Resolving a simple issue by provoking violence does not make a circumstance any superior that it seems to be. The issue is the freedom of bringing a group of people with one cause and a purpose. The freedom to respect one another. The freedom to express one’s own thoughts. The freedom to be YOU. Racial violence is an epidemic in public schools in Los Angeles. It starts with a hate crime, which has surged more than 300 percent over the past decade. If students had generations of family to express to them that violence is not the way, but instead to encourage them to express their feelings through writing.
The second time watching the movie I became excited because I knew it would have been some things I might have not noticed the first time I watched it. I did not quite understand some scenes because I was not paying attention the first time. In the beginning of the movie, the students were explaining their lives and the struggle they had to face on a day-to-day basis because of the racial barriers established because of the Rodney King riots. They were put into what we call the “slow class” because the students were not participants of school on a daily and test scores were low. Mrs. Gruwell discovered their similarities and began to unite them as one. A teacher who is enthusiastic enough to put the lesson aside, which involves teaching self-respect and discipline, but instead teaching them about world renowned people who were in their same place deserves an applause for gallantry.
The students felt like Anne Frank, a young girl who gained international fame posthumously following the publication of her diary, which documents her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. This was the experience of the holocaust. Once again, racial violence did not only exist in Los Angeles, but in Europe. This was a state of racial hygiene. Which is the selection, by a government, of the putatively most physical, intellectual and moral persons to raise the next generation (selective breeding) and a close alignment of public health with eugenics. Adolf Hitler needed someone to blame all Germany’s problems on because the country was starting to fall. This can be used as a simile to the Freedom Writers because their life revolved around different races that needed another race to blame their issues on.
WORKS CITED
All prior knowledge
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Freedom Writers "Biographical Note" #2
Hiliary Swank
Hilary was discovered as a child by producer Suzy Sachs, who coached her in acting. When she was nine years old, she starred in her first play as "Mowgli" in "The Jungle Book". She began to appear regularly in local theater and school plays. She went to school in Bellingham, where she lived with her family, until she was 16. She competed in the Junior Olympics and Washington State championships in swimming; she ranked 5th in the state in all-around gymnastics (which would come in handy for starring in The Next Karate Kid (1994) years later). In 1990, Hilary and her mother moved to Los Angeles, where she enrolled in South Pasadena High School, and started acting professionally. She appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) but The Next Karate Kid (1994), where she got the part competing against hundreds of other actresses, was her breakout role. Ever since then, she has been much in demand and has worked non-stop in movies. She won the Best Actress Oscar for Boys Don't Cry (1999). She starred in a few minor films before starring in Clint Eastwood's boxing drama Million Dollar Baby (2004) that won her a Golden Globe and a SAG Award, as well as her second Academy Award. She is two for two at the Oscars, a feat she shares only with a few other women. Off-screen, she married Chad Lowe on September 28, 1997. An aficionado for anything that involves the outdoors, she enjoys: sky diving, river rafting and skiing. In addition to the Oscar for her performance as "Brandon Teena" in Boys Don't Cry (1999), Hilary won the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress in a Drama" and "Best Actress" prizes from The New York Film Critics, The Los Angeles Film Critics, The Chicago Film Critics and The Broadcast Film Critics Association. She earned $75 a day for Boys Don't Cry (1999).She also won the "Breakthrough Performance" prize from The National Board of Review.Hilary then appeared in supporting roles opposite Cate Blanchett and Keanu Reeves in Sam Raimi's The Gift (2000) and opposite Al Pacino and Robin Williams in Christopher Nolan's Insomnia (2002/I). Hilary then starred as "Alice Paul" in HBO's Iron Jawed Angels (2004) (TV), which told the story of the women's suffragette movement and she was honored with both SAG and Golden Globe nominations for her performance in this film.In 2004, Hilary starred opposite Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman as the title character in Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (2004); the story of a young woman's quest to realize her dream of becoming a professional boxer. For this performance, she was honored with her second Academy Award for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role" and has garnered "Best Actress" prizes from the National Society of Film Critics, the Screen Actors Guild, The Broadcast Film Critics, and a Golden Globe for "Best Lead Actress in a Drama”. She was named one of "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2000, 2004 and 2005.She was last seen in a supporting role opposite Scarlett Johansson and Josh Hartnett in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia (2006) and will next be seen starring in The Reaping (2007) for Warner Brothers. Hilary recently wrapped production on Freedom Writers (2007), the true story of Long Beach schoolteacher, Erin Gruwell. This fall, she will reunite with her Freedom Writers (2007) writer/director, Richard LaGravenese, to star in the film adaptation of Cecelia Ahern's novel, _P.S., I Love You (2008).
Biography for Hilary Swank. 1990-2009. 6 May 2009.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005476/bio
Hilary was discovered as a child by producer Suzy Sachs, who coached her in acting. When she was nine years old, she starred in her first play as "Mowgli" in "The Jungle Book". She began to appear regularly in local theater and school plays. She went to school in Bellingham, where she lived with her family, until she was 16. She competed in the Junior Olympics and Washington State championships in swimming; she ranked 5th in the state in all-around gymnastics (which would come in handy for starring in The Next Karate Kid (1994) years later). In 1990, Hilary and her mother moved to Los Angeles, where she enrolled in South Pasadena High School, and started acting professionally. She appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) but The Next Karate Kid (1994), where she got the part competing against hundreds of other actresses, was her breakout role. Ever since then, she has been much in demand and has worked non-stop in movies. She won the Best Actress Oscar for Boys Don't Cry (1999). She starred in a few minor films before starring in Clint Eastwood's boxing drama Million Dollar Baby (2004) that won her a Golden Globe and a SAG Award, as well as her second Academy Award. She is two for two at the Oscars, a feat she shares only with a few other women. Off-screen, she married Chad Lowe on September 28, 1997. An aficionado for anything that involves the outdoors, she enjoys: sky diving, river rafting and skiing. In addition to the Oscar for her performance as "Brandon Teena" in Boys Don't Cry (1999), Hilary won the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress in a Drama" and "Best Actress" prizes from The New York Film Critics, The Los Angeles Film Critics, The Chicago Film Critics and The Broadcast Film Critics Association. She earned $75 a day for Boys Don't Cry (1999).She also won the "Breakthrough Performance" prize from The National Board of Review.Hilary then appeared in supporting roles opposite Cate Blanchett and Keanu Reeves in Sam Raimi's The Gift (2000) and opposite Al Pacino and Robin Williams in Christopher Nolan's Insomnia (2002/I). Hilary then starred as "Alice Paul" in HBO's Iron Jawed Angels (2004) (TV), which told the story of the women's suffragette movement and she was honored with both SAG and Golden Globe nominations for her performance in this film.In 2004, Hilary starred opposite Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman as the title character in Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (2004); the story of a young woman's quest to realize her dream of becoming a professional boxer. For this performance, she was honored with her second Academy Award for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role" and has garnered "Best Actress" prizes from the National Society of Film Critics, the Screen Actors Guild, The Broadcast Film Critics, and a Golden Globe for "Best Lead Actress in a Drama”. She was named one of "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2000, 2004 and 2005.She was last seen in a supporting role opposite Scarlett Johansson and Josh Hartnett in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia (2006) and will next be seen starring in The Reaping (2007) for Warner Brothers. Hilary recently wrapped production on Freedom Writers (2007), the true story of Long Beach schoolteacher, Erin Gruwell. This fall, she will reunite with her Freedom Writers (2007) writer/director, Richard LaGravenese, to star in the film adaptation of Cecelia Ahern's novel, _P.S., I Love You (2008).
