Last Assignment

http://prezi.com/2yxe9foa-3fw/prewriting-rough-draft-final-paper/

What I learned

1. What skills have you learned in this class and how might you apply them to writing in your career or future college courses?

In this class I have learned to add detail to everything, if it is something you cannot back up with a fact, it does not need to be included.
2. How have the readings in the class affected you?

The readings have made me think a lot about mortality, the poetry showed people at their lowest moments, mostly with an air of hope.  The play was amazing, but very somber.
3. How have you met the learning outcomes for the class (which can be found on the syllabus)?

I have learned a lot about respecting others input, even if you disagree, they may have a good point.

Assignments in this class are multi dimensional; they cover a lot of different angles, and it was kind of cool that most of our assignments were blogs. I learned a lot about what is expected in a college class and to be open minded and decide based on the facts instead of prior knowledge of things. And, lastly, I learned a lot about plagiarism and crediting authors for their work.
4. How has your writing or your writing process changed?

I place more emphasis upon prewriting now than I had in the past.
5. What were your challenges in the class?  How were you able to overcome them?

I had a hard time understanding the instructions for assignments, there was a lot of confusion initially,  but that was more me not paying attention so I learned to slow down and read the directions.

Annotated bibliography

Gordon, Michael R. and Trainer, Bernard E. (2006). Cobra ii: The inside story of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Westminster, MD, USA: Pantheon.

This source is I found at the Yavapai Library, I chose this resource because of the emphasis the author put on political pressure driving the war in Iraq to where it is at now. The author explains how there are many different reasons that the American people would view an invasion of Iraq as a sure win, as well as what Americans stand to ‘win’ from the invasion. The first chapter is all about why we are there now, including a very in-depth tell-all of who said what in the initial stages. I picked this source because the author mentioned many of the same people as the sandstorm (i.e. Rumsfeld, George Bush.) I think this will help my research because the author goes into so much detail to answer why we are there today.

Rogers, Paul. (2006). Iraq and the war on terror: twelve months of insurgency. London: Tauris.

This source is one of the better ones I found because it is broken down into timeline form. The first two years of the war are entirely broken down into month-by-month points, starting with the political war between John Kerry and George Bush. The last chapter is written in a sort of where-are-we-going sort of way. There are a lot of ‘what ifs’ in this portion of the book, so it may not be a good resource for a research paper. I will probably use the first half of the book primary for my paper. The author did an excellent job considering the topic from multiple angles.

Oliker, Olga. (2007). U. S. policy options for Iraq: a reassessment. Santa Monica, CA: RANDMCNALLEY

This source is much more hypothetical than the other two. I say this because it gives many what if scenarios. This book is more based around the Iraqi society and talks about the clash of cultures when America invaded. I like this resource because it lays out where things overseas going, as well as placing more emphasis on the fact that the middle east has a very different culture than our own. This gives a more personal view onto the subject at hand. This book also gives a more intimate look into the Iraqi beliefs and where they clash with the beliefs of westerners.  

The sandstorm post

For this blog post I chose to discuss a passage from Sean Huze play “The Sand Storm.” The passage takes place when sergeant Williams is speaking to sergeant Casavecchia about the claustrophobia he experienced when the troops had to suit up to avoid toxic gas, “from that point on I never used my gas mask effectively. Time after time we’d get the alert and time after time I risked it. So, folks are all pissed off about there not being any weapons of mass destruction. Shit, not me. My ass is damn lucky there is no WMD over there” (Huze, page 7.) I think that this passage stuck out to me because Sergeant Williams makes it clear that he understand he is possibly choosing death over the feeling of being trapped.  This is reflected a few times in the play, that the troops feel rather disposable in the scheme of everything.  The other part that caught my eye about this passage is the reference to weapons of mass destruction. I remember when the Iraq war started the main cited reason in the media was the fear of nuclear bombs or weapons of that caliber. People against the war today still bring that in as a major argument, the fact that we really have not found anything. The passage in the play sort of reflects that the soldiers may not believe the Iraqis posses these items. I think the root of the meaning of the play is asking the question if our soldiers do not know what they are doing over there, how do we expect them to go in and fight without questioning it.

Here is a link to an article talking about Sean Huze and why he wrote the play The Sandstorm: http://www.alternet.org/world/20358/

Poetry of witness, Forche/Hamill

The authors Carolyn Forche and Sam Hamill both wrote about poetry, and its effects, in very different ways. Both of their works in regards to poetry of witness emphasized the power of thoughts, and the expressions of feelings. Forche placed emphasis on a one-on-on type of view, while Hamill spoke about society as a whole.

