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Reading

List: Golden Compass, Friday Night Lights, Cinder, Lord of the Flies, Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, Purple Hibiscus, Macbeth (play).

               I feel like I experienced a major improvement as a reader this year in Dr.D's class, which is saying a lot because I am terrible at reading. I learned how to annotate properly, which is a major help when reading a novel for a class. I learned to choose certain aspects to focus on while reading. For example, while reading The Purple Hibiscus I focused on tradition, stye, and culture. While reading LOTF I focused on things such as human nature, civil society, and government. To help me review and study a book, I would make a note in the margin to draw attention to a specific area of focus. Even though I am not the best at reading comprehension, I feel like reading and annotating has brought me to better  understand the text that I am reading. I also feel that this course has taught me to identify key questions to ask about a book or a story. For example, one of the key questions for LOTF was, "How do community and culture shape who we are?". These key questions allow you to read with more of a purpose.

Evidence:   I chose style, tradition, and culture for my reading topics. I chose these three topics because I felt like they would have the most information in the book. I also chose them simply because they would just be interesting things to learn about. These three topics can contribute a lot to a book because they normally are a major part of the setting. So far in the story there have been a handful of of times where tradition, culture, and style have been shown.
               
               Style, culture and tradition are very unique in this story because the africans have there own special things in many ways. It has been very interesting to learn about so far. When the daughter asks her mother to do her hair a certain way is a good example of style. When the story and the characters talk about the food they eat it very much so shows their culture. Finally, when their family and the whole community go to church tradition is showed.(Blog Post)


Evidence: In the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian race is heavily involved in the story. This quote that I picked really explains how the racial part of this book can make junior feel. "It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you're poor because you're stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you're stupid and ugly because you're Indian. And because you're Indian you start believing you're destined to be poor. It's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it" (13). This quote explains the racism in this story because it shows how junior can relate all off his negative emotions back to being Indian. Here junior states that he feels like he deserves to be poor I think he feels this way because he doesn't feel like he is accepted into the people in his tribe or the people in his school. The facts that she is shunned from both of these groups of people is a race problem.
Next, he states that he believes he is poor because he is ugly and stupid. Even though we know that people aren't poor because they are ugly or stupid, I can see how junior might feel this way. I think he feels this way because people have made him feel like an outsider for being ugly, stupid, and for being Indian. So, when people make him feel like he doesn't fit in because of the color of him skin and for his other problems he blames being poor on the attributes that people make him feel bad about. Then junior blames being ugly and stupid on being Indian, which is another big racial point. Finally, he states that all of these racial feelings are a big nasty circle that you can't really get out of, and I agree with him. There is very little that people can do in our world to get released from stereotypes sometimes.(Discussion Board)

             

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