Online Task 2

Online Task 2

Do we have a canon for Malaysian literary works? Let's say we do, who do you think are in it? Consider the fact that their works are well-known and most importantly included as part of the school syllabus- (both in BM and English)

1. Che Husna Azhari – Of Bunga Telur And Bally Shoes

2. Shirley Lim Geok Lin – Learning To Love America

3. Ali Majod – The Pencil

4. M. Shanmughalingam – Heir Conditioning

5. A. Samad Said – The Dead Crow

 

The poems by Erica Jong raises some feminist issues. What are they?

They are sex-positive issues, gender difference, gender bias, patriarchy and oppression of women, male dominance in love and family relationship, gender equality for women and women's rights and interests.

 

Do you think they are suitable to teach at the secondary school level? Explain.

In my opinion, Erica Jong’s poems can be used to teach at the secondary school level as a formal school programme for sex education. It is necessary to reduce risk behaviours such as unprotected sex, and equip students to make informed decisions about their personal sexual activity.

Open dialogue about physical intimacy and health education can generate more self-esteem, self-confidence, humour, and general health in students.

Is Hillary Tham's poem more suitable?

Hillary Tham’s ‘Becoming A Woman’ is not more suitable but equally suitable. It highlights the receiving of maternal wisdom. After all, it is necessary for students to know how a little girl goes through the phase of becoming a woman, to grow and chang in ways that prepare her to be able to have a baby

 

The short tale from the Native American group is about a girl who is unsatisfied with her life. How is this a universal experience? Can it teach our students anything?

More than too often most human being is not satisfied with what they have and pursue for something else which they think will make them happier. For example, almost every adult woman is trying to look prettier and younger than they are for they are unsatisfied with the way they look. The short tale from the Native American group teaches students to determine what does and does not give us real satisfaction.

 

From your findings about his background, tell me about the dilemma he conveys through the poem CROSS.

The dilemma is that the speaker is a slave or former slave who has a black mother and white father.  Being a bi-racial person in America during the 1900s was a tough position to be in.  The skin colour would represent closest to a light-skined African American, but to most African American Americans it represents the enemy, the white man.  The speaker voices anger towards his parents for making him an oddity.

I find "Dinner Guest: Me" laden with irony and sarcasm. Briefly state if you feel the same.

Yes. The speaker, being a formal dinner guest surrounded by lobster and wine he naturally would not have spoken to his white hosts as he would his neighbors and kin. “I know I am / The Negro Problem / Being Wined and dined, / Answering the usual questions / That come to the white mind “. He is Black, he is important at some level because people are trying to impress him, he is answering questions from White minds and hence must be the guest in a white house hold, he represents all Black in their eyes and is seen as a problem because they do not understand him. 

 

The experience in the poem Harlem is one that is true for many people. Do you agree?

It is true that having to postpone one’s deepest desires can lead to destruction.

Langston Hughes fights for the voice of his people. What is the movement called?

New Negro Movement - a bold eff ort to transform American images of African Americans through art and literature, while instilling race pride within the black community itself. Pursuing racial renewal through cultural diplomacy, the new Negro movement gave birth to the Harlem Renaissance (1919–1934).