Draft:

For major project 1, I looked closely at how the world’s geographic borders influenced the cultures within them. I examined other writers’ texts about geographic borders and what they may influence, in order to try to answer ways in which they shaped cultures. In short, I believe that geographic borders drastically affected cultures, and I explained this in my project.  

         The project was complicated, and it evoked some tougher questions like “Do cultures form in opposition to each other?”  When I thought about this question at first, I was stumped. The more I thought about the question the clearer the answer became. Cultures sometimes form in opposition to another. For example, if they didn’t like something about one culture, they may start to form their own new culture.

I believe that the work I did in Major Project 1 is important because it shows the way culture is formed due to geographic boundaries. It helps to explain why a certain culture may be a certain way. Not every culture is influenced by a border, but my work helps to show that there are cultures out there that are. My work is important because it shows that a simple border can make the things lying on each side entirely different.          This project shows how I can adopt other people’s work and organize their ideas and reduce them to a version to help me explain my ideas. The project also shows that I understand that there are so many different kinds of borders, not just the physical ones, and they affect so many aspects of our lives. This Project has helped me to think about how my identity is influenced by my neighborhood, city, state, and country. This idea was something I have never really thought about, but it has now helped to show the person I am because of the area I live in.

Annie McClure

Professor McLaughlin

World Literature

27 April 2020

Final Reflection 

My name is Annie McClure. I was born and raised in Columbus Ohio. I’m currently living at home with my mom, dad, cat, and our new puppy, instead of in Cincinnati because of recent circumstances. I consider myself to be fun and outgoing. I love sports. I grew up playing soccer for most of my life. I’m a huge Dallas Cowboys and Ohio State football fan. I enjoy hanging out with my friends during my free time. One of my least favorite things to do is read, which is funny because this is a literature class. 

  I am currently 19 years old, and a first-year student at the University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash. My major is Special Education, which I am extremely passionate about. I hope to one day become an Intervention Specialist for high school students. The reason I choose this career path is that my entire life I have battled with my dyslexia and ADHD. These two things have caused me to struggle my entire life in school. My goal is to help give back to children with learning disabilities like myself. I am an extremely caring person which will help me when I become and Intervention specialist. 

What is the significance of literature? Literature helps to give people a way to express themselves, whether that’s as a writer or the readers. It gives us the ability to be creative and to look at things from a broader perspective. Literature helps to expand the way that we look at life and others around us. When we read different books, we learn new things, like about other cultures. Literature also helps to build our appreciation for history. Through literature, we are able to learn about different things that happened before us, giving us an understanding of how things came to be. 

The way that I understand the purpose of studying world literature is that it is a way to teach us about places around the world that we are unfamiliar with. Were able to learn about other cultures and writing styles from around the world. Most of us live in a shadow, only reading literature written about the area around us. Studying world literature lets us come out of the shadow and learn about something that is completely different from what we believe or do. When we read literature around the world, we expand our minds to new ideas and costumes. It makes us smarter. We open our minds up to the world.   

 What matters about the specific selections we have read in the context of the world, US, Cincinnati? It teaches us things about one another. As I’ve said were able to learn about different cultures other than our own. Everything we have read in class this semester has taught us something new. Whether it’s a way of writing, an idea, or a place on this planet, we’ve learned something from each piece of literature we’ve looked at. 

 Why does any this matter to me? Personally, this matter to me because it’s teaching me about new things, I’m unfamiliar with. I am too able to learn about new things which helps me to become smarter. It helps to change the way that I look at others around me. It also helps me appreciate what I do have in life. I may not personally connect with what we’ve read but I was always able to get something out of books. From what I’ve learned this semester, I’m now a more educated, diverse person with a newfound appreciation for reading and world literature. Which something I never thought I would say. 

