Is It Really Over?

 

            Normally each semester flies by for me, with the exception of this one.  This class has been the most challenging for me, especially with the turn of events in my life.  First of all, I will be the first to admit I am not a writer.  I do not do well on analyzing what I read, when I read I do it for enjoyment and relaxation so I don’t dissect the book.  I have had to really work at what I was reading this semester to comprehend what each essay or book was about. 

            I believe this class has encouraged me to read more into the books I read in the future, learning to reread something is how I will comprehend better.  This will help me in any future classes I take so I can better understand the material.  As far as my writing process goes, I don’t know if that will ever change, and if there is any hope for that!  I feel that White Noise by Don DeLillo really hit home for me since I lost my father in law at the beginning of the semester and lost my father last week, and watching my father fight against death this whole semester.  Although my mind has not been focused totally on my schooling because of these events, that book actually helped me cope with what was going on in my life.

            If I was to go to the library to get a book to read, I’m sure I would have never chosen any of the reading our instructor gave us.  With her choices in reading, I feel it made me work harder since I had no choice but to comprehend this reading to complete my assignments.

            If I had my choice, I would have never taken English, since I don’t understand all of the different writings and it is not something I truly enjoy.  However, since I was obligated to take this class, I am glad that I had such a helpful and knowledgeable instructor like Laura Cline.  I hope all of my instructors in the future are just as helpful to me when I struggle and need assistance.  Thank you Laura for pushing me mentally and helping me through this class that for, was a treacherous semester for me.  I hope that the rest of my classmates along with your future students were and are able to utilize your knowledge to get them through English 102 like you helped me.

Blog Post #13

Technology - UGH!!!

I have had a rough semester, not only starting a new job and taking two classes, but I have had some family crisis situations happening.  Therefore it has been very difficult to concentrate, this week especially.  I apologize in advance if my Blog is a little all over the place….

Technology is something I deal with every day at work.  Sitting in front of a computer, using dual screens, and working from 10 different servers along with multiple programs and desktops is what my day is full off.  When it comes to learning however, I think it takes a very motivated person to be able to take an online class, since you are self-teaching with the exception of the material given to us by our instructors.  Although our instructors are there to help us whenever we need it, a person still must be ready to learn on their own.  When you go to a classroom, one can ask not only the instructor questions in person, but they can also talk with their colleagues and discuss questions with each other, something that you can do to a certain extent in a virtual classroom, but not always getting the feedback that they would receive in person.

Honestly, when it came to technologies and English with this class, I would have taken it in a real classroom versus a virtual environment.  This class is one I believe should not be offered as an online class, as discussions would have assisted myself and probably many others on a weekly basis.  After taking this class, I truly do not wish to Blog with anyone.  I am not into this Blogging thing, I prefer to talk to people face to face.

Unless I am obligated to do so in another class, I will not use a Blog site in the future.  I did enjoy getting information from the College Library, that was very interesting for me.  I was the one student that always had a hard time finding books in the library by the card catalogs.  Those never made sense to me.  I hope in the future, if I do in fact have to use the Blog sites, that I will remember how to after having to learn from this class.

Blog Post #12 - Reflection on Revision

 http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/pulling-hair-out
 

           I sent my paper to the online tutor at Yavapai College.  I received my feedback last night, and it was very helpful.  As far as my writing process, it was pretty much what came to mind, what stuck out most from the novel White Noise, then went through those areas of the book to clarify my thoughts.  As I thought the fear of death motif would not be too difficult, I found I was more difficult since there was so much information.

            Since I don’t usually write papers, I can’t say that I revise.  I have made small revisions to my essays in this class, however I find that I change too much when I revise and make my papers worse.  Benefits to revising are that you can add something that you may have missed the first time writing, therefore making a better paper.

            After receiving my feedback from the online tutor, I found it very helpful since someone from the outside read it and never read the actual book, only other essays.  She did agree that it is a difficult book for her, which made me feel better, not so alone.

            The main revision I need to make on my paper is to look at each beginning and ending sentence of each section, asking the questions “Did I mention the significance of fear of death?  Did I relate it to the whole novel?”  I am hoping this helps to make my paper better, and I hope I don’t change too much up to mess it up, not that it’s perfect…

Blog Post #11

This assignment was a tough one for me, if anyone can help me with my thesis, I would greatly appreciate it.  Although there is so much to pull from, I almost feel overwhelmed by it.  I chose the motif, Fear of Death, which I thought would be easy to come up with a thesis.  Any feedback will be much, much appreciated!!!

