Mp4

Malibu Hess 

English 

4/18/20 

Final MP4

Hi! Many of you know me from class, but here is just a little bit of a “get to know me”. My name is Malibu (yes, that is my real name). I have Phenylketonuria. Many of you probably do not know what that is. It is an illness that affects the way I break down protein. I have to watch my daily protein intake. It is really rare and basically I just do not eat red meat. I am 19 and it is my first year in college. I am a Special Education major. To be completely honest, I had no idea what I wanted to go to college for. I had a passion for culinary for years, but decided it was not something I wanted to do forever. For that past 4 years, I have worked with special needs and I love it so much. I have volunteered at a prom for special needs, and it is so life changing. My senior year, I decided that was what I wanted to do and I want to make a difference in these students’ lives. I love to draw even though i’m not very good at it. I like coloring in my bible. I love giraffes. Mostly, I love to nap! It is my form of self care! English has always been my favorite subject. It was something I understood and it was something I liked to challenge myself in. I enjoy reading and writing. I was actually very upset with all of this Covid-19 stuff because english was switched to online. But things happen. I hope this taught a little bit more about me. 

What is the significance of literature, you ask? Well, that is such a broad answer. Everyone can see it differently, which ties into perspective which we have learned in this course. From this course, I have learned that literature can teach us about history and what the products of time that these writers were living in. Literature in this course has made us see things in new ways and why people see or understand them that way. Such as borders, perspective, and the books in general. These books that we have read had so many different culture standpoints. This class has taught us to teach where others have come from and appreciate cultures and beliefs. Culture and beliefs are a huge part of who people are and become. These are things we can physically see or things we can pass off onto the future generation. In Boxers and Saints, we addressed humanity and the perspectives of what each character was going through during this time. 

What I understand from studying literature is understanding and breaking down the novels we read. In class, we talked about close reading or reading between the lines. This can be a difficult task sometimes, especially on more difficult reads. But the purpose of this is to understand what the author wanted us to get out of this book, rather than just reading the words on the pages. Nothing is better than reading a book and truly connecting and understanding it. It creates emotions and connects us to the characters. Close reading can sometimes be easy when you are invested in a book. But it is difficult especially when it is from a time period we never lived in, because we can never fully understand this hardship they were going through. Something about this course is that our in class discussions helped greatly break down the novels we read. It helped me see new views on what the author’s point was. Just because my thought on what the author wanted to say does not match up to someone else’s thought, does not make either of us wrong. It shows that we analyze things differently. In this class, you have taught us that we can never truly know what the author meant, but close reading and breaking down the novel is what helps us create what we were supposed to get out of the novel. 

What matters about literature? I believe that the words that are written do not matter as much as what they mean in the context they are written. Writing style is something we have seen in the novels we have read and how different they can be. Literature in this generation is truly taken for granted. It can be hard to read a novel that you have no interest in or that you are forced to read, but when you analyze said novel, it can open your perspective on why the author wrote what they wrote. Literature can tie into my major because there are books about special needs and the spectrum. “Wonder” by R.J. Palacio, is a story about a boy who has a facial deformity. We think of special needs as autism, down-syndrome, or most things we can see. But it can actually be learning disabilities, or other disabilities. I tie this together because although it doesn’t tie into special needs entirely, the treatment and hardships he got throughout this book is something we realize special needs deal with daily. Literature matters to me because I think books are such a gift to the world. Writers create art and explain things to us that most people wouldn’t even be able to put into words. Words can be very strong. The perspectives we gain from novels is such a powerful thing because everyone can see it differently. 

Major project 1 was all about borders and what seemed most interesting to me was slavery borders. I dug into the books we read that involved slavery. I talked about going to the Freedom Center and hardships that slaves dealt with. The question you gave me when I presented my project was; “why do people take risks to help slaves?”, this was a question I did not know the answer to and still ponder about it and probably will never know fully. I think that people took these risks because it was the right thing to do. It can be based on their morals and what they were taught. Slaves did not deserve the hardships they were put through, and citizens knew this. Helping them escape was a risk they were willing to take. 

Major project 2 was about the theme of borders. I chose to write about how society and the way we are raised can affect our perspective which ties into the borders we talked about in class. You asked me what my significance is in this project. I talked about society perspectives and the way we were raised because the way we were raised affects the way we see things (for the most part). It is important because if we are raised with negative views, it will teach us that we should be negative whether that is with race, religion or gender. To me, everyone is equal. But that was the way I was raised. The big picture from what I wrote in this project is that the way we are raised and the way society is, can affect our views on everything around us, when we should be open-minded. 

Major project 3 is pretty straight-forward. I plan to write about everything that is going on right now, and what us as citizens should be doing. We should be taking precautions. I think that we should have gone on a full lockdown from the get-go and it would have prevented many deaths, but this has been something we have never dealt with. Teenagers are not taking this seriously. Then it says to talk a little about what we have learned throughout this course and what we have gotten out of it. Then we need to write a reflection of what we have done to build this project.