Reading Journal: Brave New World (Chapters 13-18)

Questions about Brave New World:
1.  If John hadn't killed himself, could/would he have greatly affected the World State?
2.  What does Huxley want the reader to gain from John's actions?

Question about both Brave New World and 1984:
In our society today, could we become a world like ones in either of these stories?  Which one (both?)?

"Communist Utopia" by Thomas Hornung

Questions for blog:
1.  What about this painting indicates communism?
2.  What is the artist's view of communism?
3.  Explain the title.

Answers:
1.  The thing that strikes me as the most communist aspect of the painting is the abundance of eyes all around.  They are there to represent how the government (or power) is always watching you, always able to call you out if you do something wrong.  You're being monitored by it.
2.  The artist seems to view communism as a bad thing, established immediately by the colors he used.  Everything is painted with gray and black (except the eyes, of course).  This shows that the artist views a world with communism as a dull, depressing one.  He only paints the eyes with color, showing how the government is the only body within communism that benefits from it.
3.  The title represents the idea that with the government in complete control, everything in life will be perfect (a utopia).  It's sort of an ironic title, considering the artist's views communism as a bad thing.  I think the title is supposed to be read sarcastically, because the artist really thinks that the world he painted is a communist dystopia.

Reading Journal: Brave New World (Chapters 7-12)

My Questions:
1.  Why would the World State give the people of the reservation a chance to get out of their home to go to the World State?
2.  What's going to happen to people like Lenina if/when the World State runs out of soma?
3.  How would Lenina's reaction to John have been different if she wasn't so dependent on soma?

My Answers:
1.  While I was reading, I kept wondering why the World State would let people from the Reservation go to their (the World State) world.  Mustapha Mond says, in regards to having Bernard bring John and Linda with him, "Yes, I do find it of sufficient scientific interest.  Bring these two individuals back to London with you" (Huxley 150).  This was really the only insight that the readers gather about the reasoning behind letting Bernard take the two beings.  There are two options that I see as the World State's actual reasoning.  The first is that the people of the Reservation actually are of scientific interest, since no one really studies these beings.  The World State might be able to use them for some scientific purpose.  The second reason would be that there lies a hidden cause underneath their approval of letting people (like Bernard) take other people from the Reservation home with them.  Maybe that reason will be revealed later on in the book.
2.  Lenina is clearly extremely dependent on soma, as are many of the people in her society.  The reader has to wonder whether or not the nation will eventually run out of its means for making soma, since so many are in demand.  What is to become of the people without their soma?  Lenina constantly says, "Oh, I wish I had my soma!" and "I wish I had my soma!" when she doesn't have any with her (Huxley 125).  I think that maybe if she didn't have her soma, or didn't even know there was such a thing, she's be a lot stronger as a person (this is applicable to all of the characters who are always taking soma to block out the negativities of their lives).  She wouldn't be so dependent, and she might be able to face and handle her own problems, instead of drowning them out.
3.  "Drying her eyes, Lenina walked across the roof to the lift.  On her way to the twenty-seventh floor she pulled out her soma bottle.  One gramme, she decided would not be enough; hers had been more than a one-gramme affliction.  But if she took two grammes, she ran the risk of not waking up in time to-morrow morning.  She compromised and, inter her cupped left palm, shook out three half-gramme tablets" (Huxley 177).  This is what Lenina results to after she was "rejected" by John.  The quote describes how she measures and handles her grievances, which can give a good idea of how she handles every other problem in her life.  I think maybe if Lenina was not so dependent on the soma, she might be very strong and able to handle situations like these, as I stated before.  In this particular situation, I definitely think she would have persisted with John, maybe even tried to list reasons about why he should be with her, had she not been dependent on soma.  Lenina could be much stronger when dealing with John if she didn't resort to soma every time she had a problem.

"Don't You Want Me?" by the Human League

Questions:
1. What is the subject matter?
2. What is the difference in the two sides of the story?
3. With whom do you side and why?

Answers:
1.  The story is about a man who helped a woman reach success in her life.  Now that she's on top, he wants to be with her, but she doesn't want him.
2.  The man says, "Don't forget, it's me who put you where you are now," trying to remind the girl that without him, she wouldn't be on top.  He thinks he deserves her.  She, however, thinks that, "it's time I lived my life on my own," because she has moved on.  She also believes that, "I knew I'd find a much better place, either with or without you."
3.  I side with the man because the girl wouldn't be where she is without him.  He deserves her, and she completely overlooks him.  She doesn't appreciate the fact that he put her on top.  He says, "I picked you out, I shook you up, and turned you around, turned you into someone new."  She shouldn't leave him when he did so much for her.

Reading Journal: Brave New World (Chapters 1-6)

In the novel, equality is created with the castes that the government created.  People are randomly selected for each caste, and then they are conditioned to love the position they are in.  For example, babies are whispered pleasant things about their designated social class over and over again while they are sleeping (a process called, "hypnopaedia") so that they will love their class. On page 40, Beta babies are being whispered the words, "Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever.  I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard.  And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas.  Gammas are stupid.  They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki.  Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children.  And Epsilons are still worse.  They're too stupid to be able to read or write.  Besides, they wear black, which is such a beastly colour.  I'm so glad I'm a Beta."  Just like that, all people are conditioned to love their class, and their government as well.  Another thing that the author stresses in the first few chapters of the book to create equality is that people are not exactly treated like people.  They are more so identical products that are created in a factory.  Each person has their identity taken from them when they are being brought to life, because so many thousands of other people will be exactly like them.
The World State has reduced conflict and created happiness through, once again, the conditioning.  By conditioning everyone within a class to think the same way, no one will ever have any differing points of views.  Everyone thinks the same way about relationships.  Also, while they are being conditioned, because they are programmed to love their class and their government, they think that their lives are perfect, and they don't really see anything wrong with their given rights.  Everyone is happy, and no one has any arguments against the government.
From the point of view of someone reading about the story, the book clearly discusses a dystopia.  The readers can see that the government is abusing and limiting their citizens' rights (and a few select people in the book like Bernard and Helmholtz realize that they would rather be individuals).  However, because the citizens are content with their lifestyle, and the government has control over the people perfectly (for now?), this lifestyle could represent a utopia.  Everyone is happy, and no one tries to defy the government.  There is constant order in everyone's life.