 

http://media.photobucket.com/user/jdarrenkamp/media/Movie%20Posters/poltergeist-theyre-here.jpg.html?filters[term]=poltergeist%20the%20movie&filters[primary]=images&filters[secondary]=videos&sort=1&o=9#/user/jdarrenkamp/media/Movie%20Posters/poltergeist-theyre-here.jpg.html?filters%5Bterm%5D=poltergeist%20the%20movie&filters%5Bprimary%5D=images&filters%5Bsecondary%5D=videos&sort=1&o=9&_suid=136526044849706666621097494719

 

WHITE NOISE is a novel full of emotion, anxiety, and the unknowingness toward the ultimate fear, death.  It is a novel that has a clarification of not everyone having a fear of death, but an instinctive greed to continue life.  Although modern life is attempting to push this fear out of sight for Jack Gladney, he has a continued obsession with death, the centerpoint of this novel.  The title is perfect for this novel, the definition being “any random, collective occurrence of unrelated things”, summing up the significance of one thought that can relate everything in this story, in this case being death.  From the beginning of the story, when the college students are being dropped off by their parents at the College-On-The-Hill to “The Airborne Toxic Event”, and further into the book, Wilder thinking he is racing across the highway on his tricycle, are all messages with meaning that Jack Gladney, along with his family, read into as another  stage toward the end of life. 

I have attached a link regarding death, and the meaning to some people:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-tribal-imagination/201105/the-meaning-death-east-and-west-0

Blog Post #10 Summary & Response

I chose to respond to Thomas "Tom" LeClair's "Closing The Loop:  White Noise."  LeClair, born in 1944, is a book reviewer for the New York Times Book Review and the Washington Post Book World, as well as the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati.  LeClair's point of view on White Noise cleared up alot of questions I had while reading and trying to comprehend all that was going on.  As I read White Noise, I felt as though the story was skipping around and had alot of meaningless information in it, with the one definite plot of the fear of dying.

One of the passages I didn't understand why it was put into the story with such a vivid description was the trash compactor, "dreadful wrenching sound, full of eerie feeling" (33), (393).  As LeClair states it is "an expression of his passionate concern with human survival, his rage at and pity for what humankind does to itself" (393).  This explanation opened my eyes to understanding the hidden meaning behind the story and began to make more sense to me, including the fragmented sentences.

There were many moments while reading White Noise that I had a hard time following, until LeClair's explanation "Gladney's strings of declarations effect a primer style, an expression not of ignorance (for Gladney knows the language of the humanities) but of something like shock, (391).  After getting this into my head, I was able to read and comprehend the meaning of what Gladney was saying, and the way it was being said, versus what I thought to be a very confusing, unrelating book that had many chapters that didn't seem to relate to one another.

Works Cited

LeClair, Tom. "Closing The Loop: White Noise." The Viking Critical Library:  White Noise. 'Ed'.Mark Osteen. New York:  Penguin Books, 1998

Blog Post #9

Finally, nine days after arriving at the Karate studio in Iron City, we were allowed to go home. While stuck in our temporary home, among forty other families, I made a new friend named Steffie. The studio was dusty, dirty, and very crowded. I was happy to go home and sleep in my own bed that is comfortable and warm. Steffie told me all about her family, and her Dad, J.A.K. Gladney is head of the Hitler Studies at the College-On-The-Hill. I’m not sure who Hitler is, but now I want to find out.


My family lives in a small town next to Steffie’s. We had to evacuate also due to the “Toxic Event”. “Time for homework Lizzy”, yelled my Dad as he was watching the news, looking for any new information on the Nyodene D. “It is done, Father. Why don’t you ever bug Alex about his homework? His is the one always in trouble, not me.” “Your brother is a senior in high school now; we still have a chance with you to make something of yourself.” Father was always fantasizing about one of his children going to the College-On-The-Hill. I smiled at Father and went to set the table for dinner as Mother was getting dinner ready. Since the Toxic Event, Mother boils everything; she says it will kill any bacteria that may have gotten on our food, to keep us healthy. What I could go for is some good ‘ol barbequed chicken, baked potato, and fresh corn on the cob.

