~BEAUTIFUL BOXER~

Salam...we meet again..this is the third entry for the CRITICAL LITERACY class. This week, Miss Wani had let us to watch the 'BEAUTIFUL BOXER' movie. At first, I quite confuse with the title.. but i had made the prediction that this is the story about a women that want to be a good boxer. YES, that's what i'm thinking actually. But after i watched the movie, totally i'm wrong.. Let's we go briefly about this story.

First of all, the title of this story is BEAUTIFUL BOXER. It is the story that tell us about the transvestite that is looking for their meaning in their life. The content of this story is this is the Thai story and absolutely tells about the transvestite's life. The main character is NONG TOM. Actually he is a man, but with some incident during his childhood, he want to be a women. The other characters in this story is the family, his friends, his villagers and so on. He start want to be a women when he was attracted to the woman's thing. Start with the lipstick, the make up and also the opera. This story is originally from THAILAND. The best part of this story is he want to be a true women and he decided to do a surgery..

Second, I think the source of this story is based of the true story. Which is the person that had experience all the things and then they decide to share it and the producer make a film towards the true story.
When i think about the audience, i think the audience of this story is average. It is not specific to the focus group only. It is wider to everyone that do not know what is transvestite true life. And at Thailand, the transvestite is not wrong and it is acceptable. This is what i think, because in the story, i saw a lot of transvestite near the road. It just like a society. This is what we call the rhetorical function. The producer of this story want us to know that this culture of life is acceptable at Thailand.

Third, the purpose of this story is want to tell us about a guy's life that really confuse about his identity and start from day to day, he tried to fulfill his dream but in the same he want to make all people surrounding him is happy with him. But the story also arise the confusing and wondering perspective. Is it is good to be like that? is it valid? Is it can be a good example towards the future generation. The impact of this story is quite sensitive. In my opinion, the story is give a little bit impact to my life. I can't imagine if i in NONG TOM shoes? Is it i can be a strong like him. Life is not easy. It is full of confusion and we do not even know what is the truth actually.
The visual literacy of this story is explain briefly about what the confusion that play in my mind when i first read the title..

In a nutshell, this story is really interesting. It help us to understand what is life is exactly..
It is really critical to think..
Thank you Miss Wani for the best effort that you have done to make our class not too boring.

ASSALAMUALAIKUM

In our second class, we started to brief and study the Unit 1 which is AN INTRODUCTION-WHO PRODUCED THIS TEXT, FOR WHOM AND WHY? In this topic, they are the question key. The question are :

1. Who wrote the text?
2. Who is the intended reader?
3. Why was it produced?

In this unit, we had read the article from the reading book and the title is ' CONVICTED KILLER BACK AT WORK'. This article was quite interesting. Miss Wani had told us to think why the writer wrote the title of the article like that. Our class become so interesting with the discussion and the shared of opinion among us. Then, Miss Wani told the 10 elements that we need to have in order to review the article. The elements are as below:

1. Topic- consists of the headline of the article and predict what you think the article will be about.
2. Content- consist of what, who, where, when,what.
3. Source- where we might expect to find the article.
4. Audience- who will be our audience.
5. Rhetorical function- what is the writer is trying to do.
6. Purpose- what is the purpose of the text.
7. Perspective- what is the stance taken in the text.
8. Positioning- the notion of positioning follows logically from the perspective.
9. Impact- the effect to the audience about the article.
10. Visual literacy- the relationship between headline and the picture.

In my opinion, this 10 elements can help us how to analysis an article. As we follow the 10 elements, it will be easy to us to understand the article.

I admit, this subject is quite boring and make me feel sleepy, but i really appreciate what Miss Wani had done to us. She played us a song to make us not too boring in the class. She played the song from CHRIS DAUGHTRY ( WHAT ABOUT NOW?)

Shadows fill an empty heart
As love is fading,
From all the things that we are
But are not saying.
Can we see beyond the scars
And make it to the dawn?

Change the colors of the sky.
And open up to
The ways you made me feel alive,
The ways I loved you.
For all the things that never died,
To make it through the night,
Love will find you.

What about now?
What about today?
What if you're making me all that I was meant to be?
What if our love never went away?
What if it's lost behind words we could never find?
Baby, before it's too late,
What about now?

The sun is breaking in your eyes
To start a new day.
This broken heart can still survive
With a touch of your grace.
Shadows fade into the light.
I am by your side,
Where love will find you.

What about now?
What about today?
What if you're making me all that I was meant to be?
What if our love, it never went away?
What if it's lost behind words we could never find?
Baby, before it's too late,
What about now?

Now that we're here,
Now that we've come this far,
Just hold on.
There is nothing to fear,
For I am right beside you.
For all my life,
I am yours.

What about now?
What about today?
What if you're making me all that I was meant to be?
What if our love never went away?
What if it's lost behind words we could never find?

What about now?
What about today?
What if you're making me all that I was meant to be?
What if our love never went away?
What if it's lost behind words we could never find?
Baby, before it's too late,
Baby, before it's too late,
Baby, before it's too late,

This is the lyric of the what about now song. This song is really sad when we heard that. But it is good when we understand what this song is all about. thank you once again to Miss Wani for your good effort to make this subject fun.

INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL LITERACY CLASS

On Wednesday, 13 JANUARY 2010 is the first day in the critical literacy class. The lecturer for this subject is Miss Nor Shazwani Hanafi and she also my beloved mentee @ my second mother. During the first session, Miss Wani had told us the introduction of critical literacy. We had discussed about the outline. What is critical literacy? Critical Literacy means describes a particular approach to reading and writing. In this subject we need to be more creative in thinking, and we also need the skills to identify how texts work, how they convey messages, the assumptions they make, the stances they take and other information which can assist us to see any piece of writing as socially constructed, something with which we can argue and if necessary challenge or even refute. I found this subject was quite interesting but need a big effort i think. But, this class was very interesting because Miss Wani is a quite happy go lucky person. She knows how to make our class in a cheer mood.

Then, after that we moved to the ice breaking session. In this session, we need to pick one of our classmates and tell to the class about the person. Miss Wani also had drew 4 symbols that we need to choose to describe the person that we pick. The 4 symbols are TRIANGLE, SQUARE, ROUND and WAVE.This activity was also an interesting activity. I feel enjoyed. In this activity, i had chose Nurul Nadiah binti Rosli. Her nickname is Yaya. I described Yaya is a round person. This is because, she is quite shy when she meet someone that she doesn't know but she is very talkative when she in her group.

At the last session, Miss Wani had told us what is exactly the meaning of the 4 symbols.
First is TRIANGLE. It is the symbol for the CHINESE. They are really an ambitious person. But they also selfish and even can break any rules if they want to succeed. Second is SQUARE which is related to the INDIAN people. They are really fare and square people. They also the devoted people especially towards their religion. They will follow the rules 'by hook or by crook'. The third one is ROUND. It is the symbolism of MALAY people. Malay people is cannot out from the box. They fell really safe in the safe zone. And the last one is WAVE which is not related to any people but the meaning is no stand at all. That's what i learn in the first class..

Thank you Miss Wani for this information. I really enjoyed it.

INTRODUCE MYSELF

It took twenty years to create who I am today. Within these years, I have been given the freedom to explore the world in order to satisfy my curiosity toward all the strange and wonderful things in the world around me.

I grew up in a happy family. I am the youngest and had two beloved brothers and two beloved sisters, and this made my childhood days more colorful.