Everyday Use

1.  Dee and Maggie are two sisters who grew up together, but have completely different personalities.  Dee is outgoing, but insanely stuck-up; she only cares about the things that she wants.  Maggie, however, is a shy, quiet girl who doesn't want (or get) as much as her sister.  I think Dee is more demanding because her mother always tried to give her exactly what she wanted.  Also, I think Dee feels superior to the other two because she thinks that she is smarter and better.  Walker incorporates this through the fact that Dee reads to people all the time, "[Dee] pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand" (258).

2.  Dee doesn't like the place she comes from.  She mocks it and insults it all the time.  In doing this, she is "othering" her own culture.  "This house is in a pasture, too, like the other one.  No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down.  She wrote me once that no matter where we 'choose' to live, she will manage to come see us" (Walker 259).  Dee hates her old life, and tries as hard as possible to do everything she can to disown herself from her past.  She thinks her new life is better.

3.  Throughout the story, Walker appears to be on Maggie's side.  Walker puts all of the changes Dee makes in bad light, not to mention that she puts Dee in a bad light.  She describes Dee so that Dee appears demanding, greedy, and inconsiderate.  For example, Walker states, after Dee's mother has just denied Dee something Dee wanted, "She gasped like a bee had stung her" (262).  Also, Walker decides to make the plot of the story have Maggie get the quilts that Dee wanted, so that shows her preference for Maggie's quiet, natural culture.

Ethnography

Questions for blog:
1.  What are the benefits of each perspective?  Is one perspective better than the other?
2.  Write a brief explanation for why these rules exist.

Answers:
1.  One perspective can tell the newcomers exactly how their society works so that they can understand.  The other can tell the people of the country exactly how they are being viewed.  I think the Emic perspective is especially important because it can explain a country's culture before the country can be judged.
2.  The rules of ethnography exist so that a person can do an ethnography without offending the people he or she is studying, as well as getting the most accurate information possible.

"Rain on the Scarecrow" by John Mellencamp

Questions for blog:
1.  What's this song about?
2.  What are some conflicts this song might address?
3.  Make a claim about Mellencamp's use of imagery/symbolism.
4.  Make a claim about Mellencamp's word choice.
5.  If this represents Mellencamp's opinion, who does he seem to favor?  What side of the conflict does he seem to be on? Support your answers from the text.

Answers:
1 and 2.  This song is about a family who lost their farm because they couldn't pay to keep it running.  The conflict is about how the narrator loses all that he knows (the farm).
3.  He describes a piece of the farm (the scarecrow) to resemble the farm as a whole.  The farm and the scarecrow are both defenseless and not seen to be worth much to most people.
4.  He uses words that you would hear down on the farm or in the country, like, "ol' hoss" and "I'll say a prayer for your soul tonight."
5.  He favors the farmers and the farm.  He uses the scarecrow to represent the farm, and how defenseless it is to the "blood," or the disaster to the farm.  The farm, or the "scarecrow on a wooden cross," can't provide anymore because the bank took it away (the people who owned the farm couldn't pay).

11/9/11

1.  The first passage's tone was suspenseful.  The reader can take this from such sentences as, "She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose.  A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward."  The second passage's tone was energetic.  The words "shouted," "sang," "wild," and "intense energy of movement" support this tone.  The third passage's tone was dark.  Phrases like "violently dilated nostrils" and "deathlike indifference of unhappy savages" support this tone.

2.  The first tone was appalled, but this switches to admiration.  The narrator mentions the "white man" to compare white men to the African people he had been describing earlier.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Question:
Why would the west manufacture an enemy?
Answer:
A country would do this to make it seem like that country is a better country than the enemy.  Also, it would provide a sense of unity among the people of the country.

Reading Journal: 1984 (Part 3)

It seems that Big Brother has won, in the end.  He wins because, even in his most fierce opponents, his thoughts and actions penetrate everyone's minds.  By this, I mean that everyone thinks that what the Party and Big Brother say are true, even those who had completely disagreed with him.  Those who do disagree will eventually agree with him through what happens in the Ministry of Love (the torturing and relearning of ideas).  Winston was won over in this manner, and he is completely different at the end of the book; he even thinks about how "true" the statement "2+2=5" appears (290).  The last thought we even hear about Winston is, "He loved Big Brother" (297). I think the way to start bringing the One State down lies in numbers.  Most people say that strength doesn't lie in numbers, but in this case it really does.  There need to be many anti-Party members before the One State can end.  Once you have more than 2/3 of the population of Oceania thinking rationally, then maybe you can begin considering the next step to defeating the Party.  In my opinion, that step would be to infiltrate the Thought Police, or the people who watch the telescreens.  Those people have an immense amount of control, and if rebels could have that power, they might be able to make great damage to the One State.  In the end, the Party will simply need to be overpowered by people who know better than to believe in their lies.
At the end of the book, Winston is completely changed by the Party.  When he was tortured by the rats in room 101 and called out for them to be given to Julia, it sparked the change in Winston.  After that and the days that he was relearning information, his very being was dedicated to the Party.  All of his thoughts were directed towards the victory of the Party, or the love of Big Brother.  In the last part of the novel, all Winston is even concerned about is whether or not Eurasia had been defeated.  Basically, Winston is brainwashed into exactly the type of person he had hated at the beginning of the book.