Biography for Hilary Swank. 1990-2009. 6 May 2009
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005476/bio
Freedom Writers "Precis" for Articles 3 & 4
ARTICLE 3
Lipka, Sara. “Eyes on the Past.” Chronicle of Higher Education 9 Feb 2007: A48-A48
The article discusses how students and administrators at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, organized a weekend trip to honor the civil-rights leaders who were part of the 1961 Freedom Rides. When Bernard LaFayette Jr. boarded a bus to Montgomery, Ala., 46 years ago, he did not store his suitcase underneath. Part of an early group of Freedom Riders, he was challenging Jim Crow laws and expected to meet violence and chaos. The least he could do to prepare, he says, was keep his suitcase with him. Just after sunrise on a Saturday late last month, four buses idle by the curb as passengers, black and white, gather on Vanderbilt Street. They place their luggage in the lower compartments and climb aboard, exchanging excited smiles as they take their seats--a freshman here, a chancellor there, and in the front row of each bus, one or two veterans of the 1961 Freedom Rides. By 8 o'clock, the Gray Lines are gently sloping south on Interstate 65. Mr. Arsenault has joined the trip, as has the Rev. James Lawson, whom Vanderbilt expelled from its divinity school in 1960 for leading nonviolence workshops to train civil-rights activists. Vanderbilt's chancellor, E. Gordon Gee, recognizes the university's shame: "Indeed we were isolated, indeed we were segregationist, and indeed we had penance to pay." Students and staff members from nearby American Baptist College and Fisk and Tennessee State Universities, including the presidents of the latter two, bring the roster to nearly 200.As the group travels to Birmingham, where the Freedom Riders were jailed, and Montgomery, where they were beaten by a mob, the veterans rotate among the buses, recounting the human details of civil-rights history. The students visited special places, monuments, and sites where the violence took place. Riding back to Nashville on Sunday evening, some students are still awestruck, describing the trip in unmatched terms: the most they have ever learned in a couple of days, the best experience they have had in college. Others count the hours of studying that await them. That is the risk, says Emily Prouty, a graduate student at Vanderbilt: "You disconnect, and the routine numbs you again."But maybe not this time. "Everybody I've talked to has recommitted to some cause in their life," Ms. Prouty says. "You pick what you care about, and you work on it."As the buses turn back onto Vanderbilt Street, students retrieve their luggage and disperse quickly into the chilly night. Some turn back and wave a second time.
ARTICLE 4
Winkler, Eugene. “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.” Rev. of Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, by Raymond Arsenault. Christian Century 8 Aug. 2006: 35-37
This article reviews the book, "Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice," by Raymond Arsenault.” The Freedom Riders have been through it all with their role in the Civil Rights Movement. Their role was explained wrongly in the movie Ladykillers. Tom hanks described them to a young black boy as, “a group of concerned northern liberals who came to Mississippi in 1964 "so that people like you could have the vote." The year was wrong and most of the riders to none were not northern liberals. Most of the freedom writers were black that came out of Nashville Movement that some important people had brought together. Even though they rode on buses, they have crossed the color line in public places, which later expanded to trains and airplanes, and neither the federal government nor the local authorities knew how to deal with the nonviolent frustration. A man named James Arsenault, delivered his day-to-day accounts of the rides. The rides began on May 4, 1961, when 13 activists climbed aboard buses in Washington with tickets for New Orleans. Their purpose was to challenge racial segregation in interstate travel, which the Supreme Court had declared an unconstitutional violation of human rights. Little trouble was encountered in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. However, as their journey went further into the South, hostility increased and the brutal beatings began. They were given one warning from Martin Luther King when he met them in Georgia, “You will never make it through Alabama.” They made it through Birmingham, but some were severely beaten and arrested. On July 16, 1944, Irene Morgan, a black defense worker, boarded a crowded Greyhound bus in Virginia, and when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, she was hauled off to jail. Her case provided the NAACP the opportunity to begin to take apart the Jim Crow laws that incessantly humiliated African Americans. When the Supreme Court ruled in 1946 that the segregation of passengers violated the spirit of the Constitution's interstate commerce clause, a Journey of Reconciliation was organized by Bayard Rustin and George Houser of the Congress of Racial Equality. It became the model for the 1961 tides. The Freedom Riders prevailed against all odds. "Within six months of the first Ride," Arsenault writes, "travelers of all races were sitting side by side on buses and trains 'all across the nation without fear of arrest, the WHITE and COLORED signs that had blighted the walls of Southern bus and train stations for decades were gone, the nation's major civil tights organizations had undergone significant transformations, and the Justice Department had been pushed into a deepening engagement in civil tights matters."
Lipka, Sara. “Eyes on the Past.” Chronicle of Higher Education 9 Feb 2007: A48-A48
The article discusses how students and administrators at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, organized a weekend trip to honor the civil-rights leaders who were part of the 1961 Freedom Rides. When Bernard LaFayette Jr. boarded a bus to Montgomery, Ala., 46 years ago, he did not store his suitcase underneath. Part of an early group of Freedom Riders, he was challenging Jim Crow laws and expected to meet violence and chaos. The least he could do to prepare, he says, was keep his suitcase with him. Just after sunrise on a Saturday late last month, four buses idle by the curb as passengers, black and white, gather on Vanderbilt Street. They place their luggage in the lower compartments and climb aboard, exchanging excited smiles as they take their seats--a freshman here, a chancellor there, and in the front row of each bus, one or two veterans of the 1961 Freedom Rides. By 8 o'clock, the Gray Lines are gently sloping south on Interstate 65. Mr. Arsenault has joined the trip, as has the Rev. James Lawson, whom Vanderbilt expelled from its divinity school in 1960 for leading nonviolence workshops to train civil-rights activists. Vanderbilt's chancellor, E. Gordon Gee, recognizes the university's shame: "Indeed we were isolated, indeed we were segregationist, and indeed we had penance to pay." Students and staff members from nearby American Baptist College and Fisk and Tennessee State Universities, including the presidents of the latter two, bring the roster to nearly 200.As the group travels to Birmingham, where the Freedom Riders were jailed, and Montgomery, where they were beaten by a mob, the veterans rotate among the buses, recounting the human details of civil-rights history. The students visited special places, monuments, and sites where the violence took place. Riding back to Nashville on Sunday evening, some students are still awestruck, describing the trip in unmatched terms: the most they have ever learned in a couple of days, the best experience they have had in college. Others count the hours of studying that await them. That is the risk, says Emily Prouty, a graduate student at Vanderbilt: "You disconnect, and the routine numbs you again."But maybe not this time. "Everybody I've talked to has recommitted to some cause in their life," Ms. Prouty says. "You pick what you care about, and you work on it."As the buses turn back onto Vanderbilt Street, students retrieve their luggage and disperse quickly into the chilly night. Some turn back and wave a second time.
ARTICLE 4
Winkler, Eugene. “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.” Rev. of Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, by Raymond Arsenault. Christian Century 8 Aug. 2006: 35-37
This article reviews the book, "Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice," by Raymond Arsenault.” The Freedom Riders have been through it all with their role in the Civil Rights Movement. Their role was explained wrongly in the movie Ladykillers. Tom hanks described them to a young black boy as, “a group of concerned northern liberals who came to Mississippi in 1964 "so that people like you could have the vote." The year was wrong and most of the riders to none were not northern liberals. Most of the freedom writers were black that came out of Nashville Movement that some important people had brought together. Even though they rode on buses, they have crossed the color line in public places, which later expanded to trains and airplanes, and neither the federal government nor the local authorities knew how to deal with the nonviolent frustration. A man named James Arsenault, delivered his day-to-day accounts of the rides. The rides began on May 4, 1961, when 13 activists climbed aboard buses in Washington with tickets for New Orleans. Their purpose was to challenge racial segregation in interstate travel, which the Supreme Court had declared an unconstitutional violation of human rights. Little trouble was encountered in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. However, as their journey went further into the South, hostility increased and the brutal beatings began. They were given one warning from Martin Luther King when he met them in Georgia, “You will never make it through Alabama.” They made it through Birmingham, but some were severely beaten and arrested. On July 16, 1944, Irene Morgan, a black defense worker, boarded a crowded Greyhound bus in Virginia, and when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, she was hauled off to jail. Her case provided the NAACP the opportunity to begin to take apart the Jim Crow laws that incessantly humiliated African Americans. When the Supreme Court ruled in 1946 that the segregation of passengers violated the spirit of the Constitution's interstate commerce clause, a Journey of Reconciliation was organized by Bayard Rustin and George Houser of the Congress of Racial Equality. It became the model for the 1961 tides. The Freedom Riders prevailed against all odds. "Within six months of the first Ride," Arsenault writes, "travelers of all races were sitting side by side on buses and trains 'all across the nation without fear of arrest, the WHITE and COLORED signs that had blighted the walls of Southern bus and train stations for decades were gone, the nation's major civil tights organizations had undergone significant transformations, and the Justice Department had been pushed into a deepening engagement in civil tights matters."
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Freedom Writers "Biographical Note"
Richard LaGravenese
Richard LaGravenese was born on October 30, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York. He is an American film writer and director. He graduated from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Experimental Theatre Program. As a student, he sharpens up his skills with dialogue and formed a New York- and Toronto-based comedy troupe, for which he also wrote sketches. After a disastrous turn on the icky 1989-generation gap "comedy" Rude Awakening, starring Cheech Marin and Louise Lasser, LaGravenese supplemented his (unrelated) day job by working on the script for what became The Fisher King (1991) a project reflecting his lifelong fascination with mythology. LaGravenese lost his best friend, Demme, to cocaine overdose. During this time, he took a couple of years off. He used this time to begin the script of Freedom Writers. This screenplay re-examines thematic territory covered previously by Stand and Deliver and Dangerous Minds, in its story of a determined teacher Hilary Swank who vows to teach her tough-as-nails students compassion and tolerance by introducing them to The Diary of Anne Frank and Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo. La Gravenese assumed directorial duties as well, and Paramount slated the picture for release in January 2007. Some of his best works include The Fisher King (1991), which he was the screenwriter. He directed a previous movie titled P.S I Love You in 2008. The film’s leading role, played by Hilary Swank, won Irish Film and Television Award for Best International Actress. The year before LaGravenese directed the film titled, “Freedom Writers”. LaGravenese was nominated and awarded for a list of movies. In 1992, he was nominated for an Academy Award for the movie, The Fisher King, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. In 1998, he received the Gotham Award for Best writer. In 2007, LaGravenese won the Humanitas Award for featured film, Freedom Writers. In 2008, he was nominated for the Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture (Theatrical or Television) for Freedom Writers. He currently resides in Manhattan, New York on Central Park West with his wife, Ann and daughter, Lily.
