Reading of tales..........

We are assigned to read several tales in the course books which include "Mahabharata", "The Son of the Turtle-Spirit" and some Aesop's Fables. I thought this idea was really nice, as I think reading tales is a pleasure, and also relaxing. Certainly, there are some tasks for us after reading too, which is to figure out some answers of the questions related to the tales.

The more I read about the tale, the more I found about the moral values and its implication to the readers' life. The creation of tale is a way of expressing myths, legends or even some fantasy idea that we have had sometimes in our life. That was what I thought! So, for me, reading tales are like reading someone's piece of mind. However, this time with the task that we need to fulfilled beside reading. It actually lead me to think about the uses and purposes of the tales in our society. Then, I started to realize that, in fact, we give advices or criticize some behaviors or mindset that are thought to be destructive to our society through the reading of the tales.

For example, in "Mahabharata", I figured out that it reminds us the important virtue of our life-to hold on our promise, do not be greedy and be satisfied with what we already have. As for "The Son of the Turtle-Spirit", it tells us about some violence and dark side matters happened in our society, then how can it be used to teach us moral values? Therefore, I come to understand that also by understanding the personality of the characters, we learn that do not follow what it to be wrong and always reflect our own behaviour.

Well, I guess I gained pretty much insights and have my knowledge expended on the tales. Thanks to Dr. Edwin!It'll never be the same for the second times reading even with the same text,I guess.

Thesis Statement of position paper

For today's tutorial session, we discuss about the thesis statement that you have drafted. It seems to me that most of the course mates have their thesis statement made through the inspiration of the issue in the text. However, for my thesis statement, I think I still need to work on it as the tutor, Mr Omid commented that it might not have enough supporting details for the thesis statement.

Anyway, through the activity of editing thesis statement together in class, I found it very helpful for us to proceed our writing of the paper as we might not even know our limitation and grammatical errors until we are corrected by the rest of the course mates.

Also, I feel lucky to find out that Punitha, Faezah, Yen Yi and Rose are doing the same topic as mine,which is "Boys and Girls" by Alice Munro. I first felt that to do the position paper is very hard for me, but now with Mr Omid's suggestion that we can sit in a group to discuss our position paper on the rest of the tutorial classes, I really feel less burden and pressure. Good luck to all!

First draft of position paper

Our third tutorial with Mr Omid today was discussion of the thesis statement from our course mates. He has called out plenty of course mates to write their thesis statement on the board and later we discussed together whether the thesis statement is suitable or can be improved.

I think this activity actually helped us to identify the central idea of the thesis statement wrote on the board by the course mates. It has inspired me on the issues that are to be discussed regarding the thesis statement written. Mr Omid has pointed out a very useful tips that we should not look at the text from just one perspectives, which is likely to "top down" model. however, we should have examined the text from different views and conclude as a whole so as to produce a good thesis statement, which is very similar to "bottom up" model.

Later, he also provided two samples of outlining the draft of the position paper because we thought that it can be done in "point form" or "notes form" and we just prepare a brief outline of the draft. Somehow or rather, I think that we still need a lot of knowledge about preparing a position paper and I am think ing of borrowing some reference books from the library later.

A poem by W. H. Auden. --Musee des Beaux Arts

By reading the title of the poem, it is from French. The title of the poem means "Museum of fine Arts". I think it actually refers to the text about the story of Icarus who didn't listen to his father's advices of flying low to avoid the heat of the sun. Somehow or rather, the picture shows the foolishness of a man for not listening to the advices.

There is a picture which painted by William Carlos William on 1936 based on W.H Auden's poem about the fall of Icarus. The poem has taught a lesson on human's foolishness and disobedience and the paintings is meant to be a reminder for human's foolishness. It shows no changes to the world when one thinks that he or she is majestic and powerful.And when the downfall of the person happens, people would not felt sorry or regret on losing such a person as the world still remain the same.

As for me, I think the paintings and the poem can be a very essential material in teaching literature and moral values in the English classroom and I would like to use it as a source of material in my teaching.

Tutorial Session 2

The tutorial today has brought me one step further into the knowledge of writing the appropriate thesis statement regarding to the literary text chosen. We were examining the love story of "Pyramus and Thisbe" in Ovid's Metamorphosis to find the thesis statement of the story. I noticed that from the same story that I read with my course mates, there are several thesis statements that we can made from many different point of views.

For example: "The possessive love between Pyramus and Thisbe leads to foolishness in their action(s)." The supporting ideas are surrounded with the explanation of the possessive love described by the writer and several foolishness in the characters' action.

Also, there is a coursemate who has makes a thesis statement from a different points of view, which is " The pains are more than happiness in Pyramus and Thisbe's love". All the pains that the characters have encountered in the love became the suporting ideas of this statement.

As for myself, I have came up with the statement of "Pyramus and Thisbe's love has led them to make unwise decisions that resulted them to commit suicide." As for the moment, I still think this statement can be implemented to become a better one. Therefore, I will talk about it with sufficient supporting ideas that discovered the unwise decisions the characters have made in the story.

All in all, the Session 2 tutorial has helped me much in the progress of drafting out my position paper with the relationship between the thesis statement and the supporting ideas explained by our tutor.

Hello EDU3234,Goodbye EDU3217

We have done the course of EDU3217 Teaching the language of drama with Dr. Edwin last semester and TODAY with the same lecturer, we are introduced to another TESL course, EDU3234, which is entitled "Readings and Project Work for Teaching Literature". So, HELLO EDU 3234, and GOODBYE EDU3217.

As far as I know about the course, all of us need to do a brief research paper regarding at least two literary texts that we have learned throughout TESL courses and also a position paper. That's a real big concern of mine!

Our Iranian tutor for this course, Omid was introduced to us on our first meeting with Dr. Edwin. I don't know how would it be to have the tutorial class with him. I just hope that I can understand the language came from him for I am not really a good listeners.*Sigh!!*

The first meeting with Dr. Edwin was an introduction about the course and things that we would do for this course. As usual, the e-forum is still an assessment for all of us. (I actually like it as I thought I wouldn't) However, there is basically no examination for this course and the evaluation is mostly depends on the position paper and research paper.

In fact, I was wondering about the texts to be chosen for the position papers so I decided to start out by revising all the listed texts. For now, I have chosen "Barn Burning"by William Faulkner to be my topic of research paper. As for the position paper, I will have to discuss with Mr Omid whether he will provide a list of choices or we can choose the topic our own. So, right now I just start out with revising the texts and list down the problems or the issues discussed in the texts.