SOAPSTone-ing "Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out”

S—

            The subject of Dave Barry’s “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out” is the difference between what women and men are knowledgeable in.  This difference is illustrated through the stories that Dave Barry uses as examples.  For instance, his first story told of the time he tried to “clean the bathroom,” but failed his wife’s standards of cleaning.  He follows this up by talking about how men have more information about sports, “The opposite of the dirt coin, of course, is sports.  This is an area where men tend to feel very sensitive and women tend to be extremely callous.”

O—

            “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out” was written during today’s modern times.  The essay’s time of creation is displayed through the technology that the author talks about in the essay.  For instance, he mentions that a friend is having an event “during a World Series game.”  This is something that was developed earlier.  The probable place of the essay’s creation is the United States because some of the phrases the author uses are phrases only Americans would say.

            The time and place of the essay’s creation influence the essay because they both help define the author’s ideas of men and women more clearly.  Men and women of America tend to have separate activities, such as cleaning for women and watching sports for men.

A—

            Dave Barry’s audience for “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out” is really anyone with a big vocabulary who can understand the subject.  This audience is exhibited through the word choice of the essay; for example, the author says towards the beginning of the essay, “But somewhere during the growth process, a hormonal secretion takes place in women that enables them to see dirt that men cannot see, dirt at the level of molecules, where men don’t generally notice it until it forms clumps large enough to support agriculture.”  That quote shows that you need to understand a few topics before reading the essay, but it has enough humor in it so that middle and high school students could read and understand most, if not all, of this article.

P—

            Barry’s purpose in this essay is to inform about the different activities of men and women.  This is revealed through a couple of sentences throughout the paper: “This is one major historical reason why, to this very day men tend to do extremely little in the way of useful housework,” and, “The opposite of the dirt coin, of course, is sports.”  These quotes list the two discussions of the article: a woman’s ability to do housework and a man’s ability to know sports.

S—

            Barry, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, believes that most men cannot do housework.  This value is illustrated when he describes how he would “clean” a bathroom, “I ‘clean’ the bathroom, spraying Windex all over everything.”  He then later mentions how his wife did not even think he had cleaned the bathroom after using the Windex.  This supported the purpose because it informed the reader about how men are not suitable for doing housework.

            Barry, who worked for The Miami Herald, also believes that women don’t know much, if anything, about sports.  As he’s describing the party at a friend’s house—that was on the same day as a World Series game—he says that the women “were behaving as though nothing were wrong.”  His tone becomes impatient, and he describes how the men felt, sitting there, waiting to go watch the big game.  Eventually, the men all go watch it while the women still sit at the table to chat: “Soon all four of us were in there, watching the Annual Fall Classic, while the women prattled away about human relationships or something.  This again shows the difference between genders to the reader.

Tone—

Dave Barry depicts a humorous and witty attitude about the differences between men and women in “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out.”  These attitudes are expressed with using quotes such as “including the six hundred action figures each sold separately that God forbid Robert should ever take a bath without,” and “such as doing an important project on the Etch-a-Sketch.”  These express the tone by using sarcastic phrases like “God forbid,” or discussing “important projects” on the Etch-a-Sketch—neither of which seem very serious.  The tone serves the purpose of the essay because it gives the reader a funny way of remembering the differences between men and women.  The entire essay is funny and memorable, which allows the information to stick with the reader.

11/4/11--Love Language

Questions for blog:
1.  What were some of your assumptions during the video?
2.  How is this a cultural conflict?  What are the cultures, and what is the conflict?
3.  What's an example of external conflict from the video?
4.  What's an example of internal conflict from the video?
5.  How was the conflict resolved?

Answers:
1.  Some assumptions that could have been made were that she didn't want to talk to some random stranger on the bench.
2.  It is a cultural conflict because she is deaf and he is not, so they can't verbally speak to each other.
3.  An external conflict is that the two couldn't speak out loud to each other even though they (well, he) wanted to.
4.  An internal conflict is that maybe the guy felt rejected at first because she wouldn't talk to him.
5.  The conflict was resolved through the sticky notes; that was the way they communicated.  In the end, the girl told him she was deaf, and he told her that she was still beautiful.

10/28/11--"This Land Is Your Land" by Woodie Guthrie

Questions for blog:
1.  Is Guthrie's message individualistic or collectivistic?  Explain.
2.  Do you find this song to be pro-government or anti-government?  Explain.

Answers:
1.  His message is collectivistic because Guthrie is talking about how America is for everyone ("you and me").  He says that America was made specifically for all of the people.
2.  I think the song is anti-government because he is focusing more on the people--you and me.  He doesn't say, "This land was made for you and me and the government."  He also questions how good of a job the government is doing in the verse about how the people are all hungry.  Guthrie wonders whether the government is trying to preserve the land for "you and me," or if they're focusing more on themselves.

Reading Journal: 1984 (Part 2)

Winston has a difficult time believing ("swallowing") the Party's lies.  I think the main reason for this is because of his memories of the times before the Party as well as his memories of some facts before the Party changed them.  He remembers what life was like before the Party interfered, so when the Party tells the citizens of Oceania that the literacy rate has improved, or that everyone has better food and shelter, he can question whether that's the truth or not.  Also, when the Party changes facts (for example, when the Party vaporizes somebody and afterwards that person presumably never existed), Winston can't help but be conscious of what the facts really are, instead of what the Party made them to be.  I don't think that his "acts of defiance" are forms of normal protesting, but rather forms of personal, internal protesting.  This is because he isn't openly defying the Party to anyone but himself--the journal was kept to himself, his beliefs were kept to himself, his questioning was kept to himself.  Although he shared some of these things with Julia, it wouldn't be protesting because she is against the Party as well.
Compared to acts of rebellion today, Winston's acts might seem small.  However, what people do today is show discontent with certain aspects of their lives, which is exactly what Winston does.  Occupy Wall Street shows how people don't like the distribution of taxes; Winston's writings show how he doesn't like the new life the Party created for him.
Our society definitely has quite a long way to go before we reach an Orwellian society.  Our government mostly takes in the opinions of what the people want, while an Orwellian society focuses strictly on the government and its oppression of the people.

