Deciding on thesis statement used for research paper

In deciding on the thesis statement is not an easy task to do. I myself take for a week to think of what to do whether poems, short stories, novel or play in completing my research paper. For me, this task is a crucial task as it carries 40 percent of my carry marks. For the very first time, I am risking my life to work on poem. My friends say that it is hard to put an effort on poem as the poem is short and we need to discover or elucidate the underlying discourse of the poem critically. Then, I dare myself to check on it so I pick poems by Sylvia Plath which are Daddy and Electra on Azalea Plath. Both of the poems represent the same theme which is the father and the daughter relationship. What is so special about the selected poems is I want to analyse or clarify why Sylvia Plath frequently wrote depressing poems about her relationship with her father. In my research paper, I will give a brief description of the poet’s background and the two men who have the biggest impact in her writing. Then, I will talk about how the poet’s background had influenced her writings. I will also discuss on the implications towards education. In running my research paper, sometimes I feel that I am a private investigator as I am searching for evidences and relate her past experiences with both her father and her husband. It is kind of annoying an activity to me but it helps a lot in utilizing my research paper a bit. After I have gone through half of the progress, then I come out with my own thesis statement which is examination of the theme in two poems by Sylvia Plath to see why she often wrote depressing poems about her relationship with her father.

After deciding on the topic, then I come out with my five strong points to support my thesis statement. Till today I still work on it.

Nelson Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom

I was so fascinated in autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Based on the autobiography, it raises an issue on hegemony. Hegemony is a term used to indicate the used that a minority has the power to control over the majority. For example, white has the power to control over the black as the white has an advanced technology of arms and guns while the black is just depending on the bow and arrow instead. In dealing with the issue, the white is so-called ‘the dominator’ trying to participate in the politic in Africa. Here is the moment when the racial elements involved and Nelson Mandela seek for his right for his nation. Writing autobiography has many advantages such as the writers wants to share his or her past experience, reveal the truth and fulfill his or her writing pleasure. To me, the autobiography can be very educational if the teacher knows how to adapt or fit the purpose of teaching. In term of educational, it enables students to know what actually happened in real life or share secrets of success. More or less, the autobiography does give a bit motivation for students to improve themselves to be a good person. Apart from that, autobiography can be the element of entertainment as it provides reading pleasure for students.

Research paper (thesis statement)

I am having a hard time in research paper progress. At first, I do not know what I am going to do in my research paper and I try to do a novel entitled “The Awakening”. In this novel, I try to introduce the element of gothic presented in through the entire novel. To me, it would give a deep impact to students as they are very keen in gothic culture. So, by introducing them with the gothic elements in the novel, I think more or less it would help in stimulating students’ interest to learn literature classroom. After I have undergone the critical analysis on it, I am facing a shortage of ideas to elaborate more about it. I have changed my mine, and try to do a poem by Sylvia Plath. I try to examine on the theme in two poems by Sylvia Plath to see why she often wrote depressing poems about her relationship with her father. Here, I manage to compare and contrast based on two of her poems and how do the poems reflect her life. More over, these two poems are quite long and easy to understand. So, I do not have many difficulties to do it. Sylvia Plath is very good in expressing her emotion and experience through her poems.

Issues inside research paper

I am working on the poems ‘Daddy’ and ‘Electra on Azalea Plath’. ‘Daddy’ was written shortly after Sylvia’s divorce with her husband, Ted Hughes. In the deep depression of her divorce, she always thought of her father and wrote this poem to describe her unresolved feelings towards him. “Daddy” was written in Sylvia’s childhood voice where one can feel the tense of a child who was lost in defining her relationship with her father and the man she loved. Electra on Azalea Path, for Sylvia herself, that was the first time she ever visited her father’s grave and it inspired her to write the poem, “Electra on Azalea Path” (http:www.neuroticpoet.com). In this poem, Sylvia describes her unresolved feelings towards her father and how she is desperate to be with him and to get to know him better. Through out the poem ‘Daddy’, we can see that the persona is actually confused with the relationship that she had with her father. ‘Daddy’ does not only reveal Sylvia’s conflict with her father, but also a remark of serious confusion within herself for having a father who is related to German. Meanwhile, in her poem “Electra on Azalea Path” Sylvia mentioned in the very first line that “the day you died I went into the dirt”, you is referred to her father. Therefore, Sylvia is trying to tell the reader that she was depressed by the death of her father and she felt as though life has no meaning for her after her father’s death. So, this line is significant to show Sylvia’s unresolved feeling towards her father because for Sylvia, she had died along with her father. The use of imagery in the both poems also shows the persona’s confusion in her relationship with her father. In the poem ‘Daddy’, Sylvia uses the image of a ‘black shoe’ (Daddy, line: 2) as an image to represent her father, where she lived under her father’s influence

