First,I'd like to thank you for participating in our thoughtful conversation today. I know I learned a lot from your astute observations.
In a comment to this post, please reflect on what you heard today, either from our presenters or from the group at large. In your comment, please be specific about what ideas resonated with you and how they expanded your own understanding of the story. Don't forget to give credit where credit is due by naming names.
Please end your comment by finishing this sentence:
"Next time I write a one-pager, I will...
(be concrete and specific here--not I will try hard, but rather something along the lines of "I will make connections between the passage in the story and character development.")
Today I heard many different ideas about the stoty. One main idea I kept hearing was the relationship that Boudi and her daughter. The idea was that the two were in constant conflict because Usha wanted to become an Americanized girl while her mother continued to hold the idea that Usha must have Bengali traditions in life. I also touched base on this in my one pager I stated that the two had conflict becasue neither one wanted to give up what the wanted so Boudi continued to shield Usha of Deborah's American ways. This is mainly why I believe that Boudi resented Deborah so much. Deborah had already stripped one person she loved of their culture and Boudi wasn't going to let it happen to her daughter.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion did help me understand the story mainly by clearing up some grey areas and opening my eyes to the little things that are so suddle I missed them completly.
Next time I write a one-pager i will pay closer attention to the little quotes and the hudge role the images depicted are.
Today I learned a lot about the story. I never even thought about how Hell-Heaven connected to the story. Christina was the first to point this out to me, and I think Terry said that Bengali culture was heaven and American culture will be hell. I really liked Jackie's metaphor of the blinds. I didn't even remember reading that quote, so I thought it was interesting how Jackie found its deeper meaning. The mother definitely closed the blinds to the world and was afraid of change.
ReplyDeleteNext time I write a one-pager I'm going to find more details that have meaning and I'm going to focus my whole paper on one topic.
Today, I heard many comments that mentioned different aspects upon Usha's life and immigration; how they tie together. I heard that through Usha's "movements" away from her Mother and Father's cultures and traditions, it kind of seperated the family greatly, but in the end, this seperation also brought her family more closely together. I heard that the mother, Boudi, (and I read this too) loved Pranab, and she wished that Deborah divorced him. In the end, she did. The Final thing that I heard today was, and this was by Christina, that the introduction of Pranab led to a sort-of seperation between Usha's family, and an identity crisis for Usha. Next time I write a one-pager, I will pay more attention to the various points-of-views in the story, and the character developments that flow within the paper.
ReplyDeleteAfter listening to the conversation about Hell-Heaven I realized how many different point there actually are in the story. One thing that I heard multiple times and that I wrote was about how Boudi was afraid of change and that Pranab just wanted to let go of where he came from. Christina and Terry both made what I thought was the best points when they talked about th relationship with the title of the story and the relationship between the two cultures.
ReplyDeleteThe next time I write my one-pager I am going to try and use more quotes and try and figure out how to analyze certain part of the story.
In the class read aloud, I heard many different interesting connections. But the one that struck me as the most intriguing and influential was when Jackie mentioned the idea of Boudi having a fear of change. The quote about keeping the blinds closed to keep out the sunlight really struck me and it made a lot of sense. The fact that Boudi did not want a change of culture within the family, caused a lot of commotion in everyone's lives.
ReplyDeleteThe next time I write my one-pager I will really try to find a specific area within the text that I can focus my entire piece on because I feel like after looking back at mine this time, I was all over the place and didn't connect the ideas together.
I thought Christina's explanation of why Usha pities her mother was an eye opener. The cultures causing an identity crisis explains it all. Jackie's mention of the blinds was notable to me. The analogy really helped with the explanation. I didn't even realize how much fear of change was rooted around the story. I had only thought of how Boudi grew more accepting with time but I did not think of why she wasn't.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I found Terry's Hell-Heaven culture connection about Bengali culture (heaven) and American culture (hell) to be very interesting. I had no idea about how it fit so well with the idea of culture and assimilation that I completely ignored the hell-heaven phrase.
Next time I write a one-pager, I will look more closely at why the characters are the way they are and the meanings of abstract quotes.
After hearing from the presenters in the class read aloud, I sort of saw the story from an entirely different angle. I heard many interesting connections that I didn't notice when I first read the story. One idea that struck me as the most interesting was Jackie mentioned the blinds. I thought that this was a very influential idea because to me it shows how immigrants want to close themselves off from the people around them; that fear of change.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I thought that Terry's connection between heaven and hell was very interesting. I agree with his idea that hell is her daughter Usha becoming more of an American and basically leaving her culture and traditions in the past, and how heaven is keeping the Bengali traditions in her heart. I honestly could not make a connection between the title and the story, but I see the connection that Terry made.
Next time I write my one-pager, I will look more closely at the details the author uses, and look more deeply into why the author says it. I will also try to make my one-pager flow better because when I looked over mine during class, I noticed that I was sort of all over the place. I will do this by making it so my quotes are not just placed into my writing.