Richard LaGravenese. 25 April 2009.
Richard LaGravenese Filmography. 25 April 2009.
Richard LaGravenese was born on October 30, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York. He is an American film writer and director. He graduated from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Experimental Theatre Program. As a student, he sharpens up his skills with dialogue and formed a New York- and Toronto-based comedy troupe, for which he also wrote sketches. After a disastrous turn on the icky 1989-generation gap "comedy" Rude Awakening, starring Cheech Marin and Louise Lasser, LaGravenese supplemented his (unrelated) day job by working on the script for what became The Fisher King (1991) a project reflecting his lifelong fascination with mythology. LaGravenese lost his best friend, Demme, to cocaine overdose. During this time, he took a couple of years off. He used this time to begin the script of Freedom Writers. This screenplay re-examines thematic territory covered previously by Stand and Deliver and Dangerous Minds, in its story of a determined teacher Hilary Swank who vows to teach her tough-as-nails students compassion and tolerance by introducing them to The Diary of Anne Frank and Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo. La Gravenese assumed directorial duties as well, and Paramount slated the picture for release in January 2007. Some of his best works include The Fisher King (1991), which he was the screenwriter. He directed a previous movie titled P.S I Love You in 2008. The film’s leading role, played by Hilary Swank, won Irish Film and Television Award for Best International Actress. The year before LaGravenese directed the film titled, “Freedom Writers”. LaGravenese was nominated and awarded for a list of movies. In 1992, he was nominated for an Academy Award for the movie, The Fisher King, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. In 1998, he received the Gotham Award for Best writer. In 2007, LaGravenese won the Humanitas Award for featured film, Freedom Writers. In 2008, he was nominated for the Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture (Theatrical or Television) for Freedom Writers. He currently resides in Manhattan, New York on Central Park West with his wife, Ann and daughter, Lily.
Richard LaGravenese. 25 April 2009
Richard LaGravenese Filmography. 25 April 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Freedom Writers "Precis" for Articles 1 & 2
Article 1
This article focuses on Sunday, May 14, 1961 – Mother’s Day. This was the day when angry white people blocked a Greyhound bus carrying black and white passengers through rural Alabama. The attackers pelted the vehicle with rocks and bricks, slashed tires, smashed windows with pipes and axes and lobbed a firebomb through a broken window. As smoke and flames filled the bus, the mob barricaded the door. "Burn them alive," somebody cried out. "Fry the goddamn niggers." An exploding fuel tank and warning shots from arriving state troopers forced the rabble back and allowed the riders to escape the inferno. Even then, some were pummeled with baseball bats as they fled. A few hours later, black and white passengers on a Trail ways bus were beaten bloody after they entered whites-only waiting rooms and restaurants at bus terminals in Birmingham and Anniston, Alabama. The bus passengers assaulted that day were Freedom Riders, among the first of more than 400 volunteers who traveled throughout the South on regularly scheduled buses for seven months in 1961 to test a 1960 Supreme Court decision that declared segregated facilities for interstate passengers illegal. The article discusses Eric Etheridge's own experiences with racial segregation and the day of the violent attacks on that day. This article is very much related to the movie, Freedom Writers. In the movie, if race boundary lines are crossed then the people who crossed them must suffer the repercussions which majority of the time can be fatal.
Holmes, Marian Smith. "The Freedom Riders." Smithsonian 39.6 (Feb. 2009): 70. MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. 26 Apr. 2009
Article 2
In this article, it discusses who were the freedom riders, how they started, and their struggle for justice. It includes a brief narrative from Raymond Arsenault. Freedom Riders were mostly college students and liberal clergy, both black and white. In 1961, they decided to force the United States government to live up to its promise of a desegregated society. Traveling through the Deep South by bus, they suffered injury and death by the Ku Klux Klan, they were jailed and beaten, but refused to give up. Raymond Arsenault's incredible narrative, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, vividly retells the story of these young civil rights pioneers. Even more fascinating is the inside story: Freedom Riders concerned about their place in history; friction between civil rights groups and their leaders; the efforts by the Kennedy administration to protect the riders' rights while at the same time attempting to convince them to give up the campaign; the incompetence of the FBI in bringing known Klan members to justice. The freedom riders were indispensable in moving the federal government to enforce civil rights laws that were so blatantly ignored by many southern states. The clash between southern governors waving the flag of state sovereignty and the U.S. government's obligation to protect the riders and enforce federal law powerfully illustrates the deep-seated cultural, political, and historical issues behind the events. This article is related to the movie, Freedom Writers because their teacher Erin Gruwell defied what administration wanted her students to learn, and she allowed them to take a stand and brought the different races of Room 203 together as one by making a difference.
Frey, Raymond. "Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice." Magill Book Reviews (Feb. 2007). MAS Ultra-School Edition. EBSCO. 26 Apr. 2009.
This article focuses on Sunday, May 14, 1961 – Mother’s Day. This was the day when angry white people blocked a Greyhound bus carrying black and white passengers through rural Alabama. The attackers pelted the vehicle with rocks and bricks, slashed tires, smashed windows with pipes and axes and lobbed a firebomb through a broken window. As smoke and flames filled the bus, the mob barricaded the door. "Burn them alive," somebody cried out. "Fry the goddamn niggers." An exploding fuel tank and warning shots from arriving state troopers forced the rabble back and allowed the riders to escape the inferno. Even then, some were pummeled with baseball bats as they fled. A few hours later, black and white passengers on a Trail ways bus were beaten bloody after they entered whites-only waiting rooms and restaurants at bus terminals in Birmingham and Anniston, Alabama. The bus passengers assaulted that day were Freedom Riders, among the first of more than 400 volunteers who traveled throughout the South on regularly scheduled buses for seven months in 1961 to test a 1960 Supreme Court decision that declared segregated facilities for interstate passengers illegal. The article discusses Eric Etheridge's own experiences with racial segregation and the day of the violent attacks on that day. This article is very much related to the movie, Freedom Writers. In the movie, if race boundary lines are crossed then the people who crossed them must suffer the repercussions which majority of the time can be fatal.
Holmes, Marian Smith. "The Freedom Riders." Smithsonian 39.6 (Feb. 2009): 70. MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. 26 Apr. 2009
Article 2
In this article, it discusses who were the freedom riders, how they started, and their struggle for justice. It includes a brief narrative from Raymond Arsenault. Freedom Riders were mostly college students and liberal clergy, both black and white. In 1961, they decided to force the United States government to live up to its promise of a desegregated society. Traveling through the Deep South by bus, they suffered injury and death by the Ku Klux Klan, they were jailed and beaten, but refused to give up. Raymond Arsenault's incredible narrative, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, vividly retells the story of these young civil rights pioneers. Even more fascinating is the inside story: Freedom Riders concerned about their place in history; friction between civil rights groups and their leaders; the efforts by the Kennedy administration to protect the riders' rights while at the same time attempting to convince them to give up the campaign; the incompetence of the FBI in bringing known Klan members to justice. The freedom riders were indispensable in moving the federal government to enforce civil rights laws that were so blatantly ignored by many southern states. The clash between southern governors waving the flag of state sovereignty and the U.S. government's obligation to protect the riders and enforce federal law powerfully illustrates the deep-seated cultural, political, and historical issues behind the events. This article is related to the movie, Freedom Writers because their teacher Erin Gruwell defied what administration wanted her students to learn, and she allowed them to take a stand and brought the different races of Room 203 together as one by making a difference.
Frey, Raymond. "Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice." Magill Book Reviews (Feb. 2007). MAS Ultra-School Edition. EBSCO. 26 Apr. 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Freedom Writers "Initial Reacton"
The freedom to do what you want, the freedom to do what you pleased…the freedom to write and express one’s own ideas all these facts will make life better. The Rodney King Riots also know as the nation worst outbreak of interracial gang warfare and the following of the O.J. Simpson Trial bought the city to uncomfortable moods. Long Beach had been the city that you should not send your children to the schools in the district. All the races of students had three things in common. They hated school, their teachers, and each other.
