J.D. Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye and a main character in the novel Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, has died at the age of 91.
Will check back later with thoughts. A sad day today, indeed.
UPDATE: A wonderful, brilliant obituary from the satirical website The Onion.
January 28, 2010
January 8, 2010
Inherit the Wind
Comments are now open (moderated) for questions about Inherit the Wind. Post questions here and I will try to answer them when I can find the time.
All comments are moderated, meaning I have to read and approve them before they appear on the site. If there are any inappropriate comments, I will shut them down.
All comments are moderated, meaning I have to read and approve them before they appear on the site. If there are any inappropriate comments, I will shut them down.
December 22, 2009
Final Exam Download
Click on the following links to download and print the instructions for the final exam, which include the Critical Lens.
Periods 1 and 5 (.pdf) will write the final essay as an exam in class on Friday, January 8, 2010.
Periods 3, 4 and 8 (.pdf) will write the essay on their own and submit it on January 8, 2010.
Essays cannot and will not be accepted under any circumstances after 3:30 p.m. on January 8, 2010.
Periods 1 and 5 (.pdf) will write the final essay as an exam in class on Friday, January 8, 2010.
Periods 3, 4 and 8 (.pdf) will write the essay on their own and submit it on January 8, 2010.
Essays cannot and will not be accepted under any circumstances after 3:30 p.m. on January 8, 2010.
December 21, 2009
Some Notes on the Essays
A few things I'm noticing about the essays so far:
Sentence construction. Most of us still can't seem to form a coherent sentence. In fact, one of the reasons it is taking me so long to mark these essays is that in nearly all of them, I have to mark up and correct every single sentence. I can't get from one line to the next without having to make multiple corrections and notations. I'm not exaggerating; across the board, there are very few sentences in any of these essays that don't require a correction or markup of some kind.
The Catcher in the Rye. Many of the essays have very little to say about the novel. You need to bear in mind that the main purpose of the essay is to analyze the book. If you only have a few sentences about it, present its characters and events out of context (e.g., by assuming the reader of your essay is already familiar with it), discuss only one aspect of it (and do so briefly and without context), you can't really expect to get a passing score. Your discussion of the book needs to show that you read it, understood it, and remember it well enough, as a whole, to discuss it intelligently in an essay.
Others mention a great many ideas from the text but not in any particular order or with any particular focus or clarity of purpose. Some ideas are left undeveloped or unexplained. Others mention isolated, insignificant incidents and characters as if they are profoundly important to the novel as a whole, e.g., Holden's encounter with the nuns. Some people's discussions only covered the events of one chapter, as if that was all they had read. One person even spent several sentences, for some unexplained reason, on the character "Eddie," (i.e., Eddie Birdsell, a college student Holden once met at a party) who never appears in the novel and whom Holden only tells us about once. Even I didn't remember who he was.
In addition, I still see the title in "quotes" rather than underlined, I still see errors in transcribing the title (e.g., "A Catcher in the Rye," "Catcher in the Rye," "The Catcher and the Rye," etc., which are completely inexcusable, as are capitalization errors in both the title and the author's name (e.g., "J.d. salinger").
Missing or invalid thesis statement. I still can't understand why so many essays lack thesis statements. Some of the thesis statements are indirect or improperly constructed. Others are a little too book-specific to be a valid thesis statement for a critical lens essay. The fact that we did only one book (except the Honors class) might have thrown some of you off, but anything specific about The Catcher in the Rye should have been in your discussion. The thesis statement needs to be a statement that this book does something that all literature tends to do, not that any particular thing happens, or any particular character appears, in this particular book.
Misuse/non-use of literary terms. Still too many discussions of the book without any analysis of literary elements. Still too many literary terms mentioned but not explained correctly or developed properly. Still too many "The literary devices used in this novel are _____." sentences. Still too many misused literary terms; this time, in particular, flashback. There are no flashbacks in The Catcher in the Rye. Not every reference in a story to past events is a flashback. A narrator telling us about past events is NOT a flashback.
"Fake" and "phony." Why on earth do so many of you insist in your essays that "Holden thinks adults are 'fake' or 'phony'", or "Holden refers to adults as 'fake' and 'phony'", when the only word he ever uses is "phony" and he never, ever, ever, not once, NOT ONE TIME in the entire 214-page novel, uses the word "fake"?
I'll add more as I think of them; keep checking back. Final exam is January 8.
Sentence construction. Most of us still can't seem to form a coherent sentence. In fact, one of the reasons it is taking me so long to mark these essays is that in nearly all of them, I have to mark up and correct every single sentence. I can't get from one line to the next without having to make multiple corrections and notations. I'm not exaggerating; across the board, there are very few sentences in any of these essays that don't require a correction or markup of some kind.
The Catcher in the Rye. Many of the essays have very little to say about the novel. You need to bear in mind that the main purpose of the essay is to analyze the book. If you only have a few sentences about it, present its characters and events out of context (e.g., by assuming the reader of your essay is already familiar with it), discuss only one aspect of it (and do so briefly and without context), you can't really expect to get a passing score. Your discussion of the book needs to show that you read it, understood it, and remember it well enough, as a whole, to discuss it intelligently in an essay.
