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A poem for the discussion of Multilingualism

sarak's picture

I recently found this poem by Gustavo Pérez Firmat (reading Junot Diaz's Drown), which I thought was an eloquent expression of what some multilingual individuals may experience; it is definitely what I have experienced as a primarily Russian speaker in my high school in DC.

 

"The fact that I 

am writing to you

in English

already falsifies what I

wanted to tell you.

My subject:

how to explain to you that I

don't belong to English

though I belong nowhere else"

 

~Gustavo Pérez Firmat

Praxis Reflection 2/5

Ang's picture

This week I spent the majority of the visit sorting through poetry again. This time, I felt a sense of accomplishment because I finally sorted through all the poetry and sorted them into folders in alphabetical order by their first names. Unless they have more poems to add to the book, I think we're probably going to really start making electronic copies of all the poems soon and figuring out how we are going to publish the book. 

reflections on reflections

amanda.simone's picture

Today in class someone brought up goal setting, asking, Who sets the goals? Who should set the goals?

One goal I set for myself today is to come to each class for the remainder of the semester with a main question, concern, praise, or note about each reading. I think this will give me more purpose during reading and in discussion. Hopefully, I wont have to search for something to say and to be so anxious about the pauses in conversation. And if what we end up talking about in class is not really connected to what I focused on that's okay. But I think reading with a slightly more of a purpose in mind might help me to bridge the gap between my thoughts while reading outside of class and our dialogue inside the classroom.