I wonder if Steffie is still wearing her mask. She told me she would never take it off, it’s bad enough she got de ja vu from the Nyodene D. Steffie doesn’t want anything else to happen to her. Before we left the Karate Studio, I promised Steffie that I would write her every week, and Steffie said she would do the same. So it was Monday, and I just got a letter back from her, so I decided to write her back before going to bed.

My new friend Steffie,

Here is another letter to you, responding to yours I just received today. Have you decided to take your mask off yet? It has been 2 weeks since we were allowed to come back home, I think you will be safe now. My mask ripped over the weekend and my parents won’t let me wear it to school, they say it will scare the other children. I hear my Father and Mother talk all the time about your parents, how they want to get together with them. With my Father being an author, he really wants to interview your Father and write a Biography of him. He is pretty impressed with J.A.K. Gladney’s accomplishments. My mother wants to learn posture and how to walk properly from your mother; she is very fond of her too. Is Wilder talking yet? It must be fun to have so many brothers and sisters; you always have someone to play with! Since it is just me and Alex, it gets boring around here. Alex says it isn’t cool to hang out with his baby sister… I just heard Father say we are going to come to your house in a couple of weeks to Mother! That means we get to see each other and play! I’m so excited!

I will wait for your response to this letter and soon we will see each other! In your letter back to me, tell me what we are going to do while we are there visiting. I can’t wait!

Your new friend,

Lizzy

The next morning I mailed my letter to Steffie on the way to school. Recess was still limited to being indoors, keeping us from any possible Nyodene D still in the air. They say within a few weeks we will be able to be outdoors more. By then the days will be shorter, and the cold will role in.

Blog Post #8-Mid Term Check-In

Dear Laura,

After being out of school for seventeen years, I had decided that I wanted to get into the medical field.  This class is a pre-requisite for Radiological Technology, my major.  I never thought about having to take English for a career in the medical field, however, I have come to the conclusion that taking an English class is a difficult task for me to accomplish.  While in high school, I remember dissecting William Shakespeare’s plays, “Romeo and Juliet” and “MacBeth”.  I remember enjoying learning what each play was about but I also remember how difficult it was for me to comprehend.  So far this semester in your English 102 class, I have found my biggest challenge is the reading and comprehending of the material.  It has been painstakingly difficult for me to understand, giving me anxiety until my assignments are complete.  However, after re-reading the material over and over, and reading my classmate’s posts, I have begun to understand the deeper meaning lying behind the words.  The last essay we read, “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift really made me realize what people are really willing to do just to get ahead. 

Unfortunately, because it has been so long since I have been in school, I have only written one other paper since being back, and that was a psychology paper over a year ago.  To be completely honest, I don’t even remember what it was about.  I do know that literary analysis is definitely a more difficult type of writing for me.  By the end of this English class, I hope to be able to read a story and comprehend the meaning behind it without pulling my hair out in the process.  I have had to really push myself to get through this class, and, at one point I almost withdrew from it.  I knew giving up would not be the solution since I would have to get it done sooner or later!

I must say Laura, your style of teaching even online is very helpful, and even though my assignments I have submitted are far below what you are used to seeing by English majors, you have given me positive feedback where you can and that has kept me motivated.  I sincerely appreciate your feedback and hope to get through this class with a better understanding of literary analysis, since I never really understood it.  Although I’m sure I had been taught it in high school, apparently it wasn’t something that really caught my attention.

Thank you for being a kind and caring instructor, you have helped me to move forward and try to get something out of this class!

Sincerely,

Darcy Vazquez

Blog Post #7 Tentative Thesis Paragraph

 

The ongoing problem of an overpopulated world that needs to be addressed is what Jonathan Swift’s essay, A Modest Proposal consists of.  He discusses the moral issue of Dublin, Ireland, where the amount of poor people outnumber the wealthy, causing the streets to be flooded by mothers and children, otherwise known as beggars and thieves.  The papists or Catholics are blamed for the majority of this population due to their religious beliefs of having large families.  Swift’s essay is a solution proposed in a satire of both diatribe and caricature directed toward the wealthy people and politicians of Ireland, while criticizing the society of how heartless and defective their thoughts and actions are toward the poor people of the community.

 

Below is a link I attached that is a historical summary of Ireland in the 1700s to 1800s:

www1.xe.net/~mbone/webtree/history-ir.htm

 

Blog Post #6 - Response To Swift

Overpopulation has been an ongoing problem for a long time, with no solution until Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”.  As Swift states in his essay:

            These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to        employ all their time in strolling to be sustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender of Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes  (Swift loc 6-8).