For major project 1, I looked closely at how the world’s geographic borders influenced the cultures within them. I examined other writers’ texts about geographic borders and what they may influence, in order to try to answer ways in which they shaped cultures. In short, I believe that geographic borders drastically affected cultures, and I explained this in my project.  

 The project was complicated, and it evoked some tougher questions like “Do cultures form in opposition to each other?”  When I thought about this question at first, I was stumped. The more I thought about the question the clearer the answer became. Cultures sometimes form in opposition to another. For example, if they didn’t like something about one culture, they may start to form their own new culture.

I believe that the work I did in Major Project 1 is important because it shows the way culture is formed due to geographic boundaries. It helps to explain why a certain culture may be a certain way. Not every culture is influenced by a border, but my work helps to show that there are cultures out there that are. My work is important because it shows that a simple border can make the things lying on each side entirely different. 

 This project shows how I can adopt other people’s work and organize their ideas and reduce them to a version to help me explain my ideas. The project also shows that I understand that there are so many different kinds of borders, not just the physical ones, and they affect so many aspects of our lives. This Project has helped me to think about how my identity is influenced by my neighborhood, city, state, and country. This idea was something I have never really thought about, but it has now helped to show the person I am because of the area I live in. 

For major project 2, I wanted to understand the theme of identity in literature. My goal was to understand what identity was and what things affect one’s identity. In order to understand the theme identity, I did a comparative literary analysis of 2 texts that we’ve read in class this semester, “Wide Sargasso Sea” and “The Best Place on Earth.”  Both texts each shared a similar theme of identity, which helped me to understand the role identity plays in literature. 

 My work helps to give my readers an understanding of why exactly the theme identity is. Identity is an important thing, it’s what defines the person we are. My work helps to show how different things in one’s life, affect their identity. It’s important to understand what identity is when you are reading because it will give you a deeper understanding of what you’re reading. In literature, it helps to create the characters and the storyline. Without identity in literature, there wouldn’t be a storyline, characters would be bland.  My work also shares how you can take the similar themes of books and compare them to another.

My project shows how I am able to take 2 different texts and compare them to another. I’m able to find a central theme of a book in order to understand it more deeply. My work shows my understanding of literary criticism, and its importance. I was able to create an analysis for each book to understand its themes. I was able to relate the two books to another to get a better understanding of the theme industry.  My work indicates my deeper understanding of identity and its key importance in literature. My work shows my understanding of geographic borders and how that influences us. In my work, I was able to explain how geographic borders affected charters’ identity from each story. My work has taught me how important identity is. It helped me to think about why a character is a certain way while I’m reading. 

For Major Project 3, I choose to write an in-depth series of book reviews, for 4 of the books we’ve read in class this semester. For the review, I rated each book on the same scale and answered similar questions about each book like “Who would you recommend this book too?” I also wrote an in-depth reflection on the work I did for the project. 

I believe my work matters in Major project 3 because I am helping others who are wondering whether a book would be a good fit for them or not. Reviews are such an important thing that so many people look at before they make the decision to do something. My reviews can help stop someone from wasting their time reading something that isn’t suited for them personally, or they have no interest in. I put in a lot of time into my reviews to make them meaningful and helpful to those that read them. My work was personal, I wasn’t looking at another writer’s ideas, everything I wrote in my review was my own opinion and work. 

This project has really shown how much I’m learning. The project shows that I’m understanding the books we’ve been reading in class. It shows that I am able to go into detail and explain what the stories were about and why someone else would want to read it. My work has taught me that my opinions matter. Sure, not everyone cares what I have today but there’s someone out there who benefiting from the work you’ve done. 

This semester was very strange. However I learned so many new things. Coming into this class, I was dreading it. I wished I was taking something different. Now, I’m thankful I took this class. This class was hard work and It took alot of brain energy but it was very rewarding.

