Research Paper - Final Draft

When we received our first draft back, I realized that my discussion was not coherent with the topic. Hence, I decided to edit my topic and not the discussion as I felt that my discussion was fine. Besides that, I could not come out with ideas to make the discussion suited with the topic. At first, I had chosen to examine the writing styles of Heah Chwee Sian and Anjana Appachana in representing gender discrimination/women oppression in patriarchal society. But I was afraid that my discussion was not going to be depth as I need to critically analyze the writing styles of both authors and it was not easy. Then, I decided to change my topic to 'The Examination of Women Oppression in Patriarchal Society' but the problem started when I failed to relate the issue of women oppression with the patriarchal society in the stories. I could not prove how the societies presented in both stories are dominated by men. So, what I did was to ask my friend to read my assignment so that he could help me to overcome the problem. Then, he advised me focus on the issue of 'pregnancy out of wedlock' as both stories deal with the same issue presented through the female characters, Ah Nya and Amrita. I was interested as I have never written anything related to this issue before. Instead of discussing a common issue such as gender discrimination maybe I should write something I have never done before. It was not difficult and I chose to examine the issue through the conflicts portrayed in both stories.

The History Boys

Sincerely, I am not really into British movies as the English is more complicated, not straightforward and the thick British accent makes it more difficult. When, I heard that we were going to watch two movies, I was excited but when I knew that the second movie was a British movie, it took back my interest. However, after watching the movie, I found that it was not that bad although there were some troubles in understanding what’s happening in the movie. Generally, the movie is a mixture of tragedy and comedy. It was hard to determine the message of the movie. First, the movie is about a group of students in Cutlers’ Grammar School, Sheffield preparing themselves to sit for Oxford University entrance examination as they have passed their A-level examination with flying colours. It is different from the first movie as the students are selected students or elite students and they do not have trouble with their studies and apparently all of them are smart. In between, the story portrays the theme of homosexuality and various beliefs in teaching or educating. Truly, till now I am not sure whether Dakin is a gay of not. To me he is not a good looking man but this is a British movie so Dakin can be considered as a good looking man. Whatever it is, I was interested in the teaching styles used by the three different teachers, Hector, Irwin and Lintott. I prefer Hector as he allows the students to come out with their own interpretations. The class is more enjoyable and interesting. But he is a weird teacher as he has this ‘close’ bond with the students. He is actually misusing his students to fulfil his sexual desire but he is not a bad teacher as he cares about the students and he loves his career as a teacher. Meanwhile, Irwin, the new teacher has more reliable teaching style than Hector, he trained the students to learn by looking at facts…(that is what I understood). He lied to Dakin that he graduated from Corpus and this might be because he is a little bit jealous with the students’ intelligence as he claimed that he is not that smart. Here we can see how important it is to have solid education background to become a teacher. Lintott, the female teacher is a mixture of both. She is portrayed like other female teachers. Personally, the situation (preparing for university entrance examination) is in a way similar to what we are facing in Malaysia. Students are working hard to prepare themselves for examination and this shows that any education systems are not free from examination.

The Freedom Writers

This is a very interesting movie that can fascinate people who watch it. First of all, the actor and actress who play the roles in the movie are an A-class Hollywood actors like Hillary Swank and Patrick Damsey. The story itself that is based on true story is full with messages about education and teaching. Mrs. Gruwel acted by Hillary Swank is a great example or role model for teachers in the world that we should not give up teaching although there are many obstacles that we need to go through.
Sometimes, I wonder how one can be so strong in such situation. If I were her (Mrs. Gruwel), I would fail as a teacher or become like other de-motivate teachers that think those students are no better than trash. From, the story, I realize that teaching is just a job that we do to get monthly income but it is more like a responsibility. When you decide to become a teacher, you need to know that you are carrying a heavy duty as an educator. Educating is not an easy task even in Islam we believe that teaching is a noble job. This is proven through the story where Mrs. Gruwel did not give up on her students although her marriage failed due to her passion for teaching.
However, the question is how much you willing to scarify your life for your passion for teaching. For me, this is a sensitive issue as both are equally important. But to me whatever it is family comes first. Anyway, we should know our limit so that we are not trapped between both responsibilities. Here in ‘The Freedom Writers’, Mrs. Gruwel failed as a wife. But, I personally think that her failure in marriage is not just because of her devotion in educating those students but due to her husband’s failure in his career. He might not be able to share the joy of her success as a teacher. Apart from that, he might feel that he is losing her. Or simply he is not an understanding man.
Besides that, the issue on racial discrimination that is presented in this movie is wised to be study. To me, this is a typical American movie on education as it portrays how students are discriminated due to their skin colours and origins, i.e Blacks, Latinos and Asians. There were denied the equality to receive the same level of education as the whites as they were looked as troublemakers and gangsters. Overall, what I learned from this movie is that with hard works and dedications, one can achieve success in the field they involve in.

