In this unit, we learned about relationship & identity, we learned about what makes a healthy relationship and what makes an unhealthy relationship, we learned how to establish a healthy relationship and how does a relationship affect us. I chose to create a graphic novel to demonstrate what I learned throughout this unit, my graphic novel demonstrates both the healthy relationship and unhealthy relationship and it shows how the main character overcomes those obstacles.
We also did TIEA for this unit, we used TIEA to explain the relationship between the main character and other people and how it affects the main character. for the first TIEA, I explained how Jin’s relationship with Wei-Chen affects his acts, thoughts, and personality. In the second TIEA, which is Graphic Novel Illustrator TIEA, I explained how does the image contribute to the novel itself, how it allows the readers to prepare for the rest, and how it adds meanings to the novel.
Jin’s relationship with Wei-Chen Sun
In American Born Chinese, the author Gene Luen Yang transforms a stereotypical Chinese boy who lost his self-confidence to a mature teenager who has built up his self-confidence. Wei-Chen’s arrival once made Jin wants to beat him up before knowing his personalities and make connection with him. However, Wei-Chen’s arrival actually built up Jin’s self-confidence by the connection between their personal backgrounds and always supporting Jin, that caused Jin to reflect on his previous behavior and start treating Wei like a brother. “You’re in America, Speak English.” “Something made me want to beat him up.” (36-38) “Over the next few months, Wei-Chen became my best friend.” ( 40) “My first day in school here I meet Jin from then I know everything’s okay, he treat me like a little brother.” (102) can see how Jin’s behavior on Wei-Chen changed due to the connection between them,, Wei-Chen told Amelia that Jin treated him like a little brother and always being supportive friend, at first, from both textual evidence and visual evidence, it shows that Jin didn’t want to associate with Wei-Chen because of his race, he knew people would not associate with Asians in this school. Jin Wang forced Wei to speak English, trying to embarrass him intentionally, but since Wei had his robot toy out, it led Jin consider his personal background, he had similar favours, similar personal background, similar situation as Wei, all these similarities connected both people and eventually established a healthy relationship. After the connection, they became best friends, Jin’s behavior has changed a lot throughout this time, he was being more supportive and he also felt stronger spiritually because he had Wei has one of the best friends.
MLA Citation: Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese.New York: First Seconds Books, 2006.
In American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang inspired the audience to find their true identity by letting monk witnessing an attack which inspired the monkey to find his own identity. As the monk got stabbed by the demons, the monkey king described his identity as “the supper of two demons.” However, as the demons start burning the monk, it allows the monkey king to connect his personal background with the monk which inspired him to find his own true identity. The monk gets stabbed by the two demons and gets burned afterward, it reminds the monkey king about his own identity. The monkey king breaks out from the mountain and saves his master (Page, 149, 150) The monkey king could have broken out from the mountain. However, he couldn’t find his true identity until he met the monk, who the monkey called him the master afterward because the monk was the person who redefined his true identity. The monk was stabbed by the two demons which stimulated the monkey by reminding his own personal background to break out from the mountain, because the monk encountered the similar situation as the monkey king, his identity was defined by the demons, since the monkey king’s identity was also defined by Tze-Yo-Tzuh, the person who trapped him under the stone, it reminded the monkey king about his current situation which made him want to break out, the true identity of the monkey king is not an actual king, his true identity, is a guardian of the Master. This part impacted the audience to find our true identities, to meet the “master” who brings the true identity back to our life.
MLA Citation: Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese.New York: First Seconds Books, 2006.
We have done 4 discussions in total, we did three discussions in order to prepare for the final discussion, throughout the discussion, we mainly focused on How do other people affect the main character and how does the main character affect other characters, even though we didn’t read the same books, we still connected each other by discussing more general topics instead of too specific topics, we also found similarities in our book which made the discussion went well. I’d made three preparations for my discussion, the first one and the second one have the same questions. However, questions in the last preparation are more likely to be a guide for us to conclude about the story.
Second Discussion Preparation
Last Dicussion Preparation