The Egg

Questions for blog:
1.  What kind of man was the narrator's father before he married?  What changes did he undergo after marriage?
2.  How does the narrator feel about and view chickens?
3.  Why does the narrator claim to have had trouble, even as a child, being happy?  What are we to make of the narrator's supposed gloominess and cautions against optimism?
4.  What role does the father's collection of "grotesques" play in the story?
5.  After abandoning chicken farming and going into the restaurant business, what decision does the father make regarding his personality and behavior?  What is wrong with this decision and what happens as a consequence of it?
6.  What is the meaning of the narrator's statement at the end of the story about "the complete and final triumph of the egg?"

Answers:
1.  He was a cheerful, kind man who didn't know much of power or ambition.  After he married, all he thought of was rising in his position in the world.
2.  The narrator thinks chickens are pointless.  They are a symbol of his gloomy childhood, so he thinks negatively of them.
3.  He claims to have had trouble being happy because he lived on a chicken farm, which was caused by his parents' ambition.  We are probably supposed to think that he doesn't veer towards optimism because he knows that if you aim too high, you might fall short of your expectations.
4.  The "grotesques" are metaphors for how all different people use or treat the lower class.
5.  The father decides that he needs to start entertaining his customers and being more "pleasing."  This decision doesn't suit him because he's not good at entertaining, and it pushes people away from his restaurant.
6.  "The complete and final triumph of the egg" means that the "egg" that had caused his life so much trouble just won the battle in the end.  Basically, the grief and trouble beat him.

10/26/11--American Friendships

Question for blog:
"I have heard many international newcomers say (in the US) that American friendships are superficial.  They say Americans do not know what true friendship is; they seem very friendly at first, but the friendships do not grow."  What could be a reason why Americans are perceived this way?

Answer:
Americans tend to be perceived this way probably because Americans are thought of to be more independent than most people from other cultures.  It is probably thought that instead of turning to our close friends, we try to do things on our own or with the help of people who are not as close to us as our friends because of our pride.  However, this is definitely not true in all cases (on in most, really).  Most Americans do look to their friends and family for help, myself included.

10/21/11--"2+2=5" by Radiohead

Questions for blog:
1. What is this song talking about lyrically?
2.  How does the music mirror or help push the message?
3.  The title is an allusion to 1984.  Explain the connection.

Answers:
1.  The lyrics discuss how what a power/authority says is always "right."  In other words, people have to follow what the power says, even if what it says doesn't make sense.  The power has the control.
2.  The listener can't always understand what the music is saying (meaning, he or she can't HEAR the lyrics), which mirrors that what the authority always says can't always be understood.
3.  In 1984, the narrator mentions that the Party could tell everyone that 2+2=5, and they would have to believe it.  The connection is that the people under the authority have to believe the authority, without question, even though the authority makes no sense.

10/24/11--Collectivist vs. Individualist Cultures

Questions for blog:
1. In a collectivist culture, what personality traits are likely to be considered ideal?  What about in an individualist culture?
2.  In some societies, your opinion is less likely to be challenged if you're the oldest in your family or if you have a PhD with the most published books in your university.  From the other side of the conflict, you may not feel free to assert yourself with such a person if your status is near the bottom of the group.  In what type of culture might this be true? Explain.
3.  Create a specific problem a teacher may encounter when he/she moves from teaching in a collectivist culture to an individualist culture or vice versa.  Explain what specific values caused the clash.  Propose a way for the conflict to be resolved.
4.  What is an acquaintance?  Does the word have a positive or negative connotation?

Answers:
1.  People from collectivist cultures are likely to appreciate people with team working skills and selflessness.  People from individualist cultures are likely to appreciate people who are independent and assertive (people that can take care of themselves).
2.  This would be true in an individualist society because the person at the top and the person at the bottom don't affiliate with each other; they don't work with each other.  Because they work for themselves, this would be individualistic.
3.  When a teacher from a collectivistic culture tries to teach students from an individualistic culture, she wants to have everyone participate in several group activities.  However, when the students are put into groups, generally one person from person from each group tries to take over the assignment.  The values of the teacher are that everyone should work together, while the students just care about their grades, individually.  This could be solved if the teacher would go around the class to make sure everyone is working.
4.  An acquaintance is someone you know, but not necessarily someone you would hang out with or do things with.  The word has a neutral connotation, generally, because it doesn't mean you like or dislike the person, necessarily, like the words "friend" and "enemy."

10/19/11--Islam, Globalization and Gender

Questions for blog:
1. Identify the conflict.  Is this an internal or external conflict?
2. How/why does globalization create conflict?  In the speaker's opinion, globalization has flown in only one direction.  What does she mean by this?
3. Although the speaker feels globalization has been one-sided, she notes there has been one benefit related to the process.  What benefit does she mention?
4. The speaker says Muslims and Westerners live by/are obligated to two different sources of truth.  What two sources (two texts) does she mention?

Answers:
1. The conflict deals with the issue of the headscarf and how different people view it and the women who wear it.  This is an external conflict because it involves multiple people/nations.
2. Globalization creates conflict because when different cultures are trying to share ideas with one another, there will be some difference of opinion on certain things.  She means that it is only flowing in one direction in that only one culture is taking in parts of the other (the other culture is biased).
3. She says that globalization has opened up a lot of role models.  It released different ideas of what it means to be a woman.
4.  Westerners live by the U.S. Constitution, and Muslims live by the Qur'an.