Others mention a great many ideas from the text but not in any particular order or with any particular focus or clarity of purpose. Some ideas are left undeveloped or unexplained. Others mention isolated, insignificant incidents and characters as if they are profoundly important to the novel as a whole, e.g., Holden's encounter with the nuns. Some people's discussions only covered the events of one chapter, as if that was all they had read. One person even spent several sentences, for some unexplained reason, on the character "Eddie," (i.e., Eddie Birdsell, a college student Holden once met at a party) who never appears in the novel and whom Holden only tells us about once. Even I didn't remember who he was.
In addition, I still see the title in "quotes" rather than underlined, I still see errors in transcribing the title (e.g., "A Catcher in the Rye," "Catcher in the Rye," "The Catcher and the Rye," etc., which are completely inexcusable, as are capitalization errors in both the title and the author's name (e.g., "J.d. salinger").
Missing or invalid thesis statement. I still can't understand why so many essays lack thesis statements. Some of the thesis statements are indirect or improperly constructed. Others are a little too book-specific to be a valid thesis statement for a critical lens essay. The fact that we did only one book (except the Honors class) might have thrown some of you off, but anything specific about The Catcher in the Rye should have been in your discussion. The thesis statement needs to be a statement that this book does something that all literature tends to do, not that any particular thing happens, or any particular character appears, in this particular book.
Misuse/non-use of literary terms. Still too many discussions of the book without any analysis of literary elements. Still too many literary terms mentioned but not explained correctly or developed properly. Still too many "The literary devices used in this novel are _____." sentences. Still too many misused literary terms; this time, in particular, flashback. There are no flashbacks in The Catcher in the Rye. Not every reference in a story to past events is a flashback. A narrator telling us about past events is NOT a flashback.
"Fake" and "phony." Why on earth do so many of you insist in your essays that "Holden thinks adults are 'fake' or 'phony'", or "Holden refers to adults as 'fake' and 'phony'", when the only word he ever uses is "phony" and he never, ever, ever, not once, NOT ONE TIME in the entire 214-page novel, uses the word "fake"?
I'll add more as I think of them; keep checking back. Final exam is January 8.
December 14, 2009
Critical Lens Discussion Paragraph Samples
You should work on your discussion paragraphs tonight and tomorrow. Final essays are on Wednesday. Dancers who will not be in class on Wednesday must submit the essay on Tuesday, December 15.
Here are the discussion paragraphs we produced in class today, with the relevant thesis statement in [brackets] above each one.
[The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and A Night to Remember, a non-fiction novel by Walter Lord, both reveal that the character of an individual is only meaningful when compared to that of others.]
A Night to Remember is a detailed, minute-by-minute narrative account of the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic on April 14-15, 1912. Author Walter Lord undertook meticulous, painstaking research, which included interviews with over 60 survivors, to create the definitive account of the early 20th century’s defining moment. The result is a story with no main character, other than the Titanic herself. Lord instead provides the reader with a series of brief character vignettes, showing us a few moments of one person’s experience in one part of the ship, then moving to someone else, somewhere else, at the same time. For example, in the first chapter, Lord describes the ship’s collision with the iceberg from the perspective of the lookouts who saw the ice, passengers who barely felt the impact, and crew members below who saw the sea pouring into the cargo holds and boiler rooms. The purpose is to differentiate the reactions, thoughts and behaviors of many different people; passengers, officers and crew, men and women, rich and poor, who experienced this grave and unprecedented crisis on board the doomed ocean liner. As the sinking progresses, the tension in the novel increases as passengers and crew are faced with increasingly difficult, indeed impossible, choices. Wives had to decide whether to take to the lifeboats or stay with their husbands. Crew members had to decide whether to do their duty or save themselves. Notably, White Star Line chairman J. Bruce Ismay had to decide how to take responsibility for the disaster, by going down with the ship or saving himself so he could explain to the world; he chose the latter. By revealing the experiences of so many people, all of whom were caught up in this dramatic, life-and-death situation, Lord gives the reader the broadest possible spectrum of human behavior and potential by showing widely disparate reactions to the crisis. From the cowardice and arrogance of Ismay, to the workaday devotion of the crew members, to the bravery and service of the officers and the ship’s band, and the enduring love of Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus and other couples, we see anything and everything that people may be capable of. Many of their actions are heroic, others are deplorable, others merely intriguing. They are all laced with irony, however, as Lord clearly expects his reader to know that the Titanic will eventually sink. Yet Lord’s matter-of-fact journalistic tone calls upon the reader to draw his own conclusions. It also entices us to wonder what we would have done if we were on the Titanic that fateful night. By showing how so many people reacted and behaved in the face of history’s worst maritime disaster, Walter Lord clearly shows us that we can only understand people, and ourselves, by revealing how they, and we, respond to a crisis.
-----
[The novel The Natural by Bernard Malamud and the classic epic poem The Odyssey by Homer both reveal that true heroism lies in a person’s willingness to confront the forces allayed against him, where those forces are more powerful than he.]
