Online Lesson (Term 2, Week 5): A personal response to War

Story behind the picture:


A few moments ago, we were ambushed, and my commander was hurt. "Quick," I cried, "bring him to safety, let us run for our lives." I looked up and saw a bullet skim pass my face. Behind us, a solid wooden kind of barricade stood. When we were safely behind the line of fire, I could finally look at my commander's wound 


Task 1:


Select one of the photos / images and write a descriptive paragraph on it. Engage your 5 senses -- this means you should describe not only what is seen, but what is heard, smelt, tasted and felt. Use literary devices (sound, imagery, diction) to bring the scene to life.


The powerful legs that carried him through battle lay stretched before him, his shrieks of pain filled my ears. I looked at him, sorrow and grief engulfing me. Although we survived, a bullet had ripped through his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. In the distance, bullets cracked, and impending doom was certain to us. The stench of rotting flesh and dried blood soon overwhelmed us. The world was at its end. The seas had dried, the sun has faded, and the night was approaching. We had no medical treatment nor equipment, we had no way of getting out of this predicament.

Blog prompt: Essay - no.22

Celebrities are now more important than parents and teachers in guiding people's ambition - and this is a bad situation. What do you think?


People are treating their famous role models as "pseudo friends", a research found. However, when hero worship turned into obsession, fans could be left feeling isolated and lacking in social skills, the psychologists concluded. The ambitions of a person's are getting more influenced from celebrities, , and the influence of parents and teachers in guiding people's ambition is getting weaker.

Parents are having less and less control of their children. With both parents working, there is less time to spend with their children. Their children never gets a one-on-one time with each parent every day, so they do not know how much they are loved and valued as an individual. They are never taught the values they require. As such, they turn to other people for guidance, and slowly but surely, their ambition will be influenced by the person they take as a role model.

Teachers do not have a stake in their student's lives. Teachers are paid to teach, and to help develop the child academically. They have little influence over the child as the teacher never really makes individual sessions with each child. Teachers more often than not, teach things that are exam-oriented. Therefore the child's holistic development of values are not instilled by the teachers. As teachers get more and more distant from the child, their growth and ambitions are therefore not affected by the teacher.

People are getting more and more attracted to celebrities. Dr John Maltby, of the University of Leicester, said: "Psychological theory suggests that people can make attachments to a number of different people as well as their parents." Since people do not get enough attention from parents or teachers, they have to turn to someone else. Therefore, people turn to celebrities. People find celebrities attractive because everyone normally compliments them and they are exposed and shown so much on the media. These celebrities affect the way people think and their ambitions.

Imitation of celebrities are abundant. People grow up with the ambition to be and live like a celebrity that they admire. Celebrities influence fans to be destructively thin or put harmful substances in their bodies. For example, Lady Gaga's way of dressing, the lyrics she sings, is having a negative impact on people's ambition, and people who admire her picks up all her bad habits. Although Lady Gaga has never made her appearance in China, there are several celebrity followers here. For example Chinese actress Zhao Wei shoots a photo spread featuring Lady Gaga's hairstyle. The calamity of having mindless imitators comes to light when they join the workforce. They would not be well liked and might get fired if they behave with such habits.

Celebrities are now more important than parents and teachers in guiding people's ambition, and therefore they should now really think of really being a role model since they are so highly sought after.

Blog prompt: Newspapers

What is the difference between broadsheet and tabloid newspapers? Does one always deal with more respectable news / produce more professional journalism than the other? Are there in-between types of newspapers?

Last Thursday, we were asked to bring our own newspapers. During Language arts that day, our teacher asked us what was the difference between a broadsheet newspaper and a tabloid sized newspaper.

What is a tabloid and broadsheet newspaper?

Tabloid

A tabloid newspaper is slightly larger than drawing paper, an example would be the Newpaper. Tabloids usually deal with news that include sleaze, corruption, sex scandals and other things that their traditionally working and new middle class readership apparently enjoyed. Tabloids usually use a sensational tone, and usually try to blow up the matter for the sake of attracting the reader's attention. Tabloids normally contains more pictures and sentences are less dense with less information.

Broadsheet

A broadsheet newspaper is much larger than its distant cousin of a tabloid. An example would be the Straits Times. Broadsheets usually deal with news that has much less scandal and gossip, and it usually has much less sensational headlines. Broadsheets are serious in tone, and the articles are objective, strictly for the reader to know more about what is happening in the world. Broadsheets tends to have less pictures but longer and better written articles, with dense information packed in a single article.

In-between Newspapers

Berliner, or "midi", is a newspaper format with pages normally measuring about 470 × 315 mm (18.5 × 12.4 in). The Berliner format is slightly taller and marginally wider than the tabloid/compact format; but is both narrower and shorter than the broadsheet format. An example would be Guardian. Berliner newspapers lean more to tabloids, but information is more dense in Berliner formatted newspapers. The tone is also somewhat in between that of Tabloids and Broadsheets.

Comments on other blogs

Comments done so far:

1) http://wangshiyao.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/to-kill-a-mockingbird-personal-response-4/#comment-19

2) http://ivanlablog.blogspot.com/2011/02/to-kill-mockingbird-chapters-12-21.html#comments

3) http://literature-diary-of-an-ordinary-teen.blogspot.com/2011/02/mississippi-burning-review.html#comments

4) http://language-artist.blogspot.com/2011/02/putting-yourself-in-another-persons.html#comments

5) http://spongebobsayshitoyou.blogspot.com/2011/02/putting-yourself-in-another-persons.html#comments

6) http://spongebobsayshitoyou.blogspot.com/2011/02/childhood-memories.html#comments

7) http://spongebobsayshitoyou.blogspot.com/2011/01/narrative-viewpoints.html#comments

8) http://literature-diary-of-an-ordinary-teen.blogspot.com/2011/02/who-i-empathise-with-most-and-least.html?showComment=1298788173431#c3792778045871517946

9) http://yapjianshern.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/atticus-finch/#comment-18

10) http://kaiensblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/characters-in-courtroom.html?showComment=1298791712517#c2977480270411260556

Mississippi Burning - Did I like it?

