Journals of Eng3

Sept 12
Today our topic is common elements of American creation stories; the result is creator, human and animals. Then we move to discussing the relationship between human and nature. We talk about the responsibility between each other. Naturally, we take “community” into consideration as well later. Now, the word “community” is re-defined, or enlarged. Are animals in our community? What is my responsibility of my community? What is my community's responsibility to me? The heated conversation is to continue with more profundity and extent. However, is it a question? Does it need to be considered? Or we should just say “Surely enough, human beings ought to be XXX towards the nature. “ without doubt?

Sept 13
The class was taken outside, cool.
We continue the question of community. The center of the day is: what determines the members of the community? The E.T. began it with a discussion of religion. Do you believe in god? Will you kick people out of your community because they don’t believe the same religion or even don’t belie in any religion? Acuity questions kept on emerging. As an atheist, I introduced the motto of Chinese government to the class. The conversation did not get to an end; however, it had some results that we exchanged our opinions.
Today’s question is:”What is the color community?” ”Who is a colored person?”
The answers are below.
Interviewee
Opinion on color community
Opinion on colored person
History teacher
People from all nationality
Black person
Korean peer
Not white
Not white
American peer(White)
African American
African American
Interesting, the one theoretically more broad-minded gives the answer of the smallest range. Maybe he is affected by the native history.
Everything is not clear yet; we’ll take a look at it tomorrow.

Sept 14
The E.T. was so popular that he missed 2/3 (29 out of 45) of the class. We did a thesis workshop instead. Then he came, moving on talking about some question mentioned before. Than his complot was exposed—an animal story assignment!
So far, I feel fortunate to be in Mr. Maddox’s class. The course”English” in my eye is actually the “American culture & literature”. He did do a good job—active, enthusiastic, creative and understanding. They were all good qualities of American, which I attempt to learn for my studying here.

Sept 17
What is the purpose of creation story?
To find out the answer, we began to share our own creation stories. Eventually, we surprisingly found that there was one element universal—the anthropomorphic god. The creation stories are not supposed to be written for the people in the future, while more probably to make his own claim. Thus, the authors of these stories, no matter the ancient people or us are likely to draw a parallel between human and god, or simply humanize the god. Creation stories should be treated by literature more than religion.

Sept 18
This class is like a prose, wandering about but never loses the destination.
Written and spoken are the 2 major aspects of every language. Deciding which of them is better is hard enough; however, we discussed written and oral history. As we all know, history is an acuity topic, and especially in such a diverse community. Which is better? Which do you prefer? Why? I tried to suggest that the written one is objective. However, it was soon beat. It seemed that any absolute definition of history does not work. It’s been a tough thinking class, I didn’t find out what is important, maybe all of it, because it’s tough.

Sept 19
We continue the topic, but we focus on true or false this time. Are the news and history you know true? To the Vietnam War, which one is correct, America version or Chinese Version?
We are in an era of information, we have numerous of sources. However, which one is right? Who is right? What if you are following the wrong direction of your teacher? We keep on discussing the topic of truth.
In my opinion, practice is the unique criterion of proving a truth. Though there will not always be chances.
The class is of heavy thinking, but that’s where its value is.