This statement is Swift’s subtle way of explaining to the audience how Ireland looks at the papists of the community.  Swift’s sarcasm of boosting economy and reducing the population by the slaughtering of infants for gourmet food and using their skin for women’s gloves and men’s summer boots is a grotesque yet dramatic form of irony.  What Swift is getting at is the landowners are blaming the Catholics for the economic downfall of Ireland, whereas the rich land owners are really to blame.

Swift’s way of computing a profit by the infant, by the pound, and to the shilling making a parody of the wealthy land owners.  Along with enhancing the economy, Swift also makes a remarkable point of diminishing the amount of abuse women are burdened with from their husbands, fearing the loss of a product he will make money on.  As Swift states:

            Men would become as fond of their wives, during the time of their pregnancy, as they are             now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, or sow when they are ready to farrow; nor    offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage  (Swift loc 101-104). 

This would cause less criminal acts, including the common problem of thievery.  Swift is trying to get across the way the country can work together to stand up for their rights, instead of the wealthy pushing the poor away, and considering them nothing more than their laborers.  Since there will be less children without food, there will be less crime, less begging, and more wealth.  Although this proposal was very emotionally diverse, Swift was able to clench the attention of the audience in what was really happening in Ireland.

https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/872/modest.pdf

Blog Post #5 - Rhetorical Analysis

Budweiser has great Super Bowl commercials every year, however, these commercials draw the attention of all age groups, causing a moral dilemma.  Like many, I am an animal lover, and look forward to the yearly Budweiser commercial.

The emotional appeal, or ethos, is what draws me in to keep watching like all of the other animal lovers of the world.  Since this commercial is about alchohol, the audience should be one of an appropriate and legal age that is drawn in.  By bringing a story of an animal re-uniting with its owner after 3 years, it is more of a heart-wrenching, fantasy that really has nothing to do with alcohol.  Now, if Budweiser came up with something that was more logical, or lethos, such as a bar scene, or adult party, the audience would be geared toward the proper age, causing the younger crowd that likes to watch “happy-ending” Disney stories to be uninterested in a beer commercial.

Blog Post #4, What I am Working On...

For the first assignment of the semester, I have decided to use the following thesis from our options:

"Bartleby is the hero of Melville's story in his refusal to participate in a workplace that represents the sad, dreary atmosphere of a bureaucratic, industrialized society. He is the only one standing up to a society that is increasingly oppressive to workers."

This thesis seems to be an overview of Bartleby's life and how he differs from the other workers of the world, including the law-copyists he works with, Turkey and Nippers. Where Turkey and Nippers have their own way of dealing with their life, with a mood-changing way, Bartleby is consistent in the way he presents himself, from beginning his employment proving to be a hard worker and knowledgeable of what he is doing, to a non-compliant, yet politically correct employee.

Although Bartleby passes on at the end of the story, Bartleby's spirit passed long before he was welcomed into the law-copyist position he was granted at No. Wall-Street.

Bartleby, the Scrivener A Story of Wall-Street

 http://www.shmoop.com/bartleby-the-scrivener/

“I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.  Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever suffered to invade my peace.” (loc 8-12).

Told in first person by a lawyer, Bartleby, The Scrivener, A Story Of Wall-Street, by Herman Melville, talks of a time when few people are financially well off, and many must work hard to be able to live.  The passage I quoted I feel, is an introduction of the story, setting the time or era that the story takes place. 

The lawyer speaks of his scriveners, although far below his educational level, as hard workers that reside in their positions to benefit him.  However, when Bartleby comes to be employed by the lawyer, I feel he teaches the lawyer a lesson in life.  Bartleby is a quiet, yet “to the point” individual that, instead of continuously doing as he is told, simply responds with a “matter of fact” statement of “I would prefer not to”, versus being rude and outright saying no, I won’t do it, putting the lawyer into an unfamiliar position.

This passage has a lot of meaning, part of it saying that although the lawyer has worked hard, it was easy for him, and has always found himself in a relaxed state of mind.  However, Bartleby the Scrivener has in a sense, shaken up his perfect little world and teaches the lawyer a lesson in life by doing so.

