The Midnight Readers discussion

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✧ Personal Book Nooks > Cloudy's nook

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message 2051: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) im in a huge reading slump


message 2052: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) ive been reading tcp from 3 fcking weeks and I still am not finished


message 2053: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) why the hell can i not concentrate


message 2054: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) shit


message 2055: by Niharika✩ (new)

Niharika✩ (doesitreallymatterpeople) | 16149 comments hai-


message 2056: by stu (new)

stu  (blobmustardsprinkles) | 17961 comments Hai


message 2057: by Amrita (new)

Amrita | 1674 comments ༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "im in a huge reading slump"

I hate reading slumps


message 2058: by ananya ྀི (new)

ananya ྀི (literary_f4iry) | 11107 comments ༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "im in a huge reading slump"

U need a book rec to get out of it?


message 2059: by Amrita (new)

Amrita | 1674 comments ༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "why the hell can i not concentrate"

Maybe you should pick up something else, more interesting?


message 2060: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) Amrita wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "im in a huge reading slump"

I hate reading slumps"


YES IKR


message 2061: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) Ananya ♡ wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "im in a huge reading slump"

U need a book rec to get out of it?"


Nahh reading super good the cruel prince

I JST CANT FINISH IT


message 2062: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) Amrita wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "why the hell can i not concentrate"

Maybe you should pick up something else, more interesting?"


But I like TCP, I just...NEED TO READ QUICKER AND STOP CLOSING THE BOOK EVERY TWO SENTENCES TO THINK ABOUT WHY FCKING IS HAPPENING


message 2064: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) So yeah


message 2065: by ananya ྀི (new)

ananya ྀི (literary_f4iry) | 11107 comments ༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "Ananya ♡ wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "im in a huge reading slump"

U need a book rec to get out of it?"

Nahh reading super good the cruel prince

I JST CANT FINISH IT"


Maybe try the audiobook that's what I do to get me out of a reading slump


message 2066: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) sadness


message 2067: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) ill brb


message 2068: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) im gonna try to read again


message 2069: by Amrita (new)

Amrita | 1674 comments ༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "Ananya ♡ wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "im in a huge reading slump"

U need a book rec to get out of it?"

Nahh reading super good the cruel prince

I JST CANT FINISH IT"


Oh. I loved THE CRUEL PRINCE. It was so so great. There's no way you can't read it...


message 2070: by Niharika✩ (new)

Niharika✩ (doesitreallymatterpeople) | 16149 comments ༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "Amrita wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "why the hell can i not concentrate"

Maybe you should pick up something else, more interesting?"

But I like TCP, I just...NEED TO READ QUICKER AND STOP CLOSING TH..."


that's the problem. You think you're in a slump so you've gotten into one. Let go of the thought and think about nothing but the book.


message 2071: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) Ananya ♡ wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "Ananya ♡ wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "im in a huge reading slump"

U need a book rec to get out of it?"

Nahh reading super good the cruel prince

I JST CANT FINISH IT"

Maybe try ..."


But I'm in the middle of a stupid chapter that I close to the end, like 100 pgs off ish 80? 70? idrfk


message 2072: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) Amrita wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "Ananya ♡ wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "im in a huge reading slump"

U need a book rec to get out of it?"

Nahh reading super good the cruel prince

I JST CANT FINISH IT"

Oh. I love..."


EXACTLY
I GOT TO THE PART WHERE JUDE JUST STARTED KISSING CARDAN

LIKE AH MY GOD

BT I JUST CANT READ FRTHER WITHOUT SHTTING TO BOOK AND PROCESSING IT ALL


message 2073: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) Niharika✩ wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "Amrita wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "why the hell can i not concentrate"

Maybe you should pick up something else, more interesting?"

But I like TCP, I just...NEED TO READ QUICKER ..."


ill try
ill be back though
maybe

WHY IS THE 'U' NOT CLICKING HALF THE FCKING TIME


message 2074: by Niharika✩ (new)

Niharika✩ (doesitreallymatterpeople) | 16149 comments ༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "Niharika✩ wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "Amrita wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "why the hell can i not concentrate"

Maybe you should pick up something else, more interesting?"

