joanne’s blog

1. Well of course my opinion on the story changed as I read on! That family is crazy! It first seemed like they were just a normal family and almost literally just good country people then you suddenly find out theres a 15 year old pregnant girl and a girl with fake legs. The fake legged girl got her leg taken away as a joke towards the end and thats where I was kind of saying to myself wow I wonder how the author really thought of the storyline for his writing.

2. Initially I felt angry because of that stupid boy. Honestly who would do that to someone. She was dependent on those legs and the boy was really creepy talking about how he stole a woman’s eye!

3. Their names were literal to their personalities in the story. They both had a good relationship with each other and Mrs. Hopewell would give hope to Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Freeman’s name matched her because she didn’t depend on other people and kind of did things herself. The name change suggests that the Joy girl was actually not so happy.

4. They seem to gossip about a lot of people and to me personally almost seem like they think they know more than they actually do about the lives of people. They seem to compare themselves to everyone to make themselves sound better.

5. She learns that she has many flaws and that there are dangerous people in the world that she needs to watch out for in case something like this happens again.

6. O’Connor seems to admire Mrs. Hopewell because she makes her seem like someone who can provide hope to others and make them feel better about themselves. He seems to make fun of Hulga by making her go through such bad situations and giving her a bad situation to start off with and a terribly unhappy personality.

7. The religous value seem to go along more of a conservative belief and to not judge a book by its cover, not to sound cliche hehe.

8. This one is a little weird but in Good Country People the author uses the misfortunes and oddities of actual people to make it funny while in the other story she just uses one person to make humor throughout the story.

9. Well the use of satire kind of helps to move a character along and help them change as a person as the story progresses making the person seem more alive. It’s ok to use satire on a topic that won’t offend many people and isn’t outright saying something terrible about a specific problem.

The reason I chose my first poem “Can’t” is because it is a very inspirational poem and has such a good meaning behind it. The words seem to really flow easily through my mind and I really enjoyed reading it. Through out my life my father is constantly saying “can’t” is not a word never give up and never to lose hope. I have quitting and people who quit on themselves. Also this poem seems like it could help someone boost them self up in a positive way. Although I always see “can’t” as an almost imaginary word the poem gave me a whole new perspective to it. This poem described “can’t” in a way that I can relate and also it seems passionate and truthful about what the author sees the word “can’t” represents. The poem talks about how you should literally hate the word “can’t”, the author even goes as far to say,” Despise it with all of your hatred of error; refuse it the lodgment it seeks in your mind”(Guest).

Now the next poem I chose was pretty much purely for fun. The animal that I adore most in the world is the penguin. It really doesn’t matter to me which type of penguin it is as long as it is a penguin. Even since I was teeny tiny I loved everything about penguins from their waddle to their appearance to the way that they ate fish haha. Although the author of my poem is unknown I loved in the Penguin Parade poem when it said, “With a rock n’ roll; Penguins go parading; on a wintry stroll.” This part of the poem just makes me imagine cute little penguins waddling along just loving life. So these are my reasons for the choosing of my second poem.

“Penguin Parade.” Penguins and Poem Songs. Unknown. 19 May 2008
<http://www.dcrafts.com/penguinpoems.htm>.

Guest, Edgar A. “Can’t.” Inspirational Poems. 1930. Pinkpoem Inspirational. 19 May 2008
<http://www.pinkpoem.com/inspirationalpoems/be-optimistic/cant.html>.

All the book covers have the fire and destroyed books theme to them. They all also use the colors red, orange, and yellow prevalently. By using this time of cover theme the reader will know or at least have a small mental image of what in the book is yet to come. The more well rounded student may be able to tell just from the cover of 451 that the temperature is the amount of heat needed to burn an actual book.

The cover that had the most impact on me would be the upper right corner cover with the pages of books shaped into the form of a man. This one had the most intense impression because of the fact that the books resembled man. By doing this to me at least it showed how man itself was being destroyed by destroying the knowledge that man has created in the first place. The colors that contrast with the white show some fierce pain. The way that the figure is covering it’s face from the flame also shows how it is helpless to save itself and needs some form of aid. This cover seems to show pain and no matter how many times I looked at the other covers this one still had my eye constantly lingering on it. To me the cover that I chose seems to be one of the most simple designs out of the selections but somehow it seems to convey such a powerful message I can not forget it.

