TOOLS THAT CHANGE THE WAY WE THINK

When reaching the topic of technology I do think that it has a big influence on me. Now with all this technology I have been led to believe that I do not have to work hard to achieve things, that everything I could ever need is within arms reach. If we were to go back 50 years we would see that you truly had to work for everything, the value of hard work and the value of a dollar still existed back then. Back then the average person did not have access to everything at their fingertips like we do, they had to seriously look for sources in order to find what they are looking for. Now this is also why we are called the lazy generation, everything is handed to us and we never truly had to work for anything. That's how technology changes our thoughts.

FILTER BUBBLES

a) This was my first time being exposed to the idea of filter bubbles and I was surprised by a few things. Although I already knew that google and other search engines would keep a history on you but I didn't know that they completely personalized your computer.
b) Even though I do not like the idea of having my computer personalized without me knowing I'd have to say I do think more about the internet. I always thought that I made smart decisions on the internet but even when I think I do there's still things that happen and I can't really control. There really is no privacy anywhere on the internet.
c) I am one who tends to think about the future a lot, so after hearing about what search engines do I'm wondering if people would really change their ways. I mean people know what fast food does to them but they still eat it. Same concept here, will they really change their ways?
d) How I could improve my searches is by using DuckDuckGo since it does not save anything, but will I effectively use it? That's another question.

Literary Analysis #3

Book: Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

TOPIC(S) and/or EVENT(S)

1. [a] This book is about a persons’ mistakes and the punishment not seen through all the way. Hester should not have been the only one punished, for this deed required 2 people in order for it to have happen. Now she has to handle her life that way and now raise a young daughter who is stranger than most young children.

[b] This book is about a mistake that affected the life of one women who is now having to deal with the entire town looking down on her and raising a child who seems to have a hard time fitting in.

2. I believe that Hawthorne wrote a book about this event because like me he found it interesting and exciting. He saw this event as the best way to get the idea of thinking before you act out there since what happened here was so dark and twisted that it just had to be written about and read by everyone. With that the hopes that everyone would actually catch on to one of the morals then we would all have spent the time reading it well because we’d all walk away learning something we already knew but now take more seriously. That being think before you act.

3. I chose this book because I liked the whole story, one mistake messing up one persons’ entire life and the other person being in deep guilt about what he had done. A story like this really appealed to me because it showed me that one simple mistake could mess up everything and leave the people involved in some life changing problems. The way this whole story unfolded was always causing me to keep turning the page, I mean first the women is being ridiculed and out of nowhere the man is standing in front of his audience and is admitting to everything he had done. This book was unpredictable.

4. This book seemed very realistic, mostly due to the fact that there have been many versions of this story told and the fact that this could happen to everyone in a different way. With that said I can say that I can relate to Dimmesdale who felt much guilt after doing what he did. Now I can say I have made mistakes that gave me similar results, although my mistake wasn’t like his at all, I still felt guilt afterwards because everyone but me got punished. This was an event that happened last year and I couldn’t believe that everyone but me got caught. At first I felt HUGE relief because I was the one that got away but after that passed I felt bad for everyone that did get caught. So I can say that in this situation I was a lot like Dimmesdale but I never admitted what I did.

PEOPLE

1. I would say yes, if we met the actual characters we more than likely would see them differently. That tells me that Hawthorne was one who interpreted certain things in his own way, every single little detail is not going to be right. I believe he wanted to write this book because he found this whole situation to be very interesting, I mean there was such a big consequence to that one action. The authors overall tone was more dark than anything and this tells me that the author really enjoyed stories that had twists and turns and not so good results.

2. Hester is a women on the tall side, she is very attractive and has long beautiful black hair. She is more of a quiet one, but once she wants to can be the most talkative person you can imagine. She is only shy around newer people. To write about her I would use direct characterization mostly because she is quiet so I would have to tell the audience what she is like. Now Pearl is a strange little girl, she is light skinned, short for her age, very thin, and also has that long black hair. She is also very quiet and does not get along with other kids. For her I would also use direct characterization since she just stays quiet a lot.

