Alicia's Blog

In the second unit in our second semester of Language & Literature, we broadened our knowledge of the themes of feminism and war through reading the graphic memoir, Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi. Similarly to the previous units that we had gone through, it follows the theme of feminism and how different women are able to handle the societal expectations of them, and how they are able to push their boundaries, setting a new standard for society to view and respect women. However, in Persepolis, it also gives a whole different perspective compared to the different excerpts that we learned about, as it tells the story of how Marjane grew up in Iran, the struggled that she had faced, and major events that had developed her to who she is now.

Throughout the unit, we had to read Persepolis and analyze different parts of the graphic novel, identifying which parts are able to show the themes of youth, women, domestic space, class, war/national strife, and the self. We jotted down our notes in a reading journal, as well as connected each themes to how Satrapi had illustrated it, what graphic novel technique she had used, and what literary techniques it relates to. This was important in the unit as it helped us gain a greater understanding about different themes and ideas that Satrapi intended to share to the readers, and it also helped us to familiarize with graphic novel techniques and literary devices, which is important for our summative paper 1.

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Another assignment that we worked on was analyzing specific panels that we had chosen. In this assignment, we were assigned into groups, and we specifically had to choose panels from pages 1 to 40. We also related the panels that we had chosen to one of the themes, similarly to the reading journal. We analyzed how Satrapi portrayed the specific theme into the panels, and what graphic novel techniques she had used to present her ideas better. After the analysis paragraph, we connected the panels that we had chosen to one of our previous units. I connected my analysis to a Liza Donnelly cartoon as they both present similar ideas, in different forms of illustration.

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As our summative for this unit was a paper 1 essay, we practiced analyzing a series of panel towards the end of the unit. We distributed our ideas by brainstorming, introduction, and body paragraph 1 to 3. These consist of the different points that we have to include into our paper 1 essays, other than the conclusion of the essay. In the different body paragraphs we needed to analyze graphic novel techniques and literary devices, while making sure to connect our analyses to the guiding question given.

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For the first unit in our second semester of Language & Literature, we learned more about sexual harassment and feminism through learning about who Ilona Granet is, and the signs that she had created. This unit has a distinct similarity with the previous units that we had covered, which all had the same topic of learning more about feminism; however, we gained a better understanding of different ways to spread the awareness of sexual harassment and feminism in this unit, which is Ilona Granet’s signs. Throughout this unit, we analyzed the signs that Ilona Granet had created, understanding the different ideas that she is conveying through her illustrations.

During the beginning of this unit, we were introduced to Ilona Granet, the artist who created the signs that we learned about and evaluated throughout this unit. We learned more about her background, her childhood and adulthood experiences, and the reason to why her artworks now all follow the same theme of feminism and harassment through listening to a podcast, the Decoder Ring podcast, where she was being interviewed. As we listened to the podcast, we took notes about important points that she had discussed about in order for us to fully understand her purpose of creating the artworks, as well as the experiences she had faced when growing up which had brought her to work on her artworks.

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Throughout this unit, we had analyzed a few of Ilona Granet’s signs by using the PODAHAA method, which is identifying the people, objects, diction and language, artist’s technique, humor technique, artist’s purpose, and association with other works in the signs. A sign that I found the most interesting is from the “Red Riding Hood Travels the World” body of work, where Ilona Granet had created a collection of signs that relate to the concept of the children’s book, “Little Red Riding Hood”. We had to choose a sign from her body of work to analyze, and I noticed that the signs are quite different from her other signs, as it is more difficult to understand if an individual does not know the story of “Little Red Riding Hood”.

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For our summative assessment in this unit, we did a 1/2 oral in order to prepare for our individual oral assessment for IB, which was much shorter than the actual oral for IB. For us to understand more about what we should analyze and talk about in our oral, we did a mock oral by analyzing the “Red Riding Hood Travels the World”. We came up with a global issue to discuss about in the oral, how it relates to the signs, identified different literary devices used in the sign, and compared them to how Granet had used them in her other signs.

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The three units that we had covered this semester, A Doll’s House, Liza Donnelly Cartoons, and Antigone, had taught about many different aspects about global issues, including gender inequality, racism, etc. For our third unit in Language & Literature, similar to our first unit, A Doll’s House, we learned more about feminism and patriarchy, gender roles, and family obligations through the play, Antigone. Throughout this unit, we had gone through and worked on several different assignments to improve our knowledge and understanding on these global issues, and for us to be able to compare and contrast how these issues are similar or different from the past to the present day.

In the beginning of this unit. the first assignment that we had completed was finding definitions for the different vocabularies used in Ancient Greek dramas. The purpose for this was to familiarize ourselves with the terms used to describe different parts of the play, as well as different characters. Ancient Greek dramas are slightly different from modern dramas, as the time set for both dramas would be different, character behaviors would also be different, and the terms used in the Ancient Greek is not as commonly used in the present. In this assignment, t is important that the definition found for each term was accurate, as there can be several other definitions that do not fit the Ancient Greek definition.

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Another assignment that we had completed was reading Antigone, and doing a reading journal to understand and identify different themes shown in the play. Although watching Antigone can also give a brief understanding of the play, reading the play can broaden the knowledge and analysis of the personalities of each character, their actions, and the setting of the play. While reading the play, the themes that we had to identify and take notes on in the reading journal were the relationships between men and women, patriarchy and feminism, citizenship, law and the state, connections between all three units, and what I have found interesting in the play.

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Other than individually analyzing Antigone’s background and themes, we had also done context presentations, similar to A Dolls’ House. Different groups were assigned different topics to cover that relates to Antigone, which includes Ancient Greece (in the Classical period), Ancient Greek Drama, Sophocles, Antigone, The Oedipus Cycle (the Theban plays) and Seven Against Thebes, Productions and Adaptations, and Robert Fagles and Translation. For my group, we had worked on explaining the different productions and adaptations of Antigone, and through this process, I had found it interesting about how there are many different depictions of Antigone from different productions.

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