The Natural is a story about a star baseball player, Roy Hobbs, who comes out of nowhere as a “middle-aged rookie” and attempts to lead his team, the New York Knights, from last place to the National League pennant. The story is based on the tale of Sir Perceval the Grail Knight, from medieval mythology, as well as primitive nature myths. Malamud attempts to place these myths into a modern context, using a sports star as his “hero.” However, Roy Hobbs is no hero. He is shallow, vain, selfish, and interested only in the wealth, women and fame that come with being a professional athlete. He feels entitled to these things, and never shows any awareness of or appreciation for his responsibilities as a hero. This characterization reveals Malamud’s cynicism about post-World War II America and its worship of celebrity. The author’s tone shows contempt for all of his characters, including his “hero,” as there are very few “good” people in the story. Hobbs is surrounded by bad actors: the slimy sportswriter Max Mercy, the greedy team owner Judge Banner, the crooked gambler Gus Sands, and the psychotic, gold-digging vixen Memo Paris. All of these people appear to offer Hobbs the things he desires most; fame, fortune, and sex. However, Hobbs fails to realize that these temptations are evil, and are preventing him from realizing his full potential. His actions often frustrate the reader, as Hobbs continually makes the wrong choices even though the right ones, such as separating himself from people like these, seem obvious to everyone but him. He pursues the dangerous and unstable Memo Paris despite meeting a much more suitable mate, the kindly, wise, but somewhat homely Iris Lemon. By the time Hobbs realizes his true destiny, and thinks unselfishly for the first time in his life, it is too late. He strikes out in his final at bat, and loses everything. He failed in his quest to become a true hero, because he was both unwilling and unable to confront, or even recognize, the forces allayed against him. Malamud seems to suggest that there are no true heroes anymore; that unlike the Knights of the Round Table and the great mythic heroes of yore, modern men cannot overcome their own selfishness and vanity, nor the external forces that drive them.
-----
[The novels Lord of the Flies by William Golding and 1984 by George Orwell both reveal that mankind’s worst tendencies will often triumph over its best.]
William Golding’s allegorical novel Lord of the Flies is about a group of British schoolboys stranded on an uninhabited island who attempt, and fail, to build a civilization for themselves. Despite their initial good intentions, the boys eventually succumb to the forces of fear, aggression, and savage brutality, destroying the island and losing their humanity in the process. Golding’s tale is an attempt to understand man’s inhumanity to man by placing his characters in a situation where they have no initial conflicts among them, and must rely only on human nature to survive. Each of his main characters represents a different element of the human psyche. Ralph, the leader, represents the ego, or conscience. He is practical, fair-minded, decent, and courageous. His friend and confidant Piggy, an asthmatic fat boy with glasses, represents the “superego,” or intellect. His profound smarts and inner strength are belied by his physical limitations. Jack, a choirboy who fancies himself a “hunter,” represents the “id,” man’s more base, animalistic instincts. He finds himself in conflict with Ralph over leadership and priorities. While Ralph’s focus is on survival and rescue, Jack seems to want nothing other than to hunt and “have fun.” That, and the boys’ irrational but ever-growing fear of an unseen and undefined “beastie,” leads to a split of the group into two factions. Jack manages to seduce most of the boys into joining him, with promises of food, fun, no shared responsibility, and protection from the “beastie.” The story grows darker as one boy is accidentally killed, and then Piggy is murdered by one of Jack’s minions, leaving Ralph alone to face the evil that Jack and the other boys have come to represent. In the end, they decide to hunt Ralph down and kill him, and are stopped only by the sudden intervention of the “rescue” by the adult world. All of the boys except Ralph lost either their humanity or their lives, as a result not of any outside forces, but their own essential nature. The “beastie,” or “Lord of the Flies” (a loose translation of a Hebrew word for the devil) becomes the central symbol in Golding’s allegory. It represents all of mankind’s worst tendencies; fear, hatred, aggression, violence, savagery. By having these innocent boys turn savage despite starting off with no conflicts and no shared history, Golding suggests that there is, in the end, very little hope for mankind.
-----
[The novels 1984 by George Orwell and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens both take place during dark periods in history, which provide enlightenment for their main characters.]
Written in the late 1940s, George Orwell’s 1984 is a dystopian vision of the future. In this grim, bleak and frightening future world, there are only three giant nation-states; the one where the story takes place, Oceania, is perpetually at war with either one of the other two. Its population is kept under constant surveillance by the government, which is ostensibly ruled by an unseen and god-like figurehead called “Big Brother.” The oppressive totalitarian regime, and “the Party” that controls it, keeps its citizens in a constant state of poverty, deprivation, and fear, but simultaneously nationalistic and loyal. It does this, in part, by engaging in massive disinformation, telling the public how well things are going even if they are not, and actually changing history by altering the historical record. Citizens are expected to believe the misinformation even when their own senses, memory and experience tell them it is a lie. Orwell calls this “doublethink;” the ability to hold two contradictory notions in the mind and believe both. Orwell also introduces the concept of “thoughtcrime,” i.e., the failure of doublethink. The main character in 1984, Winston Smith, works for the Party’s “Ministry of Truth,” whose function is actually the precise opposite of its name. One day he realizes that he is, in fact, falsifying history, and decides that he does not much like the time and place in which he lives. This realization leads Winston to question everything he has ever known, and find out as much as he can about how the Party really works, who or what “Big Brother” really is, and what has really happened in the last 40 years of history. In the process, he enjoys feeling and thinking freely for the first time in his life, and has a passionate love affair with a like-minded young woman named Julia. Unfortunately, Winston also realizes that this enlightenment is in and of itself a thoughtcrime. Just when he believes he has learned all that he needs to learn, he is captured by the dreaded Thought Police, and tortured until he can accept that 2+2=5, and learns to “love Big Brother.” In the end, there is nothing of Winston, or his enlightenment, left. The ending of the novel leaves the reader with very little hope, which is clearly Orwell’s intent. It is somewhat ironic that the darkness of his time both enabled Winston to see, and yet ultimately blinded and destroyed him.