Our Outlines have been Approved by Dr. Jaya

Gladly, our topics and outlines have been approved by Dr. Jaya. Although he did not write any comment except 'OK Jaya', he gave us one week to complete our first draft and submit it to him by the end of the week 11. Unluckily, week 11 was a 'hell' week for all of us because they were three assignments including the first draft that need to be submitted as well. As far as I remembered, I did not have enough sleep for the whole week because they were too many tasks to be completed. Although I have completed one of the assignments on the previous week, there were still re-editing to be done. Anyway most of us survived excluding one or two people who are greatly know as the extremely last-minute workers. Back to the outline, the topic that I have chosen to work on is 'The Writing Styles in Representing Gender Discrimination in 'The Prophecy' by Anjana Appachana and 'A Great Injustice' by Heah Chwee Sian'. When, I tried to start writing the first draft, I realized that I was suffering from what is known as 'writer's block'. I cried once as I knew by hook or by crook I must finish it before Friday. Anyway, my friend advised me to refer to one of Dr. Jaya's books as there is an article on how to examine gender discrimination's in a literature text. It really helped me and I also decided to change my topic to 'The Examination of Women Oppression in a Patriarchal Society in 'The Prophecy' by Anjana Appachana and 'A Great Injustice' by Heah Hwee Sian as I found it easier. However, I choose to examine the issue through the conflicts presented in the stories as well as the writing styles used by both authors.

Dr. Jayakaran

At first when I was assigned under Dr. Jaya's supervision I was glad and relief as I know how linear he is with his students. And I know that he would be such a help for us in the process of writing this research paper. But somehow I'm quite regretting it because he is so busy for this whole semester that we found it was so difficult to set a meeting date with him. What I heard from my juniors is that he has his hand full with works related to his publication, MICELT and according to one of his staffs in the library, this year he is receiving an award for best- performing lecturer...this was what I heard. If it is true, I strongly believe he deserves it. Anyway back to the problem, I hope we would be able to discuss our research paper with him face-to-face so that we know what we should and should not do. Every time we bumped onto him, we would ask when we could meet him personally as we are tired of being in the waiting list. Although he has not rejected any of our topics yet, it does not mean that we get everything correct. Besides that, it would be nice if we could have a chance to listen to his views and ideas.

Reading Letters

Personally, I strongly believe that reading other people letters is an immoral action just like reading other people diaries. However it is different when we look at it as a part of literature. This week we learned about letters that were written by prominent and famous literature people, John Keats and Vincent Van Gogh. An interesting part about John Keat’s letter is that the letters were addressed to his lover that was also his neighbour. This letters were written on the year of 1819. Back then, men were more romantic and gentlemen compared to men nowadays. There might be the reason why he preferred to express his feelings through letter although they were neighbours. One of the lines that captured my attention when reading it was “You dazzled me – There is nothing in the world so bright and delicate –“. This is a beautiful line that will make any women’s hearts melt. It is nice when a man confesses that there is nothing more important than you although it is absolutely untrue. If John Keats was a trouble man, Vincent Van Gogh might be worse than him. I could actually feel how lonely he was as he only talked about painting and this undermined his health. Dr. Edwin told us that he cut one of his ear lobes to be given to the woman he loved. How crazy…? Anyway, through his letters to his brother we can actually see how depressed he was with his life. Mostly he talked about his passion for painting. Although it was quite difficult to understand the whole emotions in the letters at least I am able to appreciate their opinions, ideas and emotions about literature.

Malaysian Festival - Final Draft

We were lucky as our work were not rejected for the second time. At first we did divided the work into parts as what Dr. Edwin wanted us to do. But…I was confused as there were a few of my friends that told me that it should be done in essay form. So, I did what they told me as I was afraid that I was the only one who did it differently. However, I found that most Indian festivals/celebrations are interesting and unique. For example, in Onam Festival, the great boat race or “Vallamkali” is the main attraction as hundreds of men row the boats to beat of drums and cymbal as on the boat there is a scarlet silk umbrella with gold coins hung from it. I also realized that this festival is similar to Gawai Festival in Sabah as both of them are harvest festivals.

