What I've learned
Throughout this unit we studied a couple different poems, presented two of those and we even got to watch an amazing movie called Smoke Signals. The thing that tied everything together for me was the poem named our fathers. I say this because this poem made me really think and find the deeper meanings of words by being one with what you are reading. In this page you will be looking at how each poem has its own meaning. It is up to the reader to uncover what a poem is saying and to not think of what the poem is saying but what the poem means.
Throughout this unit we studied a couple different poems, presented two of those and we even got to watch an amazing movie called Smoke Signals. The thing that tied everything together for me was the poem named our fathers. I say this because this poem made me really think and find the deeper meanings of words by being one with what you are reading. In this page you will be looking at how each poem has its own meaning. It is up to the reader to uncover what a poem is saying and to not think of what the poem is saying but what the poem means.
1. In Smoke Signals Victor and Thomas went on a trip to find Victors father that had abandoned them. This journey turned into something else. It turned into a mission for forgiveness. I say this because in the movie Victor always seemed like he was angry. Like he had something to prove. By the end you could tell that he had changed. I think that all his life he was disappointing and hated his father for how he treated him. He hated the fact that he was a drunk. How he would always argue with his mother. I can make a connection to this because as victors father was an alcoholic my dad is too. And I understand how he felt. By the end of their journey Victor was told something that hes been lied too all his life about. I am talking about when he was told how the fire really began. It seemed like after he found that out he had let go of all his anger that hes had for his dad since he was little.
I chose this picture because I feel like the characters weren't able to achieve what they wanted until they stepped into someone else shoes and was able to fully understand why the things that happened actually happened.
2. One of the structural technique i found was anamnesis. The example I chose comes from the begging of the book. "For the Kiowas the beginning was a struggle for existence in the bleak northern mountains. It was there, they say, that they entered the world through a hollow log. The end, too, was a struggle, and it was lost". I think that this adds to the story because hes giving the reader basic information about his tribe and how they became what they are. Also he uses it to show that it wasn't easy for the Kiowas to survive at first.
Another technique I cam across while reading this book is folktale. The first example of this is on page 8. After the second paragraph on this page he told a folktale about a boy. In the story there was a boy that then turned into a bear and started to chase its brothers and sisters. The kids found a tree stump that spoke to them. He told the kids to climb him and after they did the stump began to rise into the air, they had been borne into the sky and became the stars of the Big Dipper.
Another technique I cam across while reading this book is folktale. The first example of this is on page 8. After the second paragraph on this page he told a folktale about a boy. In the story there was a boy that then turned into a bear and started to chase its brothers and sisters. The kids found a tree stump that spoke to them. He told the kids to climb him and after they did the stump began to rise into the air, they had been borne into the sky and became the stars of the Big Dipper.
The Indian Burying Ground
BY PHILIP FRENEAU In spite of all the learned have said, I still my old opinion keep; The posture, that we give the dead, Points out the soul's eternal sleep. Not so the ancients of these lands— The Indian, when from life released, Again is seated with his friends, And shares again the joyous feast. His imaged birds, and painted bowl, And venison, for a journey dressed, Bespeak the nature of the soul, Activity, that knows no rest. His bow, for action ready bent, And arrows, with a head of stone, Can only mean that life is spent, And not the old ideas gone. Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way, No fraud upon the dead commit— Observe the swelling turf, and say They do not lie, but here they sit. Here still a lofty rock remains, On which the curious eye may trace (Now wasted, half, by wearing rains) The fancies of a ruder race. Here still an aged elm aspires, Beneath whose far-projecting shade (And which the shepherd still admires) The children of the forest played! There oft a restless Indian queen (Pale Shebah, with her braided hair) And many a barbarous form is seen To chide the man that lingers there. By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews; In habit for the chase arrayed, The hunter still the deer pursues, The hunter and the deer, a shade! And long shall timorous fancy see The painted chief, and pointed spear, And Reason's self shall bow the knee To shadows and delusions here. |
My Summary In this poem it talks about a death of a Native American. It mentions how they are dressed up almost as it was an event and the man was well fitted. I feel like he is comparing the way how everyone thinks of death and how the native Americans look at death. I say this because they look at it as not something to be sad about. It is something that you should embrace and be happy for them being in a better being. It also compares differences between these two cultures. In the third stanza it says " His imaged birds, and painted bowl, and venison , for a journey dressed, bespeak the nature of the soul, activity that knows no rest". In that stanza he is describing the things that he is wearing. And how what he sees represents how his soul is now free to roam in a world not known by the rest. |
4. It changed my understanding of the poem because when I read it for the first time it seemed to be spoken in a voice of someone that comes from Native descent. Not knowing anymore information of Philip I am led to believe that he must have a deep connection with native Americans. Possibly he met someone that was a NA they spoke to him and gave him words filled with wisdom that led him to create this poem.
5. The theme I acquired after reading this poem is that there is always to sides to the story. The things that lead to me to believe this is how in the end of the poem it says how the kids were crossing traffic. Them walking across the street like that is making people swerve and making them have to slow down. One person slammed the breaks to not hit them and after doing that he was frustrated as i would be too if i was put in this situation. But In return what he got from the boys was not a sorry but instead he was flashed with a fire arm. After that it says how not only is the white mans god dead, but the great spirit is too. By him saying that I feel as by him thinking that it meant that he thought to himself how he feels as if he was in the wrong for flicking them off and they were also in the wrong by walking across and then flashing him. And by saying the two are dead he meant that he is sad for what people have come to these days.
|
“Getting a Second Opinion” by Adrian Louis
I've just bought you a new winter coat and we're temporarily sane, cruising two blocks down the street from K-Mart in Rapid City. Three young Indian boys, fourteen, maybe fifteen years old and living the thug life are strolling across the busy street making cars stop and I slam on the brakes and give them the finger and they flash gang signs and one pulls a small, silver gun and I stomp on the gas and in the rearview mirror I see them laughing and I know positively by the fear in your eyes that not only is the white man's God dead, but the Great Spirit is too. |
East of my grandmothers house, south of the pecan grove, there is buried a women in a beautiful dress. Mammedaty used to know where she is buried, but now no one knows, If you stand on the front of the house and look eastward towards Carnegie, you know that the women is buried somewhere within the range of your vision. But her grave s Unmarked. She was buried in a cabinet, and she wore a beautiful dress. How beautiful it was! It was one of those fine buckskin dresses, and it was decorated with elks teeth and bread work. That dress is still there, under the ground
|
Alos high moccasins are made of softest, cream -colored skins. On each instep there is a bright disc of bread work-an eight pointed star, red and pale blue on a white feild-and there are bands of bread work at the soles and ankles. The flaps of the leggings are wide and richly ornamented with blue and red and green and white and lavender beads.
|
East of my grandmothers house the sun rises out of the plain. Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of noon and all the colors of the dawn and dusk.
|
7. In chapter 24 i found the common thread is his family's culture. I say this because in the chapter he talks about the things that they have done. In the second paragraph Momaday speaks about the moccasins they used to make and how they are made of the softest colored skins. Adding to what he says I found a connection with the dress that his grandmothers buried in. He made sure to describe how exquisite he remembered the dress being and how it was decorated with elks teeth and bread work. By him saying these things I get the feeling that he is proud of everything that his family has accomplished and how much they have contributed to his life. And the third paragraph he talks about the land they they used to live upon. I feel as if when hes there he thins about his family. Now he goes to the land to pay respect to them.