But I like TCP, I just...NEE..."


uh


message 2075: by Amrita (new)

Amrita | 1674 comments ༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "Amrita wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "Ananya ♡ wrote: "༓☾ᴄʟᴏᴜᴅʏ☽༓ wrote: "im in a huge reading slump"

U need a book rec to get out of it?"

Nahh reading super good the cruel prince

I JST CANT FINISH ..."


Maybe take a break and start again with a fresh mind...


message 2076: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) ahhhhhh gm

im late to shcool
dammit


message 2077: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) akfdjlkjl;ads


:D o y i n :D (CURRENTLY OBSESSED WITH AOT iykyk) | 1913 comments cloudyy get good grades ok


message 2079: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) uhhh i do...

and what does tht have to do with anything btw?

the only so so grade I have is in pe and I have a 3.5, an a.

and my parents arent even happy with that

smh


message 2080: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) 4-A+
3.5-A
3-A-
2-C/B-
1-D


Room: 420


4
3.9
0 Missing Assignments
Student Performance

David Meuret Room: 404


A
3.84
0 Missing Assignments
Student Performance

Nicole Darrow Room: 508


4
3.8
0 Missing Assignments
Student Performance

Leslie Husted Room: 300


4
4.0
0 Missing Assignments
Student Performance


Teacher Room: Gym


4
3.5
0 Missing Assignments
Student Performance


Teacher Room: 710


4
4.0
0 Missing Assignments
Classroom
Student Performance


Teacher Room: 408


4
4.0
0 Missing Assignments
Student Performance


Teacher Room: 414


4
3.88
0 Missing Assignments
Student Performance

Teacher Room: 414


N/A


message 2081: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) its jst me commenting here

:(

sad


message 2082: by [deleted user] (new)

no i here


message 2083: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) yayyyy


message 2084: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) okay i hate these poems so hard


message 2085: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” (published in 1860)
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or
at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows,
robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.



I, too, by Langston Hughes (published in 1926)

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table


Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed -
I, too, am America.

When company comes.









I, Too, Sing América.
By Julia Alvarez
(published in 1990s)

I know it’s been said before
but not in this voice
of the plátano
and the mango,
marimba y bongó, 5
not in this sancocho
of inglés
con español.

Ay, sí,
it’s my turn 10
to oh say
what I see,
I’m going to sing America!
with all América
inside me: 15
from the soles
of Tierra del Fuego
to the thin waist
of Chiriquí
up the spine of the Mississippi 20
through the heartland
of the Yanquis
To the great plain face of Canada—
all of us
singing America, 25
the whole hemispheric
familia
belting our canción,
singing our brown skin
into that white 30
and red and blue song—
the big song
that sings
all America,
el canto 35
que cuenta
con toda América:
un new song!


Ya llegó el momento,
our moment 40
under the sun—
ese sol that shines
on everyone.

So, hit it maestro!
give us that Latin beat, 45
¡Uno-dos-tres!
One-two-three!
Ay sí,
(y bilingually):
Yo también soy América 50
I, too, am America



Translations
plátano – banana canción – a popular genre of music, esp. Cuban
sancocho – Latin American stew el canto que cuenta con toda América –
soles – bottom of the foot a song to be sang by all of the Americas
Tierra del Fuego – the southern tip of S. America ya llegó el momento – the moment already arrived
Chiriqui – region in Panama sol – sun
Yanquis – a US citizen from Latin America maestro – a master musician; band leader


message 2086: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) Reading Comprehension Questions- Read through the poems again and Alvarez’s article, then come back and answer the questions.


Each answer should be in full sentences, at least 3 sentences per question.

Who is represented in Walt Whitman’s, “I Hear American Singing?” Who is not represented? Include textual evidence.

Why do you think Langston Hughes and Julia Alvarez wrote their poems? Use textual evidence from the poems and the article to enforce your thinking.

Why does Julia Alvarez use a mix of Spanish and English in her poem?

What is the theme that these poems have in common? How do you know?

Re-read the poems again. Whose voices are still missing from these poems?


HOMEWORK:
Create a Mimic Poem to the poems below, using the voices that you think are missing from the examples below. Make sure to capture the feelings/emotions/traditions/sayings of the group you’re writing your poem about.































I, Too, Sing América.
By Julia Alvarez


I know it’s been said before
but not in this voice
of the plátano
and the mango,
marimba y bongó, 5
not in this sancocho
of inglés
con español.