Here are the discussion paragraphs we produced in class today, with the relevant thesis statement in [brackets] above each one.
[The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and A Night to Remember, a non-fiction novel by Walter Lord, both reveal that the character of an individual is only meaningful when compared to that of others.]
A Night to Remember is a detailed, minute-by-minute narrative account of the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic on April 14-15, 1912. Author Walter Lord undertook meticulous, painstaking research, which included interviews with over 60 survivors, to create the definitive account of the early 20th century’s defining moment. The result is a story with no main character, other than the Titanic herself. Lord instead provides the reader with a series of brief character vignettes, showing us a few moments of one person’s experience in one part of the ship, then moving to someone else, somewhere else, at the same time. For example, in the first chapter, Lord describes the ship’s collision with the iceberg from the perspective of the lookouts who saw the ice, passengers who barely felt the impact, and crew members below who saw the sea pouring into the cargo holds and boiler rooms. The purpose is to differentiate the reactions, thoughts and behaviors of many different people; passengers, officers and crew, men and women, rich and poor, who experienced this grave and unprecedented crisis on board the doomed ocean liner. As the sinking progresses, the tension in the novel increases as passengers and crew are faced with increasingly difficult, indeed impossible, choices. Wives had to decide whether to take to the lifeboats or stay with their husbands. Crew members had to decide whether to do their duty or save themselves. Notably, White Star Line chairman J. Bruce Ismay had to decide how to take responsibility for the disaster, by going down with the ship or saving himself so he could explain to the world; he chose the latter. By revealing the experiences of so many people, all of whom were caught up in this dramatic, life-and-death situation, Lord gives the reader the broadest possible spectrum of human behavior and potential by showing widely disparate reactions to the crisis. From the cowardice and arrogance of Ismay, to the workaday devotion of the crew members, to the bravery and service of the officers and the ship’s band, and the enduring love of Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus and other couples, we see anything and everything that people may be capable of. Many of their actions are heroic, others are deplorable, others merely intriguing. They are all laced with irony, however, as Lord clearly expects his reader to know that the Titanic will eventually sink. Yet Lord’s matter-of-fact journalistic tone calls upon the reader to draw his own conclusions. It also entices us to wonder what we would have done if we were on the Titanic that fateful night. By showing how so many people reacted and behaved in the face of history’s worst maritime disaster, Walter Lord clearly shows us that we can only understand people, and ourselves, by revealing how they, and we, respond to a crisis.
-----
[The novel The Natural by Bernard Malamud and the classic epic poem The Odyssey by Homer both reveal that true heroism lies in a person’s willingness to confront the forces allayed against him, where those forces are more powerful than he.]
The Natural is a story about a star baseball player, Roy Hobbs, who comes out of nowhere as a “middle-aged rookie” and attempts to lead his team, the New York Knights, from last place to the National League pennant. The story is based on the tale of Sir Perceval the Grail Knight, from medieval mythology, as well as primitive nature myths. Malamud attempts to place these myths into a modern context, using a sports star as his “hero.” However, Roy Hobbs is no hero. He is shallow, vain, selfish, and interested only in the wealth, women and fame that come with being a professional athlete. He feels entitled to these things, and never shows any awareness of or appreciation for his responsibilities as a hero. This characterization reveals Malamud’s cynicism about post-World War II America and its worship of celebrity. The author’s tone shows contempt for all of his characters, including his “hero,” as there are very few “good” people in the story. Hobbs is surrounded by bad actors: the slimy sportswriter Max Mercy, the greedy team owner Judge Banner, the crooked gambler Gus Sands, and the psychotic, gold-digging vixen Memo Paris. All of these people appear to offer Hobbs the things he desires most; fame, fortune, and sex. However, Hobbs fails to realize that these temptations are evil, and are preventing him from realizing his full potential. His actions often frustrate the reader, as Hobbs continually makes the wrong choices even though the right ones, such as separating himself from people like these, seem obvious to everyone but him. He pursues the dangerous and unstable Memo Paris despite meeting a much more suitable mate, the kindly, wise, but somewhat homely Iris Lemon. By the time Hobbs realizes his true destiny, and thinks unselfishly for the first time in his life, it is too late. He strikes out in his final at bat, and loses everything. He failed in his quest to become a true hero, because he was both unwilling and unable to confront, or even recognize, the forces allayed against him. Malamud seems to suggest that there are no true heroes anymore; that unlike the Knights of the Round Table and the great mythic heroes of yore, modern men cannot overcome their own selfishness and vanity, nor the external forces that drive them.