3. I liked these people because they seem the most real. I feel like these are actual people that I would meet in life and I can’t see that with other people.

MORE

1. When the author says that Hester was in a darker place and was only seeking the approval of the rest of the town were forms of direct characterization, we would not have known this is if Hawthorne had not told us. Also indirect characterization happens when we see Pearl in the woods and when we see the struggle Dimmesdale is going through, we are told all of this and have to realize that Pearl is not like most kids and Dimmesdale is one that feels much guilt for what he did. Hawthorne uses both method in order to make the story more interesting, if everything was told to the audience it would not be as interesting.

2. Overall the author’s diction and syntax does not change when he is talking about characters. If you notice throughout the book his sentence structure does not change and his word choice seems to stay constant.

3. The protagonist in the story is a dynamic character as well as a round character. I say this because as the story began she was one who kept to herself and tried to just get by. Then as the story progressed she started to look for help with her daughter and also with herself. She began to obtain the traits of a normal human being and finally became part of the town again.

4. After I finished the book I did feel like I had met Hester because of how I analyzed her throughout the book. I feel like someone like her is one that I could actually meet at some point in life, I was stunned at the similarities with her and actual people I know.

STYLE

1. Hawthorne used many tools from fiction writing, the one that was most common was foreshadowing. One of the times we see foreshadowing a lot is when Hester and her daughter are in the woods and the daughter is off in the darker parts of it. It tells us a bit about her, showing us that she is one that is very different from other kids and even though we do not know a lot about her we can assume that she is one that keeps to herself and might be called a freak by other children or by somebody else later in the story.

2. The author here focuses more on the actions and dialogue than on descriptions. With that in mind then the book becomes open to imagination, I mean since Hawthorne does not fully describe the town or anything then you could imagine how it looks and everything. I love that about books because I can make the setting however I see fit.

3. In order to create a mood and tone the author used actions that demonstrated what the character was thinking and doing. With the characters actions being put there we can instantly imagine a tone or mood being placed there. For example when we see Hester’s daughter in the woods we get a darker mood from this because she wonders off a bit alone and her surrounding area is darker that other parts of the woods. This is how he was able to create a tone or mood.

4. Towards the characters I would imagine that the author’s attitude would have been more joyful and interested. I say this because he actually took the time to write an entire novel about this topic and about these people, although he more than likely thinks that the punishments were a bit harsh on them he was still into the idea that all this really happened.

5. The author did not really offer any resources so it did not matter to my thinking of the book/story because there was nothing to interfere with my thinking.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS

1. The key people learn that it is better to confess what you have done than to keep things secret and watch them slowly get worse. The finally learn this after seeing the affect it had on poor Pearl, finally Dimmesdale confessed what he had done in front of everyone. The book slowly revealed that this turn of events was going to happen and just led me to believe it to happen which it did.

ENDUING MEMORY

            The main idea I got out of this book is to always think before you act because you never know what can happen with the choices you make and once they are made there’s no going back. I chose to always remember this one because I feel like this is something I can actually use on a daily basis, other ideas I can’t see myself ever using. Every single day I am faced with choices to make and I can always remember that once one is made I can’t go back with my eraser and change it, I have to deal with it. This causes me to be more careful with the things I do, I have to learn now that there are consequences to any choice I make. This is something everybody can relate to because everyone and I mean EVERYONE has to make choices at one time or another, and they have to know what they are choosing before they actually decide on it. We have to learn to think before acting. 