For my major project 3, I decided to do book reviews on some of the books we’ve read in class this semester. I wanted my book reviews to be meaningful and strictly opinion based. I also wanted to make my book reviews helpful for anyone who may read it.  I wanted to provide my readers with a decent amount of information while not overloading my reviews with mass amounts information. That way, my readers were able to understand if it was a good book or a bad book without any confusion.  

I decided to choose 4 books from what we’ve read this semester. When I choose the 4 books, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t picking for books I hated or 4 books I enjoyed. I decided to do one book I really disliked, one book I really enjoyed, and 2 books I never originally formed an opinion about. Do this helped to keep writing the reviews interesting. 

After choosing the books I wanted to review, I came up with how I wanted to review each book, keeping the questions I answered in each review book the same. As I said before I wanted to make my reviews simple and to the point, so I didn’t overdo it with the amount of questions I answered in my reviews. I started each review with a short simple summary of the book, so my readers got a pretty good idea of what the book was about, trying not to give any spoilers. The next question I answered was what my favorite part about each book was. This question informed my readers why it was good in my opinion. The next question I asked was how the book helps readers. I decided this was a good question to answer in my review because it would give my readers a clear idea of what they would get/learn from reading the book. If I were to say “This book helps readers learn math,” Those reading my review would know they would learn about math if the read the book. The next question I answered was what the book’s strengths and weaknesses were. This question helps my readers understand the positives and the negatives about the book so that they are able to decide if something they want to read. The next thing I shared was who I’d recommend the book to, so my readers knew if the book was right for them. Next, I shared my favorite quote from each book, that best shared the overall idea of the book. The quote helps to give readers an idea of what the reading is going to look like. And lastly, I shared my final overall rating of the book and my final thoughts. Basically, sharing why, I rated the book the way that I did.

This project has really shown how much I’m learning. It shows that I’m understanding the books I’m reading in class and that I’m able to go into detail about the stories. This Project is a clear connection to what we have been doing in class because they’re all books, we’ve read and gone over in class. We have also worked on short book reviews for some of these books in class before. I really enjoyed this project and felt like I was writing something that was going to be useful for others.

Book review rating system:

For each book I rated them out of 5 stars. All of my ratings were strictly opinion based. The more stars the better I thought the book was. I really based these ratings on whether or not I enjoyed the book. If the book was easy to read. If I learned or got something out of reading the book. Lastly, What the book didn’t do or did do well.

Book review: A Year Full of Short Stories by Angela McAllister

“A Year Full of Short Stories” by Angela McAllister is a children’s book filled with short stories. Each short story is found underneath one of the 12 months in a year. Each of the short stories comes from a different culture, so children are able to learn about different places, customs, traditions, and morals.

My favorite part of the book is the lessons that it teaches to young children in each short story. For example, in March, the short story “Tiddalik, the Thirsty Frog” is a story about a frog who drinks all of the water in the water hole, leaving none of the other animals. This story helps to teach children the importance of sharing with others and not being greedy. I find the lessons to be my favorite part because it teaches kids important life lessons while still keeping it fun for the child.

This book helps to teach children many different things. It helps readers to understand the months in a year. The books helps readers understand and learn about different cultures, holidays, and traditions different from their own. The book also helps to teach its readers important life lessons and morals.

The book has many different strengths. The book’s first strength of the book is that it is a great tool for teaching. The book does a great job of teaching children in a fun and entertaining way. The book makes its stories short and simple, so that children are able to easily follow along and learn. Another strength of the book are the illustrations for each short story. The illustrations are very bright and colorful making them fun and exciting to gaze at while reading each story. One weakness I did find with the book is the challenging words it has the children may struggle to understand. This isn’t a major problem, but it can still be challenging for some children. If a child isn’t able to understand the meaning of a word, they may have trouble understanding the story as a whole and its purpose/what it is trying to teach.