-----
[The novels Lord of the Flies by William Golding and 1984 by George Orwell both reveal that mankind’s worst tendencies will often triumph over its best.]
William Golding’s allegorical novel Lord of the Flies is about a group of British schoolboys stranded on an uninhabited island who attempt, and fail, to build a civilization for themselves. Despite their initial good intentions, the boys eventually succumb to the forces of fear, aggression, and savage brutality, destroying the island and losing their humanity in the process. Golding’s tale is an attempt to understand man’s inhumanity to man by placing his characters in a situation where they have no initial conflicts among them, and must rely only on human nature to survive. Each of his main characters represents a different element of the human psyche. Ralph, the leader, represents the ego, or conscience. He is practical, fair-minded, decent, and courageous. His friend and confidant Piggy, an asthmatic fat boy with glasses, represents the “superego,” or intellect. His profound smarts and inner strength are belied by his physical limitations. Jack, a choirboy who fancies himself a “hunter,” represents the “id,” man’s more base, animalistic instincts. He finds himself in conflict with Ralph over leadership and priorities. While Ralph’s focus is on survival and rescue, Jack seems to want nothing other than to hunt and “have fun.” That, and the boys’ irrational but ever-growing fear of an unseen and undefined “beastie,” leads to a split of the group into two factions. Jack manages to seduce most of the boys into joining him, with promises of food, fun, no shared responsibility, and protection from the “beastie.” The story grows darker as one boy is accidentally killed, and then Piggy is murdered by one of Jack’s minions, leaving Ralph alone to face the evil that Jack and the other boys have come to represent. In the end, they decide to hunt Ralph down and kill him, and are stopped only by the sudden intervention of the “rescue” by the adult world. All of the boys except Ralph lost either their humanity or their lives, as a result not of any outside forces, but their own essential nature. The “beastie,” or “Lord of the Flies” (a loose translation of a Hebrew word for the devil) becomes the central symbol in Golding’s allegory. It represents all of mankind’s worst tendencies; fear, hatred, aggression, violence, savagery. By having these innocent boys turn savage despite starting off with no conflicts and no shared history, Golding suggests that there is, in the end, very little hope for mankind.
-----
[The novels 1984 by George Orwell and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens both take place during dark periods in history, which provide enlightenment for their main characters.]
Written in the late 1940s, George Orwell’s 1984 is a dystopian vision of the future. In this grim, bleak and frightening future world, there are only three giant nation-states; the one where the story takes place, Oceania, is perpetually at war with either one of the other two. Its population is kept under constant surveillance by the government, which is ostensibly ruled by an unseen and god-like figurehead called “Big Brother.” The oppressive totalitarian regime, and “the Party” that controls it, keeps its citizens in a constant state of poverty, deprivation, and fear, but simultaneously nationalistic and loyal. It does this, in part, by engaging in massive disinformation, telling the public how well things are going even if they are not, and actually changing history by altering the historical record. Citizens are expected to believe the misinformation even when their own senses, memory and experience tell them it is a lie. Orwell calls this “doublethink;” the ability to hold two contradictory notions in the mind and believe both. Orwell also introduces the concept of “thoughtcrime,” i.e., the failure of doublethink. The main character in 1984, Winston Smith, works for the Party’s “Ministry of Truth,” whose function is actually the precise opposite of its name. One day he realizes that he is, in fact, falsifying history, and decides that he does not much like the time and place in which he lives. This realization leads Winston to question everything he has ever known, and find out as much as he can about how the Party really works, who or what “Big Brother” really is, and what has really happened in the last 40 years of history. In the process, he enjoys feeling and thinking freely for the first time in his life, and has a passionate love affair with a like-minded young woman named Julia. Unfortunately, Winston also realizes that this enlightenment is in and of itself a thoughtcrime. Just when he believes he has learned all that he needs to learn, he is captured by the dreaded Thought Police, and tortured until he can accept that 2+2=5, and learns to “love Big Brother.” In the end, there is nothing of Winston, or his enlightenment, left. The ending of the novel leaves the reader with very little hope, which is clearly Orwell’s intent. It is somewhat ironic that the darkness of his time both enabled Winston to see, and yet ultimately blinded and destroyed him.
December 11, 2009
Critical Lens Essay Introduction Samples
You should write your Introduction over the weekend (and start working on your Discussion as well). I'm not going to collect it, but you really should get started.
Here are the Introduction samples we produced in class today:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote, “A person is a person through other persons.” The character of an individual is meaningless by itself. Although we place a great deal of value on our own uniqueness, it really doesn’t mean anything if we can’t compare it to the character and personality of other people. Whether we are interested in moral goodness, professional talent, or behavioral quirks, our evaluation of anyone’s character, including our own, depends greatly on how we compare to the rest of the world. The same is true for our understanding and evaluation of characters in literature. When we read a novel or a play, we need to compare literary characters to each other, to people we know in the real world, and to ourselves. Only then can we truly understand who they are, and who we are. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and A Night to Remember, a non-fiction novel by Walter Lord, both reveal that the character of an individual is only meaningful when compared to that of others.