    Eighner’s first paragraph starts off by talking about what he likes to dumpster dive for and he tells how to do it and what good could come from it. He shows how he is telling his personal experiences and how someone else could survive from what he tells them. He then talks about how he goes to certain dumpsters that usually have the best foods and how he uses different strategies to get what he wants. Later Eighner talks about how he has to pick out which things he wants to keep from dumpsters and what things aren’t necessary which teaches people who read this essay what are important. By giving people details on how to dig through dumpsters for useful things Eighner is pretty much giving a “how to” essay so that others could use his essay as a means of a manual of some sort. In the end of his essay he talks about how he learns a lot about a person through their trash but not to judge them based on their garbage. In a weird way he is teaching the readers to respect a person and not judge them on what they find in their trash. This last part shows how he can be benevolent and caring although he is someone who digs through people’s garbage for a living.

HOW TO:

One of my hobbies is to make paper origami cranes. To me this helps me relax and relieve stress. It is something that never changes no matter how many times you do it and the more you practice the cleaner your folds become and the better your overall crane is. Origami teaches you how to pay attention to close detail and really appreciate the small aspects of life. By just sitting down and taking the time to do something like this you get to have a breather from the fast paced world around you. At first making an origami crane is hard and you may want to give up. By trying and trying until you get it you learn persistence and how to not give up just because of a challenge. Every time I just sit down and make a crane I consistently get better. Although now I can make a paper crane like clock work I still have not lost the appreciation for each fold that it takes to make the full bird. By learning how to do this a person can learn patience and respect for small details. Through origami I have learned that one tiny little fold could make a difference.

    Arguments: Americans feel like they look as if they are not busy enough if they take afternoon naps, the most active presidents took naps frequently and the less active slept on a normal schedule, naps can lead to 4 am insomnia, naps can help you wake up refreshed and re energized after a short amount of time.

I believe that the essay strategy was to go back and forth between how naps were good and bad for you. Holland is constantly saying one thing about naps that ends up defending them but then says something that goes against naps. This kept the essay interesting to me and actually made me think about whether naps were good or bad.

I overall loved her essay it was humorous and interesting and had me reading line after line. A way that would have made it better to me was if she put in some of her own life accounts well at least a few more of them so that I could see her personal experiences a little more.

I agree with Holland and believe that naps are good and bad. Yes I love naps and take them all the time to regain the sleep that I may not have acquired the previous night but at the same time if I nap for a long time I really do feel as if I’m wasting my life. I googled naps and some researchers said that if you take a nap over 20 minutes you wake up feeling more exhausted than before you went to take a nap. Personally I love naps and plan to take them for the rest of my life.

2. Humans in the cartoon are depicted as violent beings. They are also being hsown as curel and they kind of look like villains.

4. They both show operations but one is on food and the other is on humans. In this way the two frames come together for parallelism.

5. I think that the cartoonist is being both. Ironic because we do so much testing on food to serve us better, but yet it could actually be hurting us and the picture depicts us being served for overly testing on the foods. It’s also serious because the author seems to truly believe that food testing will turn on us.

6. I think that the tone would seem more formal and appeal mostly to adults without the pictures. With the pictures the whole thing becomes more humorous and light so that it appeals to any age group of people at many different grades levels.

*Anthropomorphized:  to ascribe human form or attributes to (an animal, plant, material object, etc.).

 The assertion, “the angel in the house is dead and no longer lives in the imaginations of either women or men,” to me seems true. Today men or women write what they want to due to rights and self confidence in themselves. Writers now will not care what the public thinks about their writing as long as they are being true to themselves. Women also feel more free to write down their thoughts and their opinions. Another reason why this is all possible is because now days the “ideal” woman has changed. Unlike back in history when a woman really was suppose to be like the woman mentioned in the assertion, where they would be quiet, listen to whatever their husbands said, be utterly perfect to society, and never have a true say in anything; today women have their own power to speak and think whatever their heart desires. I think in these ways the angel is now officially dead to men and women.

