Post #2 Coming-of-Age Novel: To Kill A Mockingbird (Last Blog Post!!!!)

I have just finished To Kill A Mockingbird and it has taught me many lessons and shown me many ways about Scout and her coming of age. Scout went through many experiences dealing with racism, learning about the moral nature of human being.

In the last half of the book, many events occurred dealing with Scout and her questioning of life. Calpurnia, Scout's family's black cook, decides to take Scout and Jem to her "colored" church. This church was called First Purchase because it was bought with the first earnings of freed slaves. When they reach the church, a woman Lula, criticizes Calpurnia for bringing white children to their "colored" church, but everyone else welcomes them, because everyone knows their father who is very friendly with everyone especially the colored people in Maycomb. Their church has no money for hymnals, and only a few of them can read. During the service, a man speaks up for Tom Robinson’s wife, Helen, who does not have a job or money since her husband has been accused of rape. After, Scout learns that Tom Robinson has been accused by Bob Ewell, who is the most unemployed man of Maycomb living with a the poorest, racist family. Even Scout who is just 7 years old doesn't understand why anyone actually believes him. Soon, Scouts dad goes to court defending Tom. Scout gets very interested in the trial and she really wanted to be apart of it so she and Jem sneak into the 'colored balcony' with the towns black citizens. Soon, Atticus solves the case in showing that Mayella, the woman that claimed she was raped, had came onto Tom while her father had caught her so Mayella had blamed Tom to cover her shame. Yet all the white jury still convicted him. Tom soon tried to escape jail in which soon events in him being shot. This had taught Scout about many things. She had been very interested in racism and had saw the events due to it. This made her one of the maybe lucky kids to experience this great coming of age.

The moral voice of To Kill A Mockingbird is spoken by Atticus, because he has experienced and understood evil without losing his faith. Atticus understands that, rather than being split up into humans of good or humans of evil, most people have both good and bad inside of them. The important thing is to accept and appreciate the good qualities and try to understand the bad qualities by being in someone else's shoes to see their life from their perspective. He tries to teach this moral to Jem and Scout.

The title of this book has a very big meaning to it also. At first I didn't get it but as I did research, it explained to me a whole lot of stuff which made me understand the book more. The mockingbird is a huge symbol. In the story, Atticus mentions that killing mockingbirds are a sin because all the mockingbirds do are sing its beautiful songs and not harm anyone. It means that it is a sin to hurt someonne that hasn't done anything. Tom is the mockingbird and it would be wrong if he were tried guilty for not actually committing the crime.

Post #1 Coming-of-Age Novel: To Kill A Mocking Bird

The book that I have chose to read is To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. So far I have read halfway through the book. This book is about how a little girl Scout Finch who lives with her brother Jem and her father Atticus in which they are going through the Great Depression. Scout and her family live in a racist white community in Maycomb, Alabama. This book showed many ways of Scout and her coming of age.

Scout and her life are much more further than other kids her age in her town. She has a coming of age that not much other kids in her town get to experience. Many of these examples come down to how 'unusual' Scout is. Scout knows how to read and is intelligent with her smarts before school even started. She is always fighting with boys and is never scared of them yet she is always nice and acts with a great behavior. One of the most 'unusual' thing about Scout is how she is a tomboy (a tomboy is rare in her town). All of this information are in the first half of the book and explains so much to me.

What I think about her unusual coming of age of that Scout is who she is because of the way her father Atticus is raising her. He is the guide to her behavior by showing her it doesnt matter in what she has to be, as long as it is not wrong and bad. That is one reason of why Scout is a tomboy. While all other girls are wearing dresses, Scout wearing overalls and goes on many adventure with Jem such as climbing trees.Scout stands up for what she thinks is right and wrong and she doesn't care what anyone else thinks.

After the Spill (Break HW #3)

The article After the Spill by Laura Leigh Davidson, is about the aftermath of the great oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. On April 20th, 2010 an oil rig had exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. As we all know the oil spill caused a great amount of problems. The water became filled with oil, turning it black, which affected all the sea life in the water. This is a big problem because the animals had been mutating! Mutating animals cause a big problem because the seafood that the fishermen have been catching are such an usual sight. It is another big problem because it can cause a big change in the future for the sea animals. The oil spill is a humongous problem because thinking about the future of those animals aren't that great.

Fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico been catching sea animals... weird sea animals. Due to the oil spill, the animals had been mutated! They have been capturing shrimp with no eyes, crabs without claws and fish with sores covering their bodies. Davidson explains that "These new traits usually prove harmful." The oil that is getting into the animals is causing new traits in the animals cells and offspring. This is a bad problem because since there are MANY mutated sea life which aren't good to eat. It could cause a lot of problems for markets also. Since they are catching the bad mutated animals, they wouldn't want to put something so unusual and nasty looking to sell. No one would buy it! A fisherman, Sidney Schwartz, had said “We've fished here all our lives and have never seen anything like this."

The mutated animals are very bad for the future. They are because crabs are known for having claws as well as all of the other mutated animals. We don't know which animals would be bad and which would be good. There could reproduce and crate a whole different kind of unknown species. They could be very harmful also because of the oil which is inside of them. Some of the sea life could get transported to all over the world which could be a threatening event because we don't know what they could mutate into then!

The oil spill is a real bad event. It could cause many other problems that people wouldn't even think of. It could hurt the market sales. It could possibly harm people. And who knows, it could endanger a bunch of species. Even though the oil spill was in just that part of the world, no one knows what could happen.

Response on Plagiarism (Break HW #2)

Plagiarizing could be and is a big thing. Taking other peoples' work and making it seem as if it is yours is not a good thing to do. There could be certain consequences. What the student did wrong was he/she copied and pasted the passage into his/her post which made it seem like his/her own work. In my opinion, its makes the student seem kind of lazy. What the student could have done to site the source correctly was to put the sentence/quote he/she wanted to use in quotations to show that someone else wrote that sentence. Then he/she could have sited the source at the end of the quote.

