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hello! i am emmanuelle (the one on the right)and im from 304 & hadley :-) my subject combination is bcl + SAP and im from art club! i love animals and i think if i could have any animal it would be a hedgehog or a sloth 🦔 🦥 i really like rain and i think im both a morning & night person! i love waking up really early but i also love sleeping late if its worth staying up :") another fun fact is that even though i dont fully understand poems sometimes, i still really love reading them especially love poems because the way the author describes feelings and emotions is really vivid and i think the feeling of love just makes me really happy

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question: why do you think this book would be banned from the shelves of a public library? Write one paragraph stating ONE reason and explain yourself.

response: “And Tango Makes Three” portrays the idea of same sex marriage and in this case since it is a children’s book, penguins are used to convey that message in a more “child-friendly” manner, but in fact it still brings across the support of LGBTQ+ in a very open manner. Currently, there are not many countries in the world that support the LGBTQ+ movement and it is a very controversial topic. Especially in Singapore where it is not legal for same sex marriage, having this book on the shelves of the public library will cause an uproar amongst people as the ideas both parties have are in conflict. There would be one side of the party who wants their children to grow up learning to be supportive and inclusive of all people, but there would also be the other party who does not want their children to be influenced by such ideas, thus the book may be banned from the shelves of a public library where anyone can easily get access to it.

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Text: Fahrenheit 451.
Raise ONE question you
have about this text;
your question MUST be
about book-burning.

if the firemen were deployed to burn books and guy montag was curious about books, why would he work as a fireman?

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1) what is one idea or strategy you learnt today that you had fun with? one strategy i learnt today is impromptu speaking. I had a lot of fun laughing at the different impromptu ideas that came from different ones of us and although it was a little awkward to be put on the spot, i think i learnt how to perform under pressure and in future i will try to be more relaxed and just go with the flow during such scenarios. i felt that perhaps it was a little awkward because we first met and we're not very familiar with one another, but i think over time it'll get a lot better and i think ill be able to adjust well :-)

notes from class: burning a book is characterised by the suppression of an idea or image because it offends or disturbs someone, real or perceived

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identify a line or paragraph where you detect ‘offensive idea or image’. page 48, lines 52-57. (within the same age limits the number of true nymphets is strikingly inferior to that of provisionally plain, or just nice or "cute", or even "sweet" and "attractive", ordinary, plumpish, formless, cold skinned, essentially human little girls, with tummies and pigtails, who may or may not turn into adults of great beauty), it is offensive in a sense that he portrays girls who are not considered nymphets to him as "provisionally plain" and ordinary, which connotes negative meanings and makes girls reduced to being plain and "plumpish" if they are not nymphets.

feedback: the idea portrayed here does not really count as a taboo subject as there are other instances in lolita where the scenes are more sexually explicit and make readers feel uncomfortable, such as the one where humbert licks lolita's eyeballs with her consent.

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1) today's question: When a writer chooses to write a controversial scene, (i) what does he gain? (ii) what does he lose?

he gains being able to convey a new kind of "normalcy" to the readers, influencing the way the readers view such controversial issues. through craft and language, the author is able to swiftly weave in certain ideas that evoke certain desired feelings in us, influencing our perception. however, something that the author possibly loses is the support of readers. there will be some readers who already have very strong viewpoints on such controversial issues, and after reading this book, they might feel that the author is offending them.

2) creative strategy learnt today: sit/stand/kneel. Question: What did you learn about yourself from using this creative strategy?

i learnt that playing with height and different levels help to create a dramatic effect on viewers and it stages the scene in a way that makes actions and positions of the characters clearer.

why is lolita banned?
- pedophilia
- a grown man lusts after girls
- society decided that this is "wrong" and "not right" thus the book is banned because it seems to be disturbing
- brainwashed into accepting humberts point of view
- "chronicle of the lust of a man for a child. such a lust, it must be admitted, is monstrous" (page 59, reader 1)
- "not a single obscene term is to be found in the whole work" (foreword)

in a book, the real or perceived offensive idea emerges from the use of language

is it possible for us to like humbert humbert? i feel that it really depends on which perspective we look at, if we are able to put ourselves in humbert humbert's shoes due to the face that he writes in first person perspective, it is possible for us to "experience" and build rapport with humbert humbert. as we follow the excerpts, humbert humbert goes through a rollercoaster of emotions as he reacts to lolitas actions while juggling all his thoughts. this makes us empathise with him and see the "human nature" and the more human side of him, and we start to realise that all of us humans make mistakes as well and we also have our own desires, thus we can't really blame humbert humber as he is just being open and honest with his feelings and experiences. this makes us possibly start to like him because of the way he narrates his experiences and "Places" us in his mind so that we can empathise with him.

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1) what did you learn about yourself through the sit stand and kneel activity?

i learnt that i am able to express a wide variety of emotions and situations through my actions. a simple change in facial expression could change the entire meaning of the scene and a simple shift in position will cause a change in the ideas conveyed in the scene. i learnt that i am able to create meaning through body language and body language is very important to learning how to express myself better.

2) what makes us as readers accept such controversial ideas?

we are being brought into the mind of humbert humbert where we are able to empathise with him and realise that he also faces problems and setbacks, and is also human just like all of us. this makes us feel for him and it somewhat brainwashes us into thinking that the ideas portrayed in the book are the "norm". in addition, the craft of the writer could also portray the controversial issue as a innocent topic.

