Memoir Book Club Reflection

Due: Sunday, March 20th by 10PM

15 points
Instructions:
After spending a month in your reading groups discussing your respective memoir
novel, take some time to reflect on the overall quality of your book club experience, including the
process of
reading your novel
,d
iscussing your novel
, and
completing the final project
. Consider
what worked well, what may have been challenging, and what you learned throughout this process.
Please provide
honest, thoughtful, and detailed
responses for each question to receive credit.
The Book
1. What book did you read?
I read Funny In Farsi.
2. What are your overall impressions of this book?
a. What did you enjoy most about it?
I really enjoyed how funny and relatable it was. It wasnt really relatable to my
generation, but I enjoyed making connections to the stories that my parents would tell me
about growing up Lebanese in America. It also made me laugh hysterically so many times.
b. What parts were challenging to understand or get into?
In my opinion, the most challenging part of reading the book was connecting the
vignettes together to make the plot, as our book didnt have a true plot. We had a ton of
flashbacks that would trick us into wondering when the vignette is taking place.
3. In what ways did your book explore the themes of
identity and belonging
that we discussed
in class?
Our book addressed the theme of being Iranian, and the struggles of growing up Iranian in
America. Iranians seemed to not feel to belong in America because of all of the stereotypes,
bullying, misunderstanding, and adjusting they had to do. Both Firoozeh and Kazem were proud to
be Iranian, but also tried to fit into the American culture in the best way possible.
Book Club Meetings
4. What are the names of your book club group members?
Bea, Alan, and Amaris.
5. Using a scale of 1-10 (1 being super unpleasant and 10 being super awesome), rate the
overall experience of your 8 book club meetings. Please explain why by answering:
I give my experience a 10 out of 10.
a. What did you enjoy most about your small group discussions?
The fact that they are so chill and relaxed, but so down to the point at the same
time.
b. What challenges did you face in organizing and executing your discussions?
I feel like our group read off of the job sheets too much instead of actually talking.
c. Describe your favorite book club discussion. What was the topic and why was it
meaningful?

My favorite book club discussion was about the line It isnt about what a mans
religion is. It just matters what is in his heart. - Kazem. This line stood out to everybody in
the group, and changed everybodys opinion on Kazem in a good way.
6. Using a scale of 1-10 (1 being super unpleasant and 10 being super awesome), rate the
overall experience of working with your groupmates.
Please be honest and detailed in
commenting on the work ethic and contributions of each group member.
Bea - 9 - She didnt read the entire thing on two occasions, but she did a great job of leading
discussions and participating in them as well.
Amaris - 10 - Did all of her reading and participated really well in our discussions. In my
opinion, her research pieces were so good.
Alan - 9 - Although Alan didnt read or do his job on numerous occasions, I feel bad for
him as I feel like he didnt really understand what we were assigning him to do, but I feel as if he
made a really big effort to do his work, and that deserves a ton of praise.
a. What worked well?
What worked well in our project was the amount of help each group member gave out.
Without my group members, I dont think I would have understood the memoir well
enough.
b. What was challenging?
The challenging part of the book club meetings was making sure Alan was on track with
everything and making sure to help him through Google Hangouts, which we found to be
really time consuming.
c. How did your group members contributions affect the quality of your discussions?
If all of the group members contributed, then out book club discussions were a lot more
fun and informative. They also kept us occupied for longer, and allowed us to stand by for
less time.
The Final Project
7. What did your group choose to do for the final project? A trailer or scene reenactment?
Trailer
8. Describe the process of creating your video.
a. What worked well?
The things that worked well were the fact that we had people skilled in many trades in our
group. We had two photographers, two video editors, two actors, a bunch of writers, and
mostly, a ton of creative people.
b. What was challenging?
The challenging part of our video was organizing the film days. We all had different
schedules, so we couldnt pick a good day to film afterschool, so we did a rush shoot on a
Wednesday after TFI.
c. Overall, to what extent are you satisfied with the final product? Please explain
I am really satisfied with our final project. In my opinion, it was put together well by each
group member, and we couldnt have picked better film days. After TFI, we were able to
locate a few extras and filmers. As you could see, Antonio, Sofia, and a couple of others
helped us after TFI. We also got Caroline and Lilly to film for us, which was good.

9. The expectation for this assignment was that each group member made significant and
equal contributions to the final product. P
lease be honest and detailed in commenting on
the work ethic and contributions of each group member.
Bea - 9 - Bea contributed well for our final project. She was not only a videographer and actress,
but she also edited the video and wrote part of the script. The thing that made me drop her down
is the fact that she took credit for stuff she didnt even do. She took credit for costumes, even
though we all picked our own costumes, etc.
Amaris - 7 - Amaris was a really good and versatile actress for our video. However, when we had to
write our scripts, she waited until 9:30 before it was due to type. By that time, we were all done and
we turned our script in, so therefore, she didnt type anything for our script.
Alan - 9.5 - Alan did a tremendous job for our project. He filmed a few parts and wrote one part of
the script. Even though that was a small amount of work, I could tell he was trying to do his work,
so he deserves a 9.5.