Reflection 19

In this section of the reading, Tayo is with Betonie and is receiving much help in his healing process. He talks to Betonie, as well as Descheeny, Betonie's grandfather, to get help for his PTSD. There are many poems throughout this section that help tell stories. It was discussed in the beginning that storytelling helps heal people and that is a major theme throughout this novel. It begins with a story about how Shush, Betonie's servant, got his name. There is a note added into the writing in between poems. The title of it is "Note on bear people and witches." It talks about what a witch is versus a bear person and I am confused about what relevance that has to the novel. It is randomly placed in between sections and nothing has appeared like this before. Plus, I haven't read about witches at all, and all of the sudden it is a major portion when I read about Tayo's healing. Then, a poem about how witches created the white people and the destruction the white people would cause.

Tayo meets Descheeny, Betonie's grandfather, and they begin the ceremony to heal Tayo. Throughout the ceremony, Betonie keeps repeating "en-e-e-ya-a-a-a-a!" and I think it has an important meaning. I searched in Google the word and I looked for a meaning, however, nothing came up. I am not sure what the word means, but I think it is important and has relevance to Tayo's healing and the ceremony. When I looked closer, that was actually only the first verse of the poem. Later, Betonie repeats "eh-hey-yea-ah-na!" which is different than the other chant. I looked up the meaning of this chant and couldn't find anything either. I will keep it underlined in case I get the chance to ask in class. Later in the ceremony, Betonie cuts Tayo across the head by surprise and when Tayo is waking up later the wound isn't swollen. I am not sure if the wound is completely healed or it just doesn't hurt anymore. If it's healed it just shows a time change, at the same time, if it doesn't hurt that could represent time change as well. Descheeny tells Tayo a story, as part of his healing, about men that were riding horses and a girl fell out of a tree so they captured her. I am confused about why the girl might have been in the tree, maybe she was spying on them, and that's why they took her captive. But they were going to kill her, however Descheeny said they shouldn't. I also noticed that at one point Descheeny stated that he had multiple wives and I was thinking this might be part of the native culture, to have multiple wives. Later, it is clarified that he has specifically three wives. There is more information given about Descheeny and how he is mixed races like Tayo. Descheeny's mom was supposed to be killed because she slept with someone of a different race, but instead she ran away and took Descheeny with her. Finally, Tayo shows great signs of healing in the end of this section. In the end there are many times where he says he feels healing and the evil leaving his body.

Reflection 18

Monday, we continued to discuss the quotes that we had written down for "Ceremony". We moved onto part two of the quotes and had the other groups read their quotes to the class that had not gone up to that point. My group asked a question about the reading and it was very helpful to hear the answer because otherwise I would have never known unless we had time to discuss. One of the quotes in the novel talks about how Tayo saw a woman walk away from under the bridge crying with a rag that was covered in blood. She buried the rag in sand and every time Tayo saw the mound of sand he got PTSD from seeing the lady. I was confused about what was in the rag. I thought maybe she had been cutting herself. I found out that there were many abortions in that time that women gave themselves. It surprised me to hear that detail, but the novel is only telling the truth. If it had just been the woman cutting herself then I wouldn't have marked the quote as PTSD because Tayo didn't physically see her cut herself. But now that I know it was a baby, the quote obviously gives an insight as to why Tayo has PTSD and freaked out every time he saw that mound of dirt.

Tuesday we continued with more quotes from part two because we never finished on Monday. It was informative to hear what other people had to say about the reading and the quotes that they shared. Thursday the class finished up discussing quotes from part three. Every group shared quotes from this section of the reading. It was the longest section so we all provided quotes and examined them in depth. Finally, on Friday there was no school. It's difficult to write a long blog post over this week because we simply discussed the novel all week and I have nothing else I can add or feel the need to reflect on.

Reflection 17

On Monday we had another discussion about what we have been reading because there was no homework assigned over that weekend. Then, on Tuesday we were told about an assignment. The assignment was to, as a group, find 10 quotes from the first part of our reading, pages 1-40. The group had to discuss the quotes and why they were relevant and then summarize everything in a few sentences as well as right down the citation on a piece of paper, for 10 quotes. On block day we continued the assignment, however it was for the second and third part of our reading. And for the third part of the reading, we had to write down 12 quotes because it was more reading than the other sections. I think this was a good assignment for everyone to find quotes and be able to discuss them with the group and then the class as a whole. The only critique I have is that the we should have done this assignment earlier, maybe right after the first one or two discussions. By this point we have discussed many of the important quotes, so many of the students take what have already been discussed in class and used them for the assignment. I heard multiple groups say a quote and then another member of the group would ask why the quote was relevant and they would reply with, "Mrs. Cawlfield told us to underline it," which shows that they don't know why the quote is relevant, they simply underline it and then wrote it down to get the assignment done. If we had done this assignment after one discussion then we would know how to choose a quote and how to explain it, but only a few quotes would have been discussed, leaving the next few discussions open to new quotes that may be important.

The assignment was also due in a very short amount of time. We had one day, as a group, to discuss, write down, and explain 10 quotes. Then we had a block period to discuss, write down, and explain 22 quotes. My group completed it in the last few seconds of class. The assignment wouldn't have been difficult, however we had to discuss the quotes as a group. I understand why we had to do that, however that took up most of the time and there was barely enough time to write down the quote and explanation. Overall, the assignment helped me, however I think a few things could be improves. Finally, on Friday three groups discussed the quotes and their explanations from the first part of the reading. Again, I liked discussing it as a class, however it seems repetitive and many of the students didn't know why a quote was important, they just said a few sentences and then had the teacher discuss it more in depth.