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metaphor for a book: rough draft -
books make us feel a rollercoaster of emotions, so i think a book is a graph constructed without a graph ruler (meaning to say that throughout the book, we constantly have mixed feelings and we are unsure whether or not what we are feeling is the intended idea of the author, thus the uncertainty of how to curve the graph being linked to the uncertainty of our emotions. (note: i dont really like this draft and i think i'll be improving on it soon. i think the idea conveyed here is not clear enough and does not really bring out the idea of what books truly are)

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1. language codifies concepts and relationships

today we researched on some reasons why books were banned, as well as some examples of books that were banned. our group highlighted 2 reasons which was sexually explicit content (+age inappropriate) as well as politically offensive ideas. this allowed me to better understand why some books were banned, and it allowed me to think about why some of these books had their bans lifted after some time. this is the link to my groups research! i decided that i would continue to elaborate more on the codes and rules that books have to follow in my next post so that this post doesnt get too long :-)

groupwork: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CWgnsS7GLOs0-jeTf6tsndpONRa30uymJMe-CDFtr-o/edit?usp=sharing

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this is the link to the IMDA codes of practice for certain rules that media has to follow: https://www.imda.gov.sg/regulations-and-licensing/Regulations/Codes-of-Practice/Codes-of-Practice-and-Guidelines---Media after reading the section on some of the rules in place for books, i learnt that some of the general principles include: publications should not undermine national interest, content related to race and religion should not be offence, publications that encourage or glamorise sexually permissive and alternate lifestyles are generally not allowed... and the list goes on. after reading through this list, i started to wonder some books are not banned in singapore as personally i feel that they violate these rules to some extent. i am not very aware of any sexually explicit books as i do not have any particular interest in them such that i would know which books they are, but based on the reader given out in class, i feel like some excerpts of lolita can be quite sexually explicit which seems to violate the general principle stated in the IMDA content guidelines for media. thus, this makes me wonder why such books are not off the shelves yet. is this because they have a deeper, hidden message that the author is trying to convey? perhaps if the author's key message is not to convey sexually explicit lifestyles, but rather to use the sexually explicit events as a medium to convey their greater message, it is permitted. just some thoughts haha im not super sure about that but this is what i feel! i think if the authors main intention was just to use the sexually explicit content to enhance the readers experience while reading the book to convey an underlying theme, it would be permitted and thus not banned from the shelves.

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metaphor for a book: draft 2 - a book is a painting.
with reference to this research module, i think what i learnt is mainly more about author's intentions for writing books, and also why some books are banned. reviewing my previous draft, the metaphor created was not very clear as the visual imagery portrayed was not strong enough. art can be interpreted in many ways, and the artist intention might not necessarily get through to the viewer. similarly, i feel that taboo subjects can be interpreted in different ways, for instance through studying Lord of the Flies, i learnt that some may say that the topic of savagery poses a risk to the social fabric, but Golding's original intent was just to highlight the savagery instincts of mankind when unsupervised and uncivilised. To me, Golding is just introducing a new ideology, but to others, it may seem like he is promoting violence, thus some countries may ban the book. hence i think that a book is very similar to an abstract art piece (an example is shown above), which can be interpreted in many different ways depending on who the viewer is and depending on the point of view.

(not face-to-face lesson):
today's lesson was for us to discuss the summative assessment with our group mates based on our chosen task. Kristen, Jacklyn and I chose to work on task 5 using Lord of the Flies as our excerpt.

task 5: presented in the form of an essay

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(face-to-face lesson)
metaphor for a book: draft 3 - a book is a piece of abstract art. (above is a picture of another type of abstract art! the one in the previous post is modern abstract art, while this is the more traditional form)
improving on my 2nd draft, I decided that a book is more specifically like a piece of abstract artwork rather than just simply a "painting". paintings can convey ideas directly, but abstract art is more open to interpretation and more for the viewer themselves to choose the way they want to experience the artwork. just like a piece of abstract art, a book is interpreted by different people in many different ways and likewise, taboo subjects depicted can be taken in "positively" or rejected by readers. in summary, readers choose the way they want to experience a book and they choose the way they view a book, just like how abstract art is very open to interpretation of viewers.

chosen EU for SA task: EU1
taboo subjects presented in Lord of the Flies -  mainly savagery, brutality, the innate evil of mankind.

today's lesson was a clarification of the summative assessment task and also some time for us to discuss in our groups. my group started our essay today and we planned to finalise it by the next week :-)

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(not face-to-face lesson)
final metaphor for a book: a book is a piece of abstract art.
i decided to stick with this (based on my 3rd draft) as i feel that it encapsulates the idea of what a book is. A book is truly open to interpretation, just like a piece of abstract art. No matter how a writer may try to justify the use of controversial (taboo) subjects in his/her writings, it is entirely up to readers whether or not they want to accept the explanations and reasons why a writer presents such a scene.

- Submission of Summative Assessment today:
updates - my group is almost done with our essay but we still need to cut it down as it exceeded the page limit by four pages. we plan to create a set of slides to present to the class next week :-)

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updates:
- finished our group presentation today (although we overshot 3min by a little bit) i think we could work more on our presentation skills we were a bit too soft :-( but overall i must say im quite happy with our progress in this coursework module because we pushed ourselves to a deeper understanding on EU1.