Freedom Writers is a 2007 movie based on the book, The Freedom Writers Diary. It is about a new integration program that puts students of all backgrounds and races in classes together. Erin Gruwell, a new teacher, attempts to teach the low rated students in the school. She makes a difference by bringing the students together. When I first saw the movie, I thought it would have been scary because of the situations that occurred. In the beginning of the film, it starts with clips from the Los Angeles Riots. My initial reaction was that the movie was going to talk about the situations that involved that. The students Gruwell receives are given the nickname “the unteachables”. They must be forced into class by security guards and are segregated into racial groups in the classroom. The tension is apparent every time students from one race look at those from another. Not only does she meet opposition from her students, she also has a hard time with her department head, who believes she should focus less on teaching her students to learn and read, and more on teaching them discipline and obedience.
I thought that Mrs. Gruwell was not going to be able to teach them because they were vulgar, insolent, and they could not get along with the people of the other races. If their territories were crossed, the person who crossed them would have to suffer cruel consequences from the other race. After the tragedies that took place, Mrs. Gruwell had to find a way to address the student’s issues. She thought that giving them The Diary of Anne Frank to read would help the students identify the same issues that Anne Frank had to face. In the book, Frank copes with her situations by writing. Gruwell thought that was a good idea for her students to apply. They began writing anonymous journal entries about the adversities that we faced in their every day lives. They wrote about gangs, immigration, drugs, violence, abuse, death, anorexia, dyslexia, teenage love, weight issues, divorce, suicide, and all the other issues they never had the chance to express before. It shows that in Room 203 was the place where the students could be themselves, cry, and laugh without being judged.
My first instant reaction to the scene when character Marcus Jefferson told Erin Gruwell that the students were in a war and they were not afraid to die, was that the war between the races occurred way before their time. This film received incredible reviews. Critics were stating that this movie was the real meaning of the No Child Left Behind Act.
Bibliography
Synopsis. 2006. 3 April 2009 http://www.freedomwriters.com/.
Writers, The Freedom. About The Freedom Writers. 2006. 3 April 2009.
Freedom Writers is a 2007 movie based on the book, The Freedom Writers Diary. It is about a new integration program that puts students of all backgrounds and races in classes together. Erin Gruwell, a new teacher, attempts to teach the low rated students in the school. She makes a difference by bringing the students together. When I first saw the movie, I thought it would have been scary because of the situations that occurred. In the beginning of the film, it starts with clips from the Los Angeles Riots. My initial reaction was that the movie was going to talk about the situations that involved that. The students Gruwell receives are given the nickname “the unteachables”. They must be forced into class by security guards and are segregated into racial groups in the classroom. The tension is apparent every time students from one race look at those from another. Not only does she meet opposition from her students, she also has a hard time with her department head, who believes she should focus less on teaching her students to learn and read, and more on teaching them discipline and obedience.
I thought that Mrs. Gruwell was not going to be able to teach them because they were vulgar, insolent, and they could not get along with the people of the other races. If their territories were crossed, the person who crossed them would have to suffer cruel consequences from the other race. After the tragedies that took place, Mrs. Gruwell had to find a way to address the student’s issues. She thought that giving them The Diary of Anne Frank to read would help the students identify the same issues that Anne Frank had to face. In the book, Frank copes with her situations by writing. Gruwell thought that was a good idea for her students to apply. They began writing anonymous journal entries about the adversities that we faced in their every day lives. They wrote about gangs, immigration, drugs, violence, abuse, death, anorexia, dyslexia, teenage love, weight issues, divorce, suicide, and all the other issues they never had the chance to express before. It shows that in Room 203 was the place where the students could be themselves, cry, and laugh without being judged.
My first instant reaction to the scene when character Marcus Jefferson told Erin Gruwell that the students were in a war and they were not afraid to die, was that the war between the races occurred way before their time. This film received incredible reviews. Critics were stating that this movie was the real meaning of the No Child Left Behind Act.
Bibliography
Synopsis. 2006. 3 April 2009 http://www.freedomwriters.com/.
Writers, The Freedom. About The Freedom Writers. 2006. 3 April 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Tone Question
He's Really Cute....
There was a girl who was attracted to many boys and they were really cute.
Whenever she was around them she tried to keep her cool, but one stuck out the most because he was really cute.
One day she met a boy that was in an odd situation and he was really cute.
Day in and day out she would follow him so she could talk to him because he was really cute.
It takes a whole week for them to actually speak because she was shy and he was really cute.
They exchange random facts among each other because he was really cute.
They go on their first date and make something because he was really cute.
Finally things just gets better from there all because a friend helped her out because HE WAS REALLY CUTE.
There was a girl who was attracted to many boys and they were really cute.
Whenever she was around them she tried to keep her cool, but one stuck out the most because he was really cute.
One day she met a boy that was in an odd situation and he was really cute.
Day in and day out she would follow him so she could talk to him because he was really cute.
It takes a whole week for them to actually speak because she was shy and he was really cute.
They exchange random facts among each other because he was really cute.
They go on their first date and make something because he was really cute.
Finally things just gets better from there all because a friend helped her out because HE WAS REALLY CUTE.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Their Eyes Were Watching God Quote
“It was inevitable that she should accept any inconsistency and cruelty from her
deity as all good worshippers do from theirs. All gods who receive homage are
cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise, they would not be
worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most
divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half
gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.”
In this passage from Chapter 16, Hurston shapes out an exception to the gender dichotomy that she presents in the opening sentences of the novel. Mrs. Tuner is introduced. She has deep-seated beliefs about the superiority of the Caucasian race. She and Janie had seen one another throughout the season, but they have not come to know one another until the season ended. For the first time Janie faces prejudice and racism. Mrs. Turner only pursues a friendship with Janie because she has lighter skin than the rest of the migrant workers. She shares her strong beliefs with Janie as she tells her “Ah can’t stand black niggers . . . . Ah hates tuh see folks lak me and you mixed up wid ’em.” Ironically, Mrs. Turner’s life depends on black migrant workers support.
Mrs. Turner's worship of qualities that she will never possess groups her with the men whose ships “sail forever on the horizon.” What is most strange about the passage, though, is the understood comparison between Mrs. Turner and Janie. The “indiscriminate suffering” and “real blood” that may lead to wisdom could equally well belong to Janie. Janie's trip to the horizon requires her to suffer at the hands of two husbands, shoot her third, and brave a ferocious hurricane. Yet for Janie, suffering is not an end in itself. She endures it so that she may experience the fullness of life and the good that comes with the bad. Mrs. Turner, however, worships her false gods because they give her a sense of superiority over her peers and because, something of a masochist, she enjoys the pain that these gods dole out. When others mock her for her views, she feels like a victim and a martyr, a feeling she finds pleasurable. The narrator's stylized description, in the paragraph just below the above quote, of her wish for “an army, terrible with banners and swords,” illustrates the fantastic vengefulness and inflated sense of self-importance that Mrs. Turner's ostracism gives her. It is this pleasure in pain that motivates her to worship “gods who dispense suffering without reason.” Through “worship,” she hopes to “attain her paradise, a heaven of straight-haired, thin-lipped, high nose boned white seraphs.” Hurston uses Mrs. Turner as an example of intolerance in the novel.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Money and Class in America (AP Writing Prompt)
This country we call America has relied on the value of the dollar bill. Rather its inflated or full value, you are not getting the value of that buck. People's attitudes towards money vary enormously and are largely influenced by the values they were brought up with and, to a certain extent, how much money they have now. People in this country are put into social classes based on salary and occupation. Many Americans believe in a simple three-class model that includes the "rich,” the "middle class", and the "poor." More complex models that have been proposed describe as many as a dozen class levels; while still others deny the very existence, in the strict sense, of "social class" in American society. Most definitions of class structure group people according to wealth, income, education, type of occupation, and membership in a specific subculture or social network. Lapham is observing people’s attitudes toward wealth in the United States. He is speaking the truth in this excerpt. The desire for people to have money in this country is a shame. The drive is not positive. People are not taking the time to get deserving jobs instead; they are selling jobs and selling their bodies just to make a quick dollar.
Money in America has many meanings. “The American faith in money easily surpasses the degree of intensity achieved by other societies in other times and places.” (Lapham) America measures everything according to the dollar bill. America is very materialistic. People buy things they cannot possibly afford, but they do it anyway just to make their lives worth wild. There are so many high-end stores being sold out because people live their lives materialistically. Stores such as Wal-Mart®, Kmart®, and Target® are lowering their prices so they can get consumers in so they can stop buying high priced items. On the street, there are so many brand new cars on the street because people are just buying cars every two years without thinking that car payments are skyrocketing.