Norman Mailer wrote, “For what does it mean to be a hero? It requires you to be prepared to deal with forces larger than yourself.” Heroes are typically people who risk their well-being or their lives for the benefit of others. A person is only heroic, however, if he is willing to take on risks and face challenges that ordinary people would avoid. We think of heroes as being greater than ordinary people, even though they live and walk among us. The difference is, they run toward danger where others would run away from it. What we admire so much about heroes is their willingness to take risks and face challenges that may be grave, or even deadly. This is true for literary and mythic heroes as well as the ones we find in real life. The novel The Natural by Bernard Malamud and the classic epic poem The Odyssey by Homer both reveal that true heroism lies in a person’s willingness to confront the forces allayed against him, where those forces are more powerful than he.
Walker Percy wrote, “In this world goodness is destined to be defeated.” All people are supposed and expected to be as kind, decent and virtuous as they can be. Many of us hope to live in a world free of evil; free of crime, free of war, free of avarice. However, despite 6,000 years’ worth of effort, mankind has failed to eradicate its most cruel, selfish and destructive tendencies. If history teaches us anything, it is that the forces of good are very often the victim of larger, more powerful, and more pervasive evil forces. Many of our greatest stories reveal the futility of the struggle of good against evil. The novels Lord of the Flies by William Golding and 1984 by George Orwell both reveal that mankind’s worst tendencies will often triumph over its best.
Bernadette Devlin wrote, “To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.” We all hope to gain something tomorrow that we don’t have today, something we truly value; more, perhaps, than other things. However, we are often reluctant to make the sacrifices necessary to make our dreams come true. Too many people fail to realize that in order to achieve what we most want to achieve, we must be willing to give things up. Very often, we must sacrifice that which we value or even love, in order to fulfill our greatest desires. We therefore must choose what we value most, and what we are willing to lose. Characters in literature often find themselves faced with such choices. The novel 1984 by George Orwell and the non-fiction novel A Night to Remember by Walter Lord both present characters faced with difficult, if not impossible, choices requiring grave risk and great sacrifice.
Theodore Roethke wrote, “In a dark time, the eye begins to see…” There have been dark times in history, and there are dark times in people’s lives. War, poverty, economic crisis, disease and political upheaval have plunged whole nations into misery and suffering for years, or even decades, at a time. Even when history has been kind to most, and times have been relatively serene, there are still individuals whose lives represent a constant struggle against adversity. Whether times are tough for one person or for a whole population, the difficulties we face enlighten us. They make us aware of important truths and unpleasant realities, from which happy times often shield us. Many of our greatest stories take place during dark times; others reveal the struggle and enlightenment that come from individual difficulties. The novels 1984 by George Orwell and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens both take place during dark periods in history, which provide enlightenment for their main characters.
Here are the Introduction samples we produced in class today:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote, “A person is a person through other persons.” The character of an individual is meaningless by itself. Although we place a great deal of value on our own uniqueness, it really doesn’t mean anything if we can’t compare it to the character and personality of other people. Whether we are interested in moral goodness, professional talent, or behavioral quirks, our evaluation of anyone’s character, including our own, depends greatly on how we compare to the rest of the world. The same is true for our understanding and evaluation of characters in literature. When we read a novel or a play, we need to compare literary characters to each other, to people we know in the real world, and to ourselves. Only then can we truly understand who they are, and who we are. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and A Night to Remember, a non-fiction novel by Walter Lord, both reveal that the character of an individual is only meaningful when compared to that of others.
Norman Mailer wrote, “For what does it mean to be a hero? It requires you to be prepared to deal with forces larger than yourself.” Heroes are typically people who risk their well-being or their lives for the benefit of others. A person is only heroic, however, if he is willing to take on risks and face challenges that ordinary people would avoid. We think of heroes as being greater than ordinary people, even though they live and walk among us. The difference is, they run toward danger where others would run away from it. What we admire so much about heroes is their willingness to take risks and face challenges that may be grave, or even deadly. This is true for literary and mythic heroes as well as the ones we find in real life. The novel The Natural by Bernard Malamud and the classic epic poem The Odyssey by Homer both reveal that true heroism lies in a person’s willingness to confront the forces allayed against him, where those forces are more powerful than he.
Walker Percy wrote, “In this world goodness is destined to be defeated.” All people are supposed and expected to be as kind, decent and virtuous as they can be. Many of us hope to live in a world free of evil; free of crime, free of war, free of avarice. However, despite 6,000 years’ worth of effort, mankind has failed to eradicate its most cruel, selfish and destructive tendencies. If history teaches us anything, it is that the forces of good are very often the victim of larger, more powerful, and more pervasive evil forces. Many of our greatest stories reveal the futility of the struggle of good against evil. The novels Lord of the Flies by William Golding and 1984 by George Orwell both reveal that mankind’s worst tendencies will often triumph over its best.