Malaysian Festival - First Draft

One of the tasks that were assigned for this subject was to find out about festivals or celebrations that are celebrated in Malaysia. Personally, I was not really sure why we were assigned such task as Dr. Edwin was busy dividing us into small groups of 2-3 peoples. At first, Dr. Edwin asked us to list down all of the festivals on paper. So, I was trying very hard to recall all the festivals/celebrations as there are too many of them. Anyway, there were many interesting answers given by some of us and there were also some festivals that I have never heard before. I guess this task brought some benefits to me as it introduced me to other unheard festivals in Malaysia. I could not recall the total of festivals/celebrations we had listed out. The fun part began when Dr. Edwin started assigning us to work on the festival. If you were lucky than you would have a partner or two to work with you…but if you were unlucky then you had to work alone. I think most of the class were laughing when Dr. Edwin assigned Ady to work on Onam Festival as he and Jayanthi were best buddies, always sitting next to each other and work together. Even, he always jokes about Ady looking like an Indian man as he is too closed with Jayanthi. Surprisingly, Nadiah and I were assigned to help Ady and I believe ‘what goes around, comes around’. Dr. Edwin wanted us to find out about the facts of the festivals and since we were not really listening to his instruction, all of the works were rejected. However, my group did quite well as we were told to do a minor editing. Overall, doing this task exposed me to other Malaysian Festivals especially like Onam as not all Indian celebrated it and therefore it was good to work on other culture celebrations so that we know something or two about them. Moreover, we live in a multi-racial country.

The Process of Making Outline for Research Paper

From the first lesson that we had with Dr. Edwin we were already told about the major assignment that we are going to work on. I was quite happy when I was put under Dr. Jaya supervision. However, it was quite difficult to set a meeting date with him as he is quite busy for the whole of this semester. For my research paper, I have chosen to work on two short stories; ‘The Prophecy’ by Anjana Appachana and ‘A Great Injustice’ by Heah Chwee Sian’. I found that both stories contain similar issue which is about women oppression in the patriarchal society and how are they are unfairly treated due to the mistake that they have made. As Dr. Jaya did not give us any outline to follow, I decided to use Dr. Edwin’s outline as I think it is the best outline to be used in representing the research paper. The problems that I face are that I could not find the biography of Heah Chwee Sian and I’m not the only person that is using those texts as one of my friends under the same group of supervision is using them too. I think. It is important for us to do the outline carefully as our supervisor needs to see what we are going to work on for this assignment. As there are another person working on the same short stories as mine, I need to examine those stories in different way but I could not change the issue that I would like to discuss on both stories. Therefore, I decided to analyse the issue of women oppression through the examination of both authors’ writing styles. This is one of the ways that I have learned from Dr. Edwin in analysing a literature text. Hopefully I managed to do so as outline is just an outline. One needs to have a concrete outline in order to write a good research paper.

The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

Before we studied the autobiography of Nelson Mandela in class, Dr. Edwin assigned us with five questions to be answered regarding autobiography. The questions were given in order to direct us to understand why people write autobiography and how useful it is in the classroom learning. Frankly speaking, I have not read any serious autobiography before as most autobiographies are about politicians’ lives which I am not interested to read. Although I know who Nelson Mandela is, it never triggered me to read his autobiography before. So, it was quite interesting to learn about his life and view regarding the apartheid system. In my opinion, by reading such an autobiography it can make us to appreciate the sacrifices made by people such as Nelson Mandela. Here, we can see how Apartheid’s regulations had segregated people according to their colour and race. In my opinion, I think autobiography can be used in the classroom learning if it suits with the students’ level of proficiency. However, teachers need to be selective in choosing the suitable autobiography to be used in the classroom as nowadays, there are many autobiographies that are not only written by educationists but also entertainers. So, we would want to use autobiography that can provide moral values to the students. Overall, what I like about Nelson Mandela’s autobiography is how the Apartheid’s regulations extended even to clothing wore by the prisoners.

Position Paper (Written Assignment)

After Dr. Edwin had approved our thesis statement and the five supporting points, we moved to the final stage which was the written task. In my opinion, if you had strong points to support your thesis statement, you might not face difficulty to write the position paper as you know what you were writing about. However, if you came out with lousy supporting points which you were not sure with, your position paper would definitely be ‘KO’. Based on my opinion, the written task was not that easy although you had come out with the outline as I was too conscious whether my argument was strong enough to make Dr. Edwin see clearly the relationship between the points and the thesis statement. This was what made me stuck several times while typing the position paper. One thing that I realized while doing this assignment was that you need to have a concrete textual evidences to support the points and try not to re-tell the story. Sometimes, we fail to realize that we are actually re-telling the story instead of discussing the argument. This happened to me several times too. So, for this position paper I tried my best not to repeat the same mistake by asking my friends to check my assignment and to write some comments about it too. Finally, as Dr. Edwin is going to mark this assignment, I tried not to make grammar mistakes although it is quite impossible.