Our country as we speak is in a recession, according to ask.com, a recession is a period of reduced economic activity,” a business cycle contraction. What causes a recession is currency crisis, energy crisis, war, under consumption, overproduction, and finance crisis. The effects of a recession are bankruptcies, credit crunches, and deflation of the dollar, foreclosures, and unemployment. In 2009 the reasons of the recession is due to high oil prices, high food prices and a substantial credit crisis leading to the bankruptcy of large and well established investment banks as well as commercial banks in many nations around the world. It was argued that huge increases in commodity prices came because of extended period of easily available credit and the primary cause of the downturn was exceptionally financial. People are worrying about how the wealthy are going to live it is really how the poor are going to live. People never take spending seriously until things happen and they are living paycheck to paycheck. “The visible signs of wealth testify to an inward state of grace, and without at least some of these talismans posted in one’s house or on one’s person an American loses all hope of demonstrating to himself the theorem of his happiness” (Lapham) People’s happiness are defined by the materialistic things they own.
Americans do not know the real value of the dollar bill. Lapham says Americans are not greedy, but I think they are. Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one.- Ben Franklin
Money in America has many meanings. “The American faith in money easily surpasses the degree of intensity achieved by other societies in other times and places.” (Lapham) America measures everything according to the dollar bill. America is very materialistic. People buy things they cannot possibly afford, but they do it anyway just to make their lives worth wild. There are so many high-end stores being sold out because people live their lives materialistically. Stores such as Wal-Mart®, Kmart®, and Target® are lowering their prices so they can get consumers in so they can stop buying high priced items. On the street, there are so many brand new cars on the street because people are just buying cars every two years without thinking that car payments are skyrocketing.
Our country as we speak is in a recession, according to ask.com, a recession is a period of reduced economic activity,” a business cycle contraction. What causes a recession is currency crisis, energy crisis, war, under consumption, overproduction, and finance crisis. The effects of a recession are bankruptcies, credit crunches, and deflation of the dollar, foreclosures, and unemployment. In 2009 the reasons of the recession is due to high oil prices, high food prices and a substantial credit crisis leading to the bankruptcy of large and well established investment banks as well as commercial banks in many nations around the world. It was argued that huge increases in commodity prices came because of extended period of easily available credit and the primary cause of the downturn was exceptionally financial. People are worrying about how the wealthy are going to live it is really how the poor are going to live. People never take spending seriously until things happen and they are living paycheck to paycheck. “The visible signs of wealth testify to an inward state of grace, and without at least some of these talismans posted in one’s house or on one’s person an American loses all hope of demonstrating to himself the theorem of his happiness” (Lapham) People’s happiness are defined by the materialistic things they own.
Americans do not know the real value of the dollar bill. Lapham says Americans are not greedy, but I think they are. Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one.- Ben Franklin
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Argument and Persuasion Questions "Death and Justice"
Meaning
1. Koch is in favor of capital punishment it. Life is indeed precious, and I believe the death penalty helps to affirm this fact" (Koch 320). He believes that having the death penalty will help keep the idea of life being precious. He thought that the murderer might not have committed the crime in fear of losing his or her own life in the end. He also believed that one day the percentage of killers would decrease and would then diminish entirely. He asked that society please stop not taking responsibility for the murdering of lives. He believed that, without the death penalty, murderers would feel that they could kill without fear of a dyer consequence. He also stated that God gave people the right to punish those that had murdered someone.
2. The argument dealing with the issue in the debate over capital punishment of the death penalty as a deterrent to murder is that the death penalty will scare murderers so bad that they will not murder. Koch provides many statistics and examples of the positive and negative effects the death penalty would have on the society. He brings up situations that have happened with murderers that are sentenced to life in prison yet they still kill. The argument dealing with the issue in the debate over the death penalty being a form of justice for the murder done is that it provides somewhat of an even exchange. Since the person decided to take a life, then they should also be willing to lose theirs. It is a life for a life.
Purpose and Audience
1. Koch did not use his essay as a way to gain votes from the people. It seems to be this way because although this is a persuasive argument, many people are turned away from Socratic subjects like these. If the purpose was for votes he may have done himself an injustice because there will be people, potential voters, that will not vote for him because of his beliefs. Instead, he is strongly supporting and attacking their reasons for why they are not supporting the death penalty.
2. He believes that his audience does not agree with the death penalty at all. He shows this belief by directly addressing his audience, giving and naming their reasons for not supporting the death penalty, and finally describing that his society members are terrified to declare the death penalty as constitutional. In this essay, there was not a single part of his essay where he showed his belief of people who already supported his argument. His wrote a persuasive essay. This essay was created to try to persuade people that the death penalty was a necessity and correct form of justice. In order to try to persuade his readers of this, he placed emotional appeal in his essay. His examples of how murders were murdering people numerously were placed in the essay to try to show readers that the death penalty was the best option for society.
3. Koch places the right on the reader that they should follow the law for such harsh crimes and punishments. The state is allowed to do certain things but the citizens of that state do not have that same right, which is what we call justice. People in our society always complain and are disappointed with the things that happen, but they cannot seem to get up and do something about it.
Method and Structure
1. Ethical: “During my 22 years in public service, I have heard the pros and cons of capital punishment expressed with special intensity” (Koch 320). Emotional: “Consider the tragic death of Rosa Velez, who happened to be home when a man named Luis Vera burglarized her apartment in Brooklyn. “ Yeah, I shot her, she knew me, and I knew I wouldn’t go to the chair.” (Koch 320) Rational: "But to give up and do nothing would be far more barbaric and would certainly delay the discovery of an eventual cure." (Koch 321). People have different emotions, so emotional appeal would be least effective. Rational appeal uses facts, but there only is as good as, it is going to get. The best appeal to Koch’s argument is ethical appeal because that he had prior experience, it gives off the fact that he experienced it and it is reliable information.
2. The major premise is that before death murderers admit they were wrong. The minor premise is murderers eventually realize that they were wrong. The conclusion is that all murderers admit they were wrong and realize what they did right before they die. Koch denies the validity of this in paragraph 13 because this is not necessarily true for all murderers.
3. Koch’s strategy in explaining that the death penalty is barbaric was not too effective. He describes things that would prove the point of the idea of the death penalty being barbaric. He creates images of “lethal injection, ropes, voltage, bullets, and gas. This does make the death penalty seem very barbaric. Koch claims that doing nothing will be more barbaric than the act of the death penalty itself. Lethal injection is now mostly used. This form of execution is not supposed to hurt. It is said to be quick, painless, and easy.
4. Koch uses murderers and what they have done as examples. "Lemuel Smith... lured a woman corrections officer into the chaplain's office and strangled her. He then mutilated and dismembered her body." (Koch 322) Rosa Velez example represented just how some of the murderers think, the murderer admits to shooting the victim and claims that she even knew him, yet he still took her life. The cure for cancer example shows that you do not have to support certain ideas to believe that they might actually help better the world. The neighbors who did not help the screaming victim represent how scary and careless people can be unless it happens to them or to someone that was close to them.
Language
1. Koch seems determined and very passionate about this topic. He really seems to want to get people to feel the same way that he does about the death penalty. He is determined to show people that the death penalty is the only way to rightfully make justice from murders. "Dozens of neighbors heard her cries for help but did nothing to assist her." (Koch 324) This example of the women screaming for help and no one came to her assistance concludes that there is a lack of need to help others and prevent more crime and murders.
2. Koch seems to sound as if he believes that his opponents do not think logically. He sounds as if they are wrong. He says that he has listened to his opponent's views but that they are wrong.
Writing Topics
1. Now the question is whether murderers should be face death penalty or not? My response to this matter is that they should be executed if the murder is for no reason, insanity, and petty reason. If someone murdered someone using self-defense then there should be some jail time, but the evidence should prove that it was. If you have taken someone’s right from live his or her life, why shouldn’t the state or federal government take yours? There is always a consequence and repercussions for such a felony. A person’s life is just as valuable as yours, so why would you take it upon yourself and murder someone.
There are some excuses for the death penalty also. Such as police and armor truck workers who can shoot and kill people for self-defense. That is not fair, because there are times when you hear of police brutality. Police, majority of the time, have killed someone without justifying the reason why they did what they did. It could have been intentional, accidental, or self-defense. Whatever the case maybe, they are still citizens and they should be tried just like a real criminal. One question, where does the death penalty fits in for these specific people? No one can really answer that, so really there should not be a death penalty.