Bernadette Devlin wrote, “To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.” We all hope to gain something tomorrow that we don’t have today, something we truly value; more, perhaps, than other things. However, we are often reluctant to make the sacrifices necessary to make our dreams come true. Too many people fail to realize that in order to achieve what we most want to achieve, we must be willing to give things up. Very often, we must sacrifice that which we value or even love, in order to fulfill our greatest desires. We therefore must choose what we value most, and what we are willing to lose. Characters in literature often find themselves faced with such choices. The novel 1984 by George Orwell and the non-fiction novel A Night to Remember by Walter Lord both present characters faced with difficult, if not impossible, choices requiring grave risk and great sacrifice.
Theodore Roethke wrote, “In a dark time, the eye begins to see…” There have been dark times in history, and there are dark times in people’s lives. War, poverty, economic crisis, disease and political upheaval have plunged whole nations into misery and suffering for years, or even decades, at a time. Even when history has been kind to most, and times have been relatively serene, there are still individuals whose lives represent a constant struggle against adversity. Whether times are tough for one person or for a whole population, the difficulties we face enlighten us. They make us aware of important truths and unpleasant realities, from which happy times often shield us. Many of our greatest stories take place during dark times; others reveal the struggle and enlightenment that come from individual difficulties. The novels 1984 by George Orwell and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens both take place during dark periods in history, which provide enlightenment for their main characters.
December 9, 2009
Homework #41
Rewrite the following sentences in actual proper English.
Period 1:
In the essay there was room cleaning vs. archaeology and the discovery of learning.
Period 3:
Signifying that her love for her daughter no matter what stage of life or how much they transition it can only grow, espically when she states it can be "weighed and reweighed."
Period 4:
He say's to explain how in the beginning he was cleaning out her room, then it became more personal when he see's items she kept since she was a baby.
Period 5:
Which sets the tone and the mood in the read to express how the parent are feeling in the reading about their child.
Period 8:
This goes back to the title, with the word “excavating,” because it is usually used to find important artifacts.
Period 1:
In the essay there was room cleaning vs. archaeology and the discovery of learning.
Period 3:
Signifying that her love for her daughter no matter what stage of life or how much they transition it can only grow, espically when she states it can be "weighed and reweighed."
Period 4:
He say's to explain how in the beginning he was cleaning out her room, then it became more personal when he see's items she kept since she was a baby.
Period 5:
Which sets the tone and the mood in the read to express how the parent are feeling in the reading about their child.
Period 8:
This goes back to the title, with the word “excavating,” because it is usually used to find important artifacts.
December 8, 2009
Homework #40 Answer
During exam periods, cookie sales in the school cafeteria are high. Cookies are selling well in the cafeteria today, so it must be exam time.
Which one of the following is logically most similar to the argument above?
A. Logical thinking is enough to ensure success in the computer programming field. But none of my friends are computer programmers, so they must all be illogical.
(A) is incorrect because it does not match the pattern of the logic in the stimulus. The pattern of the logic in the stimulus is as follows: When the first condition (X) is true, then the second condition (Y) is true; since Y is true, X must also be true. This is not exactly sound logic; in fact, we've seen something like this before in Homework #23 (Answer). Although this is not strictly a cause-and-effect relationship, it is still an attempt to reverse the logic whose result is not always necessarily true. The fact that Y happens whenever X happens does not mean that any time Y happens, X must also have happened.
The logic in choice (A) is flawed, but not for the same reason. The pattern here is that if X is true, then Y is true; since Y is false, X must be false.
B. Someone who thinks logically can become a computer programmer. David thinks very logically, so he can become an excellent computer programmer.
(B) is incorrect because there is no flaw in the logic here. This is a simple attempt to state a general rule and then cite a specific example that follows the rule. If X = Y, and David = X, then David = Y.
C. Skill in thinking logically is one guarantee of success at computer programming; a degree from a prestigious technical school like M.I.T. is another.
(C) is incorrect because there is really no logical sequence in this statement at all. This is a simple statement of fact. X = Z and Y also = Z. Nothing wrong with that, and it certainly doesn't match the stimulus.
D. A computer programmer must be able to think logically. Rob is a very logical person, so he must be a computer programmer.
(D) is correct. Like the stimulus, this tells us that when X is true, Y is true; since Y is true, X must also be true. This choice exhibits the same logical flaw as the stimulus.
E. Computer programmers are always able to solve logic problems. None of the students can solve logic problems, so none of them are computer programmers.
(E) is incorrect because it's perfectly logical. If X can always do Y, and none of the students can do Y, then none of the students can be X.
Which one of the following is logically most similar to the argument above?
A. Logical thinking is enough to ensure success in the computer programming field. But none of my friends are computer programmers, so they must all be illogical.
(A) is incorrect because it does not match the pattern of the logic in the stimulus. The pattern of the logic in the stimulus is as follows: When the first condition (X) is true, then the second condition (Y) is true; since Y is true, X must also be true. This is not exactly sound logic; in fact, we've seen something like this before in Homework #23 (Answer). Although this is not strictly a cause-and-effect relationship, it is still an attempt to reverse the logic whose result is not always necessarily true. The fact that Y happens whenever X happens does not mean that any time Y happens, X must also have happened.
