Assalamualaikum

Sunday, January 31, 2010

3rd week

Beautiful Boxer

This week, we were watching a film which is Beautiful Boxer. Ms Wani asked us to evaluate this film based on the ten elements of critical literacy. The topic of this film is the boxer who turns into transvestite and become the famous beautiful boxer in Thailand.

This film is about a man, Nong Thom who has the female characteristics inside him. He started to like to become a woman when he went to the temple fair and watch the Thailand opera. He likes to watch the beautiful dancers and went to peek at the back stage and saw the dancer put the make up to her face and suddenly the lipstick fell off to him. Start from that moment, he like to put the lipstick on his lips. He tends to play with her girl friends instead of boy friends. He always was bullied by his friends and even his younger brother. He cannot protect his own self so his parents took him to the temple to become a monk.

When he quit from become a monk, he interested in boxing due to the financial problem of his family. He had won so many boxing competitions and he got confident to be what he wanted. He put make up on his face while boxing with his opponent. It becomes his trade mark and his popularity rises rapidly all over the world. Every time after he had won the competition, there are a lot of journalists wanted to interview him. After wait for a very long time, he managed to compete at the Lampini Stadium at Bangkok and he won. Owing to the fact that he has turns into transvestite, he was banned from doing boxing at Thailand, he was given the opportunity to perform the boxing at Japan, fight with a woman. Luckily, he won the fight. After waited for a very long time, he got enough money to do the operation to turn him into a real woman. It took about a month for him to become a woman. However, it’s really worth because he had got what he dreams of.

The public can watch this movie at the Internet, television and DVD. The audience for this film is the public of 18 and above because there is an inappropriate scene shown in the film. The film is designed to entertain and inform the public about the boxer who wanted to become a woman. The purpose of this movie is to inform and entertain the public of 18 and above about the boxer who turns into transvestite and become the famous beautiful boxer in Thailand. The stance taken in the film is about the desire of a man who wanted to become a woman even he was a boxer. The film describes Nong Thom as in the right side because he really wanted to be a woman to fulfil his real dream. He never ashamed of what he wanted to be and never hypocrite even he put make up on his face in the battle. He said that, when he put make up on his face when he wanted to fight, he becomes so ‘himself’. The effect on audiences is likely to be the most spectacular impact due to the line of the story, the real acting from the casts and an interesting setting in the film. The visual aspects of the film are significant because it shows the relationship of the people and the setting of the film. It show a great effect on the audience based on the visual showed in the film.

Transvestite becomes a very sensitive issue in this film and also in Malaysia. In my point of view, transvestite should be banned in Malaysia because it’s really against our belief. I think it is accepted in Thailand because they do not have the belief of its own but it’s about the society which allowed it or not.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Second Week


This week, we learn about the ten elements or rules in critical literacy based on the newspaper article, ‘Convicted killer back at work’. The first element is topic.

To find out the topic, we should look at the surface of the article which contains the picture and headline. Based on the picture, Deborah Parry looks really calm in spite of the fact that she was convicted as a murderer. I think she is innocent and was accused, that is why she can come back to work. The second element is content. We have to answer the wh- questions in order to get the full story of the article.

Next is source. This kind of article is usually found at the daily newspaper. The fourth element is audience which means who this article is written for. I think the audience is the public because from the usage of words, there are no complicated and scientific words. The fifth element is rhetorical function which means what the writer is trying to do. Next is purpose which includes the rhetorical function, audience and topic. The purpose of the text is to inform the reader that Deborah Parry who is a convicted killer is not guilty and can get back to work.

Then, Miss Wani takes out the lyric of ‘What About Now’ by Chris Daughtry. The students tend to sing it first before evaluate the lyrics based on the six elements that we already learn. The topic of this song is the humanity, love and unrequited love. The content is about disappointment in term of life, love and nature. The audience for this poetic song is all walks of life and the rhetorical question is encouraging people to make a change. So, the purpose of this song is to encourage the listeners from all walks of life about making a change in life, love and nature.

We proceed to the seven elements which is perspective. It is like the point of view, stance of the writer. As a reader, we can either for or against the article. We can condemn or commend the article based on the writer perspective. It is followed by positioning. This is where the writer positioned Deborah Parry in the article. It includes the bias statement from the writer. The ninth element is impact which is the effect of the text that covered the eight points. The last element is visual literacy. It is the picture that provided in the article. I think the picture is taken to show that Deborah Parry is innocent because she smiles like nothing happen to her.

Then, Miss asked us to form a group of six to make a debate between groups. Two groups get the Racial Segregation: Malaysia by 2020 and the other two groups get Muslim Religious Views Understated. The first debate is between Asri and Aishah group which debating on the second topic. They should include their points based on the ten elements that we have learnt. The government side has come out with the concrete evidences and pointed their view confidently saying that the negative perception of other religions towards Islam. They said that the western countries tend to conquer the Muslim people through films, face book, lyrics of the song and many more. Besides that, apart from the tragedy of 11Th September, Muslim people are called as a terrorist by the western people. However, the opponent team also give their best ideas to against them. They have come out with the three issues which are health, food and education. Unfortunately, the government team were in the wrong track and it did not related with the topic. So, the opponent team won the debate.


Critical Literacy - First class

The first week (13Th January 2010)

On 13Th January 2010 which is Wednesday is the first class of Critical Literacy subject. This subject is taught by Miss Shazwani binti Hanapi. She is the TESL graduation lecturer from UITM, Shah Alam. In the first class, she introduced herself and tried to recognise her students that she had taught. She can recognise her students very well. For me, she is a very nice and great lecturer. Everybody likes her with her warm and sporting character.

Before we proceed with the lesson, she asked all of her students to know each other closer by doing a very interesting ice breaking. There are two sides of seats in the class, so she asked the right side to choose a person from the left side to get his or her background information and give the types of personality for the person he or she had chose based on four shapes which are triangle, circle, square and wave. However, if somebody is eclectic, he or she can mix the shapes to make it more interesting. Each of the shapes resembles the personality of a person. So, the students have to tell the reason why they choose that particular shape for their friend. I think this activity is related to critical literacy because the students need to give the shape to their friend by looking at her or his characteristics and give the reasons why they choose the shape.

The meanings of the shapes are; the triangle means the Chinese people who always have enthusiasm in everything they do and very ambitious while the square represent the Indian people who is strict, obedient people. For the circle is resemble the Malay people who always in the comfort zone who never wants to develop and for the wave, the people who do not have stance in their life. In my opinion, it is really true that these shapes resemble the personality of the races which we can see clearly nowadays.

Then, Miss Wani talked a bit about critical literacy. She said this subject is about our own schemata which means based on our background knowledge. She gave the example of the picture of Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa gave a cynical smirk that in my point of view, she was force to give a smile. She hid her sad feeling in order to give the best posture of her portrait. She did not want other people know about her problem or something that bother her mind while making the portrait. Everybody has own perception and opinion about the portrait and it is called the schemata of each person.

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