Romantic Spirit, and a 'Boon'

Monday class with Dr. Edwin was like, erm… sexually explicit because most of us brought pictures of Deadalus and Icarus flying or probably ‘Fall of Icarus’. Most of us have pictures of two men flying half-naked or something. The picture that Dr. Edwin was looking for was a landscape picture with Icarus falling into the water with his one or two legs up in the air. Through Dr. Edwin explanations of the Icarus and intertexuality, I understood that Icarus is a Romantic spirit and how people use the story of ‘Deadalus and Icarus’ to express the same message of the story through art such as paintings, songs, and poems. He even told us how art can tell us something if we try to look or observe it carefully. We also examined stories of ‘Mahabatra’ and ‘The Son of the Turtle Spirit’. When we began our discussion on ‘Mahabatra’; he asked all of us what the story all about is. I told him ‘sacrifice of a son to his father’. Then, he paused for a moment and asked us what sacrifice is. All of us tried to come up what is the meaning of ‘sacrifice’. He said to check up in the dictionary. At home, I looked at it and it states “when you decide not to have something valuable, in order to get something that is more important”. I guessed it is not a sacrifice. I wanted to twist the truth. It is an act of sacrifice because the son willing to be ‘sonless’ or do not have children of his own and do not want to be a king and what did he get, a ‘boon’ which he is able to die anytime as he please. Nobody can kill him or he falls ill. That is even better. I think.

Thesis Statement

Omid, I think that is his name. I am not sure whether I spelled it correctly. He is ours tutor for ours position paper. In ours first session with him, he taught us how to construct a ‘thesis statement’. According to him, thesis statement is the central point you are proving. Thesis statement must states the topic of the research paper, shows purpose of my essay which to persuade my readers that my point is valid and deserves serious consideration, shows direction of my argument and interesting which shows a clear voice and style. He gave examples on the whiteboard. Then, he asked each of us to come up with a thesis statement related to UPM. I gave my thesis statement which “UPM has been wasting money on physical developments than their services” which Omid said a good example of thesis statement (I do not want to brag but this was what he say) but suggested I do not let anyone or UPM people know about this (too late now). After checking and commenting some of my friends’ thesis statements, he told us that for our second session, he will give a list of literary texts that we are going to do for our position paper. We were shocked. We thought that we can choose our own literary texts. I was thinking of doing Oedipus Rex. I also showed him my thesis to him and he said that my statement is a thesis. Darn it. Oh well. God moves in a mysterious way.

Project Work For Teaching Literature in ESL Contexts

Project work. It sounds so scary when I heard about it. Dr Edwin briefed us on what we are supposed to do throughout the course. When he said that we can choose any text we want to do or research on, I was thinking about researching on song. I asked him about it and he told me that I need to check with my tutor. I forgot his name. I even asked about our supervisor and when are we going to meet them. Probably in week 4 we will meet them. We are supposed to conduct this course at the end of our program. But, it seems that we need to finish it this semester before going back to “maktab” or IPTI (it is the same thing to me. They just change the name). This project work is important for us not just to improve our way of thinking in literature and how are we going to teach our students, but also to teach and prepare ourselves in managing a research paper. Dr Edwin enlightens us on how to do a research paper. After hearing his explanations, research paper is hard. Especially, thesis statement. A research paper presents and argues a ‘thesis’, the writer’s proposition or opinion. It is an analytical or persuasive essay that evaluates a position. As such, a research paper tries to convince readers that the writer’s argument is valid or at least deserves serious consideration. From Dr Edwin’s explanations, a research paper must has a clear thesis, shows a strong understanding of the topic and source material used, evidence that the writer has read widely on the topic, organized in a clear and logical way and each point is supported by solid, persuasive facts and examples. Hopefully I can get through this.