fouz – Write Now

Final Assignment

Dear people,

I am writing this to you in an effort to address a serious issue that has been coming up a lot recently. The issue of Islamophobia has been a major topic in our present time. With a lot of violence going on from terrorist attacks and bombings, Islamophobia is increasing because many people tend to lean to one side of the story in blaming the people behind these brutal attacks and the media is to be blamed. Whenever an act of terror or a shooting takes place, many of Muslims watch news and the media coverage with fear hoping that the suspect is not a Muslim.It’s not the that the suspect is more likely to be a muslim but with the unfair media coverage on terrorism and labeling the suspects.It seems like it is more outrages and biased whenever an act of terror occurs by a Muslim rather than it’s by other races. In the comic book “Ms.Marvel”, the main character is Kamal, a Muslim Pakistani-American superhero, and a teenage girl who struggles with her identity because of her faith and family. Kamala makes a significant reference to an important belief that she learns from her family and faith.This belief comes from the holy Quran.Before Kamal started saving lives she mentioned a small verse from the Quran when she said “Whoever kills one person, it is as if he has killed all of mankind and whoever saves one person, it is as if he has saved all of mankind.” This small teaching of the Quran that Kamal and millions of muslims believe in is important to prove that Islam is a religion of peace and terrorism does not belong in Islam. As a Muslim, I’m tired of condemning terrorist attacks being carried out by sick and vicious people.It is frustrating having to explain that people use Islam for their nonsense ideology when in reality Muslims are being murdered by the same terrorists.It is unfair seeing many attacks being carried out not getting the same media coverage and labeling for the reason that the suspect is a non-Muslim.I’m tired of seeing a religion of 1.6 believers get blamed whenever a terrorist attack occurs.Islam is a law, and a system.And a Muslim is an individual who makes the profession that they belong or they are attached to that system. Having said that, do you judge a system by the people who say that they are a part of it?,No you don’t.For example, you can’t not blame a entire car company for accident that was committed by a reckless driver who made the wrong actions and choices.Therefore, it is unjustified to blame a whole religion because of wrong actions taken by violent people. All things considered, we can all agree that terrorism is a dangerous threat.However, it is not right to blame an entire faith to the actions of a small portion of people who hijack the name of the religion to spread their violent objective.As a Muslim, I beg you all to not ignore the facts and to always look at issues from all different sides.We can not let the media coverage propagandize us from the truth and create hatred among us.

Sincerely,

Fouzi Nagi

New York City

Artist Statement

Throughout this project I learned to write a well and organized letter. I also learned to use my own thoughts and experiences to make a good argument.Another important lesson I learned is to always look at problems from different perspectives.Lastly, I learned that there are deep and hidden themes in sentences.I could use some of these things that learned in different ways.For future assignments, I will spend more time reading sentences to extract the main ideas.I could also use my thoughts to expand on arguments to make theme more persuasive.I chose to write a letter on “Islamophobia” because there was an important part of the comic that was relative to this topic.As a Muslim, a letter to address Islamophobia is was necessary especially in our present time.I think writing a letter to people to address an issue was important and it helped me to analyze the comic more because I can relate to the topic.I could have pushed my analysis further by providing more arguments and examples.The rhetorical choice that I did was including real life and logical reasoning to support my argument and I think it made my thesis more effective.For my future assignments I will bring some rhetorical insights like using my own experiences, using logical reasoning, and deep explanation of the argument.

Assignment #2

Fouzi Nagi

War and Children

Throughout history war has always been one of the most devastating issue many people and children across the world experience.War has divided many countries, separated many families, demolished many houses, killed many lives, impacted the lives of many children, and more importantly war has destroyed many hopes and dreams for children.The play “Anon(ymous)” by Naomi Iizuka is an excellent play that discusses how war impacts people ,especially children.The play is about Anon, a young refugee who has been separated from his mother and faces many obstacles along the way to find his mother and to adapt to the United States.War can be very destructive and violent, “Where I come from bombs rained down from the sky night after night and boys wandered the streets with M16S”(Iizuka 2).No child in the world should ever grow up hearing bomb blasts or carry weapons at a such very young age because events like this can cause health damages to young children both mentally and physically.

