Poverty Debunking

JC Murray

Mrs. Parkinson

English IIIB

12 April 2016

Poverty in America

For Lars Eighner poverty wasn’t just something he experienced, but it was what he experienced every day for years. He was able to find a way to beat poverty something that is not really heard of because most people who are in poverty are okay with it and don’t attempt to get out of it. He uses many pathos in his article to show the readers how tuff his life was during this time and what he was doing to get through it.

When being homeless you have little to no money to your name. No house. No clothes. No nothing. This can be seen in the article when he said, “Except for jeans, all my clothes came from Dumpsters” (Eighner, 713). This for one shows us that he couldn’t afford clothes so he found clothes and wasn’t letting money get in the way of being clothed and warm and it also showed him trying to appeal to our emotions through showing us how he literally could only afford pants to wear and that’s it.

Eighner touched on a point I made before about money in his article when he said, “Can scroungers, then, are people who must have - small amounts of cash. These are drug addicts and winos, mostly the latter because the amounts of cash are so small” (720). Eighner in this quote basically calls out all the people who are homeless and aren’t trying to improve their own conditions and appeals to our emotions by showing us that people who are willing to go the distance will make it out of poverty and rebound into society.

MLA Assignment #2

JC Murray

Mrs. Parkinson

English IIIB

15 March 2016

What does it mean to truly rely on someone?

Well first we look at the definition of rely. To rely on someone is to depend on with full trust or confidence. Now that seems simple enough and this question would be answered, but let’s go deeper. In Of Mice and Man we truly see a real example of what it means to truly rely on someone. This is in the case of George and Lennie. Lennie truly relies on George for everything in his life because of his handy cap he is unable to do/ think things on his own. This can be seen when George and Lennie were walking down the dirt road going to the new ranch, “’ Yeah, what ya want?’ ‘Where we goin’, George?’…’ So you forgot that awready, did you? I gotta tell you again, do I?” (Steinbeck, 2). This shows the readers a few things one that Lennie truly relies on George for the simplest things and two that George gets frustrated that Lennie is constantly asking him the same questions over and over but relies that he doesn’t know any better and relies on him.

Tableau -- Countee Cullen

JC Murray

Mrs. Parkinson

English IIIA

7 March 2016

Assistance Position

The Harlem Renaissance was one of the most liberal and most influential time periods in all of American history in terms of the people’s rights and freedoms. This can be seen in the writings of Countee Cullen, a poet from the Harlem Renaissance, whose poems depict how society was and how it was changing back in the 1930s.

One of Countee’s poems was especially telling in showing the readers of today how society was transforming back in the 1930s. The first three lines of “Tableau” show us the main focus point of the entire poem: “Locked arm in arm they cross the way / The black boy and the white, / The golden splendor of the day” (1-3). This really helps us see the transformation in society by letting us see that before these two races were completely separate, but now they are arm in arm able to come together. 

Mark Bezos Blog Number 3

In this video, which is a ted talk, the man speaking is Mark Bezos. He works at a non-profit called Robin Hood and in his free time he is a volunteer firefighter who tells us the story of when he was on his first firefighting scene. Through the use of humor, the presentation of interesting information, and exhibiting perceptivity he gives a moving speech with a good moral to the story at the end.

Use of Humor

Mark Bezos uses comedic relief in his speech to help make a seemingly dark and grim topic seem lighter hearted and allowed the audience to enjoy the speech. Some examples of this is when he is talking about the shoes that he had to get and about his “nemesis”, Lex Luther.  By him using this he is can talk about a lady whom house got burnt down in an enjoyable way. 

Blog Assignment 2

In chapter 16 Holden told a powerful vignette about when he was a kid and recalled when his teacher Mrs. Aigletinger would bring her classes to the museum, "We have this teacher, Mrs. Aigletinger, that took us there dang near every Saturday... No body gave too much of a dang about old Columbus, but you always had a lot of cotton candy and gum and stuff with you, and inside of that auditorium had such a nice smell. It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn't, and you were in the only nice, dry, cosy place in the world. I loved that dang museum" (Salinger, 65). This vignette was helped the readers see a part of Holden that was about his childhood memories and remembrances of a part of his life that he wasn't so pessimistic by using imagery and elevated diction.  

Catcher in the Rye 9-10 -- Blog Option One

The article above and Holden’s brother’s baseball mitt are both excellent examples of the use of symbolism. Both of these examples help you see deeper into the person’s life weather its Holden or the lady who owns the car. In Holden’s case, the baseball mitt is used to depict the grief and love for his little brother Allie. The mitt was covered in poems which his brother would read when things got boring in the outfield. So this mitt was used to show how Holden felt about his little brother. While in the article about the car, the car was used as a way to describe what this lady was feeling on the inside. The car was used to show that she was hurting on the inside and it really rattled her; the car mechanic was used to show that even though she was hurting on the inside that no one else could tell or noticed. The second half of this article could apply to Holden because it shows him that someone actually understands what he’s going through just like the women. The use of symbolism in both of these general connection, but a more in-depth connection would be that these symbols help you see who the writer feels internally without them straight up telling you.

How Does the Setting of Ender's Game Affect the Book and Its Plot?

Since procrastination has gotten the best of me again and I was just looking through the comments of people that have also procrastinated and I saw someone ask the question, "how does the setting affect the book?" I thought since I needed one more post and someone was looking for an answer to a question, I might as well do this post and well that's how we got here. So the setting of Ender's Game as I've elaborated on in a earlier post is put in a high tech futuristic world and an alien race has been discovered on a near planet. In the beginning you might think that the book is in the future but not super far in because they start of in North Carolina (which is were the author was born) in the US. But as the book goes deeper and deeper and deeper you realize how far into the future the book is actually put in. This affects the plot and the book because you can picture where on the timeline this falls and where this is happening. After the beginning all the best of the best are brought to Battle School, which is like going to Harvard vs going to a community college. Some aspects of the school are like out schools today and other aspects are different. One main difference you can tell straight up is that they are training to be military leaders not CEO's of fortune 500 companies or actors or any other profession that you want to be. Another difference there is, is that they spend lots of there time playing strategy games and simulations instead of learning in classrooms. Something that I noticed that is similar is the integration of technology into learning. I also noticed that it's also similar to a boarding school, in the aspect that they are away from their families and they do everything at the school and get to visit their families a couple of times. This affects the book and plot because it gives people something to relate to and also something that they can think about how different it is to how we do things. This being my last blogger post of Freshman year is so awesome and can't wait till summer.