VOCABULARY: FALL #8

cursory- hasty and therefore not thorough or detailed
He gave a cursory response to the teachers question. 
impetus- the force or energy with which the body moves
A trampoline usually gives the user more impetus than they would originally have. 
pinnacle- the high/most successful point
I have reached the pinnacle of my high school years.
contumely- insolent or insulting language or treatment
Many religions consider similar religions words to be contumely and should not be spoken by anyone. 
bereavement- be deprived of a loved one through a profound absence esp. due to the loved one's death
The man was bereaved of his daughter who was taken by cancer. 
cache- a collection of items of the same type stored in a hidden or inaccessible place
There is a cache of baseball cards somewhere in this house.
consummation- the point at which something is complete or finalized
After 6 hours of typing his essay has come to a consummation and was ready to print. 
calamity- an even causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster
Leaving a cigarette near a grassy area may lead to a calamity so we must all try to prevent it. 
avarice- extreme greed for wealth or material gain
In out lives we have at one point been an avarice, only wanting more and more money. 
fortify- strengthen with defensive works so as to protect it against attack
When an apocalypse comes every town will be fortified in order to defend itself. 
erratic- not even or regular in pattern or in movement; unpredictable
His breathing became erratic after a long run. 
ubiquitous- present, appearing, or found everywhere
After receiving his car it was ubiquitous, he saw the same one everywhere he went. 
fortitude- courage in pain or adversity
She endured her pains with great fortitude. 
nonchalant- feeling or appearing casually calm and relaxed; not showing enthusiasiasm 

He receive a nonchalant shrug after asking if she was okay. 
affect- have an effect on, make a difference to
A public speaker can have a great affect on the people listening. 
effect-a change that is a result or consequence of an action or other cause
There are lethal effects from heavy drinking. 
misappropriate- dishonesty or unfairly take something for ones own use
As a kid I would misappropriate money, taking it from wherever I found it. 
pragmatic- dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations
In tough situations always find a pragmatic way to deal with them. 
metacognition- awareness and understanding of one's own thought or process
She is a metacognition now that she knows how to use his thoughts and Interprete them into something useful. 
devout- having or showing deep religious feeling or commitment
Many parents of Mexican decent are devout to Catholicism. 

Ripley's Value of Life

Prereading

Activity 25

1. No, I actually have not read anything from Time magazine. However I have read articles about obesity on CNN’s news page online.

2. Its publication was mainly due to the amount of obese people here in the US and how we could prevent it. That was its main purpose and hopefully it did reach out and help people.

3. Well considering it is a local news station I’d say there are many kinds of articles are included in it. Anything from murders, to laws being changed, even a dog saving people from buildings, anything that seems important.

4 I’m not sure what the question is asking but I do believe that most of the people who read articles like this have been affected by them in either a good or bad way, this depends on their views. However that is the case, in one way or another we are all impacted by the articles written that seem important enough to put on the news.

Activity 26

1. This subtitle tells me that it will be based on the victims of 9/11 who were impacted the most. Also that the government has come up with some kind of system that gives residents that lost loved ones in 9/11 money for the ones they lost. I can assume that this is all one system that calculates how much each one should get depending on how many they lost and also I can assume that this is a way that the government is trying to keep people from talking about that situation.

2. The main thing these texts have in common is that they are all related in how we value our lives. Although they are placed under different views, such as economic terms and philosophical terms.

3. I anticipate that this next text will follow the pattern of being in the first person perspective, it sounds more like a personal story than anything. If it is written in third person then I would love to see how they interpreted it and how they actually found a way to put that under the third person.

Activity 27

Commodify- to turn something into an object of monetary value

Tort- a civil lawsuit to remedy a wrongful act

Garish- offensively bright and showy

Balk- to resist

Concoct- to put together from various materials

Reading

Activity 28

Life in this text is defined as a human body, they use that as a count and just that count to give people the money they think the person deserves. Now the human that is being given a value is actually dead, not a living being. This is surprising because they are putting a price tag in the ones that have passed on and give it to the families that have lost them in the hopes that they would feel better after receiving that money. Also they tend to pay out more on the one that was more successful and not as much as the ones that were more unknown in the world. So not everyone is equal, they favor the ones that have done more for people than the ones that just seemed to be there.

Postreading

Activity 31

1. Well I can say that the text tries to be unbiased but ends up being slightly biased when it comes down to it. It wants to keep this type of balance between the two perspectives of the families that suffered but in the end doesn’t necessarily do the right thing.

