RHETORIC

According to Aristotle, a good speech moves an audience where a speaker wants it to go. What is a good speech? For me, a good speech should have the idea and the results. Style is not so important compare to them. A speech is like a conversation to the audience where one can see the reaction of the audience, whether they are moved by your speech, or whether they feel bored after hearing your speech.A speech could be a literature. One of the example will be ‘I Have a Dream’ by Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King has used a lot of metaphor in the speech. For example, bank of justice is bankrupt may refer to there is no justice for the nations in the country. Besides that he also uses contrast words as to show the injustice and the need to have equal rights. For instance, light of hope is contrasted with flames of withering injustice and a joyous of daybreak is contrasted with the long night of captivity.

LETTERS

Letters used to be the most powerful way of communication when other ways of communication had not been found. People used to write letters to inform their family about their situation, to exchange information, to share their opinions, to express their love, to give encouragement and so on. With the development of modern technology, people seldom write letters nowadays. We can see these phenomena especially among teenagers. They will just send a short message using a mobile phone or just make a call to the person they want to talk to. It seems that most people nowadays like things which are fast. They go from one place to another by cars or by LRT, so that they can save their time; they like fast food too, Mc Donald, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Domino; they talk to each other using internet or phone; they can even ‘see’ each other by using 3G or internet, without visiting each other. So, should we ask students to read and write letters? How are we going to convince them that writing letter is actually very interesting? Would they think that writing letter is too time consuming and it might be too late when they got the letter? Perhaps writing on a blog, or what the teenagers call now as ‘blogging’ and email are much more ‘natural’ for them. I believe the purpose of reading and writing a letter can still be achieved when the students write on a blog or send email, it is just the change of medium. As teachers, we need to improve our skills on modern technology too, so as to keep the same pace as our students.

RESEARCH PAPER REFLECTION

Well, the first thing that crosses my mind when reflecting on doing my research paper is short and sweet! This does not mean that the length of my research paper is short, but it refers to the whole process including meeting with my supervisor.Initially, I thought doing research paper would be a troubling task which needs a lot of reading, researching and critical thinking. Perhaps, it would be a much more formal style of written work which requires lots of critics and reviews to support my points. However, after doing on my research paper, I find that actually it is a paper which requires us to combine all the skills we have learned throughout the course and come out with a written task. The skills include brainstorming skill, decision making skill to choose which texts to examine on, critical thinking skill to look deep into the texts to find the issue raised from the texts and also soft skill like speaking skill. This is especially important when we approach our supervisor and even sending masages to ask for the suitable time for meeting. Apart from that, research paper too causes me to go online and search books in the library more often. This no doubt has become a very good habit of mine.In short, I do enjoy throughout the process of doing this research paper. I do not only gain knowledge academically, but also communication skill with the supervisor and my group members. Lastly, I do hope that I can score well in this research paper and have more interest in doing research especially in literature. Thanks for my supervisor, Miss Dzeelfa who has helped and taught me a lot throughout this process.

RESERACH PAPER

I have divided my research paper into five parts; Introduction, author’s biography, analysis of characters,analysis of both texts and implication in classroom. As for my outline, I just briefly write out the main points I want to write in my research paperActually, I find that if a teacher really utilizes any literature text well, it will be useful to the students. This is because I believe every literature has its own value, as literature is about life and experience. Besides, selecting different genres to show the similar issue raised in the texts would attract students’ interest and motivation towards literature. Either from a long text, a novel, or a short text like a poem, both are able to convey similar massage through different ways and passages.
Apart from that, teacher also can adapt several approaches in the classroom depends on what type of texts she chooses. For example, cultural model, human development model or language development model.In short, getting involved in this research paper, gradually make me feel that literature is an interesting and self-reflection class. It is not about scientific fact, but the truth of life. Attending a literature class is like taking a lesson of looking into one’s life and how to make ourselves better.

Position paper presentation

For this assignment, it has taken a long time for me to work on it. From the hard time in choosing the text, getting the right thesis statement to listing out the three supporting details, undoubtedly it is a challenging task. After all these stages, we have to present out argument to our lecturer. However, from those presentations, they really give me a clearer picture on what a position paper means. When the lecturer questions on our points, we must be able to explain and view out our own stand regarding the thesis statement we have made. Failure to do this means we fail to have a strong stand on our argument.The most important is that we have to explain our points well so that others could agree with our stand. This task makes me understand that we have to stay strong with our own stand. We could accept others’ opinions but not easily being influenced by them.

POSITION PAPER?

After the long process doing on our position paper, what is actually a position paper? From my understanding, it is about our stand on the particular text we have chosen to work on. It is about our own feelings and opinion on the whole story. Also, it is arguable as not everyone will agree with your stand and thus, you have to argue by giving points and support it with textual evidences.Well, after our lecturer has explained on the definition of position paper, only then I understand it more deeply. Yes, obviously we have to make our own stand. We could do this by saying that "I believe in a text that….".This means that the something or some points or views in the text which we agree or believe in. Besides, a position paper must have argument and is supported by textual evidences from the text.Apart from that, it is actually quite hard for us to make a strong stand or argument. This is because almost all of us take adult texts which deal with adult issues. For examples, feminism, adultery, social issues and others. Due to our immaturity in thinking and lack of self- experience towards those matters, it is a challenge for us to have our strong stand. It is very arguable and we might lose out stand if there are not enough textual evidences to support our points. Furthermore, to produce a good position paper, one must be a critical thinker. We should not merely look at the surface meaning of a piece of literature. On the other hand, analyzing skill is very important to see things from different perspectives and view it as a whole.In short, I do think that it is the process of doing the position paper is challenging yet suffering. When I am stuck or mind- blank, well, that’s the time where I got to stay calm and most importantly, stay strong with my own stand. Position paper teaches me to have own stand but not always and merely dependent on other people. Everybody is different, thus everybody might have different thinking, feeling and understanding.

Autobiography for classroom

After reading the autobiography by Nelson Mandela, I realize there are lots of advantages of writing an autobiography. Personally, I do write diary when I have something to express. Through autobiography, the author is able to share and express his or her feelings and experience to other people. Perhaps, although the autobiography is not meant for public reading, it helps the author to release his or her tension through words. This is because there are quite a lot of people who express themselves better in words and language than in speech. Furthermore, it can reduce the conflict between people during communication. Apart from that, there are also people who would like to influence others by writing autobiography. Also, autobiography can be meant be entertainment as well. Learning sometimes can be done through humor and laughter.On the other hand, I do think that autobiography can be used as the teaching material in English classroom. It can either act as the literature as resource or literature for study. Although the language used in an autobiography does not promise to be error free, yet, somehow the language used is closer to our real-life. Students might get attracted to the author’s experience. Also, as a literature for study, an autobiography can be used for students to analyze the elements in it. For example, elements like plot, setting, characters and point of view can be analyzed in a autobiography.In short, I think that autobiography is no longer just a piece of individual reflection work. It is also a classroom material for teaching and learning.