Lesson 2: My Favourite Poet - James Langston Hughes

Do you know that James Langston Hughes was the great-great-grandson of Charles Henry Langston, brother of the first Black American to be elected to public office, John Mercer Langston?

James Langston Hughes attended Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio. He began writing poetry at eighth grade and since then had famous pieces like his first piece, "The Weary Blues". His poems and essays have been a great influence to the people. We can tell because when James Langston Hughes died, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, New York City, was given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street was renamed "Langston Hughes Place".

James Langston Hughes was a Black American. We can tell that we wanted equality in America from his poems, "Let America Be America Again", " I, Too, Sing America" , "Dream Variations", and many more.

From my point of view, I think that he deserves respect from everybody, regardless of their skin colour. His wish to have equality in the nation and society should be fulfilled. I think that now that the President of America is a Black American, James Langston Hughes's dream would finally come true and America would be a more equal nation.

Lesson 1b: My Favourite Poem. All the World's a Stage by William Shakespeare

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.


How are the figurative language used in the poem? Give the specific word(s), explain what type of figurative language it is and why the poet chose to use this figurative language?

Hyperbole:
All the world's
Mewling and puking
whining schoolboy
shining morning face
creeping like a snail
sighing like furnace
woeful ballad
full of strange oaths
bearded like the pard
even in the cannon's mouth
in fair round belly with good capon lined
wise saws and modern instances
lean and slippered pantaloon
youthful hose
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything

Personification:
-

Metaphor:
sighing like furnace
bearded like the pard

Simile:
creeping like snail
sighing like furnace
bearded like the pard

Symbolism:
stage


Tell us why you like this poem in no less than 100 words on your Blogsite.
I like this poem "All the World's a Stage" by William Shakespeare. It uses interesting words that can capture our attention. The figurate language William Shakespeare uses in this poem can let us imagine in our minds what is actually happening on the "stage". Although he uses simple vocabulary for the similes, it can gain our attention just as well. William Shakespeare writes the poem like a story. In the poem, he phrases it just like he is telling a story. In this poem, he tells a story of how someone can play different roles on the "stage". Personally, I think that what he actually wants to express to us readers is that a person can actually treat people differently at different places and time. This tells us his views on how he thinks of some people in his life that does this.

Book Review 4: The Kite Runner

Amir, a well-to-do Pashtun boy, and Hassan, a Hazara and the son of Amir's father's servant, Ali, spend their days in a peaceful Kabul, kite fighting, roaming the streets and being boys. Amir’s father (who is generally referred to as Baba, "daddy", throughout the book) loves both the boys, but seems critical of Amir for not being manly enough. Amir also fears his father blames him for his mother’s death during childbirth. However, he has a kind father figure in the form of Rahim Khan, Baba’s friend, who understands Amir better, and is supportive of his interest in writing stories.

Assef, a notoriously mean and violent older boy with sadistic tendencies, blames Amir for socializing with a Hazara, according to Assef an inferior race that should only live in Hazarajat. He prepares to attack Amir with his steel knuckles, but Hassan bravely stands up to him, threatening to shoot Assef in the eye with his slingshot. Assef and his henchmen back off, but Assef says he will take revenge.

Hassan is a successful "kite runner" for Amir, knowing where the kite will land without even watching it. One triumphant day, Amir wins the local tournament, and finally Baba's praise. Hassan goes to run the last cut kite, a great trophy, for Amir saying "For you, a thousand times over." Unfortunately, Hassan runs into Assef and his two henchmen. Hassan refuses to give up Amir's kite, so Assef exacts his revenge, assaulting and raping him. Wondering why Hassan is taking so long, Amir searches for Hassan and hides when he hears Assef's voice. He witnesses the rape but is too scared to help him. Afterwards, for some time Hassan and Amir keep a distance from each other. Amir reacts indifferently because he feels ashamed, and is frustrated by Hassan's saint-like behavior. Already jealous of Baba's love for Hassan, he worries if Baba knew how bravely Hassan defended Amir's kite, and how cowardly Amir acted, that Baba's love for Hassan would grow even more.

To force Hassan to leave, Amir frames him as a thief, and Hassan falsely confesses. Baba forgives him, despite the fact that, as he explained earlier, he believes that "there is no act more wretched than stealing." Hassan and his father Ali, to Baba's extreme sorrow, leave anyway. Hassan's departure frees Amir of the daily reminder of his cowardice and betrayal, but he still lives in their shadow and his guilt.