I recommend this book to all young children. As I have explained the book teaches children many different things. It’s a really great source that teaches children many new things. One of my favorite quotes from the book is “he remembered the tiny baby, no bigger than his thumb, and he smiled, gratefully”

Overall, I would rate this book 5 out of 5 stars. This is a great book and I had a great time reading each story. The book is a “children’s” book but even me (a 19-year-old) learned many new things. The book is very fun and interesting. The book has great values and morals.

Book Review: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

The book “Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys, is a complex book that tells the story of a girl named Antoinette and her life growing up. Antoinette doesn’t live the best life and she struggles to fit in. She doesn’t really have anyone in her life to lean on during hard times she faces, which ultimately leads her to go mentally insane.

My favorite part of the book was the ending. I will try my best to explain why I felt this was without spoiling the story. For me, the ending was very exciting and also a perfect way to end the story. You can see the effect, that all the hard things Antoinette goes through ultimately have on her. This ending was the most interesting part and made the story worth reading. 

This book helps readers understand what it’s like to feel completely alone. The book really helps to give readers an idea of what it’s like growing up without a role model or someone that you can depend on. The book also helps to give readers a perspective on different cultures.

For this book, the only strength I found was its ability to include lots of details to make the book interesting. One major weakness of the book, however, was how challenging it was to follow along and understand.  The book used many complicated words that made the story hard to understand. When you aren’t able to easily follow along because you’re unable to understand what is happening, you won’t enjoy the book and you won’t want to read it.   

My favorite quote from the book is “You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone. We are alone in the most beautiful place in the world…”

I would recommend this book to older readers. As the book can be quite challenging to read and understand, you need to be someone who is an advanced reader. The book also deals with many serious things that may not be suited for younger readers. I also recommend this book to anyone who has read the book “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë’s novel, as “Wide Sargasso Sea” is a response to the book. I would lastly recommend this book to those who enjoy suspenseful detail-packed books. 

My rating for the book is 2 out of 5 stars. Personally, I didn’t enjoy the book all that well. I found the book to be way too challenging to read, which ruined the book for me. I found myself having to reread over and over again which made me take forever to finish the book. However, there were parts of the book I did enjoy. I believe if the story had been easier to follow along, I would have loved the book. The book had a great storyline and it was interesting and kept you wondering what was going to happen next. 

Book Review: The Best Place on Earth by Ayelet Tsabari

The “Best Place on Earth” by Ayelet Tsabari, is a collection of short stories with changing characters in each new story. The title of the book can be somewhat misleading, as most of the stories in the book take place somewhere where the character wishes they were not. The characters in the stories all struggle to fit in with their surroundings and seem to struggle with a sort of depression from different events they’ve faced in their lives, like violence, identity, love interests, and more.

My favorite part of the book was the short story, “Say It Again, Something else.” The main character Lily is new to Israel from Vancouver and wants nothing more than to go back to where she’s from and on top of that she’s lost her mother. Lily lacks many friends and the friend she has made wants Lily to change her appearance to fit in, in her new home. Lily doesn’t know who she is and what she wants, she struggles with a sense of abandonment. This was by far my favorite story from the book because it was the most interesting and exciting.  

This book helps readers understand many different things. The book helps readers to learn what it may be like living somewhere else. This book also helps readers to understand how people might deal with hard times in their lives. Readers may also get a sense of what it may feel like for someone who is going through something like losing someone. The book helps readers to understand that just because someone doesn’t show they are upset, or hurting doesn’t mean they aren’t.

The books main strength is that it tells multiple different stories. In each story, the characters are different, the setting, and what the character is going through in life. This makes the book interesting while still keeping it simple. If you didn’t like the story from one story there was always another opportunity to like the storyline in the next story you read. You weren’t ever stock reading about the same thing. The stories were also short and easy to follow along, so I never found myself getting bored while reading. As for this book, its only weakness would it may be hard for some readers to relate with. In each story, the characters were going through what seemed like pretty hard times, which some readers may find hard to relate with. 

As for my favorite quote I do not have one. Because each story was so different, it was too hard to choose one that would show what the story was about as a whole.