5 points supporting details

In composing a good work of art, it is actually occupied with efforts and hard work. In searching for five strong points is actually cracking off my head. I merely gave up in doing the research paper. However, my roommates gave full support to me and even help me to search for textual evidence to support my points. I am so grateful to have such a good roommate. Thanks Fattah. I keep on asking, when I am going to complete the task, because as I type my project paper it never meets an end. Therefore, the font size is 12 and it is a bit small to me and perhaps that makes me feel anxiety not willing to complete the task given. I have put each and every small effort everyday in completing my assignment. Thank God, finally I could finish the assignment after the all hardship that I have gone through.

Sum up MELTA forums

Forum is one of the elements of active discussion especially in improving teaching English in Malaysia. For me, I have come out with the title “does on-line discussion help language students to improve their language”. I was so grateful because my topic became a hot topic of the week as my friends responded vitally relating to my topic. What I am so proud of my topic is that one of the UPSI lecturers has responded to my topic. I feel like it is an honor to me to receive a response from a lecturer as it gives an impact that my topic is a good topic to be discussed. On the other hand, there are advantages and disadvantages of the on-line discussion that we have discussed. Firstly, it gives a room of improvements for students to develop their language skills. It promotes student centred learning as students can get access to internet even outside of the class. So, for the beginner, it will lower students’ anxiety and it will encourage students’ affection domain to write what ever they like. Despites, there are disadvantages that we need to be taken into consideration. Firstly, most students are not interested in online discussion. They would think that the discussion would be very boring and helpless. The teacher should encourage or drill them with a topic and the task is compulsory for them to respond. If not, the online discussion would not be going to work. However, the online discussion has more advantages rather than disadvantages. So, the online discussion should be implemented as it gives lots of benefits for students’ language development.

Letters

Letters is one of the elements to figure out how the author’s life affects their writings.The author wrote the letters back one century. At first, it is hard for me to comprehend the phrases and sentences used because the author used lot of figurative languages in delivering the speech in the letter. Moreover, the experiences presented in the letter do affect the written poem by poet. The letter presented is a beautiful masterpiece also as it comprises figurative language that makes me hardly to understand the letter itself. Letter is a tool especially for the poet to express their own feelings or gratitude towards the recipients such as members of family or friends.

Presentation

When it comes to a position paper presentation, I feel very anxious as I do not have confident in delivering speech in front of the class. Moreover, presenting my position paper in front of Dr Edwin would make my body giggle and it is hard for me to open my mouth to speak up. However, I try my best to perform my best presentation for Dr Edwin as he is very critically in giving comments and ideas. So, what I did was when presenting my position paper, I have taken notes of what I am going to talk on the presentation. So, it is easier for me to deliver my speech and it is easier for Dr Edwin to comprehend what I am trying to say. When presenting my position paper, Dr Edwin was attracted to my definition of gentleman. He said it is a good definition and it is interrelated to my position paper. My definition of gentleman is being a gentleman is a matter of virtue and honesty of having a station in life which one can fill with dignity. Recount on my thesis statement Joe’s treatment of Pip makes him a gentleman suits the definition after all. After completing my position paper, Dr Edwin asks me to reworking on my fourth point and the conclusion. Thank God, I have completed my presentation.:)

Use of poetry in ESL classroom

Teaching poetry in ESL classroom would be very interactive if the teacher knows how to deal with it. The teacher plays a big role in introducing poem in class. Students sometimes will get bored in learning poem as the poem is hard to comprehend and understand it. I admit that the use of diction is an issue here, but the teacher has to introduce them with an easy poem and deliberately teach them a bit difficult poem. This would provide a room of opportunities for them to learn inference and assumption skills before they go beyond the difficult poem. The teacher needs to initiate them with a good pre presentational stage whereby they can get attracted with what the teacher is going to teach. Moreover, the students tend to focus on the poem as the teacher has initiated them with an interesting set induction stage. Set induction stage would be very essential as the students’ schemata or past experience will be activated and it helps them to understand and infer the poem critically.

