Author: FNU AMAT UL HAHI (Page 5 of 8)

After reading text A teachers to talk by James Baldwin,  he started his argument by stating how people keep fighting for their rights to this day and how racism still exists and how hard the education system is in America especially for colored students. He took references from history as well as from his own life like how kids had to face so much racism and unacceptance from southern especially and how they fought for their civil rights. He further talked about teachers that how he isn’t a teacher himself but he thinks that all teachers should treat kids equally and how that their duty to nourish them, their brain, and their “curiosity” as the last article has mentioned. “You must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance”. This quote is stating that Baldwin wants teachers to remove their rudeness, ego and help kids in what they need. It’s their right to questions about what’s happening in this world and by saying “cruelty”, he meant like what happened with African Americans in the past and how white society segregated them. And been through the violence that they didn’t deserve. I really like what he mentioned that why education is important not just to agree with whatever people or the majority says, in fact, it’s important to understand what’s good and wrong for your own sake and “to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not.” It’s not society’s responsibility to tell you what’s good for you, instead, it’s you who have to change your life for your own better. And it’s everyone’s right to ask society questions and go against them, be rebellious if needed.  No one ever hears you if you decided to stay quiet, so speak up for yourselves and let them know that you exist too.

After reading the article “Navigating Genres” by Kerry Dirk. He explained how different types of genres work in reading. Each genre has its own characteristics and different categories. Genre actually tells what the writer wants to convey and in what tone. Dirk talked about rhetorical genres that how their purpose is to guide by the lesson or give the message that the writer wants to convey to its audience. Doesn’t matter if people are aware of that or not. I like how Dirk explained how important genres help or hurt human interactions. it might be easy for their communicate or they can hurt. It might give them the ability to speak about it or might discourage them. I personally like crime and nonfiction genres because they mostly are reality-based. And have lessons for the common world and crime fiction storyline mainly consist of causes and effects. It really popular especially in the western world because people are really attractive to human behavior and how us human behave in those criminals situations. I also enjoy crime investigation or mystery puzzles and when sometimes I read a book, I imagine that scene in my mind that actually helps me in better understanding.

Dirk’s introducing his essay by mentioning specifically country music. As he said, “If I wanted to write a country song that didn’t do any of the above things, would it still be a country song?” I really like how Dirk started his article to get the reader’s attention that how people really like country songs and lyrics are related to what people feel, like, politics, patriotism, love, hate and relationships, etc. Dirk also said that genres have their own formulas, techniques but mostly try to have similar components. Like he mentioned how politicians when they’ve spoken, always mentioned past presidents or use their statements to make their speech looks more stand out and strong.

Growing up in my native country, I was so curious to know how life is in western countries and how people are over there. I heard a lot of miss conceptions and stories that were not true when I came here and got to know. Back in my country, some people think really differently about the western lifestyle and how it’s not “cultured” enough like theirs. I used to believe everything my surroundings said even if it wasn’t true but I didn’t know because I didn’t really think and my mind wasn’t broad as it is today if I’ll be honest. I always wanted to know what is really true what people have said or just their wishful thinking. I always asked them questions but didn’t really satisfied because they never answered me properly and tried to avoid actual facts and they just said that how our culture is better than theirs. This actually increased my curiosity and I wanted to learn more and it couldn’t be better than be with them physically and I came here to the USA. I was so scared and nervous that how would I talk to them, are they going to make me fun?

When I joined my high school, I thought to myself are they really egoistic people and think of themselves as superior to others and how will I survive here? but my all questions slowly got their answers. I got to know that whatever I heard was absolutely wrong. The new people that I met taught me so much and I learned how open-minded thoughtful people are everywhere regardless of any race, culture, and language. I got some awesome teachers that I will never forget and friends who are still with me to this day.  So educational System totally helped me with my questions and the curiosity that I had and I really li eon thing from the article that whenever I wanted to ask something, never got that helped instead taught the opposite of the topics. Which somewhere led my interest down but I didn’t fully give up on that because of my interest and in the end, I got what I wanted to know.