2. The evidence that the author gives are things like his personal stories, with those we can really see how she went through things and how she dealt with them. Those tend to be more compelling because they relate to our emotional appeals and really tell us more about the author herself.

3. Considering this was published by Time and written by a women who seems to have personal experiences with this topic I’d say this information is pretty accurate. I mean I’m pretty sure that Time Magazine would carefully check everything before actually publishing it and putting their names on it.

4. This text uses more emotion than anything, considering most of it is a personal story and then the other parts are talking about victims that have died and the families that have suffered through everything. Also we see that the readers are mostly impacted with emotion so its pretty clear that was the authors objective the entire time. Compared to Shakespeare and Ebert, Ripley focuses on more than one perspective. She gives her own story and gives the perspective of the others, Shakespeare and Ebert only give their own perspective.

LITERARY ANALYSIS #2

Literature Analysis #2

Book- Island of the Blue Dolphins

Author- Scott O’Dell

TOPIC(S) and/or EVENT(S)

1. [a] Overall my book is based on a true story of The Lost Women of San Nicolas. In 1835 it is said that an African American girl jumped off Captain Hubbard’s ship and ended up on an island off the Californian coast known as La Isla de San Nicolas. Then, miraculously, Captain Nidever traveled toward La Isla de San Nicolas and found that same girl 18 years later! They say she was found living in a hut with a tamed dog that she had befriended, she was able to befriend it and use it to hunt. It turns out she had jumped off the ship because she knew that her younger brother had been left behind, unfortunately he had been killed by a pack of wild dogs. This is her story. [b] This book is the story of the Lost Women of San Nicolas who lived alone on La Isla de San Nicolas for 18 years and lived.

2. I believe Scott O’Dell decided to write about this women because it was just an astonishing event. This is the 1800’s and women were seen as very inferior compared to men. Now this story of a women who lived on an island for 18 years, survived in a hut, and tamed a wild dog comes up? Well how can’t this catch someone’s attention. At that time it was probably the story of the century.

3. I chose this book because it really caught my attention, not so much because it was a women that survived 18 years on an island but because a HUMAN survived there. I loved the idea that someone was smart enough to live off the resources on an island and also tame a wild dog. Now what separated this from other stories like this was the fact that this one is true, that blew my mind when I figured that out. So after realizing that it was about a women who lived off resources given to her on an island and befriend the wild animals there how couldn’t I stop reading it.

4. Yes I found this book to be very realistic because of the background story that inspired it. I did make one connection with the book and that was losing a loved one. In this case the women lost her brother to a pack of wild dogs and it was pretty cruel how he died. In my case I lost my grandmother before I was able to tell her what I needed to tell her. Both bad ways to go, and I really felt her pain when she lost her brother. That was the main connection I made with her throughout the book.

PEOPLE

1. In this book the authors choices tell me that he can really paint a picture for the reader, I mean you can pretty much place yourself there on La Isla de San Nicolas and just see everything happening as he describes it. I believe Scott decided to write about this book because, just like me, he found it amazing that a women knew so much about survival and was able to use those skills to survive for 18 years on one island. Over the entire story the authors tone tends to be mysterious, going through the pages you are always wondering what’s going to happen next.

2. Karana is a young women who is tall for her age, fit, has long black hair, and having rugged clothing on at all times. How I see her, she resembles a Pocahontas type of character because she is out in the wild and is on an island for a good fraction of her life. She at first was an outgoing girl who really didn’t listen to reason but was fairly quiet most of the time. It is because she is quiet that I would use direct characterization to describe Karana, nobody would know how she really was unless I used that kind of characterization. The second character I chose was Ramo, Karana’s six-year-old brother. He is a little one, dark skinned from always being outside, slightly long hair, and having small rugged shorts that barely fit him. Imagine him like Mowgli from The Jungle Book, he seems to fit the role perfectly. Now he is very enthusiastic and extremely energetic so because of this I would use indirect characterization since the author would get an idea of how he is just by all his actions.

