Su Yee Htun, Period 7, 12/9/21

12/8/21

Literacy & Learning

Write about your thoughts regarding any of the fiction or non-fiction covered in class.

Reflect on any new information you have learned in English class by considering how that learning influences your critical perception.

How is what you’re learning applied to any other classes/the world around you?


During these past few classes, we have been learning and discussing many biblical texts such as Noah’s Ark and the Book of Job. We also researched a few biblical passages on our own and presented to the class our findings. Prior to these classes, I wasn’t very educated on what the contents of the Bible were and why so many people read and reread what is written in it. I also wasn’t aware of why many people have a disdain for the Bible and religions surrounding it such as Christianity and Judaism. I think that the past few classes have helped me broaden my understanding of why people revere the Bible.

While I don’t personally believe in God, I think that it was interesting to go through a few Biblical texts and look at them from a literary perspective. We focused more on the main ideas and what lessons they are trying to teach and how those shape today’s society. A big part of the lessons was also questioning the stories and drawing connections between these stories and other major mythologies. For example, we often had to think about how the lessons being presented bring up moral dilemmas such as why bad things happen to good people. I thought that analyzing these texts from this standpoint made it a lot more thought-provoking and interesting to discuss. I usually do not like discussing a lot of religious things as it often makes me feel uncomfortable if it is brought up and discussed in a way that feels as if it is pushing the religion onto me. However, the way the discussion was held was very conscientious of the difference between preaching and analyzing the text which made me more absorbed in listening to the discussion. I enjoyed hearing my classmates' standpoints as they all brought up varying but valid points throughout the discussions. I also thought that all the presentations were also engaging as each group presented each text with its respective morals and explained how believing in God will help remedy a lot of life’s suffering.

As mentioned before, all these texts brought up many questions which made me also question a lot of things around me such as the distinction between good and bad and who is allowed to justify what is right and wrong. These discussions made me more aware of how complex life is and that the beliefs that people hold are very subjective. While we can analyze literature such as the Bible from a more objective standpoint, when it comes to thinking about morality and why we hold our beliefs, those concepts are based on our personal experiences and we can only try to understand each other's opinions.