The logic in choice (A) is flawed, but not for the same reason. The pattern here is that if X is true, then Y is true; since Y is false, X must be false.
B. Someone who thinks logically can become a computer programmer. David thinks very logically, so he can become an excellent computer programmer.
(B) is incorrect because there is no flaw in the logic here. This is a simple attempt to state a general rule and then cite a specific example that follows the rule. If X = Y, and David = X, then David = Y.
C. Skill in thinking logically is one guarantee of success at computer programming; a degree from a prestigious technical school like M.I.T. is another.
(C) is incorrect because there is really no logical sequence in this statement at all. This is a simple statement of fact. X = Z and Y also = Z. Nothing wrong with that, and it certainly doesn't match the stimulus.
D. A computer programmer must be able to think logically. Rob is a very logical person, so he must be a computer programmer.
(D) is correct. Like the stimulus, this tells us that when X is true, Y is true; since Y is true, X must also be true. This choice exhibits the same logical flaw as the stimulus.
E. Computer programmers are always able to solve logic problems. None of the students can solve logic problems, so none of them are computer programmers.
(E) is incorrect because it's perfectly logical. If X can always do Y, and none of the students can do Y, then none of the students can be X.
December 7, 2009
Homework #39 Answer
The form of the Petrarchan sonnet provides the reader with a more exquisite literary experience than does the form of the detective novel. We know this is true because the best critics, the ones with delicate sensibilities, always prefer the Petrarchan sonnet to the detective novel. And we know that these critics are the best critics, because they prefer the Petrarchan sonnet.
The flaw in the logic expressed in the argument above is that the author
A. fails to provide the names of specific critics who prefer the Petrarchan sonnet over the detective novel.
(A) is incorrect because the logic would still be flawed even if the author provided the names of the critics. The author is claiming that one literary form is better than another because the "best critics" prefer the former, but then uses that very preference as proof that those critics are actually the "best." The argument doubles back on itself; replacing "the best critics" with a series of names would not change the operation of the statements.
B. assumes that the point he wishes to establish is necessarily true.
(B) is correct. The author is basically using his conclusion as evidence to prove that the evidence supporting the conclusion is valid. In other words, the author is saying that X is better than Y, and we know that because the "best critics" prefer X. But he goes on to state that their preference for X is what makes them the "best critics." This makes no sense.
Here's an example of the same argument, in a different context: Republicans are better for America than Democrats. I know that because the best news outlet in America, Fox News, supports Republicans. And we know that Fox news is the best news outlet in America, because it supports Republicans.
The fallacy lies in the assumption that the point the author is trying to establish is necessarily true; what is claimed as support is actually an assumption, but the author does not seem to understand that. One cannot claim that X is true because Y is true, then turn around and defend Y by citing X. A proves B, and B proves A; this is circular logic and flawed reasoning.
C. generalizes from one small, specific example to a broad, general rule.
(C) is incorrect because the author does no such thing. He provides no "small, specific example" of anything; everything cited is a broad category.
D. does not provide a valid counter-argument that would dispute his own conclusion.
(D) is incorrect because while it is true that the author does not provide a valid counter-argument, that is not his job, and more importantly, that is not the flaw in his logic.
E. fails to provide examples of any exceptions to the rule he proposes.
(E) is incorrect for the same reason as (D); the author is not obligated to provide examples of exceptions to the rule he proposes. Again, it is true that he does not do so, but his "failure" to do so does not constitute a flaw in his logic. The flaw in his logic is that he assumes his premise is true using circular logic; A proves B, and B proves A.
Homework #40
During exam periods, cookie sales in the school cafeteria are high. Cookies are selling well in the cafeteria today, so it must be exam time.
Which one of the following is logically most similar to the argument above?
A. Logical thinking is enough to ensure success in the computer programming field. But none of my friends are computer programmers, so they must all be illogical.
B. Someone who thinks logically can become a computer programmer. David thinks very logically, so he can become an excellent computer programmer.
C. Skill in thinking logically is one guarantee of success at computer programming; a degree from a prestigious technical school like M.I.T. is another.
D. A computer programmer must be able to think logically. Rob is a very logical person, so he must be a computer programmer.
E. Computer programmers are always able to solve logic problems. None of the students can solve logic problems, so none of them are computer programmers.
Which one of the following is logically most similar to the argument above?
A. Logical thinking is enough to ensure success in the computer programming field. But none of my friends are computer programmers, so they must all be illogical.
B. Someone who thinks logically can become a computer programmer. David thinks very logically, so he can become an excellent computer programmer.
C. Skill in thinking logically is one guarantee of success at computer programming; a degree from a prestigious technical school like M.I.T. is another.
D. A computer programmer must be able to think logically. Rob is a very logical person, so he must be a computer programmer.
E. Computer programmers are always able to solve logic problems. None of the students can solve logic problems, so none of them are computer programmers.
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