Five years later, the Russians invade Afghanistan; Amir and Baba escape to Peshawar, Pakistan and then to Fremont, California, where Amir and Baba, who lived in luxury in an expansive mansion in Afghanistan, settle in a run-down apartment and Baba begins work at a gas station. Amir eventually takes classes at a local community college to develop his writing skills. Every Sunday, Baba and Amir make extra money selling used goods at a flea market in San Jose. There, Amir meets fellow refugee Soraya Taheri and her family; Soraya's father, who was a high-ranking officer in Afghanistan, has contempt of Amir's literary aspiration. Baba is diagnosed with terminal oat cell carcinoma but is still capable of granting Amir one last favor: he asks Soraya's father's permission for Amir to marry her. He agrees and the two marry. Shortly thereafter Baba dies. Amir and Soraya learn that they cannot have children.

Amir embarks on a successful career as a novelist. Fifteen years after his wedding, Amir receives a call from Rahim Khan, who is dying from an illness. Rahim Khan asks Amir to come to Pakistan. He enigmatically tells Amir "there is a way to be good again." Amir goes.

From Rahim Khan, Amir learns the fates of Ali and Hassan. Ali was killed by a land mine. Hassan had a wife and a son, named Sohrab, and had returned to Baba’s house as a caretaker at Rahim Khan’s request. One day the Taliban ordered him to give it up and leave, but he refused, and was murdered, along with his wife. Rahim Khan reveals that Ali was not really Hassan's father. Hassan was actually the son of Baba, therefore Amir's half-brother. Finally, Rahim Khan tells Amir that the true reason he has called Amir to Pakistan is to go to Kabul to rescue Hassan's son, Sohrab, from an orphanage.

Amir returns to Taliban-controlled Kabul with a guide, Farid, and searches for Sohrab at the orphanage. In order to enter Taliban territory, Amir, who is normally clean shaven, dons a fake beard and mustache, because otherwise the Taliban would exact Shariah punishment against him. However, he does not find Sohrab where he was supposed to be: the director of the orphanage tells them that a Taliban official comes often, brings cash and usually takes a girl back with him. Once in a while however, he takes a boy, recently Sohrab. The director tells Amir to go to a soccer match and the man "who does the speeches" is the man who took Sohrab. Farid manages to secure an appointment with the speaker at his home, by saying that he and Amir have "personal business" with him.

At the house, Amir has his meeting with the man in sunglasses,who says the man who does the speeches is not available,. The man in sunglasses is eventually revealed to be his childhood nemesis, Assef. Assef is aware of Amir's identity from the very beginning, but Amir doesn't realize who he's sitting across from until Assef starts asking about Ali, Baba and Hassan. Sohrab is being kept at the home where he is made to dance dressed in women's clothes, and it seems Assef might have been sexually assaulting him. (Sohrab later says, "I'm so dirty and full of sin. The bad man and the other two did things to me.") Assef agrees to relinquish him, but only for a price - cruelly beating Amir. However, Amir is saved when Sohrab uses his slingshot to shoot out Assef's left eye, fulfilling the threat his father had made many years before.

Amir tells Sohrab of his plans to take him back to America and possibly adopt him, and promises that he will never be sent to an orphanage again. After almost having to break that promise (after decades of war, paperwork documenting Sohrab's orphan status, as demanded by the US authorities, is impossible to get) and Sohrab attempting suicide, Amir manages to take him back to the United States and introduces him to his wife. However, Sohrab is emotionally damaged and refuses to speak or even glance at Soraya. This continues until his frozen emotions are thawed when Amir reminisces about his father, Hassan, while kite flying. Amir shows off some of Hassan’s tricks, and Sohrab begins to interact with Amir again. In the end Sohrab only shows a lopsided smile, but Amir takes to it with all his heart as he runs the kite for Sohrab, saying, "For you, a thousand times over.".

Book Review 3: The Giver

Jonas, an Eleven, is apprehensive about the approaching Ceremony of Twelve. His friends Asher, Fiona and the others of his year seem to naturally fit into a certain Assignment. His mother and father are both matched well to their Assignments and even his little sister Lily demonstrates some early inclinations to where she might be Assigned. He, however, has never felt a particular draw to any one thing.

Jonas's community is ordered by tight rules, and multiple transgressions will result in Release from the community to Elsewhere. Newchildren who do not develop as expected and the Old are also Released. But Jonas is not concerned with those things. He is a good student and obeys the community rules, except for one instance of being singled out for removing an apple from the recreation area.

At the long anticipated ceremony of Twelve, Jonas is shocked when the Chief Elder announces that he has not been Assigned, but rather Selected as the community's next Receiver of Memory. It is a very rare event and a position of great importance.

Jonas meets the community's previous Receiver of Memory for his training. The man tells him that he is now the Receiver and that Jonas should call him The Giver. The Giver begins to transmit his memories to Jonas. Jonas learns about colors, which are not seen by other citizens because of Sameness. He had already begun to see some color, in the case of the apple he took home. The Giver later begins to transmit memories of war, pain, hunger and death. These memories are kept away from the community so that they do not have to know such things, but the memories must exist somewhere. Along with the terrible and painful memories, there are also beautiful memories of the time before Sameness and of a love that does not exist in the community.