Reading Journal: 1984 (Part 1)

There are several elements that dictate what a utopia is.  The book 1984, written by George Orwell, addresses most of these elements just within the first section of the story.  In the story, the people of a new nation, Airstrip One, built from what used to be England, are run by a demanding power.  This power, known as "The Party," (run by a man named "Big Brother") enforces many rules and regulations--but not laws, "nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws" (page 6)--to keep its citizens in conformity.  The main thing that the Party did was remove the people's rights, especially the right to privacy.  Placed in everyone's home was a "telescreen," which received and transmitted sight and sound simultaneously so that "there was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment," (page 3).  Also, the Thought Police made sure that no one committed "thoughtcrime," which is basically what it sounds like: illegal thinking (primarily against the Party or Big Brother).  All the people of Airstrip One are expected to live by the same beliefs as the Party, and especially the Party's motto: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

The Party used all of these things and more to limit conflict in the nation.  Though religion is not necessarily discussed, believing in the Party is so enforced that it is practically a new religion altogether.  In fact, one woman cried out that Big Brother was her "savior."  Relationships are greatly restricted to the point where love and friendship no longer exist in Airstrip One.  Few people get married, and those who do don't marry for what people used to marry for (love, trust, etc.).  As mentioned previously, under the Party, the people's right to choose pretty much vanished from existence.  Everyone is required to follow all Party beliefs and practices or else they are killed (children of the newest generation in the book love to go to public hangings).

Overall, the people go along with what the Party says and does.  They are told that what they have is the standard "happy" life, and for the most part, people believe it.  This new society is definitely a dystopian society.  The Party is in complete control, and they run every single person's life.  All of the rights people are supposed to be born with are taken away by the Party and Big Brother.  Though some (both Party members and normal citizens) consider all that the Party does for the greater good, these methods are really just turning the nation into a terrible place.

10/11/11--"Utopia"

Questions for blog:
1. What is a utopia?
2. What is your ideal world? Explain.
3. What type of music would be the soundtrack for your utopia?

Answers:
1. A utopia is an area that contains not just life, but some sort of structure that governs life.
2. My ideal world is a world in which violence doesn't exist.  This would be a perfect world because wars wouldn't exist, and if countries were to feud, it could be solved without killing many people.  There wouldn't be any mass murders, homicides, etc.  That would be perfect because people wouldn't suffer from the actions of other people against them.
3. The music would all be peaceful to encourage non-violence.

10/6/11--"Chuck Baird"

Questions for blog:
1.  Make a claim about the artist's voice.  Support with facts.
2.  Identify a culture within these paintings.
3.  Write a claim you could make about this culture based on the paintings.

Answers:
1.  The artist has a creative voice.  We know this because he uses lots of bright colors in his paintings.
2.  The artist's culture group is expressionists.
3.  The artist's culture involves being creative, expressing himself, and using emotion.  All of the paintings have bright colors, which can represent his tendency towards expression.  Also, the two paintings with faces have faces with emotion (one is saying "I love you," and the other looks surprised or shocked).

"You Were Right" by Built to Spill

Questions for blog:
1.  Make an inference about the lyrical content of the song and explain it.
2.  Write one analytical statement about the musical content of the song and explain/support it.
3.  Make one evaluative statement about the song's overall effectiveness and support it.

Answers:
1.  The lyrics are describing how the artist feels about music.  Music has taught him all of these different things ("everything's gonna be alright," "all that glitter's isn't gold," "you can't always get what you want," etc.), and he is describing what themes in songs were right and wrong.  He uses these allusions to other song in order to do this.  For example, he says that, "you (the music) were wrong when you said everything's gonna be alright," and that, "you (the music) were right when you said we are all just bricks in the wall."  The second halves of both lines were allusions to other songs that taught him lessons.
2.  The musical content of the song sounds very painful, highlighting the lyrics.  The drums and the bass guitar are loud, and the lyrics are discussing how life isn't always fair and you can't always get what you want.
3.  The song has a strong meaning, and the lyrics support it well.  The artist wants you to think about these other songs, and using the lyrics of the other songs forces you to consider what they mean.  You can't escape the other lyrics.

The Steps of the Reading Process

Before beginning to analyze the actual book or essay itself, start by analyzing the title, the author, where the work was published, and when the work was published.  The title could possibly state the thesis, the author might state the potential subject, where it was published can determine an audience, and when it was published tells potential reliability and possible language of the essay.

When you start to read an essay, glimpse at the essay entirely before dissecting it.  Also, it is good to have a pencil or pen to annotate, so you can remember questions you have while reading or words you don't understand.  For lengthy responses to go along with annotations, use a separate sheet of paper or a journal for your thoughts.

Once you've read the essay, summarizing what you have just read is a good way to make sure you understand it.  Next, one needs to do some critical thinking in order to harness your knowledge and experiences to evaluate the essay.  In doing this, one discusses the author's purpose (exactly what the author is saying).  Critical thinking is divided into several operations: analysis, inference, synthesis, and evaluation.  Analysis involves classifying and comparing the essay.  Inference involves forming conclusions and discovering the author's assumptions based on your knowledge, experience, and analysis.  Synthesis involves linking elements of the essay into a whole idea (or ideas) using your aptitudes, interests, and training so that the idea will then contain your sense of the elements' relationships.  Evaluation involves judging the quality and forming an opinion on an essay.

"Young Life" Claims

Question for blog:  Make three claims about this painting, and have one fact to support each.

Answers:
1. Claim: The artist thinks that families who hunt are tough.
Fact: The expressions of the people are hard, and they display a tough personality.