I would first recommend this book to older readers. This book talks about more mature subjects like sex, abortion, death, which wouldn’t be something young children should read. I would also recommend this book to anyone who does enjoy books that are not your typical happy ending stories.  I would recommend this book to those who enjoy realistic fiction. And lastly, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys short stories. The stories are all very interesting and even though they are short, you still a very good storyline. 

My rating for the book would be 4 out of 5 stars. I really enjoyed this book. The book was simple and easy to read, so I didn’t find myself bored while reading. I also really enjoyed how each story was different from the last, it kept things interesting. The story is also easy to comprehend, even though it was about places that I was unfamiliar with. The only reason I wouldn’t give it a 5 out of 5 is because I didn’t personally enjoy each story and I found some to be very boring.

Book Review: Running a thousand miles for freedom

“Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom” is a true story originally by William Tweedie, about a husband and wife named Ellen and William Craft. The Story is about their personal journey to freedom after leaving behind their slave lives in Georgia. After deciding they no longer want to be slaves, Ellen and William decided to make a run for it and leave Georgia to go to Boston in search of freedom. Ellen is the daughter of an enslaved woman and a slaveholder, so Ellen’s skin color was easily mistaken. Ellen disguises herself on the journey as a Whiteman which helped her. But even with this disguise, the two face a challenging journey to freedom.  

My favorite part about this book is that it is a true story. Everything in the book happened to William and Ellen craft. Knowing that it’s a true story gave the book a deeper meaning for me. 

Because none of us were around during slavery, this book helps readers understand what it was like to be a slave during 1848. The book also helps readers understand what it was like for slaves to run away from their owners and the journey they encountered. In the preface of the book William craft wrote “This book is not intended as a full history of the life of my wife, nor of myself; but merely as an account of our escape; together with other matter which I hope may be the means of creating in some minds a deeper abhorrence of the sinful and abominable practice of enslaving and brutifying our fellow-creatures.” Williams goal was to help readers understand and feel a deeper disgust for the act of slavery.

The first major strength of this book is that it is a Memoir. Knowing that the writer is writing about a true story gives the book a lot of credibility. You’re able to trust what you are reading. I believe you are more likely to show a deeper appreciation for the book because its considered a memoir. The next strength the book had was its ability to evoke emotion and sympathy for those who were slaves. William Craft wrote this “ It is true, our condition as slaves was not by any means the worst; but the mere idea that we were held as chattels, and deprived of all legal rights the thought that we had to give up our hard earnings to a tyrant, to enable him to live in idleness and luxury the thought that we could not call the bones and sinews that God gave us our own:” This beginning part of the story shows just how to book works to evoke sympathy in its readers by sharing such a sad personal feeling they William and Ellen felt. Feeling something for a book gives you a deeper connection to it, it makes you want to keep reading. The only weakness I found with this book is that it can be very hard to understand the writing. The book was written in 1960 and the latter rewritten. So, a lot of the language can be hard to understand because of how long ago it was written.  I found myself having to search up definitions of words quite often.

 My favorite quote from the book is “But I do now, however, most solemnly declare, that a very large majority of the American slaves are overworked, under-fed, and frequently unmercifully flogged.” this shows hoe William and Ellen felt about what they had went through.

I would recommend this book to any students who are learning about slavery. The book shares a lot of good information and is a true story, which can help students understand slavery better. I would also recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about slavery or what it was like to be a slave. 

I really enjoyed this book. I felt like it gave me a deeper understanding of slavery, which I really appropriate. At first, I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this book but, in the end, I did. I would rate this book 5 out of 5 stars. The book was interesting, and I found it hard to put down. The book also taught me things I didn’t know, which I really enjoyed. The book was a harder read because of the language used, but the story itself was short, and I never felt overwhelmed by the book. 

