Freedom of Choice and Freedom of Self-expression: A Special Blog-project by One of My Students Worth a Closer Look

One of my students made an impressive performance in my class today. I will not mention his/her name. Instead, I will invite you to have a closer look at the fruits of his/her intellectual work: MaliFree. The author of MaliFree took a different approach to the blog-project in my class. In the very beginning, I was cautious about the high standards he/she wanted to burden himself/herself with. But I could not deny his/her right to Freedom of Choice. I gave my OK.

In Chapter One, the author introduces us to Mali, "I’m Malik but people just call me Mali. My brother Rashid started calling me like that cause he said “Malik means king. You are too small to be a king so you are Mali – a little prince”." From the very start, the reader learns about Malik's tragic childhood. His mother died (probably, of cancer?), when he was five. He never saw his father. Yet Malik knows his siblings, "All in all I have five brothers and three sisters. At least these eights are the ones I know. I’m the youngest one and most of my siblings left the anthill long time ago. Rashid was different from them. He always felt responsible for me." Rashid, the character who has a strong will to live despite frequent physical and moral abuse, will "map" his and Malik's destinies. Away from “anthill” near Kapstadt in South Africa to America!
The action takes place in 1960s. Therefore, Malik's name incloses a special meaning. The name itself is a prediction: the little King will meet KING, M.L..

The author of MaliFree approached the topic of the American immigration policy in the 60ies very briefly due to the time constraints. Yet this blog-project serves as an amazing example of how blogging-genre can be adopted by a person with a journalistic background. With almost no strings attached, the creator of MaliFree appreciated the freedom of self-expression through on-line creative writing in his/her blog.

Back to the presentation in my class today. As I have already mentioned it was impressive: the presenter provided a general introduction to the blog-project, spoke directly to the audience by establishing ongoing eye contacts with the other students, spoke clearly, with the pace of a normal conversation, the design of the PPT slides was simple and elegant. My congratulations to the author of MaliFree on the successful completion of the blog-project and delivery of the presentation today! Thank you for putting a piece of your soul into blogosphere and sharing it with us, your readers.

There is one problem with this presentation, which appears as positive to me due to the fact that I am the instructor of this course and I appreciate good-quality presentations in my classes. The problem is: this presentation set high standards for the other students to look up to. :)