In my FIQWS Composition class, my professor asked us to create a portfolio website. I was shocked by this information. Is  there something wrong with my ear. A website? A website for final reflection. I neither doing any website before. Nor good at reflection paper. I have never hear of CUNY Academic Commons. But, it is a good chance to know how to create a website and post something great to let everyone know how you doing in the college.

    Then the professor gave us the chart of the Writing Section Learning Outcomes and the examples of how to prove each outcome. I kind of got a little idea about what my reflections will become. It is like filling out chart first and write an essay based on what the outcome you have in the class. Even it seemed to be an easy job. However, it wasn’t that easy for me because I personally don’t know how to express my thought.

I still remember the first day of our class. Ms. K giving out two picture and ask do we know anything about those. Then after a class discussion, we began writing the first essay in college. In my Reflection of my literacy Narrative, I analyzed my writing process and how I looked at the genre and the rhetorical situation (stance, audience, media).This assignment addressed the Learning Outcome #1:

Develop strategies for reading, drafting, revising, and editing

After finish my first draft of the Exploratory Essay, I bring my hard copy of the essay to the class and start doing the peer work and workshop. The workshop helped me revise and edit the first draft of my essay. This assignment addressed the Learning Outcome #2:

Practice systematic application of citation conventions

There is a work cited page after every essay that we wrote. We need to give credit to the author of the book or things they published. Ms. K also gave the example of work cited. she teaches us how to cite the work correctly in the class. we also posted the MLA citation on the discussion board in the blackboard. This assignment addressed the Learning Outcome #3

Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations

When writing literacy narratives, I learned and practiced writing key rhetorical and audience when writing literacy narratives. This assignment addressed the Learning Outcome #4

This assignment addressed the Learning Outcome #5. Develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes

Most important thing of our class is peer review. How we look at peer’s essay and give them some feedback. and i did got some useful feedback from my classmate. they help me with my thesis statement and give some good idea for my essay. my essay did got improved by their suggestion.

Understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences

Blackboard was great. We did a lot of stuff on the discussion board. That my classmate and teacher can take a look at my work. We created a website for our last assignment which is the final portfolio. That the audience could be the teacher and my classmate, also anyone who is visiting my website. This assignment addressed the Learning Outcome #6:

Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias.

Our class has been in the library at the end of the semester. We spend a month on the library to do the final portfolio and the critical research paper.We were using the literary database to find a credible resource for our critical research paper.

This assignment addressed the Learning Outcome #7

Compose texts that integrate the student’s stance and language with appropriate sources, using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation. The exploratory essay must be an argument to prove it through evidence and analysis. All my evidence support my argument. This assignment addressed the Learning Outcome #8

 

 

Poe, Edgar Allan.“The Black Cat.” 1843. PDF file.

Freud, Sigmund “Five Lectures on Psych-Aanalysis.” 1955.PDF file

 

Freud, S. (1908). Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume IX (1906-1908): Jensen’s ‘Gradiva’ and Other Works, 141-154

 

Rennison, Nick. Sigmund Freud, Pocket Essentials, 2001. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ccny-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3386030.

Created from ccny-ebooks on 2018-11-25 01:20:07.

 

Murakami,  Haruki (1999). “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” translated by Jay Rubin https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=YXBwcy5kaXN0cmljdDgzMy5vcmd8bXNwYWdlZ3JhZGUxMHxneDo3MmM0YzdhYmEyNThiZDhk

 

Reflection of Literacy Narrative

        I hate writing. No matter writing a composition in mother language or English, they are difficult for me. Because of my poor language organization ability and expression ability. The first day, we get our syllabus. We could see there is a bunch of the writing assignment need to be complete. Things changed when I take the writing class in college. Compared to high school we write the essay more frequently in college.  Also, the writing requires the longer length.

          We need to write a narrative essay, and the length is required between 500 to 700 words. I rarely write the essay. Also cannot expect my writing would be that length. The content of the narrative essay is how we felt about the two pieces of media that Ms.K passed out.  In the beginning, I do not know how to start my essay. Then, Ms.k sent everyone an example of the narrative essay. That example helped me a lot, I guess I only could write two paragraphs if without the example.

       After I finished the narrative essay. Ms.K asks to bring a hard copy of the essay to class. So, we can workshop with a partner. when she gives me numerous correction on my paper, I felt embarrassed about my writing. But, she also gives me useful feedback. Hopefully, my next essay would be better than the one before it.