The Presentation of the Position Paper

I hate the presentation days. The first day was quite frightening and it was a bad luck too because some of us believe that we need to avoid becoming among the earliest presenters as we could actually learn from mistakes made by them. However, I was selected to present on the second last day and waiting for my name to be called was also tiring. While waiting, I re-edited my power point presentation a few times. Anyway, I was quite lucky as Dr. Edwin did not disapprove of the points that I used because they were some of us who failed to relate their points with the thesis statements. Although, I managed to relate my five points with the thesis statement, there were also some mistakes. For example, Dr. Edwin did not approved on one of my textual evidences as to him the point that I used is not stated explicitly in the story. For my first point, ‘Emily’s inability to recognize changes around her’, I said that she was psychologically unstable and therefore I used the description of her as a ‘fallen monument’ to suggest her psychological condition. To him, the phrase ‘fallen monument’ does not suggest anything about her psychological condition and I realized that it is true. The biggest mistake I made was by describing Emily’s love to Homer Barron as an eternal love and I was being questioned by him and worst I failed to justify it. Hah…To Dr. Edwin there is no such thing as ‘true love’ or ‘eternal love’. Until now I don’t really understand why. Anyway, I realized that we need to present our work to him as he can help us to understand the mistakes that we made and perhaps we can apply it to our research paper. The best part was that I managed to relate the last point (Emily’s antisocial attitude make people think her as an aloof person) to the thesis statement as according to him this was not a strong point to be used. Finally, I got 3 out of 5 for this presentation and I’m happy with it.

The Five Supporting Points

The Five Supporting Points

After our thesis statements have been accepted by Dr. Edwin, we need to work on the five supporting points to support the thesis statements. Again this was not as easy stage as sometimes I felt that I was out of ideas. The five points need to be strong so that you can relate it to the thesis statement. This is why it is called as supporting point. Here I would like to express my sense of respect and admiration to Dr. Edwin as for me he is a very dedicated lecturer that always ensure that his students will come out with good works. Some lecturers will not even care to look at what are the students working on before they submit the final draft. Besides that, this was the time for us to make a lot of noises in his class as we did not have the opportunity before. In order to come out with the five supporting points, I need to refer to the thesis statement again as find the issue that I’m going to discuss. My thesis statement is ‘Emily’s inability to face reality alienates her from the society’, so I need to find what has contributed to Emily’s inability to face reality that caused her alienation from the society. First, her inability to recognize changes around her. I think this is the strongest supporting point as it was automatically approved by Dr. Edwin. Others are her over-dependence on her father and ancestor, her social pride, false hope for love and her antisocial attitude that makes people think her as an aloof person. However, Dr. Edwin was not that agree with my last supporting point which is ‘Emily’s antisocial attitude makes people think her as an aloof person’. He said that the point although is arguable still not that strong to support the thesis statement. I tried to rationalize on how I am going to relate it to the thesis statement and as I did not have any more idea to replace it, I decided to proceed with it as Dr. Edwin did not say it is wrong just it is not that strong. Therefore, I need to crack my brain to prove to him on how this point relates to the thesis statement.

The Making of Thesis Statement

The Making of Thesis Statement


Personally to come out with a good thesis statement was not as easy as I taught before. This is because I have learned how to make thesis statements during the first year degree under the subject ‘Expository Writing’. Back then, most of all the thesis statements I made were accepted by the lecturer. However, it is opposite now as most of my thesis statements were rejected by Dr. Edwin and these rejected thesis statements were based on the same short stories, ‘A Rose for Emily’ by William Faulkner. Every one knows how particular Dr. Edwin is, so in order to satisfy him we need to know what are the criteria that he wants in a thesis statement. For example, in a thesis statement, there are certain words that should not be used such as ‘due to’ or ‘caused’. My first thesis statement that was rejected was ‘Emily’s inability to face reality makes her fails to live in the society’. Here the word ‘makes’ made it as a rejected thesis statement. However, I had the gut to ask Dr. Edwin on how to improve my thesis statement and luckily he gave me a clue which was the word ‘alienation’. Hurriedly, I went back to my sit and re-worked on the thesis statement. Then, I came out with ‘Emily’s inability to face reality alienates her from the society’. I wrote it back on the white board and it was accepted by him. Although it might sound easy, it was not as I need to think deeply and critically as I did not want my thesis statement to be rejected again. I knew what I wanted to discuss in my thesis statement but I had a difficulty to put it into a single strong sentence. At first I thought this was only a practice on how to write a thesis statement but it turned out to be the actual thesis statement that we are going to discuss in the position paper assignment. Luckily, I have chosen a good short story that is not that difficult for me to work on. Based on my experience, in order to come out with a good thesis statement, firstly, you need to select a good text that contains strong issue that can be discussed and will not be too difficult for you to work on. You also need to know your level of understanding on the text you have chosen so that you will know what to discuss and what to write in the position paper.