1. Koch is in favor of capital punishment it. Life is indeed precious, and I believe the death penalty helps to affirm this fact" (Koch 320). He believes that having the death penalty will help keep the idea of life being precious. He thought that the murderer might not have committed the crime in fear of losing his or her own life in the end. He also believed that one day the percentage of killers would decrease and would then diminish entirely. He asked that society please stop not taking responsibility for the murdering of lives. He believed that, without the death penalty, murderers would feel that they could kill without fear of a dyer consequence. He also stated that God gave people the right to punish those that had murdered someone.
2. The argument dealing with the issue in the debate over capital punishment of the death penalty as a deterrent to murder is that the death penalty will scare murderers so bad that they will not murder. Koch provides many statistics and examples of the positive and negative effects the death penalty would have on the society. He brings up situations that have happened with murderers that are sentenced to life in prison yet they still kill. The argument dealing with the issue in the debate over the death penalty being a form of justice for the murder done is that it provides somewhat of an even exchange. Since the person decided to take a life, then they should also be willing to lose theirs. It is a life for a life.
Purpose and Audience
1. Koch did not use his essay as a way to gain votes from the people. It seems to be this way because although this is a persuasive argument, many people are turned away from Socratic subjects like these. If the purpose was for votes he may have done himself an injustice because there will be people, potential voters, that will not vote for him because of his beliefs. Instead, he is strongly supporting and attacking their reasons for why they are not supporting the death penalty.
2. He believes that his audience does not agree with the death penalty at all. He shows this belief by directly addressing his audience, giving and naming their reasons for not supporting the death penalty, and finally describing that his society members are terrified to declare the death penalty as constitutional. In this essay, there was not a single part of his essay where he showed his belief of people who already supported his argument. His wrote a persuasive essay. This essay was created to try to persuade people that the death penalty was a necessity and correct form of justice. In order to try to persuade his readers of this, he placed emotional appeal in his essay. His examples of how murders were murdering people numerously were placed in the essay to try to show readers that the death penalty was the best option for society.
3. Koch places the right on the reader that they should follow the law for such harsh crimes and punishments. The state is allowed to do certain things but the citizens of that state do not have that same right, which is what we call justice. People in our society always complain and are disappointed with the things that happen, but they cannot seem to get up and do something about it.
Method and Structure
1. Ethical: “During my 22 years in public service, I have heard the pros and cons of capital punishment expressed with special intensity” (Koch 320). Emotional: “Consider the tragic death of Rosa Velez, who happened to be home when a man named Luis Vera burglarized her apartment in Brooklyn. “ Yeah, I shot her, she knew me, and I knew I wouldn’t go to the chair.” (Koch 320) Rational: "But to give up and do nothing would be far more barbaric and would certainly delay the discovery of an eventual cure." (Koch 321). People have different emotions, so emotional appeal would be least effective. Rational appeal uses facts, but there only is as good as, it is going to get. The best appeal to Koch’s argument is ethical appeal because that he had prior experience, it gives off the fact that he experienced it and it is reliable information.
2. The major premise is that before death murderers admit they were wrong. The minor premise is murderers eventually realize that they were wrong. The conclusion is that all murderers admit they were wrong and realize what they did right before they die. Koch denies the validity of this in paragraph 13 because this is not necessarily true for all murderers.
3. Koch’s strategy in explaining that the death penalty is barbaric was not too effective. He describes things that would prove the point of the idea of the death penalty being barbaric. He creates images of “lethal injection, ropes, voltage, bullets, and gas. This does make the death penalty seem very barbaric. Koch claims that doing nothing will be more barbaric than the act of the death penalty itself. Lethal injection is now mostly used. This form of execution is not supposed to hurt. It is said to be quick, painless, and easy.
4. Koch uses murderers and what they have done as examples. "Lemuel Smith... lured a woman corrections officer into the chaplain's office and strangled her. He then mutilated and dismembered her body." (Koch 322) Rosa Velez example represented just how some of the murderers think, the murderer admits to shooting the victim and claims that she even knew him, yet he still took her life. The cure for cancer example shows that you do not have to support certain ideas to believe that they might actually help better the world. The neighbors who did not help the screaming victim represent how scary and careless people can be unless it happens to them or to someone that was close to them.
Language
1. Koch seems determined and very passionate about this topic. He really seems to want to get people to feel the same way that he does about the death penalty. He is determined to show people that the death penalty is the only way to rightfully make justice from murders. "Dozens of neighbors heard her cries for help but did nothing to assist her." (Koch 324) This example of the women screaming for help and no one came to her assistance concludes that there is a lack of need to help others and prevent more crime and murders.
2. Koch seems to sound as if he believes that his opponents do not think logically. He sounds as if they are wrong. He says that he has listened to his opponent's views but that they are wrong.
Writing Topics
1. Now the question is whether murderers should be face death penalty or not? My response to this matter is that they should be executed if the murder is for no reason, insanity, and petty reason. If someone murdered someone using self-defense then there should be some jail time, but the evidence should prove that it was. If you have taken someone’s right from live his or her life, why shouldn’t the state or federal government take yours? There is always a consequence and repercussions for such a felony. A person’s life is just as valuable as yours, so why would you take it upon yourself and murder someone.
There are some excuses for the death penalty also. Such as police and armor truck workers who can shoot and kill people for self-defense. That is not fair, because there are times when you hear of police brutality. Police, majority of the time, have killed someone without justifying the reason why they did what they did. It could have been intentional, accidental, or self-defense. Whatever the case maybe, they are still citizens and they should be tried just like a real criminal. One question, where does the death penalty fits in for these specific people? No one can really answer that, so really there should not be a death penalty.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Narration Topic "A Friend's Generosity or Sacrifice"
Having friends are not all what it portray to be. Some friendships are the best where you never seem to argue, you seemed to be attached at the hip majority of the time, you share anything, and everything and you go everywhere together. Now other friendships are you argue about everything, you have petty ordeals that could threaten your relationship, the parent on one end of the friendship dislikes the other, and most of all you are still friends. Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more people. The connotation of friendship is a relationship, which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection and respect along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis. Friendships seem to be more materialistic than morals and values that each person shares. According to George Elliot "Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words." A friend needs to be very understanding and give each other the benefit of the doubt. The purpose and meaning of friendship is to make life's burdens lighter for our friends and not make them heavier. The Roman thinker Cicero said, "Friendship makes prosperity brighter, while it lightens adversity by sharing its grief and anxieties."
More or less, friendships should always enable the people to have values for themselves rather than for people on the outside looking in. If morals and values are consistent, then the friendship is bound to be there for as long as times continue to go. Values could be such as the tendency to desire what is best for the other, sympathy, empathy, honesty, possibly in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, especially in terms of pointing out the alleged faults of one's corresponding fault with mutual understanding. A friendship takes two. If one is putting their all in the relationship and the other is just sitting their absorbing their presence without effort then there is no friendship. Morals that a friendship should necessitate knows each others boundaries and how far someone is willing to go for you without taking the other’s generosity for granted.
In this case, it seems my generosity is always being taken for granted. Majority of the time I let it fly because I do not dwell on others non-sense. When I did, it was not a pretty sight. I was the friend who sacrificed a lot and was taken for granted. There was a time I helped a friend and it was not purpose to help her out because what my mom told me. Every time something was planned, there was that one factor that held us back. I was always told to never volunteer my mom for anything without her permission. Well one night, it was planned my friends and I were going to the movies. One thing that was holding us back was that we were not old enough to drive so we had to find reliable transportation. Being that it was planned together, I put my mother up for the offer to take us. When I told her I did, she threw a huge fit. She was going on and on about me making plans for her to drive me and others around as if she is a chauffeur, which made her furious when, I always did, but I never told people my mom would have a problem with doing such. Therefore, when it was that last time they asked again, I told them my mom is not going to do it anymore and if they find a way let me know. Well being that we are friends, I would think after all the times I made my mom budge for them, they would at least come through for me. I guess not everything in life is as sweet as it is supposed to be. They went to the movies again but when they got there, that is when they called me and asked me am I still coming. First, they have the audacity to call me and ask if I was still going when they knew I needed a way to get there. The plan was if they find a way do not forget about me. The way they went about it was so shiesty and bogus, made me so mad. Now when you think about it my mom came through for all they bogus attitudes and whoever took them they did not even make sure they come through for me. I could have caught them in the act and said some bogus things but I am not like that. My generosity was taken for granted and that is just one time. There has been many similar occasion when there was but I let it either blow over or spoke up on the issue. I sacrificed my mom every time I want to go somewhere and others to go with me, but the one time I could not sacrifice anybody, I had to find others means of transportation. I found out how true of a friend that person was and it lead me to believe that if they do it to me one time, believe they will do it again. From then on, I heard through the others that I could never do things for other people unless they do stuff for me without hesitation. That is not true and will never be true because I come through for people, even though we may not be friends. Most people look at my situation on the outside without thinking maybe it is not I that is not allowing me to come through for other people.
