back in 2007 for English class in high school, it was about a day at the public park and an unexpected event that happened that night. This essay had a lot of meaning to me for many reasons mainly because it brings back great childhood memories and how happy I was just to be with my family.