Reflection of Exploratory Essay

From the four short stories that provide, I picked “The Black Cat” as my Exploratory essay because the author is Edgar Allan Poe. I read his poem “The Raven” when I was in grade eight. His works are hard to understand. If you read it carefully, you will find interesting places, such as innovative ways of hiding corpses in the walls. The other short story are “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, “It Was a Different Day When They Killed the Pig” and “Eight bites.” These four articles are wonderful, but I still think the black cats have shown the best of the Freudian concept.

             When I see writing length is 750-1000, that is so many words for me, the burden on my mind is not light. So I plan to write one paragraph every day. My first plan failed because of my homework and exams, I don’t have more energy for writing. Next time I have to start writing early. And have a good-time management. Homework, examination and writing time should be staggered.

      I do not think my composition is good. It’s not easy to connect the Freudian concept and “The Black Cat.” When I write, I always have to pause to have more inspiration. I find no inspiration,  the only thing I did was turned on the computer and feel distressed because I can not write anything. I will use translation when writing. Now I can only hope that I can improve my writing ability through continuous practice.

 

Reflection of Critical Research Paper

The critical Research paper is the longest paper that I have written this semester. I think five pages is not a big deal for those who enjoy writing. However, I am not one of those members. At the beginning of this assignment, we are in the library searching for the database. Try to find the scholar and credible resources that fit our essay.

       In ms.k’s class, we are practice writing an introductory paragraph and thesis statement for our critical research paper and MLA citation.  It was helpful that we could have extra time and extra help in this class. That had been useful to our critical research paper. Also, the homework in the discussion had created an outline for the essay.

       By December 7, I have a precalculus test in the morning. Therefore, I have to study for the test last night and pass the course. And I only write three pages till Friday. By the time I went home, I start writing my essay again. I glad that I can finish this critical research paper on time. However, my next essay I will start a week earlier. After this essay, I don’t have to write anything that is related to Freud. It was both positive and negative. In one hand is I don’t have to struggle about my essay that needs to connect to Freud’s concept. On the other hand, I do enjoy reading his book. That he had brought me to a perspective that I never see before. I hope that my writing skill has been improved.         

 

Title: Super-Frog saves Tokyo and Katagiri: a hero in a dream

           “Super Frog Saves Tokyo” is a fictional novel with many elements, such as fairy tales, science fiction and so on. The Kobe Earthquake is the background of Murakami’s writing. After the disaster, people generally have an infinite fear of earthquakes and fear of the recurrence of earthquakes. Therefore, in the dream of Katagiri, Worm is the maker of earthquakes. The Worm brought human beings unbearable disasters, so no one can sit idly by. Ordinary man Katagiri is also full of anxiety about the earthquake. The accumulation of this anxiety makes Katagiri create a frog in his mind, become the stopper of the earthquake, and become the Savior of Tokyo. By means of Freud’s psychoanalysis theory of id, ego, and superego, this paper analyzes the relationship between society, Frog, Worm and the protagonist Katagiri.

        Society had no influence on a person’s id. Id also can be defined as one’s instinctual, it does not care how society judge them. “The id is the mind we are all born with, a seething mass of wholly selfish desires and the impulses aimed at the immediate and complete gratification of those desires. It is the id which is the driving force behind what Freud called the pleasure principle.”(Rennison 38) Id act on the principle of happiness, ignoring social morality. The id can show by the worm and the society. “It was time now for him, too, to cause a massive earthquake, and he’d do it here, in Tokyo.”(Murakami)The worm definitely shows the id in the story, worm desire to make a massive earthquake. To revenge for waking him up in the middle of the sleeping. The worm is totally opposite to Frog. He is a selfish guy doing everything based on his animal instinct. The worm does not care what will happen to the people in Tokyo if he starts the earthquake. The kid, elder has the higher chance to lose their lives in the disaster. But, to worm; it was just a revenge on the thing that makes him happy. When the worm is in the underground and sleeping in the darkest part of the world. There is something in the society also symbolize by the worm as the evil part of our world. “The Kabukicho neighborhood of Shinjuku was a labyrinth of violence: old-time gangsters, Korean mobsters, Chinese Mafia, guns and drugs.”(Murakami) The gangster is the Id in our society. They are the dark side of our peaceful world. They destroyed uncountable human living by killing them or sell the drug. Their hand was full of blood. For them, one’s lives are lighter than a feather.