2. Claim: The woman is the man's girlfriend or wife.
Fact: She has her arms wrapped around the man affectionately.

3. Claim: The man killed the deer.
Fact: The man is holding a gun, and the deer is lying dead behind him.

Claim 1 paragraph:
The artist of "Young Life" believes that families who hunt for fun are generally tough.  The viewers of this painting can gather this information from the people's expressions in the picture.  The man has a very serious, firm look on his face, and the boy's expression resembles the man's.  Another way to see the toughness of this hunter family is in the way the males stand.  The older of the two is standing tall, making sure you can see his gun.  The young boy is in a defensive stance, holding the stick up as though it were his own gun to make sure the viewer knows that he can defend himself.  All of these factors depict one word: tough.

"Shame" by the Avett Brothers

Questions for blog:
1.  Decide what the subject and tone of the song are.
2.  Choose three words whose connotation affects the tone of the piece and explain how.

Answers:
1.  The subject of this song is the shame that accompanies the artist's realization of his previous actions.  The tone was disappointing.
2. a) Untender:  This word describes how the artist was treating his girl.  It is disappointing because the artist shouldn't have done it, but he didn't realize that until after he already had.
    b) Strutted:  This word describes how the artist was acting around his girl.  He "strutted," or acted with arrogance.  It is disappointing for the same reason: the artist could have changed this action but didn't.
    c) Shame:  This word describes how the artist felt after he had lost his girl.  He realizes that everything he did was despicable, and so he feels shameful, which brings about more disappointment.

"American Tongues"

Questions for Blog:
1.  In your opinion, what is voice in literature?
2.  How does a person create his voice when writing?  Is creating voice an intentional or unintentional act?  Is it both?  Explain.
3.  Many people in Eastern Kentucky talk around a subject.  According to the speaker, why do they do this?  What can we learn about a writer from the way he/she approaches/handles a topic?
4.  Whether it is in fiction of nonfiction, why is voice important in writing?

Answers:
1.  Voice is the way a speaker sounds, or the way a speaker's words come across to others.
2.  A person creates their voice by choosing words or phrases that they would actually say out loud in the position of the main character (or themselves, for essays).  I think it can be intentional, but most of the time it's unintentional.  It's intentional when a person is trying to fix their writing to make it sound different or more accurate.  It's unintentional when we just write as we normally would.
3.  They talk around subjects because it's the way everyone else talks, and they don't know how to talk in any other way.  We can learn whether or not an author directly approaches a subject or not.
4.  Voice is important because an author has to get their purpose across through it.  For example, if one needed to persuade someone of something in writing, he or she would want to sound professional and direct.  As another example, if an author was trying to write from a different time period, he or she would want to use words and phrases from that time period.

"Eleanor Rigby" vs. "Eleanor Rigby"

Questions for blog:
1. Which of these do you like better? Why?
2. Which of these is more pleasing to listen to? Why?

Version one=cover
Version two=original

Answers:
1. I definitely liked the second version better than the first version of Eleanor Rigby. For one thing, that is the version I'm used to hearing. Also, the first version sounded like people screaming, not like singing.  That sound turns me away from wanting to listen to the song
2. The second version of the song was more pleasing because it was much more soothing.  The first version sounded harsh, and it produced a painful sound.  The artist screamed, and that generally doesn't please a person's ears.  The Beatles are the original creators of the song, and the other people took the original sound and warped it.  The other band isn't a "master" of its craft.

Wassily Kandinsky vs. Jackson Pollack

Questions for blog:
1. Which of these paintings do you like better? Why?
2. Which of these is more pleasing to look at? Why?
Answers:
1.  I liked the Kandinsky painting much better because there were brighter colors and more space.
2.  The Kandinsky painting is far more pleasing to look at because there are bright colors in his painting, but in Pollack's painting, there are only shades of brown, white, and black.  The more varieties of colors there are, the more appealing a painting is to the eye.  It makes the art seem happier and more cheerful.

9/9/11--"Sign Language"

Questions for blog:
1.  What single effect did you get from this short film?
2.  Give three specific things that led you to that single effect.
3.  If you could change one aspect of the film, what would it be, and how would that change the film's single effect?

Answers:
1.  The single effect that is portrayed from the film is optimism.
2.  a) His friends held up the signs at the end that encouraged him to talk to the girl.
     b) Ben describes his friends with nice, quality adjectives when they do not appear to be so.  It seemed as though he had faith in his friends when they appeared to be slightly hopeless.
     c) At the end, Ben goes up to talk to the girl.
3.  If you took out the music in the film, it would completely change the atmosphere.  The music was uplifting and happy, and it made a busy, crowded London street seem calm.  The feeling/effect of the story would change for the worse; without the music, the optimism of the story would be removed.

SOAPSTone-ing "Shooting an Elephant"

S—

            The subject of George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” is how people are forced to act by the expectations of others.  The way most people act is illustrated through the choice the policeman made to kill the elephant because of the bystanders that we watching.  When he chose to shoot the elephant, he was choosing the people watching over the animal’s life—all so that he would not look like a fool in front of the crowd.

O—

            “Shooting an Elephant” was written in 1936.  The story’s time of creation is displayed through the language of the text; the speaker spoke in a different form of English than what is used in modern times.  For example, the policeman doesn’t use contractions, but instead always says “could not” or “does not.”  Also, he uses very uncommonly used words such as “roundabout.”  The probable place of the story’s creation is Burma.  The readers know this because the policeman constantly refers to the natives in the story as “the Burmans.”

            The time and place of the story’s creation influence the story by showing the days where Britain still owned Burma.  The readers can infer this because of how the policeman talks about the natives; he says, regarding how natives treat him and other Europeans, “As a [European] police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so.”

