Post your reflection on the poem: "A Moment of Silence" here. Today we started in C-212 and ended up in A-232. There were quite a few trees felled (smile). Handouts galore: 3-Part Thesis, various invention worksheets, and Questions for Discussing Essays.
Homework is to bring in a completed Initial Planning Sheet and an outline, which should include a thesis.
Students are to chose one story or look at a device across the landscape of multiple stories for the essay we will start on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011. The essay will use one citation per page: 1 free paraphrase, 1 block quote and 1 shorter citation. The fourth or last page is the works cited. If the essay is longer than 3 pages then the writer can use more citations.
Students should review literary devices associated with fiction like plot, character, point of view or narrator, diction, imagery, setting, theme (smile). The stories chosen should be ones we haven't written about already, although if one is looking at a character across multiple landscapes then of course one can reference earlier stories.
Students are to bring in a completed or polished essay Tuesday for a peer review in class. After the peer review, students will email the entire portfolio to me. It will include: The polished draft, the peer review, the initial planning sheet, and the outline, oh and all the cyber-assignments associated with The Dance Boots. Students can compile these assignments. All of these documents will be submitted in a word document.
There is a Pow Wow at Evergreen College this weekend, Sept.17, 2011. I'll post more later.
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4 comments:
Nick Malecek
Professor Sabir
English 1B 9:00-10:50am T/Th
13 September 2011
A Moment of Silence Freewrite Response
While first reading "A Moment of Silence" by Emmanuel Ortiz, it seemed to me reasonable enough. The message of not forgetting other tragedies in the midst of the pain shared by millions of Americans remembering the World Trade Center attacks is conscionable. I believe we should remember the grief suffered in countless tragedies that have happened throughout history, in every place, to all people. Our empathy is not limited to the confines of our respective "race", whatever that is.
We enter trusting, naive even, into this poem, and for a little while it actually feels like a compassionate plea for humanity. We are seduced into a vulnerable state of empathy for a time, only for the author, like a demented con artist, to rip from us any sentiment we initially had toward the poem within a few short lines. Empathy is based on connecting to the victim's emotions, and not something that can be guilted or bullied into an audience. Empathy is not derived from words like "The next time your white guilt fills the room..." (Ortiz, A Moment of Silence). This literary gem of a sentence shows how the author's misdirected anger mutilates what could have been an important observation of humanity, turning it into a divisive issue of race. The truth is that people throughout the diverse spectrum of the human race died that day on 9/11. It was a national tragedy, a global tragedy, not a "white" tragedy as this author would like for us to believe.
Ortiz' literary travesty quickly decomposes into a pile of instigative drivel. In what essentially amounts to a call to arms for terrorists throughout the world to devastate innocent people, he states:
Derail the trains, ground the planes
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window
of Taco Bell (Ortiz, A Moment of Silence)
I’m not entirely sure where Taco Bell comes into all this either. The only crime Taco Bell is guilty of is providing scrumptious culinary delights at ungodly hours. And if this is wrong, I don't want to be right. This is a service that benefits all mankind; why would anyone want to deprive us of that? Besides, the livelihoods of many innocent families depend on the income they receive from industries such as food service and transportation. The single mother working fifty hours a week at a restaurant needs that money to feed her children.
This poem is reckless, unimaginative, ignorant, selfish, and disrespectful to people and communities of all descent. I hope the author learns to grow as a person and recognize that people are not evil; the world is not against him. Although it seems that it is rather him against the world.
Works Cited
Ortiz, Emmanuel. A Moment of Silence. 2002. Poem.
Angela Stokes
Professor Sabir
English 1B
13 September 2011
Response to:
A Moment of Silence
This poem is very moving in a sense it makes you think. The author Emmanuel Ortiz acknowledges 9-11 by saying we should “have a moment of silence” but then goes on to describe all of the catastrophes suffered throughout history around the world. Do we as Americans now compare our minor tragedy to the countless others considering a lot of it started with us, a relatively new country? How dare we ask for sympathy now, perhaps we should start with “I’m sorry.” I would also like to add; let’s also not forget the thousands upon thousands who lost their lives in Haiti due to a devastating 7.0 magnitude earth quake near Port-au-Prince January 10, 2010. A day I will never forget and a day where I hang my head and mourn, Haitian government estimates 350,000 deaths, 300,000 injured and 100,000 misplaced residents in one of the world’s poorest countries. Of course this had nothing to do with America, but was a complete act of God or whatever deity you chose to believe in.