            One’s ego is most related to society. Ego decided to make the decision based on the external world and the id. “The ego provides the individual with the sense of self and watches over the instinctual demands of the id, deciding whether, when and how they can be gratified.”（Rennison 39) The external world of Katagiri is very boring, living like a loser. Nobody likes him. No one appreciates the work he has done. His sibling never felt grateful toward him even him take care of them since their parents are gone. “I’m an absolutely ordinary guy. Less than ordinary. I’m going bald, I’m getting a potbelly, I turned 40 last month. My feet are flat. The doctor told me recently that I have diabetic tendencies.” (Murakami) He dreams to be a strong and knowledgeable man like the frog. As a debt collector, his job was hated by society.  “And there may be a powerful politician backing them up. They’re into you for 700 million. That is the situation you are dealing with, am I right?” (Murakami) Katagiri fantasizes there is a guy like the Frog. That can make his job easier by threatening the Big Bear company to pay back the debt. Otherwise, his might lost his job if he didn’t get the 700 million back. Moreover Bubble economy reduces the job opportunity. He doesn’t want to lose this job under the kind of bad condition.

        Our superego is shaped by the environment around. Based on the society that people could have different morality standard. “Often operating unconsciously, the super-ego provides us all with our conscience, our sense of what is right and what is wrong, and demands that we often behave in ways acceptable to society at large rather than to our own individual urges.” (Rennison 40) The Frog is like a big brother. He seems to be perfect or the superego. Frog knows how to solve Katagiri’s problem. For example, he gets back the debt of the Big Bear company for him. Also, he is not afraid to fight with the evil worm. “If we should happen to lose our lives in the process, we will gain no one’s sympathy. And even if we manage to defeat Worm, no one will praise us. No one will ever know that such a battle even raged far beneath their feet.”(Murakami) Katagiri and Frog without ever seeking any reward. That is their superego in common. Katagiri found the only recognition from the Frog. Although Katagiri ends the story with no friends, no rewards, and no recognition for helping save Tokyo, Katagiri’s deep, peaceful sleep is a sense of satisfaction and consolation. Not only did Katagiri save people away from the earthquake. But once, he knew that he had done something great and truly perceived and witnessed by another person. Even if that person happened to be a huge, talking, and possibly imaginary Frog.

      “That the day-dreamer carefully conceals his phantasies from other people because he feels he has reasons for being ashamed of them.”(Freud 152) Fantasy means that when a person encounters practical difficulties, because he is unable to deal with problems in practice. He uses fantasy to imagine how to deal with difficulties arbitrarily. So that he can exist in the fantasy world to achieve psychological balance. It is because Katagiri lives ordinary days, do their best to do their work every day, walk on their own track, the society is composed of countless such ordinary people, that is Tokyo. One after another ordinary people constitute this society, we represent justice, in order to save the declining society. Fighting against the evil and corrupt creature of Worm. It’s not Frog’s battle with Worm, it’s the battle of justice and evil within the individual as a society. The fights between Frog and Worm tied, the earthquake did not happen, evil did not succeed, but evil did not disappear, it still exists somewhere waiting for a comeback.

             In the late night when everyone slept, the protagonist and Frog stopped a catastrophe and saved Tokyo. As a result, after a turn of the pen, realized that it was a dream the protagonist had in the hospital. After the nurse woke him up, the slippery feeling of the insects left on him was still there. The Frog and the Worm is actually another self in his dream or subconscious mind. The Frog is his superego and the Worm is the id part of Katagiri. But the reality is unsatisfactory so that he can only realize his ideal through his dream, people in society have faced social and personal constraints. which will make the pursuit id of happiness cannot be released. Then this repressed id is hidden in the ocean of the unconscious, only when people relax vigilance will they appear in people’s dreams. From the dream of Katagiri, we can get a glimpse of the deep thirst deep inside him. It is a good wish toward not have the earthquake again.  

 

     

The evil of human nature is sometimes far beyond our imagination

      “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe published in 1845. The short story tells the story of a drunkard who first abused his cat to kill the cat and then killed his wife and hides the corpse. The suffocating atmosphere of terror and the anxiety of the narrator in the whole novel show the readers a shocking fear. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” illustrates one or more psychoanalytic concepts from Freud, because the narrator of the short story has shown up the inner evil thought through repression, wishful impulses, condensation.

      Repression is one of the defense mechanisms. Selectively exclude memories that cause personal conflicts and intense experiences from consciousness. Freud believes that the repressed memory has not really disappeared, but has turned into the subconscious, often acting in a disguised manner. “From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions.”（Poe，1）During his childhood, he was ridiculed by other friends for his love of animals. So that a malicious seed was buried in the heart. This seed will grow and will burst at any time in his unconscious. Sustained repression must be unconscious; it will be awakened under certain conditions, and it will reappear unconsciously again and again.

Under the name of alcoholism, he abused animals to vented the mockery he had suffered in his childhood.

