16. Last day of ENG102

Yesterday was the last day of our ENG 102 class. We had a pub-quiz which contains the subjects of the whole semester. As the previous pub-quiz Ezgi, Billur and me decided to keep up the Girls Power. But we had to be 4 people in one group so Beri joined us and thanks to him, he accepted our group name=)) I have to say that the atmosphere of the quiz was very challenging. We started to our quiz well and we saved the difference of point with the other groups. And finally… We got 33 out of 40 and became the winner in our section and the second between the other sections. I have to say that we had a chance to become the winner between the other sections also but we had a little carelessness in 3 questions, we missed it just with one word=/

Anyway, it was a really enjoyable pub-quiz and also semester. I am really happy to be in Sonja’s class. Thank you a lot Sonja because you showed us really good points of English courses. I am sure we are going to see each other in our campus=)

p.s: your cookies were really delicious=))

p.s.: I will really miss your e-mails=))

15. Final Seminar Presentation

Today Beri, Ezgi, Janbek and me had a last seminar presentation which is about the political/cultural commentary of Toni Morrison in her novel, Black Feminism and theft of innocence. And I think we had a good job. The attendance was few but we tried to make them participate to the presentation. As always I was really excited before and during the presentation. And don’t know why but I can’t get away from it. I have to find a solution for this=) But I think it is really helpful and useful for me to make presentations in the classes. It is entertaining and it helps me to evaluate myself about the presentations. Also I find chances to make practice of speaking in front of a group. So I think that ENG classes both in the first semester and also in this semester are really good to make student to familiarize with the group working and also with the presentation. Finally I would suggest making more presentations in the classes.

14. Second Seminar Presentation

The 2^nd group presented Elaborate symbols/ Dick and Jane readers; Shirley Temple and Bojangles/ Race and beauty. Dick and Jane story series were published in 1930s to teach children to read. This story is about a white American family. There is father, mother, little boy- Dick, little girl- Jane, the baby- Sally, Spot the dog, Puff the cat and Tim the teddy bear. This family is very happy; they all love each other and live in a pretty house. The father goes to work, the mother is at home and doing house stuffs. Jane helps her mother while cooking, cleaning. So we can say everything goes ‘good’. Toni Morrison starts her novel with a description of Dick and Jane story. She starts with these paragraphs to show the great ideal white American family. When we start to read the novel, firstly we see the difference between the house in Dick&Jane story and Pecola’s home (they don’t live in a house, they live in a storefront). Then we see the contrast between Pecola’s life and Dick&Jane’s life. Pecola has an unhappy family, her mother and father fight each other all the times; her father is always drunk, finally he raped Pecola.

As I said before there is a very important place of Dick&Jane in this story to show the contrast between ‘whites’ life & ‘blacks’ life. Also the story shows us the point of view of blacks about whites by the dialogues between Claudia, Frieda and Pecola.

13. First Seminar Presantation

Our seminar presentations started 10^th May. The first group presented Cyclical storytelling/ The Great Migration/ Time and coming of age. They had a detailed explanation of the historical context and they did relate it to our novel well.

From 1910 to 1930, African Americans started to migrate from the south of US to the north of the US. The aim of this movement was to find new job opportunities because the north was more industrialized than the south and also to escape from the racism in south. Toni Morrison integrated the effects of the Great Migration in her novel very well. In the novel Cholly and Pauline Breedlove are the characters that joined to this migration. They moved to Lorain, Ohio to find a new job and to make more money. But as we see in general that this movement also caused people in a bad way. It caused people to become distant from others and to become alone. We also see the same thing in Cholly and Pauline’s life. Before moving in Lorain, they were really happy, understanding to each other but then they started to become distant from each other. They were expecting to be happier but the converse did happen. So we can say that the base of Breedlove family cracked with their migration and it became worse.

12. Pub Quiz

On May 7th we had a pub quiz about our novel The Bluest Eye. Of course without alcohol again=// I had a group with Billur and Ezgi and the name of our group was Girls Power. Related to our groups name we had the highest score an all sections=))

The quiz was about the review of the novel and it has 4 parts. Every part were containing 10 questions and in each part the secretary was changing.

I think the quiz was very useful to remember the whole story and we had also fun.