A—

            George Orwell’s specific audience for “Shooting an Elephant” is people who choose their appearance over what is right.  The author’s target audience is identified through the policeman’s intentions to kill the elephant.  This reveals the target audience because it shows that the author is trying to get through to those people who choose appearance by using emotional appeal, as well as the unsaid question, “Would you kill an elephant to please people?”  Orwell is showing the audience how they appear to others when they make the choices that they do, simply for their peers’ approvals.

P—

            Orwell’s purpose in this story is to show that one should not make decisions based on what others want; he or she should base their choices on what is right.  This purpose is illustrated with the mindset of the policeman.  For example, the man thinks, “I did not in the least want to shoot [the elephant],” but then he changes his mind after he sees the crowd waiting for him to shoot, “And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly.”  These two quotes show that when being pressed by people, one will easily do anything to please them, because the man’s original intent was simply to let the elephant go.  However, when the crowd was waiting for him to shoot, he felt obligated to do so.

S—

            George Orwell, who died at age 46, believed that what the British were doing in 1936 against Burma was wrong.  This value is illustrated by his reference to imperialism as an “evil thing.”  He used this term early on in the story to refer to the British Empire and continued to illustrate them as oppressors throughout the story.

            Orwell, who used a pen name (his real name was Eric Allan Blair), also believes that local British law enforcement were pushed by the will of the Burman natives.  As the narrator stood there with the rifle in his hands, he realized he “was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those” native Burmans.  The man with the gun should have been in charge, rather than the crowd that surrounded him.

Tone—

            George Orwell articulates a frustrated and conflicted attitude about how people are forced to act by the expectations of others in “Shooting an Elephant.”  These attitudes are expressed by his frustration with the way the policeman is sneered at, insulted, and assaulted.  His conflicted feelings as to whether or not to shoot the elephant are really a projection of his opposition of the British rule of these people.

"Good Old Desk"

Questions for blog:
1. SOAPSTone the song.
2. What is he talking about?

Answers:
1-
S- God
O- 1972-1973
A- People in need of comfort
P- To show that people can rely on God for anything because He will always be there for you
S- Himself
Tone- Comforting, hopeful, and joyful
2. The artist is referring to the idea that God will always be there for you if and when you need Him.
     examples of when this is shown:
a) "My old desk never needs a rest."
b) "Such a comfort to know, it's dependable and slow."
c) "My old desk isn't picturesque, but it's happy as a desk can be."

8/31/11--"The Runaway"

Question for Blog:
Create an intro paragraph for the following thesis statement:  Rockwell's "The Runaway" overlooks the fundamental rift that was rising in America throughout the 1950s--an emerging counter culture that was not concerned with how things were in America, but rather how they are.

Answer:
The time of the 1950s was right after a major war—World War II.  Soldiers were coming home, and America was rejoicing over the end of those hard times.  The culture of America was changing rapidly; instead of looking back on the past, people were looking forward to the future.  In "The Runaway" by Norman Rockwell, the boy was doing just that—by running away.  He was trying to create a new life for himself, as so many people of that time were doing after the war.  Rockwell's "The Runaway" overlooks the fundamental rift that was rising in America throughout the 1950s--an emerging counter culture that was not concerned with how things were in America, but rather how they are.

8/30/11--"Across the Universe"

Questions for blog:
1.  Identify three images in this song.
2.  Are any of the images also symbols?  If so, explain.
3.  Explain one symbol that you know to be a symbol.

Answers:
1.  a) "Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup."
    b) "Pools of sorrow, waves of joy,"
    c) "Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box."
2/3.  The third image can be perceived as a symbol for the writer's mind—his thoughts are always mixed up and flying around in his head.  His ideas are always jumbled, and they're always waiting to be spoken, just as the wind is ready to be let out of the letter box.

8/26/11--"Inspiration Information"

Questions for blog:
1.  What is the overall feel of this piece?
2.  What musical elements put off that feel/vibe?
3.  Identify the choices you think the musician had to make to get this feel and explain why they worked.

Answers:
1.  The feel of the song is relaxed, slow, and calm.
2.  The tempo is not too fast, which helps support the slow, relaxed feel of the song.  Also contributing to this are the instruments used in the song (the guitar, the drum's beat, etc.), which make the music calm.
3.  The musician chose the tempo to be relatively slow, as well as choosing the instruments, to give off the calm nature of the song.  They worked well because the finished product produced an overall relaxed sound.

"Semeadores" by Diego Rivera

Questions for blog:
1.  SOAPSTone the painting.
2.  What is the meaning/theme/big idea the artist wanted you to think about?  Support your answer with artistic choices he made (i.e. color, style, subject, position, etc.).

Answers:
1. S-The subjects of "Semeadores" are the two workers.
O-This painting depicts the times of hardship for the working class.
A-The audience is both the working class and the upper class.
P-The purpose is to show the working class's rough jobs and the hardships of their work.
S-The speaker (the voice of the painting) is the working class.
Tone-Rivera shows a demanding and rough tone.
2.  The meaning of the painting is that the working class has tough, nearly back-breaking jobs that most people cannot escape.  The artist shows this in the people's feet, which are sunken into the ground, showing that they can't get away from their work.  Also, he does not give the people facial features, which shows that their identities are lost to their jobs.

The Writing Process

Questions for blog:
1. Summarize Wilco's approach to creating a song.
2. What is your creative process for writing?
3. Explain in detail the steps you go through.
4. If you have no process then why not? Be specific.