This is a way the student could have incorporated the text;
The stars in the night sky are surrounded by their own orb of light. In "A Brief Understanding of the Starry Night Paintings", the author describes the painting as "a scene we can all relate to, and also one that most individuals feel comfortable and at ease with. This sky keeps the viewer's eyes moving about the painting, following the curves and creating a visual dot to dot with the stars. This movement keeps the onlooker involved in the painting while the other factors take hold."

There are plenty ways to avoid plagiarism. One way is to just put it in quotes and site the source! That is a very simple easy way. Another way is to summarize/paraphrase the work and put it into your own words. A third way is to just gather a bunch of information and put it together. I'm not saying take information from different sites by copying and pasting, but look all over the internet. Sometimes there is better info then the one you were planning to take! There are other ways to avoid plagiarism. It could be easy to get caught also because maybe the vocabulary used in the work is obviously not yours. These are some ways to avoid the consequences of getting accused by stealing someone else's work.

Break homeworkkk ! #1

As reading a couple of the reading responses, one of them that stood out to me was Izzy's response to Romeo and Juliet. Izzy's blog post was about why Romeo and Juliet love each other and if they really do! Izzy starts off by using her text evidence to show how Romeo loves Juliet. He compares her to many things for example, a jewel. Izzy uses many other evidence. Another thing that I liked about her response was that she explains HER thoughts on their relationship.

Another blog that I really liked was Alli's review of "Much Ado About Nothing". Alli first focuses on what she thought about the characters. She explains how each character had a very different personality which was very similar to my opinion about the play too. She explains deeply on how each character did and what she liked about them. As she continues, she focuses on the set designs and costumes. Alli talks about all the sets and props that were used in the play. For example, the moon in the background that showed the time of day with colors too! She explained how the music which were played set the mood which I had connected to.

These two responses had really caught my eye. The focuses in these responses were really good and showed me how I should improve in my blog entries. They have paragraphs which were about the same topic just a different focus, which had did great and connected with everything throughout the response. Izzy's post taught me that using a lot of textual evidence really helps me understand what she is explaining. Alli's post taught me that one little topic can turn into a really good understandable post which helps you really think about the topic more.

Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh was born in Groot-Zundert, Holland on March 30, 1853. He was the son of a pastor, which he was brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere. Vincent was highly emotional and lacked self-confidence. Between 1860 and 1880, when he finally decided to become an artist, van Gogh had had two unsuitable and unhappy romances and had worked unsuccessfully as a clerk in a bookstore, an art salesman, and a preacher, where he was dismissed for overzealousness. He stayed in Belgium to study art. His goal was 'to give happiness by creating beauty'. Soon in 1885 he created "The Potato Eaters". In that year van Gogh went to Antwerp where he discovered the works of Rubens and purchased many Japanese prints.
In 1886 he went to Paris to join his brother Théo, the manager of Goupil's gallery. In Paris, van Gogh studied with Cormon, inevitably met Pissarro, Monet, and Gauguin. Soon, he decided to go south to Arles where he hoped his friends would join him and help found a school of art. Gauguin did join him but with disastrous results. Near the end of 1888, an incident led Gauguin to ultimately leave Arles. Van Gogh tried to hurt him with aa rozor but Gauguin dodged it which Van Gogh ended up cutting his a part of his own ear lobe off. Van Gogh was then sent to the asylm for treatment.
In 1890, he had died with rumors saying he shot himself "for the good of all." During his brief career he had sold one painting. Van Gogh's finest works were produced in less than three years in a technique that grew more and more impassioned in brushstroke, in symbolic and intense color, in surface tension, and in the movement and vibration of form and line. Van Gogh wanted to explain his struggle "against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature" in his art work.

Gogh created this piece of Arles in 1888. It depicted stars reflecting in the Rhone River. I thought that this painting shared many qualities that Starry Sky had.
What I liked about this piece was of the stars in the sky are surrounded with their own orb of light. It gives the stars a little more of color and it makes them more noticeable. I also really liked the reflection of the light coming from the houses. It kind of helps to keep the reader involved in the painting.
In the bottom right corner, there is a couple walking along the river. I feel that the couple gives the painting a little more interest. I think that Van Gogh painted the couple to give the painting more of a earthy, natural quality. The way they're dresses which looks natural in a way.
I think that Van Gogh painted this to show more of the beauty of nature. The colors that he had used are very beautiful. He used colors that would catch peoples eyes and get them involved. This painting gave such a beauty of he environment to look at.

Long Days Journey Into Night

Being cheap can seem like a small problem but can also be a big problem. In Long Days into Journey Night the dad was so cheap with money which torn the family apart. It cause many things in the family. It cause drugs addicting, alcoholics and anger problems.

In Long Days into Journey Night their dad is really cheap with money. So cheap that when his wife was giving birth to her third son at a hotel, he didn't bother taking her to the hospital. He thought that it was money being wasted. Which left the doctor of the hotel to give her birth. She needed at least some pain relief so the doctor gave her it which is the cause of her drug addiction. This was the start of the family going mad. I mean, c'mon, it's a baby! Money isn't being wasted. The mother could have died giving birth. That was a real big risk he took.

The cause of the mother being a drug addict led to many other things.
Since their mother was a drug addict, her first and second son's didn't give a crap about their family anymore which led them to be alcoholics. They stole a lot of alcohol from their father. Which made their father have anger issues. It was the fathers fault of all of this to happen.

It's crazy how one little thing can have a big impact on others around you. You wouldn't even expect it but that's just how life is. You get what you give. And the father gave nothing about his family.