A comparative literary analysis of “Wide Sargasso Sea” and “The Best Place On Earth”

“Wide Sargasso Sea” and “The Best Place On Earth” are two very different books but they ultimately share similarities. The two books are written very differently from another, but both seem to share a common ground with the theme of identity and struggling to find the person you are. Not knowing your own identity can affect the person you are. The characters in the books place a mental border around themselves, which affects their identities. The theme of identity and struggling to fit in makes up the two books and are key when it comes to understanding the books and connecting with them.

When I knew that I wanted to compare the theme of identity, I wanted to better understand in detail what an identity was. I wanted to understand what things affect one’s identity. In an article I read called “identity” the writer says “Identity encompasses the memories, experiences, relationships, and values that create one’s sense of self.” these things help to give us our identity. Basically everything around us helps to make us who we are. 

The “Best Place On Earth” by Ayelet Tsabari, is a collection of short stories with changing characters in each new story. The title of the book can somewhat misleading, as most of the stories in the book take place somewhere where the character wishes they were not. The characters in the stories all struggle to fit in with their surroundings and seem to struggle with depression from different events they’ve faced in their lives.

The book “Wide Sargasso Sea” By Jean Rhys, is a more complex book that tells just one story. The story is about a girl name Antoniette. Antoinette doesn’t live the best life and she struggles to fit in. She doesn’t really have anyone in her life to lean on during hard times she faces which ultimately leads her to go mentally insane.

Both books focus on the theme of struggling to find your identity and the person you are. The first comparison of the two books that focus on the theme identity focus on the characters being alone. In the second story in “The Best Place On Earth” called “Say It Again, Something else.” The main character Lily is new to Israel from Vancouver and wants nothing more than to go back to where she’s from and on top of that she’s lost her mother. Lily doesn’t have many friends and the friend she has made wants Lily to change her appearance to fit in, in her new home. Lily doesn’t know who she is and what she wants, she struggles with a sense of abandonment. In “Wide Sargasso Sea,” the main character Antoinette doesn’t have a mother that cares for her and on top of that, she doesn’t really have any friends. The one friend Antoinette did have in the story end up not being her friend anymore. Antoinette doesn’t know who she is and she isolates her self from the world. 

Not knowing who you are as a person can have an effect on who you are. When you’re all alone and lack a role model or people who you can count on you lose site of happiness. Not being able to talk to someone about the things you go through can leave you feeling alone and unwanted, which is what the characters from both stories went through. In an In-depth analysis, I read of “Wide Sargasso Sea” called “ Identity Crisis for the Creole Woman: A Search for Self in Wide Sargasso Sea”  writer Stephanie Courtney and I both agree that society and those around you affect the person you are. Courtney says “she struggles to develop her own identity in the face of cultural and racial rejection.” She looks at how the people around you play a role in the person you are.

The next comparison I wanted to look at was the traumatic events that took place in both of the books. Each book both had different events that character faced that affected who they were as a person. Antoinette from “Wide Sargasso Sea” goes through many traumatic events during the story, from having a mother who does care about her to being locked up by her husband. The Story “Warplanes” from the book “The Best Place On Earth” The main character (who isn’t directly named) father dies from a sickness. The character feels like her father’s death wasn’t important because he didn’t die in a war, like some of her peers. The main character gets into a fight with her friend Orli who says “Yeah, everyone says you’ve been weird since your father died. Even Meirav is not acting like this and her father was a war hero.” The charter tried to push away her feelings and pretend like she was okay.

The events that happened in the books worked to effect the charterers in each of the stories identities and the person they were. From the main character Antionette, who in the end of the story, from all the events she went through in her life, goes insane. For the main character in “Warplanes” from “The Best Place On Earth,” she ends up becoming depressed, she says “I wonder what it’s like to be dead. Shut-in and all alone” 

When you go through hard events in your life, they can affect your well being and the person you are. These characters were stuck behind a mental border that they couldn’t get over. In an article, I read about the impact of traumatic events linked to mental health, called “The impact of traumatic events on mental health.” It talks about how traumatic events work to affect your mental health they said “Depression is different from feeling down or sad. Someone experiencing depression will experience intense emotions of anxiety, hopelessness, negativity, and helplessness.” The characters from the books seemed to really suffer from negativity and the feeling of helplessness, which as I’ve said really affected the person they were.  