There are some counterarguments to this though. For instance if a writer is talking about a controversial topic, for instance about race, the writer really should watch what he or she is saying as to not offend people. Touchy subjects like this can hurt people terribly and leave the writer whether they are a man or woman in a bad state. Also if a writer is talking about a past event where the lives of people were lost they should also put care into the words that they choose to use. Other than subjects like these men and women today have finally started to write what they think without the talking in the back of the mind telling them that everyone else will not like what they see.

1. In paragraph 21 he begins his endings paragraph with, ” Psychology is beginning to show signs of moving in the latter direction.” Whta does he mean by “latter direction”? In which direction is psychology moving

2. Evaluate Csikzentmihalyi’s argument on which is better; uniformity or diversity in paragraph 9.

3. In paragraph 11Csikzentmihalyi talks about happiness being inherited. Does he use this to positively or negatively support technology.

4. What does the author suggest about the relationship between behavioral genetics and identical twins? What are the external ups and downs he suggests?

5. What is the effect of the quote used on page 624, paragraph 3? Is his argument convincing, and how does this quote make his argument better? If it doesn’t help what could he have done to make it more effective?

1. Today alcohol ages should be lowered in the United States to make it fair to the youth today. Since places like Germany and places in England have a lower drinking age then it should be fair to lower the drinking age in the United States. Teens in these countries don’t seem that affected by it so why shouldn’t the United States do the same.

2.  When a girl gets pregnant in high school she ends up thinking about dropping out, and by thinking of dropping out of high school she actually does it. This leads to her living in a poor house needing funding, and by needing funding the girl gets two jobs and raises her child by herself. By raising a child by herself she becomes lonely and in need for anyones love and attention no matter what, and by lowering her standards she meets an abusive boyfriend who only uses her. By now many girls think of the consequences of their reaction before doing one dumb activity that can ruin a person’s life.

3. My friend recently told me that she was talking to her little sister is supposed to start going to daycare soon for some safe fun. To me this didn’t make sense because my little sister goes and plays by herself all day without telling me or my mother and she is perfectly fine. If my little sister is able to do this and is the same age as my friend’s little sister they should be on the same boat pretty much.

1. I believe that he does this so that people will be able to actually visualize what Eiseley is saying and readers will be able to understand him better. By doing this he also creates a story-book like start setting a more passionate tone.

2. In paragraph 14 Eiseley talks about how lost graves are old and corroding and then he talks about how this was the result of wars and men lie under the rocks. This effect makes it seem like technology and science has killed these men and everything cycles back around to becoming one with nature. It gives a more real life effect on his essay.

3. It makes the whole essay more conversational and easier to understand. By using phrasing that are constantly used in actual live speech Eiseley can connect with his readers and if he himself were explaining something to them in person.

4. It makes the reader aware of him/herself and makes the reader actually think in depth about what Eiseley is trying to say. By directly addressing something to the audience the author is able to intrigue his readers.

5. I personally think for this type of essay cause and effect would have been the best thing to use. By showing what causes our problems and what effects come out of it in simple explanations people will be able to relate easier to Eiseley’s essay without too much confusion.

6. These verbs seem to relate to animals. By doing this he makes himself seem like a part of wild nature and shows what it’s like without technology in a way.

7. It’s ironic because he seems to be a supporter of freedom and nature and no science should affect nature, yet he is building a cage outside. He lets the bird on the ground which is something that goes with his essay but to create something that holds an animal captive seems a bit ironic.

8. It kind of shows how history repeated itself. This type of strategy also allows us to see just how long we have been affected by science and technology through history.

9. Logos appeals to science and technology by being a logical ideal to many Americans in order for a more luxurious and easy future. Pathos and ethos both tie into nature and humanity by showing that we should not get so distracted by technology and science that we overlook all of the natural things in the world in which we will all sooner or later return to.