As the memories he receives drastically change his understanding of his community, his friends and family, and himself, Jonas begins to conceive of things being different. That people could make choices for themselves, even if they were wrong, and that they could love.

When he witnesses his father Releasing a newborn twin Jonas realizes that the term actually means death. The Giver explains that it is not his father's fault, because he and the others do not have the memories Jonas does and they know nothing. It is then that Jonas and The Giver form a plan for Jonas to disappear from the community and thereby release all of the memories he has received back into it. However, the night the plan is to be set into motion, Jonas learns that a newchild, Gabriel, who has been staying with his family in the hopes that he would learn to sleep through the night, is scheduled for Release in the morning.

Jonas deviates from the plan and flees the community with the newchild. They avoid the search planes, but as they go further and further from Sameness their situation grows more and more desperate. Finally, in a snowstorm, Jonas is certain they are coming to the promised Elsewhere, where people are waiting for him and the baby.

Book Review 2: The Most Dangerous Game

At the start of the story, Sanger Rainsford is steaming south to Brazil to hunt jaguars in the Amazon with a fellow hunter named Whitney. Rainsford is presented as stereotypically heartless hunter, unconcerned about the life or feelings of his prey. As they pass through the Caribbean, Rainsford accidentally falls over the side of the yacht, but saves himself by swimming to the rocky shore of a mysterious island. Moving inland he discovers a large manor-house on a cliff. He knocks at the door and is welcomed by General Zaroff, a gentle and elegant man of noble Cossack heritage who apparently lives on the island alone with his powerful servant, a terrifying deaf-mute named Ivan.

Zaroff explains that he is the ultimate big-game hunter; he lives for his hobby, and has traveled the world and hunted every possible game animal. Now he has become so good at it that he's bored with his beloved pastime. In search of the only prey that can make the hunt challenging, he has begun to hunt humans. He lives in luxurious seclusion on the island, tricking ships into wrecking near his island with misleading navigation lights. When the surviving crew swim to his shores, he offers them a choice: they can be murdered by Ivan or choose to be hunted on the island by Zaroff. If they survive three days, he promises to set them free. Rainsford professes horror at the hunting of humans, and it isn't long before this hunter must himself be hunted. Zaroff offers Rainsford the same choice; become prey, or die.

Rainsford must set out to survive his three days as a game animal with only a sack of food and a knife. The conclusion of the story focuses on what happens when these two skilled hunters finally match wits.

Book Review 1: Lord of the Flies

William Golding’s adventurous tale about a group of boys marooned on an island is more than an action story. It is a commentary on the darkness that exists in all mankind. The evil in every soul that seeps through when humans are unsupervised, uncivilized and driven to madness.

In the midst of a nuclear war a group of school boys become abandoned on an island when their plane goes down. Without adult supervision they must work together to survive. At first the boys are civilized and choose to elect a leader. A boy of twelve years old, Ralph, is elected. The first day goes rather smoothly and they talk about rescue and what they have to do until then. Ralph is adamant about establishing a smoke signal so a pair of twin boys are assigned the duty to start and watch a signal fire. Another group, the choirboys, elect themselves to become the hunters and provide meat for the group. They are led by a strong willed twelve year old, Jack. Besides these boys there are several younger boys about the age of six known as the littluns. Simon, an enlightened and spiritual boy and Piggy, a scientific thinker, quickly become the counsel for Ralph.

Jack and the hunters become increasingly consumed with killing sows. They even begin painting their faces and tracking the animals. All the boys begin to be fearful of a supposed beast in the jungle. Their fears are further fueled by the arrival of a dead man with a parachute that lands on the top of the mountain. The boys begin to see Jack as a protector and look to him for leadership, some look up to him, some fear him.

Simon, one day while in his hiding place sees the head of a sow mounted on a stake and becomes delusional. He believes the head is talking to him. He decides to make his way up the mountain to investigate the beast. He finds the truth that it is merely a dead man with a parachute, no beast and proceeds to the beach to tell the others who have become complete savages partaking in daily tribal dances and even torture disobedient members. When he arrives at the beach he tries to tell the boys the truth but is mobbed and killed. His body is washed away by the tide. Soon after Jack’s mob grows and includes nearly every boy on the island except for Ralph, Piggy, Sam and Eric and a couple of the littluns.

Jack’s tribe raids Ralph’s camp one night and steals Piggy’s glasses. The next day Ralph approaches them and ask for the glasses back. They kidnap Sam and Eric, kill Piggy and injure Ralph. The following day a manhunt ensues and the tribe chases Ralph with an intent to kill him. Ralph is saved at the feet of a British military officer on the beach who saw the smoke signal from his ship. Ralph breaks down in tears over all that has happened.