Final Portfolio
Jack Song & Tom Tang
Introduction
Hello readers:
It’s me, your favorite Yihe(TOM) Tang. For many reasons I have decided to collab with Jack Song on this beautiful portfolio. I posted several pieces with some reflections and my reflections on other literature pieces as well.
It’s been 2 months since I started reading with Mr weinstein. Originally I was going to take the rhetoric of moving image class, but since I am no fan of plays and movies. I decided to take this reading class instead. To be honest, I did not like the writing exams since I have poor writing skills.
The class definitely enhanced my understanding of reading since we have read graphic novels. I thought every pictured book is comic, and Maus proved me wrong. My weakness as a reader is not enough focus and having poor writing skills. Now I can focus for a long period of time, but haven’t been able to improve my writing skills.
I haven’t read sci-fi books, so my plan for the future is more sci-fi and technology based literature. I learned something about myself as well, I am a person, and whoever created me decided to let me live for a reason. I live to pursue happiness, but happiness is defined only by myself, through reading, I found my happiness, which is find every single little detail of my daily life and write a story about it in my head.
I have changed a lot through high school. At first I was only a boy that plays video games all day long, and now I am still a boy that plays video games all day long, but I have my goals now, and I often make time to do what has to be done as a high school student.
I don’t like literature at all. I am not a liberal art student. But this class is not only about literature, it is about how to behave in the society. The 4 agreement made me to think things from different perspectives, Twilight Los Angeles 1992 made me to contribute to the society and Maus made me love peace. I am a reader that capture every single detail, and I will be a scientist ( or possibly a doctor) to help people in need in the future.
Dear reader:
Welcome to our portfolio for Mr. Weinstein’s Themes in Literature class. This is Jack. Before you scroll down to our pieces part of this beautiful “album of arts”, I just want to thank Mr. Weinstein for teaching this class in this special way that no other English teachers do. Instead of learning grammar and rules that are carved into the stone, this class allows the both of us to be creative on the after reading feelings of the literatures we have been reading. I also want to give Tom some credit for random chit chat that always made me smile.
I have chosen to read one of my favourite book - Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six because both Tom and I have played the video game adopted from that book - “Tom Clancy’s: Rainbow Six Siege”. This book is the first thought that came into my mind when Mr. Weinstein says, “You want to bring your own book to read for this class. ” And I had this mentally in mind when I was choosing it: The book is more interesting than the game (The pen is mightier than the sword). Opening up my closed mind and understand the background of the game is a double win (perhaps). After going through half of it, I say with confidence that the book certainly is more interesting.
Because of my impatience, I become restless when I sit for too long of a time. So sitting for 40 minutes and read a book becomes impossible for me sometimes. After trying to correct this restless for half an year, the “condition” influenced me less. The restless comes from forcing myself to read after realizing reading books was a lost habit, and my stubbornness amplifies the problem. The problem became severer when I have too many assignments from other classes.
One thing I regret not doing for this class and for my final year in this school is that I haven’t been able to finish reading one book of my choosing (Not to say I have chosen many, only two). I mean, a story has a beginning and it needs an ending. Plus, it was a book of my own choosing. Nobody forced me to read it. Thinking back, it was just unfortunate, maybe even a disappointment, that I wasn’t be able to finish reading it (maybe my inferiority complex is overpowering me on this one). Applying this problem to my life and it become philosophical... The procrastination really hit me when it comes to read literature. If you ask me why I don’t prefer book over educational literature is that whatever I do I need to visualize it. So the pieces I’ve made is basically the visualization that respond to the books I’ve read. I don’t need to visualize videos at all since I am directly seeing it. Overall I think reading uses too much energy and I don’t like it… And I think this is the reason why I procrastinate responses on books.
It wasn’t until this class that I had seriously enjoy reading in high school. Before that I was just really reluctant to read anything. From reading the documents of DBQs (Document Based Questions) to the 11th grade English regent passages, SAT reading section or some math word problems… I don’t like anyone, I don’t like anything (Alright? My life is terrible the second I pick up a book. You get the idea).
After everything that I have tried to put on myself during this past 2 quarters, I somewhat liked to read - sometimes I would just sit in front of my computer and stare at English/Chinese words for a whole hour. There is the “runner’s high” in running and there is the “reader’s high” in reading. Normally I discriminate the English class on my schedule but now I’m not sure if I wanted to do that in college.
Thank you Mr. Weinstein and those who have helped me throughout my language art courses.