I feel this passage sets the reader up to begin thinking from the very beginning of the story that people learn from one another, and although Bartleby was a so-called “blue collar worker”, he portrayed himself as a well-educated individual that mirrored the actions of the “white collar worker”.    Bartleby portrays a message to me, basically stating one can learn and become bewildered by the apprehensions of the so-called blue collar workers who have had to work hard, and, in the process, learning how to out speak the well-educated and financially stable people of the world, still get succumbed to the segregations of the white collar and blue collar workers, and still never move up in the financial world.

http://www.bartleby.com/129/

 

 



 

When explaining a book to someone that hasn’t read it, one would comprise a summary of the book.  The summary consists of an overview of the book, giving enough information to inform the person of a brief description of the story, but not too much information so the person cannot predict what is going to happen.

An example of a summary is from the book “All The Pretty Horses”, by Cormac McCarthy.  “McCarthy’s landscape is the southwest of Texas and Mexico between the two wars, a time of uneasy transition, when horses and motor vehicles share the road and cattle ranches and cowboys are fading from the landscape.  John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old with a love for horses and a knowledge of them far beyond his years, senses on some level that the way of life he loves—horses and cattle ranching—is soon to come to an end.  He and his best friend Lacey Rawlins run away to Mexico in search of unnamed fulfillment other than the promise of adventure.  Their meeting with the enigmatic Jimmy Blevins is a pivotal event that leads Cole into a series of bittersweet and violent encounters in a land where the rules are unknown and constantly changing.  When Cole and Rawlins separate from Blevins and obtain employment on a Mexican cattle ranch, it appears that they have achieved their idyllic dream.  Their brief association with Blevins, however, collides with Cole’s affair with Alejandra, the beautiful and willful daughter of the owner of the ranch.  Cole and Blevins soon find themselves in a situation where neither hope nor mercy exist.”

While the above summary explains what the story is about, it doesn’t give too much detailed information, leaving the reader wanting to find out more.  The reader will want to read the story, being intrigued by the summary.

On the other hand, if one were to analyze this story, there would be no plot, no description of the story, and no story line.  Instead, by giving an analysis of this book, one would dissect portions of what the author is trying to say by examining the details and structure of the writing.  An example of an analysis of All the Pretty Horses, I would state McCarthy shows a time of transition between two different worlds or cultures, American and Mexican, and how the two different worlds collide with their differences in criminal punishment.  McCarthy portrays the Mexican judicial system as a harsh, discriminatory system, where a person’s life is literally at the mercy of this judicial system and the life of the punished lay in someone else’s hands.

Although there are similarities between summary and analysis, since the analysis does have to have some description to get the point you are trying to make about the book across, the two are extremely different, with two totally different types of explanations.

http://wwwhumnet.ucla.edu/humnet/english/wwwroot2/TA/hyperteach/PDFs/lit poetry.pdf

http://writingcenter.cos.edu/2011/11/difference-between-analysis-and summary/

http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/all-the-pretty-horses

All_the_pretty_horses_mccarthy_cover.jpg ‎

http://www.picador.com/books/All-the-Pretty-Horses

Introductory Video

Good Readers and Good Writers

Nabokov feels a good reader is a re-reader, one who looks deep into the story.  As Nabokov states, "But a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting.", which is how we look at a painting, over and over again, always finding something different with each look.  I agree with Nabokov, reading a book only once myself usually, I will glance over the words and get basically what the author is saying, but not the whole story.  I have learned from different teachers that to thoroughly enjoy a story, you have to "dissect" what the author writes, creating more of a deep, vibrant picture in your mind as well as a better understanding of what message the author is trying to get across to the reader.

I feel the characteristics of a good reader is one who will re-read a book, getting the most information out of it possible.  A good reader also would have a vivid imagination, isn't afraid of picking up a dictionary to look up words not understood, and one who tries to get as much out of that book, even obscure messages sent by the author through a story, possibly even a lesson learned.  My reading capabilities usually consist of getting through a story as quickly as possible, skimming across the pages and getting only the basic story from the author.  Unless the story is something I am interested in, I feel I am not the "re-reader" Nabokov explains as a good reader.

"But a second, or third, or fourth reading we do,

in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting."

 

http://teachers.saschina.org/miqbal/files/2012/05/books-clipart-300x212.jpg

I have attached the link to the reading from Nabokov below: 

https://lbblackboard.yc.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-1025820-dt-content-rid-6789037_1/courses/201310ENG102PRE130/Nabakov