Ay, sí,
it’s my turn 10
to oh say
what I see,
I’m going to sing America!
with all América
inside me: 15
from the soles
of Tierra del Fuego
to the thin waist
of Chiriquí
up the spine of the Mississippi 20
through the heartland
of the Yanquis
To the great plain face of Canada—
all of us
singing America, 25
the whole hemispheric
familia
belting our canción,
singing our brown skin
into that white 30
and red and blue song—
the big song
that sings
all America,
el canto 35
que cuenta
con toda América:
un new song!


Ya llegó el momento,
our moment 40
under the sun—
ese sol that shines
on everyone.

So, hit it maestro!
give us that Latin beat, 45
¡Uno-dos-tres!
One-two-three!
Ay sí,
(y bilingually):
Yo también soy América 50
I, too, am America



Translations

plátano – banana canción – a popular genre of music, esp. Cuban
sancocho – Latin American stew el canto que cuenta con toda América –
soles – bottom of the foot a song to be sang by all of the Americas
Tierra del Fuego – the southern tip of S. America ya llegó el momento – the moment already arrived
Chiriqui – region in Panama sol – sun
Yanquis – a US citizen from Latin America maestro – a master musician; band leader





(The following article is taken from the U.S. Department of State publication, Writers on America.)

I, Too, Sing América.

By Julia Alvarez

I would never have become a writer unless my family had emigrated to the United States when I was ten years old.

I grew up in the '50s in a dictatorship on the little Caribbean half-island of the Dominican Republic.

Although it was a highly oral culture rich in storytelling, it was not a literary culture. I grew up among people who thought of reading as an antisocial activity that could ruin your health and definitely take the fun out of life.

Reading/studying was not an activity that was encouraged in my family, especially for us girls. My grandmother, who only went up to fourth grade, used to tell the story that she only picked up a book when she heard the teacher's donkey braying as it climbed up the hill to her house.

Boys had to make the sacrificio and get an education in order to earn a living – but in moderation. My cousin was considered strange because he not only loved to read but as a teenager began to write poetry. "Se va a enfermar," my aunt would say, shaking her head every time she found Juan sitting in a chair, reading a book. "He's going to get sick."

I was also growing up in a repressive and dangerous dictatorship. In a social studies class, a student wrote an essay in which he praised Trujillo, the dictator, as the true father of our country. The teacher commented that certainly, Trujillo was one of the fathers of our country, but there were others. The boy, the son of a general, must have gone home and told his father. That night the teacher, his wife, and his two young children disappeared. Intellectuals, people who read and questioned, were suspect. A book in your hands might as well have been contraband.

In 1960, my father's underground activities against Trujillo were discovered, and we were forced to escape the country in a hurry. The minute we landed on American soil we became "spics" who spoke our English with heavy accents, immigrants with no money or prospects. Overnight, we had lost everything, our country, our home, our extended family structure, our language, for Spanish was the language of home, of la familia, of self-understanding. We arrived in the United States at a time in history that was not very welcoming to people who were different, whose skins were a different color, whose language didn't sound like English. For the first time in my life, I experienced prejudice and playground cruelty. I struggled with a language and a culture I didn't understand. I was homesick and heartbroken.

My sisters and I, being young, soon rallied to the challenge. We learned the new language, the new music, the new ways to dress and behave ourselves. But our success on these fronts soon created another kind of problem in our family. My parents wanted desperately to keep us to the old standards, and yet they also wanted us to succeed in this new culture. How could we study hard and earn all A's and get ahead but be sweet and submissive and let Papi make all the decisions? How could we remember our Spanish when we were forced to speak only English outside the home? How could we keep our mouths shut out of respeto for our parents when in school we were being taught to speak up and debate, if need be, with our teachers? How could we get along with our friends and yet never go over to their houses for parties and sleepovers because they might have older brothers or parents who allowed things my parents did not allow?

My sisters and I were caught between worlds, value systems, languages, customs. And this was our challenge, which is the challenge for many of us who are immigrants into a new world that is different from the old one of childhood: how to maintain a connection to our traditions, our roots, and also to grow and flourish in our new country? How to find creative ways to combine our different worlds, values, conflicting and sometimes warring parts of ourselves so that we can become more expansive, not more diminished human beings?