Essentially, Our teacher let us watch a Movie today about racial segregation in South America.

Plot Summary:

In 1964, three civil rights workers from the North disappear in a small Mississippi town and the FBI are sent to investigate. Agent in charge Alan Ward does everything by the book. Agent Rupert Anderson however was a Sheriff in Mississippi before joining the FBI and understands the local culture. He's also prepared to bend the rules a bit if it will help in the investigation. They focus on the Sheriff's office and Deputy Clinton Pell in particular as they think he may be the weakest link in the conspiracy. As the investigation intensifies however, the KKK launch a series of attacks against the local African-American population. With no one on either side prepared to talk, Ward agrees to Anderson using his own unorthodox methods to learn what happened that night and who killed the three men.

Taken from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095647/plotsummary

How did I find it?

On the overall, I must admit that I enjoyed the film, although there are times when the horrors in the film get to me. I feel that the most importantly emphasised point would be the huge racial segregation between the blacks and the whites. However, even good films has its own cons. Let us take a closer look at this.

Pros:

The movie is very vividly described. For example, the way people lived there was portrayed so well I could imagine myself being there and witnessing the whole thing myself! The camera showed us through parts of the house, showing old wooden blocks of wood that supports a weary roof. In stark contrast, the white's house was shown as large, grand structures where the wood was well furnished and painted. The vivid description is also seen from other parts as to how the blacks were tortured and how whites themselves were not spared. The details in which this movie captures is amazing and therefore I think this would make one of the key selling points of the film.

To make the movie contain a certain level of authenticity, the movie is actually based on a real life account. In 1964, FBI agents were indeed sent to Mississippi to investigate a crime involving the disappearance of three civil rights agent. It does not strain or exaggerate facts. This can be seen from the reactions from the two FBI agents and how the county police behaved. This makes the film very logical and believable.

Cons:

I find it much too violent. The reason for this was actually supposed to be a good thing - vivid description. What was most uncomfortable, I found, was listening to the vividly described ways of torturing the blacks and whites. An example would be the part where the wife of the police officer was beaten up so badly. Another scene would be the black man being tied around the neck and left to hang on a tree beside a house on fire. These scenes were just unbearable, but maybe this is just because I despise violence of any sort.

A slightly smaller issue would be the slow pace of the movie. This was because the scenes took a long transition period as there were many similar points that were being repeated, making the development of the story slow. Nevertheless, I feel that these scenes had already been well made up for through vivid description.

My Favourite Character in the novel: "To Kill A Mockingbird"

Harper Lee’s novel is full of interesting and richly painted characters. Which character was your favourite and why?


My favourite character in this novel is Atticus Finch. He is not only intelligent, but also shows calm and respectful wisdom. Atticus is respected by everyone, including the very poor. He functions as the moral backbone of Maycomb, a person to whom others turn in times of doubt and trouble. Let me take you through his traits one at a time.

Firstly, he has a strong conscience. He does what is write no matter what, even if he is unable to abide by the town’s comfortable ingrained racial prejudice; this is shown when he agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a black man. He did not mind taking all the teasing by people because he broke this tradition, which shows just how courageous he is. However, during the child, he simply impressed everyone, and he seems destined to be held in the same high regard as before. Besides that, he also trusts his conscience that it is not right for him to have a gun. This is shown during the mad dog incident. He could use a gun really well, but he did not bring it anywhere he went. He believed that things would spark of because of his possession of a gun, and therefore he did not even bring it to places where his life was in danger, for example the county jail. This just shows how much he trusted his conscience, no matter the circumstance.

In addition, Atticus is devoted to his children. Atticus is the children's only parent, and as a father, he respects his children, but at the same time maintains strict discipline with them to make sure that he could past on his moral values to them. At many times, he uses his intelligence to rationalise with the children, making them believe in him more. For example, when Scout said she did not want to go to school after the first day in class, Atticus calmly explained the importance of going to school. Not only does he rationalise with his children, he tries his utmost to refrain from using force on his children. "I had been getting past with threats" shows that he had never beaten his children before. This just shows how wise he is to make the children believe and trust him, and not be rebellious.

Lastly, Atticus practices the ethic of empathy and understanding and never holds a grudge against the people of Maycomb. For example, when old Mrs. Dubous was making fun of Atticus, Atticus did not even get angry, instead empathised with her pain and sufferings she was going through. He recognizes that people have both good and bad qualities, and he is determined to admire the good while understanding and forgiving the bad.

To kill a mocking bird: Personal Response

Did the ending of the novel surprise you? If you were the author, would you have ended the story differently? Explain.


Yes, I was really surprised at first for the sentence that Tom got in the trial. But thinking back at it now, I think that this ending was the only suitable one. In our society, we all go by the concept of justice and nothing else matters. After much influence from our society, we tend to forget that some places like Alabama are still highly prejudiced. After that unfaultable defence Atticus gave, I would have expected that Tom would be acquitted. Well, but now thinking back at it, I feel that this is the only feasible way a judge there could act. I think that judge Taylor could not act otherwise as it might lead to protests, and unrest in the community. There would be riots and unrests, so to prevent this, the judge had no choice but to vote in favour of the whites.

However, I feel that this ending is just perfect to for this book to showcase how hard it is to change the minds of people. It reflects the stupidity of societies which are prejudiced against certain races, even though the people of those races could be much more valuable than the race that the society supports.