Uniforms – hegemony, equality beneath it

In ‘The Long Walk to Freedom’, the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, it elevates an issue on the use of uniform. There are reasons why uniform is being used as it is for identification, status, element of disciplinary, symbol of control or standardization. Sometimes, people use uniform as a norm like police or army. The most popular reasons are identification and status. Identification means to classify or segregate identity between people while status it shows hierarchy and equality that differentiate people. This is when the word hegemony appears. Hegemony exists as an element of racial elements which a minority has controlled over the majority. The best example would be between whites and blacks. White has the power to control over the black because they are fully equipped with full-loaded guns and weapons while the black is still using traditional weapon which is bow and arrow. So, the white tries to dominate the black by scaring them with the AK-47. Worse comes to worse, the white has the power to control over the politic in Africa. They can participate in politic to control over the economy growth and the state itself in general.

The use of ‘autobiography’ in ESL classroom

It is tremendously good if the teacher is willing to teach autobiography in English classroom. Teaching autobiography can be educational and can be the element of entertainment. Occasionally, it is good for students to learn autobiography as it promotes a real life situation. What I mean here is of course the autobiography is the writer or someone past experience and they are willing to share their past experience with us. So, it provides a real process of learning and most of the students really like it rather than just stick on the text book instead which would be promoting students anxiety. The use of the autobiography is appropriate and suitable in class and outside the class. It means here the reading session would not be over and the students can read the autobiography without the teacher consent. Most autobiographies, they are written in a enjoyment manner because the use of language or diction is very simple and easy for students to comprehend. Teacher has no worry to assign his or her student to read as the autobiography could encourage learner centered approach. What ever it is, the autobiography

Deciding the text that I used in my position paper

Joe’s treatment of Pip makes him a gentleman is my thesis statement for my position paper. Through out my critical analysis through out the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, I am having a hard time to search for my strong points especially fourth and fifth points of my position paper. The novel is quite easy to read but in searching for strong points would be a real difficulty to me. The use of diction and certain terms of the novel would be very confusing to me. Sometimes, there are words and phrases that is difficult to me. In dealing with strong sentence or textual evidences also takes me long time to search for it. Therefore, there are a bit of textual evidences that accurately allocate with my thesis statement. So, I have to flip through every single sheet of paper in the novel to look for my textual evidences. Luckily, the textual evidences are slightly enough for my stated strong points. So, I am able to complete my outline and power point presentation that Dr Edwin asked to submit today.

Thesis statement

First when I look a t this activity, I am sure it is not an easy task to do. Plus, it was in DR. Edwin’s class and to me he presents as a perfectionist lecturer who wants the best from his students. In looking for the thesis statement, initially I have no idea what to do in doing thesis statement in my position paper. Frankly, I do know a bit on novel and poem understudied. So, I am not really mastery in any poem or novel. So, I have taken a risk to do a novel in Great Expectation that I have studied last semester. I have so many difficulties to create my own thesis statement. We have to know every single word and sentence of every chapter and what do the sentences suggest or imply in the novel. So much so, we have to know all about the novel taken and try to make a thesis statement based on the issues related to the novel. In dealing with the thesis statement, we have to write on the whiteboard and waiting for Dr Edwin comment on it. Luckily, my thesis statement is accepted by him after three time’s trial. So lucky of me, there are my friends who take a long time to compose their own thesis statement. After we have succeeded in composing the thesis statement, we need to come out with five strong points that support our thesis statement embedding textual evidences.

Meet the supervisor.

For my group, we meet our supervisor every Tuesday. Our supervisor, Dr Arshad Bin Abd Samad is the best supervisor. He is very flexible in dealing with our research paper. We can do whatever we can as long as the research paper meets the conclusion. What does it mean here, it suits the meaning of analysis (analysis of poems, novels, short stories) and implication to the teaching ESL in Malaysian classroom. In our first meeting, Dr Arshad introduces us with the outline of the research paper. He is very cool lecturer as he gives much time to think of our thesis statement and outline. After next two weeks, we have to submit our outline as he wants to comment on it. To me, it is hard to engage with the outline as it has sections that need to be completed. The tricky part is when to look for three strong points in the poems that related to my thesis statement. At last, I am very thankful as I manage to do the outline successfully

Use of tales in ESL classroom

Use of tales is a superior way in initiating students in learning English. A tale of Deadulus and Icarus is a good example of introducing students to learn English in affecting way. However, it would not work if the use of language of the tales is very difficult and hard for students to understand. So, it promotes students anxiety and makes them unhappy to attempt any task in English classroom. Teacher plays an essential role to simplify and shorten the phrases or sentences that are hard to comprehend. So, it will suit every level of student’s proficiency. The text selection would be more selective and genuine such as magazine, newspaper or articles and it provides real time situation and the class would be more attentive. So much so, in introducing them with the tales, there are lots of activities that we can come out with such as arrange the plot of the story, do word puzzle, tongue twister or a role play. The class would be more interactive and lively.