Congratulation again to all my group members!... It was a good job=)

11. Spring

The Spring part of the novel begins with the event that Mr. Henry touched Frieda’s breast. Frieda ran out of the kitchen and went to tell this to her father and mother. Her father was very angry and went in to hit Mr. Henry. Her mother told this happening to her friend and she mentioned that she is afraid of Frieda could be ‘ruined’. In here the word ‘ruined’ is important because the author used this word to show the importance of the virginity of a girl for the family. The virginity of a girl also means the honor of the family. So if something did happen between Frieda and Mr. Henry, it would mean that the honor of the family had been destroyed. But for the two little girls Pecola and Frida this word just reminds of Maginot Line. They think that if Frieda is ‘ruined’ it means that she will resemble to Maginot Line. And this thought makes them afraid of because they think that to resemble to Maginot Line is to become fat.

In here as I mentioned about before, the author tries to show the innocence of these little girls and the big difference between their life and adults’ life.

We also see in here that the MacTeers are conservative family. For them the virginity of their daughter is important. And also there is an effective father role who tries to protect his daughter which is the converse of Pecola’s father-Cholly.

10. Winter

In the Winter chapter of the book, there is a new girl whose name is Maureen Peal in the school. Claudia describes her as “a high-yellow dream child with long brown hair”. This new girl was light black-skinned and also she was rich. All of these qualities were making her popular in school. The teachers were showing more attention to her, boys were not disturbing her.. All of these were making Claudia and Frieda derange. So they were bemused, irritated her. They were calling her as Six-finger-dog-tooth-meringue-pie.

One day, when boys were disturbing Pecola, Maureen came and rescued her. Four of them-Pecola, Maureen, Claudia and Frieda- walked home together. On the road they stopped at the ice-cream shop to buy some ice-cream. For Frieda and Claudia it was hard to say that they have no money, because they didn’t want to show themselves as poor to Maureen. When they were talking, Maureen started to mention about boys and naked men. This made the three of them feel uncomfortable because there was a stereotype which is saying that all black people sleep in a same room so the daughter can see her father when he is naked. This subject made them to argue. Finally Maureen called them ‘black’.

This calling ‘black’ made them feel angry. Because it didn’t mean their skin color, it meant the people who are dirty. Here the author mentions about racial self-hatred.

Also Claudia says "Dolls we could destroy, but we could not destroy the honey voices of parents and aunts, the obedience in the eyes of our peers, the slippery light in the eyes of our teachers when they encountered the Maureen Peals of the world" which means that the world has a an unchangeable view of Whites that they are beautiful and cute. Even we destroy all of them we can’t destroy the views about them.

This part is very important to see the reason of hating from white peoples for the black girls.

9. Autumn

In the Autumn chapter of the novel, Pecola came to MacTeers’ house for a while after her dad, Cholly fired up their houses. Pecola had her first ‘ministrain’ which means menstruation. She didn’t know what the meaning of it and when she noticed that she was bleeding she asked “Am I going to die?”. Frieda knew the meaning of this and she explained her that the meaning of it is to be able to have a baby. Frieda tried to help Pecola without showing to her mother. But Rosemary saw them in the garden and said Mrs. MacTeer that they are playing nasty. At the beginning, Mrs. MacTeer was angry with them but after learning that Pecola had her first period, she helped her.

In the night, when the three of them were laying down in the bed, Claudia explains their feelings for Pecola. She says that “We were full of respect for Pecola. Lying next to a real person (. . .) she was different from us now- grown-up-like”. For that ages of girls to have the first menstruation period is the most important event in the world which means the first step to the entrance of adults’ life.

Also for both Pecola and Claudia, the thought of being able to have a baby made them think about it. When they asked Frieda about what is needed to have a baby, she replied them it is needed to have somebody who has to love you. In here, the author showed the innocent feelings and thoughts of them- to have a man who loves his wife to have a baby.

But then, we will see that Pecola will have a baby from his father which seems horrible to her and she didn’t even understand what was going on…

8. The Bluest Eye

‘The Bluest Eye’ which is our seminar presentation novel was written by Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison is a black writer who wrote the book from the perspective of little black girl Claudia. The story is to show the life of blacks and the views of blacks for the whites. We can see that the author mentioned a lot about the racism and for this she used irony and comparison between blacks and white’s world. This novel takes place in Lorraine, Ohio where is a multicultural city (Italian neighbor Rosemary, Polish market owner Mr. Yacobowski).

One of the main themes of this book is about the physical appearance. The black girl Claudia always mentions about the white-skinned and blue-eyed people. She thinks that to have blue eyes and white skin is the indicator of beauty. When she eats the candy which is called Mary Jane who has a picture on it with blond hair, white skin and blue eyes she thinks about her and being like her (“eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane).

Sometimes like Claudia, people can forget the insignificancy of the physical appearance. As it is temporary specialty, people just offer their life to it. They are always in a search of having a good color of eye, good color of hair… But the most important future of being human is not to have a good physical future but to have a good character.