Prior to entering UBC, I had heard from a student tell me that thirteen weeks in one semester does go by very quickly. Now that it is already near the end of the fifth week, I admit that I cannot agree with him more. I predict that my schedule for the upcoming week will indeed be very busy for me since midterm exams are taking place. However, since the time I wrote my last blog posting, I did pick up practical skills that are well calibrated to studying in preparation. Another area of interest this week was the text, Democratic Citizenship and the Narrative Imagination, by Martha Nussbaum.

The first aspect that I would like to comment on is chapters three and four from Janet Giltrow’s book, Academic Writing. When I read the first chapter in the book a few weeks ago, my first impression was that the content was mundane and simply a reiteration of what I already know. However, chapters three and four, which centered on summary and citation skills, did in a way change my perspective. After having read these chapters, I now agree that the book provides explanation for tangible skills that I can for sure implement when reading texts for both ASTU and other courses alike. Such techniques that Giltrow describes in the book include gist-noting and levels of generality, both of which are skills that I wish I could have learnt during secondary school so that I could have scored higher on my Provincial or AP Exam. Nevertheless, given that my geography midterm is next week, it would indeed be helpful for me to make use of Giltrow’s techniques when I study.

This week I also read Nussbaum’s text, which I believe sheds light on relevant reasons about why educators across various nations place such a significant emphasis on the study of fictional works. Realistically, literature is not just simply a medium for enhancing the linguistic ability of students. Moreover, throughout history, fictional works have contributed substantially to social and political change through invoking imagination. As an example that Professor Latimer brought up during the joint lecture on Tuesday, Joy Kogawa’s novel, Obasan, has raised so much public awareness about the internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII that even Canadian prime ministers have made reference to the novel when making public apologies about the issue. Now having read Nussbaum’s text, I can now make sense of the reason why the general public has such a high regard for literature and why there is the existence of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Indeed, the impact that literature can create on a society can be equally as significant as a scientific discovery or a peace conference.

To conclude, the material that I studied this week did bring me to new realizations about academic skills and did enrich my knowledge about the potential effect that literature can create on a society. While I still agree that learning academic skills may not seem very amusing in nature, we can never forget that such skills can in fact emerge to become very practical, especially in a time like the now where I have exams nearing. Furthermore, when I read fictional works from now on, I will always keep in mind the ideas that Nussbaum presented in her text.