Next time I wrote my one-pager I will find more quotes and back them up. I will also make my paper flow more because it is a free write but it should be organized. I feel as if I am always jumping around and I should try to stay on toipic and talk about things more. I will state something and then I will just start something else and my paper will not be that clear. If I can stay on topic then I will be able to be clearer and write a better paper.
ReplyDeleteI was not in class so I can not connect to anyones. I also can not comment on ones that I liked and htoughts on other peoples.
After hearing a few of what people had to say, I realized that Hell-Heaven had more to it than what i thought it did. One thing I noticed was that Christina and I both wrote about the clashing of cultures. As I heard more opinions other than my own, I gained a deeper understanding of how the distance between the families was caused.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I found it was interesting when Janelle explained the quote about the picture. I never realized before how important exactly it was. However, the quote was anything but unimportant. I realized that, that quote explained a lot about that story in one sentence.
As I read this story, I missed a lot of the hidden details, like Janelle noticed. Next time I do my one pager, I will pay more close to details, and try to take the time to think about it more than I have been.
On Friday I heard a lot of ideas that corresponded with ideas that I had, but I also heard a lot of new ideas that I had not thought of at all. I really liked Christina’s thoughts on the title “Hell-Heaven”, I had not made the connection between fire in hell, and how Boudi was going to end her life by setting herself on fire. I also liked her idea on how irreconcilable differences can bring two people together. I thought that the relationship between Debbie and Boudi was very interesting, and I liked Christina’s take on it. Hearing the different ideas of people made me realize how complex of a story that Hell-Heaven really is. It can be viewed in different ways, and even the most obscure things have deep meaning. Hearing different people’s views gave me a better understanding of the story because I was seeing it through many different perspectives, and I saw things differently, and saw things that I had not seen before.
ReplyDeleteNext time I write a one-pager, I will try to make deeper connections within the story. I will try to focus on the little things, oppose to the big and obvious ideas that are clearly presented in the story.
After hearing from everyone in class about Hell-Heaven, I saw the story from many different angles that I would have never thought to see. I heard many classmates noticed that Boudi was reluctant to integrate into the American culture because she was an immigrant. She, like most other immigrants do not want to change because they want to preserve their culture and their memories, they want their children and grandchildren to live the culture too. Terry pointed out a view of the story that I do not think I would pick up if I read it another time. He pointed out that Boudi was afraid that Usha would become too “Americanized” and that is why she seemed to be an angered person, because she was trying to preserve what was left of their Bengali culture.
ReplyDeleteNext time I write a one-pager, I will scrutinize the reading so much that I could write it with my eyes closed. I will pay greater attention to detail and think hard at why did the author write the sentence that way. I will analyze it until I feel that I cannot be more descriptive and clear with the one-pager.
On Friday I was interested in sharing my ideas but I also gathered a lot of other ideas during our discussion. I was extremely interested by what Christina said, especially the part about Pranab presenting an identity crisis for Usha. I thought this idea was extremely enlightening because once I thought about it a little bit, more ideas started opening up for me to think about regarding the text.
ReplyDeleteI also was extremely intrigued by the point Jackie brought up when she mentioned the quote regarding Boudi closing the blinds from letting in too much sunlight. Boudi said she closed the blinds so that the sunlight wouldn't fade the furniture and Jackie interpreted this as Boudi being afraid of change. This idea helped open up other connections in the story such as the cultural struggles Boudi faced with her daughter Usha.
Next time I write a one-pager, I will make sure I find multiple ideas that all connect to each other throughout the text and try to understand why the author purposely connected them.
In class I heard many thoroughly analyzed points about the story hell-heaven. I think Jackie did the best job of finding a quote and reading into it. Her metaphor about the blinds being closed made me realize that every piece of the text has a specific meaning. A lot of the class, including myself, reflected on the conflict between the two cultures; but after hearing a few people’s one-pagers I learned that there was more to the story that the author was trying to present.
ReplyDeleteNext time I write a one-pager I will look for the deeper meaning in the text than what is just presented from the start.
in class on Friday i heard a lot of common ideas through out all of the 5 people that read their one pager. The one big idea i kept on hearing was balancing two identities. the two cultures brought challenges to Usha and her family. i liked Christiana's point when she said assimilation would be inevitable for her because becoming american is hard. in my next one pager i will try to make my points clearer because there is a possibility of reading aloud to the class and i don't want to be embarrassed in front of everyone
ReplyDeleteduring class in the discussion i was very surprised to hear what Jackie had to say, i had never even thought of that quote to mean so much. I also noticed that from all the people that read aloud they looked into the reading much more, they read in between the lines and had noticed tons of details that i had never taken account of like the identity crisis that christina had brought up,or how jackie had looked at the mother as having a fear of change just because she refused to take part in american culture and she tried to keep everything like new in her house by always keeping their blinds closed.