Millions of children lose their families under wars, “War affects children in many of the same ways that it affects adults. There are, nonetheless, specific effects on children. Firstly, children’s access to the care, empathy, and attention of adults who love them is often restricted or non-existent. In times of war, the loss of parents, the separation from parents, the parents’ extreme preoccupation with protecting and finding subsistence for the family, and the emotional unavailability of depressed or distracted parents lead to significant and frequent disruption in their attachments”(Impact of War 11).Loss of family can be very unimaginable on children and sadly many millions of children loss their love once or get separated from them under armed conflicts,“You dream the face of the one person you love.And that person, that person becomes like home. Their eyes.Their skin. Their voice, the sound of their voice. And so you dream about that person” (Iizuka 2).In this case, many of children grow up in orphanages, lose hope and become isolated.Life can be very challenging to children who loss their families at young age.They’re forced to be independent, survive harsh conditions, live in fear, and in some cases they will do the impossible to provide for their siblings.

Another way that children are affected by war is by trauma,” Traumatic events can be placed on a continuum based on the degree to which a child is exposed directly to extremely frightening and prolonged stressors that carry long-term impact on personal well being or access to social supports. The most extreme traumas involve high degrees of threat, targeted directly at the child over long periods of time, that produce a loss of social supports” (Pine, Costello and Masten 3). Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be a serious and long-lasting injury in children. Violence, loss and not known what’s going around them can cause them to develop a state of anxiety and depression.Many children lose their social life and they lose sense of who they are.Children exposure to trauma influence them to grow up with psychological problems and long lasting mental issues that would make them feel apart of the world.

Loss of hope and future is also another brutal result of armed conflicts. Millions of children all around the world are experiencing great stress and loss of hope in life.Many children around the world grow up in safe environment go to schools, play sports, and live in homes. But it’s not the same for the children in Syria.Children in Syria are living in a devastating environment and experiencing very tough life. For an example, we can see this issue in what is happening today in Syria, “ since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, over 400.000 Syria have been killed, 4.8 million Syrians have fled the country, about 50% of Syria’s major cities have been destroyed, and innocent children suffer the most”(Syrians Brutal Civil War).The life in a dangerous environment is not always easy for children and living in a country with half of the cities in the country demolished can destroy many hopes and dreams for the younger generation, a Syrian child says “I’m not scared of anything anymore, there’s no need to be scared of anything because there’s nothing left in our lives”(Syrians Brutal Civil War). Being this weak and hopeless at a such young is not fair and children shouldn’t be the victims of armed conflicts.There shouldn’t be any child in the world going through what Syrian children are going through or live in any of their situations.

As we can see, armed conflicts are destroying many countries and more importantly young innocent lives.Wars are destroying many children’s dreams and hopes, wars are also leaving a permanent damage to the health of millions of children around the world.The play “Anon(ymous)”, the articles of “The Effects of War and Terrorism on Children” and “The impacts and effects of war on children”, and the Youtube video “Syrians Brutal Civil War” provided very important information and explained the major negative impact of wars on children.It’s a shame that people are still fighting wars and killing each over political and religious conflicts.It also sickening that the victims of wars are usually the people and innocent children.Therefore, people need to think about the outcome and the innocent lives that would have to be sacrificed under these shameful wars.

Work Cited

Iizuka, Naomi. “Anon(ymous).” American Theatre , Feb. 2007.

Pine, Daniel., Costello, Jane., and Masten,Ann. “Trauma, Proximity, and Developmental Psychopathology: The Effects of War and Terrorism on Children.” Neuropsychopharmacology, vol. 30, no. 10, 2005, pp. 1781–1792.

“The Impact and Effects of War on Children.” UNHCR, Apr. 2008, pp. 11–13.

“Syrians Brutal Civil War – The Effects of War on Children [Short Film].” Youtube, Arucanari // ShortFilms, 7 Dec. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5uSUk-1-h0&t=305s.