3. What made these two interesting enough to write about is that they resembled characters from my childhood but seemed to be more adult modernized considering Karana went through really hard times and Ramo ended up being killed by wild dogs. That’s what made them interesting to me.

CHARACTER/PEOPLE

1. A form of direct characterization happened more with Rontu, the wild dog that Karana befriended. How the author directly characterizes Rontu is, one, by his physical appearance. He is said to be the biggest dog of them all, the leader, and that he is strong and quite the hunter. Secondly he is directly characterized through his actual emotions, such as when he first met Karana to when he began to warm up to her. A form of indirect characterization happens mostly with Ramo, considering his actions spoke louder than anything. By seeing how energetic he is we can easily tell that he is one that does not listen to others and really does what he wants. Also that he can be hardheaded and this is shown through how he fights with his sister, saying how he is a man already and shouldn’t be treated like a child. The author uses both approaches because there were times when he could obviously describe how a character is without having to tell the audience directly about a character. Now with both of these being used I can see that these characters are not slackers, they are hard-working people and there is not a doubt in my mind that they really know how to handle a situation at first seconds notice. There’s a reason Karana survived for 18 years, she knows what she’s doing.

2. I don’t think the authors diction changes when he focuses on character because he seems to keep his tone no matter what is happening. For example, after Ramo was killed he did not change the overall tone or use of words when describing Karana’s reaction to all of this. It remained mysterious and still kept me wondering what she was planning to do next.

3. The protagonist, being Karana, is more of a dynamic character and also a round character. She is dynamic because she undergoes a huge change after her brother is killed and spending so many years on that island. She is a round character because the ways the author describes her gives the reader a pretty clear picture of what she looks like and how she acts.

4. After everything I really do feel like I’ve met Karana because of how she became after her brothers’ death. I can really relate to her because how she got was exactly how I got after my grandmothers death, she blamed herself and I did too until a lot of time went by. We pretty much are the same in that area so I feel like I’ve met her.

STYLE

1. Scott O’Dell used many tools such as foreshadowing, there was actually a lot of that. For example through Ramos actions (being that he never listened when he should have) we could imagine that something was going to happen to him. For one he did not make it to the ship that left with all his family and friends on it causing Karana to jump off and go back for him. Also his death, he did not listen to his sister and the dogs took advantage of that.

2. Typically the author focused more on actions because those alone would help create a good description of what is going on at that moment and how people must be reacting. The effect on the book was that it made it more action packed and just more interesting because you can place yourself in that setting and perfectly see what is occurring at that moment.

3. The author tends to use foreshadowing to keep things interesting, considering the tone is mostly mysterious that really helps him. Helps keep the reader wondering about what is going to happen next.

4. Toward the subject I believe the author was nothing short of amazed, he can see that in the 1800’s women were seen as less superior and did not appear to be able to do something like this.

5. Now the author does not really offer resources but he does mention the real story title of what he based his book on, The Lost Women of San Nicolas. With that alone I can find the real story and get the real insights about that story.

ENDURING MEMORY

            With this book I can see that Karana took a big risk when she jumped off that ship, and this tells me that when you believe that something is right then the risk is well worth taking. This does relate to our current topic of taking risks and that when it’s the right decision it is worth taking. I found this important because we seem to live I fear of taking said risks and that we can’t seem to shake that fear. We are all afraid of the unknown. Such as now as a senior I am about ready to head off to college and stat a whole new life, which is one of the biggest risks any of us have to take. I do not think I’m ready but you know what it’s to do it now than later, I AM ready for it and I will not back down from it. 

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

Now in the soliloquy Hamlet talks about making his decision, he is so unsure about what he should do. If this were me in the situation then I would more than likely go through with the decision. I mean the only reason he is unsure is because he is afraid of what would happen afterwards and because he can't predict it he is scared of it. I do not work that way, if I know what the right decision is I will make that decision 90% of the time even if I don't know what will happen later. That is my decision, I would go through with the right decision.