         Wishful impulses is a kind of biological force of the human unconscious.This evil idea is an impulse of human instinct. It is a primitive function or emotion, and the human character is determined by it. “I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket !”（Poe，1） Even the narrator knew that is wrong to cut the eye of his black cat. He will still do this. Because of anger, he instinctively wants to avenge the cat that hurts him. The strong evil thoughts are enough to make people produce extreme abnormal and distorted psychology in a state of madness, and make an incomprehensible terrorist incident.

     Condensation is combine one or more desire, feeling or impulsive together. Instinct drives the narrator to kill his wife, and he feels the pleasure from it. The narrator is not guilty of killing his wife, but also breathing like a free man again, which is relaxed. Because when he killed his wife, the black cat disappears. The wife and the black cat are one. When he kills his wife, he kills the black cat. That is to say, he gets rid of the fear brought by the wishful impulsive in the heart. “Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast.” （Poe，1）The white portion is similar to gallows. But the most frightening thing is that the black cat did not really disappear, it reappeared inside the wall and eventually put the narrator on the gallows to complete self-destruction.

       In mythology, “Pluto” is the god of death, therefore often represents the image of mystery and evil. The black cat named “Pluto” in the novel is also given a symbolic meaning, symbolizing the temptation to lead people to crime, representing the incarnation of the devil. It is because of the death impulse lurking in him that he named the black cat Pluto, then loved him more than ever. This is actually his infatuation for death. And the desire to destroy me through the black cat. The black cat becomes the external materialization of the death instinct of the narrator in the symbolic sense. The abuse of him to black cats is essentially an act of self-abuse and self-punishment, and an instinctive escape from death. The fear he feels when he faces the black cat is the fear he feels when he faces death and irrationality. This fear grows with each passing day. Finally, he tried to end the evil with the ritual of killing, but this is the ultimate realization of evil.

      The most impressive feature of “The Black Cat” is its horror aesthetics. The plot is mainly driven by the psychology of the characters. Psychoanalytic criticism can better clarify the seemingly disordered psychological phenomena. Freud’s psychoanalysis, as a treatment of neurosis, has been applied in the field of literature. It is an important part of psychoanalysis criticism. His subconscious theory, personality structure theory, dream analysis and so on have brought new perspectives and operating modes to the criticism of literary creation.     

 

    On the first day of  Freshman Inquiry Seminar class, Ms. K passed out two pieces of media and asked us how we felt about it. I might have seen see those two images before. But now I know the background of the images more after we discussed in the class. At first sight, those two images are similar in the condition they both face. However, Ruby Bridges’ condition totally differs from Betsy DeVos’; one is an African American young girl, another is a billionaire. I start pondering who would compare a girl who only wants fair education to a woman full of power and money.

      Two images are related to school. Norman Rockwell created the painting in 1964. The first African-American to walk into the all-white school in New Orleans. Also with some guards protecting her. The purpose of the painting is to inform that everyone can be Ruby Bridges. Just say no to the unfairness. Glenn McCoy drew the political cartoon in 2017. Betsy DeVos tried to visit a public school in D.C., however no one welcomed her. The purpose of a political cartoon is to entertain. Since she is different from the previous Secretary of Education, many people protested her.

      The painting of Ruby Bridges is both nonfiction and historical. She was the first person to walk into a white school during apartheid. Moreover, she is the youngest protester to fight for equal rights. And the image of Betsy DeVos is a political cartoon. I still like both the political and historical painting, because they made the boring history more interesting. Also, they gives me a strong sense of picture that I can always remember this event.

        The book “The Colors of Water” by James Mcbride is similar in setting to Ruby Bridges. First, they both are related to how African American fought for their rights. Second, they both described how they were treated unequally. In the book, an African Americans cannot marry a white person. If they got married, townspeople would kill the African Americans. Then the white woman or man be evicted. This is not fair at all. Why they can not marry with the one they love. And Ruby cannot get the same education as a white child.

        Before discussing the two images in class, I didn’t know the difference between those two images. Instead, they were similar because the picture had some similarities. After the discussion in class, I knew that Betsy DeVos was a  powerful woman. Also she was not worthy of any sympathy. Ruby Bridges was a little girl who made outstanding contributions, to create an equal education opportunities for us. In my whole life, I never make any brave actions like Ruby. Hope I can learn from her. Be brave, be strong.

     The audience of the political cartoon is young liberal. Because young people are more receptive to new reforms, new things, changes than the elderly. Liberal’s idea is that all races are equal. Segregation was common during different times in American history, and this made it extremely hard for people of color or immigrants to find a good education and live a normal life.

       The significance of viewing the images in class is to have a better understanding of history and society. I feel racism still exists today. However, today is much better than in the past. My opinion on political cartoon has changed. I should not just look at a political cartoons and believe everything in it is true. From now on I will look deeper on the situation to determine if the image is showing the truth