Answers:
1. They take a song and deconstruct it in pieces to see what they can change to make it a better piece of music.  For example, they might test the song without certain instruments to see how it sounds and what they can change to make it sound better than before.
2/3. First, I start off by writing the topic sentence for the entire essay.  I pick out what each paragraph is going to be about, and use those topics to create a thesis.  Once I have a thesis created, I work on each paragraph individually to find what details I need to add to support it.  After each paragraph has supporting details, I work on the wording of my sentences.  After everything is written, I edit my grammar and wording twice, and then I am done.
4. I have a process. (^^^)

American Graffiti Songs and Nostalgia

Questions for blog:
1.  What is nostalgia?
2.  What images come to mind when you hear this music (be specific and paint a clear picture)?
3.  What images pop in your head when you think of your childhood?  What smells, sounds, and feelings are associated with these images?

Answers:
1.  Nostalgia involves a longing for times and things from one's past.
2.  When I hear these songs, I think of the musicals "Grease" and "Hairspray."  From the first song, I especially was reminded of the scene from "Grease" where everyone is at the high school dance, twisting and dancing.
3.  When I think of my childhood, I think of my old pink and purple bedroom, stuffed animals, playing games with my younger cousin, playing on the playground with my elementary school friends, and going to my neighborhood pool.  I associate the smell of chlorine with memories from my old neighborhood pool.  I associate the sound of the Scooby Doo theme song with the memories of me and my cousin playing together.  Finally, I associate the wall color of different rooms with my old room in Atlanta.

The Pinch of Poverty

Questions for blog:
1. What are the major contributing factors to poverty?
2. How does this artist portray poverty?
3. What is the artist's message about poverty?
4. Identify and explain two elements of art that enhance the message.

My responses:
1. Some of the factors that contribute to poverty are the lack of money, housing, food, and most of the things people need for survival (a job, for instance).
2. The artist portrays poverty negatively because he uses dark colors in the setting and in the people's clothing.  Also, the expressions on the members of the family are sad and discouraging.  All of these things combined create a rather morbid scene.
3. The artist's message about poverty is that no matter how innocent a family or person is, poverty can affect anyone.
4. (1) The artist uses mostly black, white, and gray colors.  This signifies the gloominess of poverty that the artist is trying to point out.
    (2) The artist makes most of the people in the picture look sickly, which makes them appear to be very helpless and vulnerable.  This shows the innocence of the people who are in poverty in the picture.

"Live Free and Starve" and "The Singer Solution to World Poverty"

Question for blog:  Read "Live Free and Starve" and "The Singer Solution to World Poverty."  Write a blog contrasting the authors' opinions.  Address your possible reader bias, and analyze each argument, ultimately agreeing or disagreeing with each argument or parts of each argument.  Don't forget to use specific quotes to support your opinion and your analysis of each article.

Answer:  In the article "Live Free and Starve," Banerjee Divakaruni writes about a bill that Congress passed that prohibits "the import of goods from factories where forced child labor was used."  Her opinion on this is that if we did not buy the goods from these types of factories, we would not be helping to pay for the survival of the child workers.  Basically, the only options for these children are child labor (with the benefits of clothing, food, pay, etc.) or starvation and poverty.  I can agree with Divakaruni on a few levels; I think that children do need things that will help them survive.  However, I don't think it is right to endorse factories with problems that good impact the health of a child.  The author even says, "These children... spend their days in dark, ill-ventilated rooms doing work that damages their eyes and lungs."  My suggestion, instead of keeping on with buying goods from factories with an unhealthy workspace, we should make sure that the factory workers are in a safe, healthy environment to work in.  Because I normally like to help people, I am biased more towards giving people the best of both (in this case, all) worlds--clothing, food, and pay, as well as a healthy environment to work in.

In the article "The Singer Solution to World Poverty," Peter Singer has one overall theme:  give money to the countries with a great amount of poverty.  In fact, he drives this point home so far that he actually offended me while I was reading this.  In an almost commercial fashion, Singer says flat out (several times), "I trust that many readers will reach for the phone and donate... $200.  Perhaps you should do it before reading further."  Although I agree that donating money to people in countries who can't have as many things as Americans is the right thing to do, I would not want to make people feel guilty about not doing so.  Throughout the reading, all I could think about was how bad I felt about myself not giving money to these people.  I understand it if Singer was simply saying that Americans might want to donate a certain amount of money once or twice, but he suggests that people need to keep on donating.  Eventually, Singer's argument became repetitive, using the same "you-need-to-feel-guilty-about-this" argument over and over.  I definitely have a bias against this article because I dislike commercialism, and this felt like a written commercial to me.  Also, being Americans, we don't appreciate it when someone can make us feel guilty about certain things.  This would be another one of my biases; I don't enjoy being insulted, therefore, I was completely against the author.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti--"Round and Round"

Today in our English class, we listened to the song "Round and Round" by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti.  We were asked to pick out two musical facts from this song.  My first was that there were drums used in this song.  At the end of the song, the singers were singing in a cappella.  After we listed our two facts, we were then asked to come up with an opinion on this song.  Personally, I did not enjoy the song very much because it did not serve much of a purpose, and I could not understand what the lyrics were throughout the entire song.
Question for blog:  How do your musical facts influence your opinion?  What is the correlation between what you picked out and your opinion?  Do you have bias?  If so, explain.
Answer:  Looking at the two facts that I gathered from this song, only one of them had an impact on my opinion of the song.  Although there were drums in the song, they were not the reason why I didn't particularly enjoy this song; they don't cause or change my already-standing opinion of "Round and Round."  However, the a cappella fact does influence my opinion of this song.  Normally, I like a cappella singing, but because I couldn't understand what the lyrics were when the a cappella was being sung, I did not enjoy it.  This lowered my taste for this song even further, considering that when you can hear the lyrics in a cappella, it usually sounds very beautiful.
I do have a bias against this song, because for one thing, this isn't my preferred genre of music.  I'm not used to this style, which makes me not want to listen to it too much.  Also, I did not dislike the singers' voices, but I did not take much pleasure in listening to them, which has the same effect as the previous bias listed.