I can say that many friendships I have encountered, have not been healthy ones because of my generosity has been taken for granted. As stated in the beginning, a friendship takes two just like marriages and a partnership. Therefore, you may ask, "What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies". - Aristotle
More or less, friendships should always enable the people to have values for themselves rather than for people on the outside looking in. If morals and values are consistent, then the friendship is bound to be there for as long as times continue to go. Values could be such as the tendency to desire what is best for the other, sympathy, empathy, honesty, possibly in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, especially in terms of pointing out the alleged faults of one's corresponding fault with mutual understanding. A friendship takes two. If one is putting their all in the relationship and the other is just sitting their absorbing their presence without effort then there is no friendship. Morals that a friendship should necessitate knows each others boundaries and how far someone is willing to go for you without taking the other’s generosity for granted.
In this case, it seems my generosity is always being taken for granted. Majority of the time I let it fly because I do not dwell on others non-sense. When I did, it was not a pretty sight. I was the friend who sacrificed a lot and was taken for granted. There was a time I helped a friend and it was not purpose to help her out because what my mom told me. Every time something was planned, there was that one factor that held us back. I was always told to never volunteer my mom for anything without her permission. Well one night, it was planned my friends and I were going to the movies. One thing that was holding us back was that we were not old enough to drive so we had to find reliable transportation. Being that it was planned together, I put my mother up for the offer to take us. When I told her I did, she threw a huge fit. She was going on and on about me making plans for her to drive me and others around as if she is a chauffeur, which made her furious when, I always did, but I never told people my mom would have a problem with doing such. Therefore, when it was that last time they asked again, I told them my mom is not going to do it anymore and if they find a way let me know. Well being that we are friends, I would think after all the times I made my mom budge for them, they would at least come through for me. I guess not everything in life is as sweet as it is supposed to be. They went to the movies again but when they got there, that is when they called me and asked me am I still coming. First, they have the audacity to call me and ask if I was still going when they knew I needed a way to get there. The plan was if they find a way do not forget about me. The way they went about it was so shiesty and bogus, made me so mad. Now when you think about it my mom came through for all they bogus attitudes and whoever took them they did not even make sure they come through for me. I could have caught them in the act and said some bogus things but I am not like that. My generosity was taken for granted and that is just one time. There has been many similar occasion when there was but I let it either blow over or spoke up on the issue. I sacrificed my mom every time I want to go somewhere and others to go with me, but the one time I could not sacrifice anybody, I had to find others means of transportation. I found out how true of a friend that person was and it lead me to believe that if they do it to me one time, believe they will do it again. From then on, I heard through the others that I could never do things for other people unless they do stuff for me without hesitation. That is not true and will never be true because I come through for people, even though we may not be friends. Most people look at my situation on the outside without thinking maybe it is not I that is not allowing me to come through for other people.
I can say that many friendships I have encountered, have not been healthy ones because of my generosity has been taken for granted. As stated in the beginning, a friendship takes two just like marriages and a partnership. Therefore, you may ask, "What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies". - Aristotle
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Bernice Bobs Her Hair Response
Bernice Bobs Her Hair is an interesting short story on how one friend tries to help another until jealously overturns that assistance given and becomes a way to fail her in society. Bernice was anti-social. She did not talk to anyone or what we will call “the life of the party.” Marjorie teaches Bernice how to hold interesting conversations, how to flirt with even unattractive or uninteresting boys to make she seem more desirable, and how to dance. Bernice's best line is teasing the boys with the idea that she will soon bob her hair and they will get to watch. The new Bernice is a big hit with the boys in town with her new attitude, especially with Warren, a boy Marjorie keeps around as her own but neglects. When it becomes clear that Warren has shifted his interest from Marjorie to Bernice, Marjorie sets about humiliating Bernice, tricking her into going through with bobbing her hair. Marjorie’s mom was not pleased with Bernice’s new haircut. She thought her haircut would cause a problem because it was very liberated at the time. When Bernice comes out of the barbershop with the new hairdo, her hair is flat and strange and the boys suddenly lose interest in her, and Bernice realizes she has been tricked. After the family has gone to bed, Bernice packs her trunk and intends to leave on a train at 1 a.m. Before she goes, she sneaks into Marjorie's room and cuts off her cousin's two pigtails, taking them with her on her run to the station and throwing them on Warren's front porch.
The identical style of long and wavy was commended because it showed a woman’s true beauty. Many elder women took the short hair, the bob, as offensive and disreputable because it took away from the woman’s true beauty, which was the long and wavy hair. Many women were very apparent and shallow, Barbie’s, making men draw more towards this very sexy cut. Women are supposedly to be graceful and full of self-assurance. Being that Bernice was tricked into such style, she did not know that boys would actually like her for that until Marjorie told her. Women still were until the title of cults of true womanhood, with no EXTRA strings attached! Marjorie taught Bernice how to hold conversations with the boys to help them like her more. Marjorie would be what we call, the popular girl, the girl who knew everyone, who was socially proficient with others, especially boys. On the other hand, Bernice was brought up “on novels in which the female was beloved because of certain mysterious woman qualities, always mentioned but never displayed.” (pg 4) She was brought up as a superlative woman, but that image was no longer to be true after the “bogus transformation.” Bernice did not know that she was far from being a modern female in her society anymore, due to Marjorie’s deceitful changes. The old Bernice made the men known for not liking her and when conversations were held they would just be bored and uninterested in her existence.
In this story, Fitzgerald added a small amount of figurative language to help his story understood by people who would pick it up and read it. Irony was used in this story in small ways. Irony is a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated. The irony displayed was situational irony or cosmic irony because Marjorie’s purpose was to help Bernice out but instead she got jealous and began to deceive her into the voluptuous woman she became. It is very ironic because you thought that family would not treat others but I guess that sometimes blood is not always thicker than water.
The true image of a woman begins to change and evolve over time. Even though, there is always that one woman who wants to fit in society. Society has to be the crowd that accepts that woman.
The identical style of long and wavy was commended because it showed a woman’s true beauty. Many elder women took the short hair, the bob, as offensive and disreputable because it took away from the woman’s true beauty, which was the long and wavy hair. Many women were very apparent and shallow, Barbie’s, making men draw more towards this very sexy cut. Women are supposedly to be graceful and full of self-assurance. Being that Bernice was tricked into such style, she did not know that boys would actually like her for that until Marjorie told her. Women still were until the title of cults of true womanhood, with no EXTRA strings attached! Marjorie taught Bernice how to hold conversations with the boys to help them like her more. Marjorie would be what we call, the popular girl, the girl who knew everyone, who was socially proficient with others, especially boys. On the other hand, Bernice was brought up “on novels in which the female was beloved because of certain mysterious woman qualities, always mentioned but never displayed.” (pg 4) She was brought up as a superlative woman, but that image was no longer to be true after the “bogus transformation.” Bernice did not know that she was far from being a modern female in her society anymore, due to Marjorie’s deceitful changes. The old Bernice made the men known for not liking her and when conversations were held they would just be bored and uninterested in her existence.
In this story, Fitzgerald added a small amount of figurative language to help his story understood by people who would pick it up and read it. Irony was used in this story in small ways. Irony is a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated. The irony displayed was situational irony or cosmic irony because Marjorie’s purpose was to help Bernice out but instead she got jealous and began to deceive her into the voluptuous woman she became. It is very ironic because you thought that family would not treat others but I guess that sometimes blood is not always thicker than water.
The true image of a woman begins to change and evolve over time. Even though, there is always that one woman who wants to fit in society. Society has to be the crowd that accepts that woman.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Martin Luther King's Speech Questions
II. Rhetorical Structure: Figures of Speech
1. Alliteration – the commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group
Allusion – An indirect reference to some piece of knowledge not actually mentioned.
Metaphor – a figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity
Simile - a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as in “she is like a rose.”
2. In the opening of king’s speech, an allusion represented the Gettysburg address given by Abraham Lincoln. It reminds the people about how it started with one man fighting for freedom of slaves.
3. An allusion to the declaration of independence was “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” An allusion to the Bible was, “…Every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”
4. An example of an alliteration used was “I Have a Dream" and “Let Freedom Ring”.
5. An example of a metaphor used was “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
6. An example of a simile used was “…and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
7. Metaphor is the figure of speech used.
This statement was used to justify the fact that even though slavery has been abolished, people still, to this day, are prejudice and racist to the people of color.