Reflective Artist’s Statement

This research essay was a great assignment that me and other students can learn from.I got to learn more on my topic which was “ the impact of war on children”, I learned the different ways children can be affected. They can be affected both mentally and physically, they can lose hopes and dreams, loss trust, and have trauma.The essay also helped me improve at researching and finding the right resources for the assignment. I also got to learn to compare and contrast different resources. Lastly, this research essay helped me learned that a research paper isn’t as easy as a regular essay and therefore I will not do it all at once in the last minute.This research essay can be helpful in the future, it could help me to do a better and a longer paper in the future.It will also help find the right resources faster.The research that I completed helped me analyze the play “Anon(ymous)” even further. It allowed me to go further in details to break down one the themes of the play which which was war and its impact on children.The research also helped me connect four different resources to the play which was interesting to focus more on the play.I believe that I could have pushed my analysis even further by looking at more different resources and these resources could have contained more information than my resources.I could have also spent more time doing this essay and that would have pushed it further.The rhetorical choices that I took were writing about children than adults because children are more vulnerable than adults. I also talked about the important damages on health instead of economy impacts and I belive that made the paper more interesting.The process of peer reviewing helped me to go even further in my research paper, it helped correct some of the mistakes I did in the pre-draft, and this process helped me come up with new ideas I didn’t think of.Me and my partners can conduct our peer review differently next time by bringing in more work because most of didn’t bring a lot of work, and we can also be more honest and not afraid to point out or stating opinions.For the future I will write about topics that most people around can relate to and I will spend more time on the paper to grab the reader’s interest and attention.

Pre-Draft Assignment #2

I think Naomi Iizuka did a research on immigration and its impact on people, mother love, teenagers, drama, landscapes, and food. Some preparations that actors will have to do to perform this play are to be emotional, actors will also have to be prepared to transform into different settings during the play, they will also have to be prepared to stay focused during the play. The three things that grabbed my attention were: the use of food in the play because it was used mostly as source of persuading. The names that were used in the play because they played a major role in constructing characters, lastly, immigration because it is an important topic that affects young generation, especially in our present time.In order for me to understand the three parts of that play that grabbed my attention, I will need to do a deep research on people with similar experience as the play, watch videos or documentaries, and talk to people around me would be a perfect way for me to understand the three concepts.This kind of research will help me connect to the play deeper and it will allow me to acquire the information more broadly.I might want to explain the powerful impact of immigration on people.My research will be great contribution for me to gain extra unique insight and themes of the play.

Pre-Draft

pic

I decided to change my format for assignment #1 from writing a personal essay to drawing.I want to draw a picture of a strong quote that has a strong message behind it by Jonathan Mendoza,“Biracial boy is tug of war but biracial boy is both hands pulling at each end”. I want to draw a picture that would relate to this quote in a creative way. It would be a painting of a set of the same hands colored in the American flag or world flags in both hands pulling at each end and the write quote on top of the picture. Lastly, I want the title to be “ Being biracial in America”

Pre-Draft assignment1

-How can the format you’ve chosen for your assignment best be used to demonstrate a deep analysis of the poem?

The format that I chose for the assignment which is personal essay can be a great format to analysis the poem of “Brown Boy, White Boy” by Jonathan Mendoza, because I believe this poem is too deep and has a big message behind it to be expressed in the other categories.

-What is unique about the format you’ve chosen that will allow you to learn more about the poem than what is expressed on the surface?

Personal essay is a unique format that will allow me to learn more about the poem because I can relate to the poem and the poem carries a strong message that needs to be broken down in an essay format.

-What questions or concerns or excitements do you have about creating a project in this format?

Is there an outline for personal essay format? How long does have to be?

-What questions do you have about the poem itself?

Can I use some quotes from the poem in my essay?

-What pieces of it do you want to analyze? why?

I want to analyze most of the poem especially some parts where it really touched me because this poem is beautiful and I can relate to it.

-What rhetorical choices (cite specific quotes and/or gestures, facial expressions, clothing, etc.) did the artist make that struck you? What was the impact of these rhetorical choices?

The part where Jonathan scratched his arm as if he wanted to peal off his skin touched and as a result I felt his pain and I was sad because I can see tears and struggle in his eyes because of his skin color.