Immigration Project Reflection

Literature Circle Books/Blogs:

            I was really happy with how I did in my literature circle.  I think I did well because I got all of the blog posts done on time.  I put my full effort into each blog post, as well.  I think I did well on the comments, even though I forgot to complete one of them.  In order to make sure I complete all of them next time, I will write it down somewhere where it can remind me.

            I was relatively happy with my book.  It was more interesting to the other books that I read in the other literature circles we have done.  One thing that I didn’t like about the book I chose was that it was really long.  It took me forever to read it all, and I ended up having to catch up at the end.  Next time when I’m researching the books, I definitely won’t forget to check the page number.  It was a good book, but I think if I picked a shorter book there wouldn’t be as many slow, boring parts.  Overall, I was happy with my book, but I wished I picked a shorter one so that the workload wouldn’t be as difficult.

            Something significant that I learned while reading this book and blogging about it was simply more about how immigrants feel.  I learned that a lot of immigrants want people to know what they’ve been through; that is why there are a lot of books about people’s immigration stories.

            Overall, the literature circle process was pretty efficient.  If the length of the books were a little bit more similar between the groups, I think it would be better.  If the total page numbers were more equal, I think it would be better for each group because the workload would be more equal.  Also, I think the directions for the comments should be slightly more specific because it was kind of sketchy on how to comment about the quote and the significance and all of that.  The questions that were given were hard to understand sometimes, too, so that could be a little bit clearer in the directions.

            I like the concept of blogging because it’s more interesting than just turning in papers.  Also, I like how we can comment.  It’s kind of difficult for me to get the blog posts done by 9:00 however because me along with a lot of other people don’t get home until really late sometimes.  It would be really helpful if we had until 10:00, but I understand why you set the time to 9:00.  I do like how we all get to give our input on the book though, and how we get to see what others think about it.

Art & Literature:

            I am extremely proud of my art piece that was based off of my literature circle book.  At first, I was just trying to get the drafts done, so I didn’t really think hard about what I was putting into it.  Then, as I thought more about it, I realized that in order to make it a good piece of art, I would have to put a lot on it.  I wasn’t really sure what I was going to have it be, for example the book cover, a scene from the book, the theme of the book, etc.  I finally decided on making it the book cover, so that I could represent the book really well and give people an idea of what it was about.

I decided to put the huts because it’s a major part of the book.  Then I put the main characters face because I thought the cover should have the most important parts.  Then I still had a lot of space, so I decided to put the Sudanese Flag over his face.  In the end, I decided to have only part of his face showing, and have it covering his face because he will always be Sudanese and he will always remember his life there.  There was still room, so since I had a picture about the book in general and a part about the beginning of the book when he was in Sudan, I wanted to put something about when he was in America to make it more well-rounded and well-represented.  This is why I decided to put the church that helped him out in America.  I think that was a large part of how his lifestyle was in America because without the church life would be a lot harder for him.  This is why I thought it was important.  The space was taken up perfectly like I wanted it to, and so I wouldn’t change any part of my painting.

In addition, I like my art piece because it correlates to the novel extremely well.  In the beginning, I really wanted my painting to show a lot about the book without giving away too much, and I think I captured that idea.  I represented the book well by putting different major arts of the book that would be easily found in the novel, making the cover easier to decipher for the reader.

I am so proud of my art piece.  I think using the tape helped me, and so overall the neatness was very good and the pictures that I put on it were well representing the book.  If I could enhance my book cover, I would have made the letters in the author’s name a lot easier to read.  It kind of got smeared at the end, and the font wasn’t that easy to read anyways.  Little things like that I would like to change, but I am still very proud about how it turned out.

I liked how we related the literature into the art. I think it really helped us think more about the book and it helped us analyze what really happened more than the blogs did.  I also liked it because it was different than what we normally do, so that made it even more interesting and less boring.  I hope that we get to relate art with other subjects later on as well.

Interview Process with Participant & Gift:

            I think I did a good job on the interview process, however I think communication between my interviewee and I was poor.  We should have set up the date for the interviews earlier so that we didn’t have to rush in the end to get it done.  Also, I think I should have told her to email me back because I think she didn’t know she had to email me back since she did the phone interview.

            It wasn’t necessarily better to interview her three times in three different methods because after the first two it got repetitive.  Also, I think I was just trying to come up with questions at that point because we had to ask so many.  If we had to do less questions or one less type of interview it would have been easier and I think I might have gotten more information and less “I’m not sure”’s.

            From doing all three however, I learned that you should ask all different types of questions because they might not have an answer for some of them, and so it’s better to not get stuck on one topic that they never even experienced or that they may not know.  I also learned that it’s important to explain things really well in each of them, just so that the communication is better.

            Interviewing an immigrant helped me understand a lot more about what they go through.  I am really glad to have had my interviewee because she struggled a lot with her childhood here, and finding an identity.  Interviewing immigrants helped me know more about what they experienced on a more personal level than just learning about it in class, and it helped back up the curriculum that we learned in class.

            I made my interviewee a calendar.  I like the idea of having to make them a gift because I know my interviewee had to go out of her way to help me interview her.  I made a calendar because I think it would be good for her individually because she is really busy, and another calendar will probably help her.  Also, it will remind her of this experience and about her childhood as well.  I think she will be happy to receive it, and I’m glad we got to make them.