Name: Justine Daniel L.

Gutierrez Grade & Section: 12 – STEM A

A. LINGUISTIC APPROACH

1. Who is the speaker in the poem, and what's the speaker's tone? Explain your answer by stating
the evidence.

 Summeir Hammad was the speaker in the poem and she sounded as if she wanted to speak
her inner emotions and thoughts about the experiences and realities she had experience
from the years she had as a woman. She showed in her poem and and spoken-word poetry
how a woman struggles to live as an independent individual who’s totally free from and
sexism and man’s perspective of a woman’s right.

2. The poet uses a lot of imagery that makes the reader visualize what's going on. Aside from
imagery, what are the other elements used to achieve the purpose of the poem? State at least two,
and explain by stating the evidence.

 The poet used a lot of her tone to thoroughly show how she felt about the situations she’s
currently giving out for the audience to furthermore understand the emotions she’s feeling
about it. She had also used symbolisms to represent her thoughts in a slightly hidden
manner instead of saying it outright. This makes it more complex and engaging for the
listeners and will furthermore help the poet to have more impact overall.

B. BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH

3. What evident influences in the writer's life does the poem reflect?

 The poem reflects real life experiences of the writer such as discrimination, oppression, and
sexism in the society she’s living in. The writer opened up how she wants to live as a person
without being affected by these societal issues and be as free as the others for everyone
gets to live their own life and enjoy without others being able to destroy our rights to do so.

4. The poem's title is What I Will, but it actually expresses what the poet "will not do". Why is this
so? And what essentially she will not do?

 She titled it as such for she wants to go against the oppressors of her home country, but at
the same time stating what she will not do for them inside the poem itself in order to
prevent the support she can possibly give them to avoid the further oppression of her
country. She basically will not do anything that will give support to America’s invasions to
Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as to not show any support in the Occupation of US to Israel.
C. SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH

5. What does the poem reveal about how innocent people suffer from the effects of war?

 The poem showed how innocents gets to lose their chance of living freely and has a high
chance of losing their lives if they will force to pursue in doing so. Wars tends to get
innocent people suffer from the oppressor’s doing and gives out unequal valuation in one’s
life.

6. What changes do you think the writer would like to make in society? Explain your answer by
stating the evidence.

 The writer would like the society to wake up from the harsh reality we are currently living in
and see how we are being a contributor to others’ sufferings and hardships in life. We the
fortunate tends to forget how lucky we are to even be able to live peacefully, unlike the
others who fights for their lives just to get to live day by day hunted by beings of their own
kind. We need to appreciate how we are right now for there are others who suffers just for
us to live abundantly and peacefully. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore their
sufferings, we should always strive our best to also care for them and see the value of their
lives as well for they didn’t choose to live that kind of life in the first place.

D. Have you watched Hammad's performance of “What I Will” at TEDWomen 2010? How the
performance helped you in understanding and appreciating the text? 

 Yes, I’ve watched her stand on the Issues she wants to point out and I was able to realize and
understand more on what she meant from the hidden meanings of her poem itself. Her
performance allowed me to see her side more openly for I was able to see her emotions and
stance without no restrictions of her being made.