I as an American truly feel sorry for those who lost their lives and out of respect for them I will contribute to the silence. However as an African American of Haitian descent I will never forget what this country has done to my people. One line in particular seems to have a reverse races undertone, “The next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful brown people have gathered,” are the white people guilty for what they have done according to Ortiz? Maybe, why he chooses to single them out is beyond me. The attack on the Twin Towers could be compared to pointing your finger at the school yard bully laughing because finally someone has shoved mud in his face. I hate to sound un-patriotic but for all the wrong committed to those acknowledged in the poem and even those unmentioned I hope that they feel just a bit vindicated and that America has gotten a fraction of her just desserts.
I do not condone violence nor contribute to it in anyway, so please do not attack me for my personal opinion.
Work Cited:
Ortiz, Emmanuel. Poem “A Moment of Silence” 2002
Alexander Jung
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 201 B 9:00-10:50 T/Th
14 September 2011
A Moment of Silence Response
“This is a poem to remind us that all that glitters might just be broken glass.” (Ortiz, A Moment of Silence.) The poem “A moment of Silence,” by Emanuel Ortiz, sends a message, like the quote from above, that we should remember the tragedies that have inflicted pain in this world. Sometimes we forget the events that have happened in the past or even taking place today. Many of times we just live our lives as we have lived them over the years without realization of what is happening or has happened in the world. There is nothing wrong with living life like that, but the author wants to remind us of the events that have occurred in the world.
As a reader, I came into reading it with some understanding that it was a poem in memory of the tragic events that have happened. I know that every country will have problems but I didn’t even know about the events that Ortiz mentioned in his poem. Not only does he mention these tragic events but he also points out that on September 11that there had been other events on that day in different countries. He also states that this is a poem for the days close to 9/11. (Ortiz, A Moment of Silence) Ortiz is a citizen of America but he does not put the event of 9/11 ahead of the other tragedies. He recognizes them equally and wants us to remember and pay respects to those who have left the world due to these events.
After reading the poem it reminds that the world is more than just you or the people you know. The world is everyone and the events that occur in the many different regions. Even if we aren’t personally there to witness the tragic events we can still pay respect for those who have perished, even if are many miles away.
Works Cited
Ortiz, Emmanuel. A Moment of Silence. 2002. Poem.
Tia Gangopadhyay
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 201 B 9-10:50 AM
15 September 2011
A Moment of Silence Response
The poem, “A Moment of Silence” by Emmanuel Ortiz, was directed to be a “justice poem, a poem for never forgetting” rather than a “peace poem, [or] a poem for forgiveness” (Ortiz, A Moment of Silence). Initially reading this poem, I felt that sense of passion for remembrance and justice: not just for the attacks on September 11th but for all the victims of violence around the world. Upon further reading, however, it became clear that Ortiz’s sense of justice is slightly skewed. The poem comes off almost sneeringly, as is Ortiz is saying to Americans: “you commemorate September 11th by asking for a moment of silence for the injustices done to your country, but what do you do about the injustices that you, America, have done to so many other countries and so many other races.”
While this is a very valid point, there is so much sarcasm throughout the poem that it almost serves to instigate rather than encourage Americans to stop violence. By writing that Africans’ graves would be “far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky,” (Ortiz, A Moment of Silence) he is basically portraying the September 11th attacks as trivial in comparison to the appalling acts America did to innocent Africans. While his idea of calling Americans to attention that they also caused harm to many innocent victims, is wonderful, the way he goes about doing so is flawed. He asks America to stop and destroy traditions and monuments rather than ask for a moment of silence. He believes that that will redeem the victims of their loss. He asks Americans to:
Then stop the oil pumps/Turn off the engines, the televisions/Sink the cruise ships/Crash the stock markets/Unplug the marquee lights/Delete the e-mails and instant messages/Derail the trains, ground the planes./If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco Nell/And pay workers for wages lost./Tear down the liquor stores,/The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and the Playboys
Violence only begets violence so Ortiz’s approach is completely wrong. By asking America to stop what is good about our country, nothing is made better, no progress is made, no improvements are established.
Finally, Ortiz mentions a “white guilt” that will surface when “you” enter a room filled with his “beautiful brown people,” which automatically sends a message that the “white” people are to blame. It makes the poem accusatory and revengeful. This hatred does not make this poem a “justice poem” but rather a revengeful poem. Therefore, while I found Ortiz’s poem impactful and his idea moving, I don’t agree with his approach on conveying his idea.
Work Cited
Ortiz, Emmanuel. “A Moment of Silence.” Print.
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