The next thing I compared was how the physical borders/setting affected the characters from “Wide Sargaaro Sea” and “The Best Place On Earth.” The settings of the books played a major role when it came to affect the identities of the characters. Where you live and grow up helps to define the person you are. This is why the setting/physical borders are so important two the stories. They shaped who the characters were. 

In the very first story “Tikkun” from “The Best Place On Earth” the story took place in Jerusalem during a war. One of the main characters, Lori shares how scared of the place where he is to the other main character, Natalie. He tells her “ Look around you. Why would anyone want to raise a child in this country” The place they lived affect how they went through life with a sense of constant fear. In the Story “Wide Sargasso Sea,” Antonetti lives in Jamaica during the first part of the story, on a run-down plantation in Jamaica and then locked away in her husband’s home in England. During her time on a plantation, Antoinette doesn’t really fit in because of her race and those around her don’t accept her. In the last part of the book, while locked away, Antoinette spends the rest of her life in isolation. These two places really affected her, she says to her husband “I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all.” She feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere, she doesn’t know who she is.

The characters were affected differently by the settings but ultimately they helped to shape who each person was. Which is why settings/physical borders are a major part of forming who someone is. In a slide show, I read by Rachel Storey called “How Does Environment Shape a Persons Identity” she shares how the environment works to shape who we are as a person. She says “One of the most important elements of personal growth, and the journey to find oneself, is cultural identity. The way a person relates to their cultural practices and surroundings can significantly affect the way they feel about themselves. Their personal perspective is especially affected when these surroundings are disrupted or shifted into something new.” Both characters that I talked about had there surrounding disrupted, it worked to make who they were.  

Identity has played a huge role in each of the books. It made the stories of what they were. It’s important to understand what identity is when you read these books because it will give you a deeper understanding of what you’re reading. Without an identity, you wouldn’t be who you are just like without an identity of the character from the stories there wouldn’t be a book.  

Work cited

Heshmat, Shahram. “Basics of Identity.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 8 Dec. 2014, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201412/basics-identity.

Identity Crisis for the Creole W, www.mckendree.edu/academics/scholars/issue10/coartney.htm. 

“The Impact of Traumatic Events on Mental Health.” Mental Health Foundation, 16 Jan. 2020, www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/impact-traumatic-events-mental-health. 

Storey, Rachel. “How Does Environment Shape a Person’s Identity?” Arcgis.com, www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=6ef98f48db67430eb76841963d691791.

Adams, Lorraine. “’The Best Place on Earth,’ by Ayelet Tsabari.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Mar. 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/books/review/the-best-place-on-earth-by-ayelet-tsabari.html?auth=login-google.

I found “The Paper Menagerie” to be a captivating read. When I first began to read the story it seemed very weird to me and I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. By the end of the story, I ended up loving it. The story was filled with many great details making it easy to follow along. For example, “A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.”The story at times almost felt real. It felt like Jack was only using his imagination when he talked about the paper animals moving. The bored between fantasy and reality in this story was very thin because it didn’t go crazy when talking about the “magic” of the paper animals. It was easy to relate with because it wasn’t using overwhelming amounts of fantasy. This story reminded me too not take the things I have in life for granted. Jack took his mother for granted, he pushed her away. By the time Jack learned about his mother’s past, and just how much she loved him It was too late. As I read the story I felt bad for Jack, I could almost feel his sadness. In fact, the overall tone of the story was quite sad especially when Jack read his mother’s letter. You could tell how hurt his mother was inside from everything shed gone through. “Why won’t you talk to me, son? The pain makes it hard to write.” I truly did enjoy this story and it was a fun and interesting read.