But the problem was that no one was thinking like that back in those days. This was the United States of the early '60s, still locked in the civil rights struggles, pre-women's movement, pre-Equal Rights Amendment movement, pre-multicultural studies, pre-anything but the melting pot, that old assimilationist, mainstreaming model. Those were the days when the model for immigration was that you came to America, you assimilated, you cut off your ties to the past and the old ways, and that was the price you paid for the privilege of being an American citizen.

But sometimes it is these painful moments that can become opportunities for expansion and self-creation. I had become a hybrid – as all of us who travel beyond an original self or hometown or homeland are bound to become. I was not a mainstream American girl and I wasn't a totally Dominican girl anymore. And yet I wanted desperately to belong somewhere. It was this intense loneliness and desire to connect with others that led me to books. Homesick and lonely in the USA, I soon discovered that the world of the imagination was a portable homeland where everybody belonged. I began to dream that maybe I, too, could create worlds where no one would be barred.

And so, it was through the wide-open doors of its literature that I truly entered this country. Reading Mr. Walt Whitman, I heard America's promise and I fell in love with my new country. "I hear America singing, its varied carols I hear." As for melting all our variety into one mainstream model, Mr. Whitman disagreed: "I am large, I contain multitudes." This country was a nation of nations, a congregation of races. "I resist anything better than my own diversity."

Was this allowed? I wondered, looking over my shoulder. Wasn't this subversive? But Mr. Whitman's poems were printed in my English textbook where he was described as "the poet of America." He was saying what this country was really all about. Although America seemed to have forgotten its promises, its writers remembered and reminded us.

Slowly and not without struggle, America began to listen. As the 1960s progressed into the '70s, the country around me began to change. Under pressure from its own marginalized populations and from its growing number of immigrants, the nation was being forced to acknowledge its own diversity and become more inclusive. Citizens were challenging America to be true to its promises. The first time I attended a march in support of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution and was not hauled off to be tortured in a dark prison chamber by the secret police, I understood that a free country was not one that was free of problems or inequalities or even hypocrisies. Such failures came with the territory of being a human being. Freedom was the opportunity to shape a country, to contribute to the ongoing experiment, never tried before, of making out of the many, one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The words were not just rhetoric. It was our right and responsibility to make the words come true, for ourselves and for others.






As the nation changed, our literature began to reflect these changes as well. Not only was there a Mr. Whitman, I discovered, but a Mr. Langston Hughes (written in 1930s).

I, too, sing America

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed -
I, too, am America.


Oh, that was music to my ears! I understood what Mr. Hughes was saying: he was claiming his place in the chorus of American song. This was an important voice for a young girl of another culture and language and background to hear.


Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” (published in 1860)

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or
at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows,
robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.


message 2087: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) so much hw


message 2088: by [deleted user] (new)

oof that sucks//I dont have any today ;0


message 2089: by [deleted user] (new)

And thats a long poem...!


message 2090: by ananya ྀི (new)

ananya ྀི (literary_f4iry) | 11107 comments That's a lot of hw


message 2091: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) BookNerd_DinoBear wrote: "oof that sucks//I dont have any today ;0"

luuckkkkkky


message 2092: by [deleted user] (new)

ya thats just alot, in my mind too much


message 2093: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) BookNerd_DinoBear wrote: "And thats a long poem...!"

(theres three poems, sadness)


message 2094: by ananya ྀི (new)

ananya ྀི (literary_f4iry) | 11107 comments Do the teachers forget we're humans or what that they give sm hw


message 2095: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) Ananya ♡ wrote: "That's a lot of hw"

yeahhhhhh im dying rn


message 2096: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) BookNerd_DinoBear wrote: "ya thats just alot, in my mind too much"

it is waaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to much

*dies*


message 2097: by [deleted user] (new)

lmao i would be too


message 2098: by Unknown (new)

Unknown Reader | 9326 comments Umm…that’s hw, you copy pasted ?
Wow, that’s a lot


message 2099: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) Ananya ♡ wrote: "Do the teachers forget we're humans or what that they give sm hw"

I think they fcking do


message 2100: by angela (new)

angela (bookishcloudy) BookNerd_DinoBear wrote: "lmao i would be too"

yeahh


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