Month: March 2015

Reflection on The Merchant of Venice Unit

My reflection on our work on The Merchant of Venice

Unit four reflection

The Merchant of Venice is a play written by William Shakespeare, and it was first released to the public in around 1596 or 1597. It featured a Merchant, who had a debt to settle with a greedy Jew called Shylock, and how if the Merchant did not repay, the Jew would cut a pound of flesh off of his body. It featured tragedy and sometimes comedy and it reflected the way Jews were shown to be at the time. Greedy and good for nothing money lenders. That’s not true, of course, but it was seen as the typical Jew attitude back in Venice during the time. We had to write an essay in language arts class, which showed how much we sympathized with the main Jew, Shylock, who did many bad things in his life but was also a victim to many bad things. It wasn’t easy, and in many ways, I felt stuck. I had to use different skills to work on my essay and make it efficient, and I’d like to tell you how I handled it and what I found difficult.

Connect

When I was reading this play, I was getting many familiar feelings throughout. I felt prejudice. As a Muslim, I know how all the Jews in this movie felt. Muslims are usually bashed around for, well, being Muslim. The Jews in this movie were bashed around for being Jewish. I could relate to the pain that those millions of Jews were feeling then because that pain is what millions of Muslims are feeling today.  This also made me a little more interested in the topic, which more enhanced the quality of my essay. It also provided more ways to help me sympathize with Shylock the Jew, as it was quite a long essay.

Extend

Before I started The Merchant of Venice, I was a little confused about the way justice worked. I thought of it as a man just going to prison. But now I know that justice is created from a person’s viewpoint on something. I learnt that if a person despises a criminal due to a personal experience, then their idea of justice would be different than a person that has never been experiences with a criminal. This is what happened in this movie. Christians hated the Jews, and their view of justice for the Jews was changed because of personal and religious background, changing the way they were treated in court. This is same for African Americans that were discriminated in America in the early 1900’s, as they did not receive proper justice either.

Challenges

There was one huge challenge that I had to overcome. The way I thank challenged me. I’m usually the kind of boy that goes into his own world and comes up with crazy stories to let people have a good time. For this essay, I had to change that thinking method into a more analytical way of thinking. It was difficult, as in the morning I am usually creative, and have to switch from that mood into a more critical, analytical mood. It is challenging to be something different from what you were just a second ago, and that hounded me for a long time. However, with help from many teachers and other students, I got enough feedback to make my thinking more analytical than before and leave the creativity out of it.

Thank you for reading! By the way, here is a link at the bottom that leads you to an imdb page which tells you a lot about the Merchant of Venice movie, which was released way back in 2004.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379889/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Almost done…

My Passion Project is coming toward its final chapter, and I think it’s right on time. May 8th is just around the corner (kind of) and its been fun. I started around a month ago, and have 240 pages now and seventy thousand words. It’s not my plot, but its still a very, very good one. Since we’re so close, I have a small “trailer” that the creators of the game made, that will let you see what the game I am writing is about, and what to expect in The Last of Us. Remember, its for mature audiences, so try to be a little over ten for this one.

 

If you have a VPN, watch this one:

If you don’t, watch this one by pasting it into your URL bar:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjUzNjUxNjI0.html

My reflection on my Passion Project Presentation

When I was walking up to present my passion project proposal, I had many thoughts in my mind. Will these children and adults sitting in the audience like what I tell them? My passion project is to show a video game plot through the use of literature. When I started talking, I tried to keep my voice at a consistent tone and be loud, while also keeping my words interesting. When I started talking about what I would do, people became interested. They knew that video games are long, and that it would take many words to sum it up. And when I told them I had already advanced to forty five thousand words and one hundred and eighty pages, they all became impressed by my determination. They all wondered about how I would do it, but I told them I had everything I needed to turn the plot of the game into literature. I have fun with video games, and especially loved the one I am writing about, The Last of Us. If you want to know more about the game, here is a link that you could paste into your URL bar. However, I recommend you keep yourself spoiler free, because this game’s story is impeccable, and one thing a first timer would adore.

http://thelastofus.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_of_Us

 

If you had to teach something, what would you teach?

Thought provoking questions

Three hundred word response

If you had to teach something, what would you teach?

 

If I had to teach something, I would teach the public about the true nature of Islam. It is a peace loving religion which is nothing like they show on television. It has a very interesting history behind it, starting from the first Islamic prophet, Adam, all the way down to our last Imam, Mehdi, who is currently in hiding, but was born thousands of years ago. Islam has miracles as well, which were transferred through the many prophets and Imams of the old times. There are different Islamic sects as well, which have no need to be there, but are there due to small misunderstandings between them all. They all have tiny differences, but are still Muslim. Our religion also has the Qur’an, which is similar to the Bible for Christians and the Torah for Jews. It holds the stories of all of our Prophets and Imams, along with important prayers. It differentiates right from wrong, and was sent to our Prophet by God. The most interesting fact about the Qur’an is that if one has a problem which is troubling their heart, then as soon as they open the Qur’an to a random page, their answer will be right in front of them. The center of Islam is in Makkah (Mecca) and started out as a small tent when Adam made it, but has now developed to become a giant building. It is considered to be “God’s home”. No bird has flown over the monument, or the Kabah, to this day, and neither has any plane. If one brings even the hungriest carnivore into the Kabah’s grounds, it will attack no one and harm nothing. If a very whole hearted Muslim enters the grounds, and goes inside the Kabah to pray, then there is a chance that Imam Mehdi, the Imam in hiding, will meet him. One will not know if that is him or not, but he will meet him.

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