I did not enjoy “The Embassy of Cambodia”. It was a very long story, making it hard to follow along. I felt lost while reading the story and I found myself having to reread things over again to understand. I also didn’t have any personal sort of connection to the story to evoke any major type of emotion inside me. The tone of this story was sad, I felt bad for Fatou. She had to spend her life as a slave, which was very sad. The story itself did feel very real and there wasn’t anything to lead me to think it was made up. Overall I didn’t enjoy the story like I had with “The Paper Menagerie”.

Focus on how a text option for MP2 reflects and / or shapes the culture/s depicted. Consider how your own cultural background shapes your reading of that text and your approach to and understanding of the culture/s in the text.

The text I choose to look at was the first short story “Tikkun” for the book “The best place on earth” When I read the story, I almost felt thankful that I was able to grow up in the place that I did.  The book made the culture and area seem like a place you wouldn’t want to grow up. The book even mentioned how didn’t want to have a child and bring them into where they lived becuase of how bad it was.  Which is a huge red flag and shows just how bad it was. It really made it seem like a culture in which I would not want to be apart of either. Like the way Natalie dresses, I wouldn’t want to be apart of the religion that they were in. In my culture, you don’t have to dress that way and you don’t really have to be scared to bring a child into this place. It was very eye-opening.

I liked how the story was very simple. The story in general was very easy to understand, I didn’t feel like I didn’t know what was happening or the things they talked about. I had an understanding of what things where. Like when they talked about how covered Natalie was because of her religion. I understood their religion and what it was becuase of the people that are in my own culture. The story made their culture easily relatable, minus the part about shootings that happened in thee stories.  The book talked about things that happen in my culture like people drinking, during drugs and having abortions. You could also tell how Lori really wanted Natalie back and how much he missed her which is something you see a lot in my culture when people break up. Having something to relate somewhat to my culture made the story easier to understand and to feel the way that they were feeling. This made it enjoyable not feeling lost and confused like in some of the other books we’ve read in this class.

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The first story I read was “King of the forest” which was a Chinese Story. It was about making others believe you are better than everyone else. I thought this wasn’t a good story. It didn’t have an overall message to learn from. The story was saying that it’s okay to believe you’re better than your peers when in fact you should never think like that. Although there are definitely instances in my life where I believed I was better those around me. For example, when I was younger, I believed that I was better than my teammates at soccer, and they should be afraid of me. This wasn’t the best way to look at myself because it made those around me not like me, like the animals the fox scared in the story. The language they used was the same as ours, so the story was easy to follow along. 

The next story I read was “The Blue Coat” which was a Jewish story. The story was about a grandfather making many different items for his grandson out of a single piece of cloth. This story was relatable, they used names and items that I was familiar with. Their culture seemed very similar to mine. The young boy David called the other character in the story “granddad” and we use that term as well. They also did things like fishing and playing at the park, which I have done as well. I really enjoyed this short story and felt as though it was an English story.

The story I choose to recast is “Tiddalik, The Thirsty frog” The story was an Australian story. In the story, a frog living in swamps drinks all the water leaving none for the other animals. At the end of the story Tiddalik, the frog spits the water out for the other animals. In order to change the culture of this story to American, I would first change the setting of the story. Instead of story taking place in lagoons and swaps, I would have it take place in America in the home of a human. The next thing I would change would be the characters in the story along with their names. Instead of Australian animals like a kangaroo and platypus, I would make the little boys and girls with American names like Olivia. The last part of the story I would change would be what the main characters is taking away from all the other kids. Instead of a frog drinking all the water, so nobody else could have any, I would have a young boy eat all the birthday cake at a party so none of his friends could enjoy any. That way the message is still the same, but it would be easier for Americans to relate personally.

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

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