ReplyDeletenext time i write a one pager i will try not to make so many readers observations and try to make more analytical connections with the reading. also i could originally anotate the reading more to make it easier for myself to write the one pager.
I learned alot about Hell heaven, and heard alot of great things that my fellow peers picked up from the reading. I think the best thing i heard and even learned was from, i believe, terry. When Terry read that the title "Hell Heaven" is based on the two cultures of America and Bengali tradition i was actually stunned. I didn't even pick up on the title being about Usha living the Bengali lifestyle in America (Heaven) over her living the American teenage lifestyle (hell). I think Terry had a really good one pager and that connection he made was really great.
ReplyDeleteNext time i write a one pager i want to be able to read the content more closely and be able to pick up on connections like Terry did. I believe those are the skills a good reader and analyzer must have.
The other day in class I saw differnt ways to analize our stories. One of the ways was taking in small details like how Jackie described the blindes as her being open or closed to the new culture, and how Janielle (i think it was her) went into morth depth at one point in the story with the picture and found out it symbolized more about the plot of the story than i expected. I also saw a way that you can connect the title of the story to the events going on in the story, as Christina did with putting the suidiced atempt along with the hell heaven idea.
ReplyDeleteNext time I have a one pager, i will pay more attention to detials and look up the meanings of words and see if they symbolize something more than just the image they protray. Another idea i can do for my one pager is to somehow find a way that the title of the story connects to events or ideas within the story.
I thought that I did a good analysis. I connected the title, Hell-Heaven, to the actual text. Terry did this too. He made different connections then I did. I found concrete evidence of where the mother, Boudi connected the two cultures. Terry connected Usha and how she is being Americanized. I connected Pranab and how Boudi even says that he is transferring from Hell to Heaven, or from the Bengali culture. Jackie connected how Boudi shutting the blinds was in connection to how Boudi shuts her vision on the whole world. She is afraid of American culture and wants to shelter her children, her family, and other around her from it. It taught me how to pay attention to detail and that I need to look for the subtlest of things. The authors of stories put thought into every little detail that goes into the story.
ReplyDeleteNext time I write a one pager, I will pay attention to the most subtle details--connecting them to the theme of the story. I need to make note of the author's intent for every detail that is put in.
Hearing everybody's analysis from Hell Heaven on Friday was cool. I heard a lot of stuff that made me realize what type of information is really hidden in the stories we read. I really liked Jackie's description of the blinds, and when she closed the blinds, saying it was for one reason, Jackie described it as in she was afraid of change, and how different cultures are sometimes afraid of changing themselves. The sunlight served as American Culture, and if the blinds were open, she was exposing herself to the American culture, but she kept them closed, because she was faithful to her culture in Calcutta.
ReplyDeleteNext time i write a one page, I will make sure to just look a little closer and read more slowly to try and pick out that little part of the story, that ends up having so much meaning to it, and developing into a whole new meaning.
In the discussion we had about Hell- Heaven a lot of things had stood out to me. In the discussion each person talked about different topics that I did not even notice when I wrote my one pager.
ReplyDeleteIn the topics each person talked about two different cultures and how they are trying to live in two places like Christina had said or what Terry had said about relation between two cultures. Each one of these showed that immigrants go through a challenge of fitting in and keeping their culture alive when coming to America. Jackie had also mentioned “fear of change”. I believe that this also tied into what Terry and Christina were saying. Fear of change results in unhappiness and also reflects on how two different cultures are coming together in one environment.
Next time I write a one-pager, I will get into one specific detail that I find interesting to me and go into vivid detail about it. I also will look into the real meaning of why the author put that there and why it has so much meaning to it.
I heard from both Terry and Christina the relationship of the title of the story to the characters within, in which I also made this connection. Christina pointed out that Pranab is what created this Hell-Heaven/ identity crisis, which I had not realized. Jackie pointed out that Boudi stubberness to assimilate, did a few things. The first thing it did was it helps to keep Bengalian culture within the family. Another thing it did was help the family assimilate so they could fit in better with Americans. Jackie and Janelle also did a great job of pulling out what most people would think is an ordinary line, and showed what it really meant.
ReplyDeleteNext time I write a one-pager, I will read over the text slower, and reread parts that seem interesting or that I did not understand the first time I read.
I was not aloud to partipate in the class dicussion about this assignment. Therefore, I cannot make any observations or connections, or state anything new that I have learned. However, after writing my one-pager, I have discovered a few things about my writing style that I do not necessarily enjoy.
ReplyDeleteFor starters, I am not very fluent. I noticed that I have trouble staying on topic, and I jump from idea to idea. I hope I can fix that with further practice. Also, I still feel like I am responding to the text, rather than analyzing it. I am trying very hard to understand the difference, but I still have trouble. I'd like to fix as with the progression of the class as well.
Next time I write a one-pager, I will try to correct the aforementioned problems, and hopefully produce the writing that is expected of me by my teachers.