8. Two examples of an Anaphora used in King’s Speech was "Now is the time..." and "We can never be satisfied,”
9. This phrase states the idea that racial equality in this country is nothing more than a sanguine dream.
III. Understanding the Dream
1. The speech “I Have a Dream” was the most massive protest demonstration ever occurred in the U.S. It took place on August 28, 1963 when King was leading the “March on Washington” before the Lincoln Memorial. Some 250.000 Americans of all faiths, races, and creeds joined him and other civil rights leaders in this demonstration of solidarity. It was staged in an effort to impress upon the nation’s conscience the urgency of granting first-class status to blacks. By making this speech, King tried to persuade the blacks to carry on their struggle by non-violent means for the justice and freedom promised them by the Emancipation Proclamation. King’s dream of achieving equality and tolerance was a dream of the time when the evils of prejudice and segregation will vanish. King’s speech has been called “the emotional crescendo of an emotional day.”
2. Some specific acts of injustice were “the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”, “This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.”, and “Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.”
3. The “American Dream” for an “average American” is the freedom that allows all citizens and most residents of the United States to pursue their goals in life through hard work and free choice. The “American Dream” for an ‘average African American” is the faith that an individual can attain success and virtue through strenuous effort is the very soul of the American nation.
4. He named these states because they all have something in common; they all have high areas of land such as mountains and hilltops.
5. I would have been moved by King’s speech because he was the only one to actually make it to Capitol Hill to let everyone know that people are country are white, but all shades of color. Even though slavery was abolished, racial discrimination was not.
IV. Relating to the Dream
1. Racism has existed throughout human history. It may be defined as the hatred of one person by another or the belief that another person is less than human because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor that apparently reveals the basic nature of that person.
2. They did not want the people of color to have a place in this country. It was still considered a “white” man’s world so people still did not understand that this country was a mixed population and that if blacks would have a place in this world they would become superior to whites. I think blacks were spiritual and they knew better to treat others wrong and kill them for what they did. If blacks responded with their own violent retaliations then nothing would be solved.
3. Skinheads are dangerous because they have been provoking violence since World War II and they continue to be racist towards many people.
4. I think that this country is only getting closer to making King’s dream a reality to this nation. We have already accomplished the citizenship to the African American, along his right to vote. The part of the dream that yet remains to be accomplished is the complete permeate of this country from the dangers of discrimination. Our country has made a huge change by electing Obama as our president. People understood this country was not all white people but a mixed population.
1. Alliteration – the commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group
Allusion – An indirect reference to some piece of knowledge not actually mentioned.
Metaphor – a figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity
Simile - a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as in “she is like a rose.”
2. In the opening of king’s speech, an allusion represented the Gettysburg address given by Abraham Lincoln. It reminds the people about how it started with one man fighting for freedom of slaves.
3. An allusion to the declaration of independence was “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” An allusion to the Bible was, “…Every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”
4. An example of an alliteration used was “I Have a Dream" and “Let Freedom Ring”.
5. An example of a metaphor used was “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
6. An example of a simile used was “…and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
7. Metaphor is the figure of speech used.
This statement was used to justify the fact that even though slavery has been abolished, people still, to this day, are prejudice and racist to the people of color.
8. Two examples of an Anaphora used in King’s Speech was "Now is the time..." and "We can never be satisfied,”
9. This phrase states the idea that racial equality in this country is nothing more than a sanguine dream.
III. Understanding the Dream
1. The speech “I Have a Dream” was the most massive protest demonstration ever occurred in the U.S. It took place on August 28, 1963 when King was leading the “March on Washington” before the Lincoln Memorial. Some 250.000 Americans of all faiths, races, and creeds joined him and other civil rights leaders in this demonstration of solidarity. It was staged in an effort to impress upon the nation’s conscience the urgency of granting first-class status to blacks. By making this speech, King tried to persuade the blacks to carry on their struggle by non-violent means for the justice and freedom promised them by the Emancipation Proclamation. King’s dream of achieving equality and tolerance was a dream of the time when the evils of prejudice and segregation will vanish. King’s speech has been called “the emotional crescendo of an emotional day.”
2. Some specific acts of injustice were “the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”, “This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.”, and “Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.”
3. The “American Dream” for an “average American” is the freedom that allows all citizens and most residents of the United States to pursue their goals in life through hard work and free choice. The “American Dream” for an ‘average African American” is the faith that an individual can attain success and virtue through strenuous effort is the very soul of the American nation.
4. He named these states because they all have something in common; they all have high areas of land such as mountains and hilltops.
5. I would have been moved by King’s speech because he was the only one to actually make it to Capitol Hill to let everyone know that people are country are white, but all shades of color. Even though slavery was abolished, racial discrimination was not.
IV. Relating to the Dream
1. Racism has existed throughout human history. It may be defined as the hatred of one person by another or the belief that another person is less than human because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor that apparently reveals the basic nature of that person.
2. They did not want the people of color to have a place in this country. It was still considered a “white” man’s world so people still did not understand that this country was a mixed population and that if blacks would have a place in this world they would become superior to whites. I think blacks were spiritual and they knew better to treat others wrong and kill them for what they did. If blacks responded with their own violent retaliations then nothing would be solved.
3. Skinheads are dangerous because they have been provoking violence since World War II and they continue to be racist towards many people.
4. I think that this country is only getting closer to making King’s dream a reality to this nation. We have already accomplished the citizenship to the African American, along his right to vote. The part of the dream that yet remains to be accomplished is the complete permeate of this country from the dangers of discrimination. Our country has made a huge change by electing Obama as our president. People understood this country was not all white people but a mixed population.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Letter to the Later Generation
Dear Khadija Allen,
I am surprised to hear from you. Your generation now days have it made. The technology such as the computer, cell phones, and the emails keep you people updated a lot. I would have never thought that you would have written me a letter, but I am thrilled you did. You people have high fashion, luxury cars, and other costly items that only my social security can get me so much of.
You ask me to describe how life was for me in the early 20th century. I say much different than it is now. Let us just say people. Especially women, have a lot more freedom than they did during my time. Women were not allowed to vote or hold legit job. We were treated like slaves and we had jobs like to care of our children, hold risky jobs such as police officers and even being a nurse to the soldiers in the wars. While men were getting most of the attention, we were just being put aside.
Transportation for us was just opening to expand. New fixtures such as bridges and automobiles were all put into effect. The automobile vastly increased the mobility of people in the Western countries in the early to mid-century and in many other places by the end of the century. City design throughout most of the West became focused on transport via car. New inventions began to make a move on us and everything made life much easier. When Henry Ford invented the Ford Model T, everyone just had to get there hands on one of them. The Model T set 1908 as the historic year that the automobile came into popular usage. People were saying that it is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that "put America on wheels”. Early on, it was this marvelous, extravagant bridge created right after my mother’s birthday. It was the famous Brooklyn Bridge. It was made for people who wanted to get to Manhattan from Brooklyn or vice versa, a lot quicker and easier. Later the Wright Brothers made a superb invention that can get you from place to place in mid air. It is what’s known as the airplane. The brothers made their first successful flight in 1903. Everyone was proud and wanted to try for him or herself.
There is a lot more that I wish I can tell you but then you would not learn some of these events on your own in school or even reading a book. I am so glad to hear from you and I hope you write to me soon.
Sincerely,
Marilyn Doogood
I am surprised to hear from you. Your generation now days have it made. The technology such as the computer, cell phones, and the emails keep you people updated a lot. I would have never thought that you would have written me a letter, but I am thrilled you did. You people have high fashion, luxury cars, and other costly items that only my social security can get me so much of.
You ask me to describe how life was for me in the early 20th century. I say much different than it is now. Let us just say people. Especially women, have a lot more freedom than they did during my time. Women were not allowed to vote or hold legit job. We were treated like slaves and we had jobs like to care of our children, hold risky jobs such as police officers and even being a nurse to the soldiers in the wars. While men were getting most of the attention, we were just being put aside.
Transportation for us was just opening to expand. New fixtures such as bridges and automobiles were all put into effect. The automobile vastly increased the mobility of people in the Western countries in the early to mid-century and in many other places by the end of the century. City design throughout most of the West became focused on transport via car. New inventions began to make a move on us and everything made life much easier. When Henry Ford invented the Ford Model T, everyone just had to get there hands on one of them. The Model T set 1908 as the historic year that the automobile came into popular usage. People were saying that it is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that "put America on wheels”. Early on, it was this marvelous, extravagant bridge created right after my mother’s birthday. It was the famous Brooklyn Bridge. It was made for people who wanted to get to Manhattan from Brooklyn or vice versa, a lot quicker and easier. Later the Wright Brothers made a superb invention that can get you from place to place in mid air. It is what’s known as the airplane. The brothers made their first successful flight in 1903. Everyone was proud and wanted to try for him or herself.
There is a lot more that I wish I can tell you but then you would not learn some of these events on your own in school or even reading a book. I am so glad to hear from you and I hope you write to me soon.
Sincerely,
Marilyn Doogood
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