Blog #4

Sage Griffee

When I first learned about the OHP I was dreading what the next few weeks would hold. I thought that I could never enjoy an oral history. However, coming out of the project I feel quite the opposite, the project was actually very eye opening. One thing I really enjoyed about the project was the insight I got into the life of Maura Joyce during and following harvey. I thought going into the interview that we would just get a very boring recount of roughly  two weeks of Ms. Joyce's life, what I actually got was an emotional and very important tale of the rebuilding of our school and the importance of generosity.

If there was one thing I could change about how my group went about our interview it would be how we formed our questions. There are two things I would change about them, one would be to have more questions, and the other to change the type of question. The reason I would want to change the types of questions we had is because a lot of our questions were based on factual events and not about Ms. Joyce's mental state during the Hurricane. I also believe that more questions would have greatly benefited the project and given us more material to work with. Overall, I really enjoyed the project and thought that I learned a lot from it.

Blog Post #3 (One I Want Graded)

Sage Griffee

Dr. Cobos

ELA

27 October 2017

What led to Marjane's grandmother yelling at her? Was the yelling justified? Why or why not?

In the chapter titled “The Makeup” marjane starts wearing makeup in order to please her then boyfriend, as he had made remarks about her appearance(pg. 285-287). While waiting in the streets to meet up with him she sees guardians of the revolution coming her way, in order to not get in trouble she throws a citizen under the bus. Her and her boyfriend then laugh about it,(pg. 287) When she later brings this up with her grandmother later that day her grandmother snaps and yells at her, saying that what she did directly disrespected her ancestors. What her Grandmother said could not be more true she did not even begin to contemplate the wrong she was doing. (pg. 291) Marjane was raised to be passionate, stand up for her beliefs, and to be kind to others. The reason her grandmother yelled at her is because what she did went against everything she was taught as a child,(pg. 291) all she cared about was getting out of a troublesome situation not pausing to think of what the consequences could be. Her grandmother's actions could not be more justified, what Marjane did was horrible and could very easily have lead to the man she threw under the bus being seriously hurt. I think most would agree when I say Marjane's actions were unlike how she was raised and how most readers viewed her up to that point. I Believe this was a direct result of moving to Austria, perhaps the things she had to go through made her forget the struggles of her country. Nonetheless this experience definitely affected Marjane moving forward with life in Iran.  

Blog Post #3 2017-2018

Sage Griffee

Dr. Cobos

ELA

26 October 2017

In what ways did Marjane find it difficult to fit back into Iranian society? In what ways did this surprise you (or not surprise you)?

When Marjane first moved back to Iran I knew that it would be difficult for her to adjust, a lot of what she did in Austria was forbidden in Iran so it would obviously be difficult to hide all she did. When she gets home she does her best to avoid people as she thinks they would be disappointed about her life in Europe(pg. 261). However, what surprised me is that later in the book she wants everybody to know that she had been through so much and they should almost pity her. She doesn't people to find out about her life in Austria and she also wants people to know that just because she did not go through a war it does not mean that life was not hard. All of this lead to her being depressed. When reading along marjane's journey I thought that moving back to Iran was exactly what she needed, she could forget the past and get to know her family. However, when she arrives the opposite happens, she can not relate with anyone because they either judge her for her westernisation or bring up the war of which she feels she ran away from. Eventually Marjane reinvents herself and began to fit into Iranian civilisation once again but I don't think she will ever forget her journey in Europe.