Carolyn Forché compiled poetry of witness from a number of different authors all living in countries run by oppressive governments. I think that Carolyn’s main goal was to let people, who may have not otherwise been, be heard.  I agree with the idea that America’s economy is run by the manufacturing of war materials, and that we kind of shy away from peace for this reason. Also, we have never seen a war on our soil which makes it less personal. I did not find anything in her piece that I disagreed with.

Sam Hamill places society’s tendency towards violence on the inability for people to feel emotion, he points out that boys are groomed to become manly and gruff and that girls are taught to stand in line with what they are taught and not ask questions. His ideas relate to poetry of witness because this type of poetry is all about feeling, and opening up to other people’s emotions by seeing their point of view. I agree with this author that people of this generation fall into gender roles and have trouble breaking out due to being so deeply ingrained from childhood.  I disagree with most of what he says about the prison system, especially the emphasis on rehabilitation instead of just punishment, mostly because I have seen “rehabilitated” individuals be released and return to the same activities that got them into jail to begin with.

Picture is from: http://www.celebrationmedical.ca/assets/images/philosophy_brain.jpg

Poetry of Witness

           From the poems listed in poetry of witness I have chosen to write about "Charlie Howard's Descent" by Mark Doty and “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window” by Joy Harjo. Both poems impacted me emotionally, though for different reasons. Although they both pertain to death, they do so in two very different ways (one a murder and the other a suicide of sorts.) the following is based on my interpretation of these two poems.

In "Charlie Howard's Descent” the main character is a gay youth who is thrown off of a bridge by a couple of homophobic men. The poem states in part “Between the bridge and the river/he falls through/a huge portion of night; /it is not as if falling/ is something new…” (Doty, lines 1-4) The part that stood out to me in this poem is that, when I first read it, I had no idea what it was about. I wanted to know more about the situation as soon as I was done reading it. The author uses such great imagery, especially when in the description of Charlie Howard, when he says, “and his earrings shone and his wrists/were as limp as they were.” (Doty, lines 18-19) I did a little research and found out what the poem was about and I was immediately outraged. In real life, Charlie had told the men who threw him off the bridge that he could not swim “it's all right, that he knows/ they didn't believe him/ when he said he couldn't swim, /and blesses his killers” (Doty, lines 46-48) in fact the perpetrators later said in court that they did not believe Charlie could not swim. Before reading this poem, I had never heard about this incident. I like that the author raised awareness about this event with this powerful poem.

            In “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window” the author write with such detail it is sometimes hard to understand, in the course of the poem she talks about her family, “She is a woman of children, of the baby, Carlos, / and of Margaret, and of Jimmy who is the oldest./ She is her mother's daughter and her father's son./ She is several pieces between the two husbands” (Harjo, lines 10-13) and her childhood, “When she was young she ate wild rice on scraped down / plates in warm wood rooms. It was in the farther / north and she was a baby then. They rocked her.” (Harjo, lines 16-19) From what I gathered from the poem, the main character feels trapped in her own life and is contemplating suicide because she feels dead inside- like she has wasted her life. In the end she decides to continue living and goes back inside “She think she remembers listening to her own life/ break loose, as she falls from the 13th floor/window on the east side of Chicago, or as she climbs back up to claim herself again.” (Harjo, lines 61-65) This stuck out to me because it seemed like the author was indecisive about dying or not dying, like it could go either way and she would not care.

            To close, I would like to stay that both poems were written with an air of sadness, I feel that the either poem could be read multiple times and never fully understood. The authors both did an amazing job conveying their point. I like that they both concluded with a hint towards the future, in “Charlie Hoards Decent” the author says “and blesses his killers/ in the way that only the dead/ can afford to forgive.” (Doty, 56-57) While in “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window” the author states the lead character “she climbs back up to claim herself again” (Harjo, line 64) both lines give a feeling of hope to the reader.

Citations

1. Harjo, Joy. “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window.”  Poetryfoundation.org. Poetry Foundation, Web. 21 June, 2011

2.  Doty, Mark. "Charlie Howard's Descent.”

http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/strawberry/descent.html, Charlie Howard’s Descent, Web. 21 June, 2011

Link: http://behindthelinespoetry.blogspot.com/2010/10/mark-dotys-charlie-howards-descent.html

Summary versus analysis

Summary versus analysis

            To understand the difference between summary and analysis I will first give a short definition of each (from http://comptalk.fiu.edu/analysis_v.htm)  according to this website, a Summary is, “a brief paragraph describing and informing three or more of the following elements,” including who, what, when, where, why and  how. Basically, a summary is explaining the course of whatever has happened. For example, if I was to summarize to someone the story of Chuck Palahniuk’s Lullaby I might start by saying that the book was based around an ancient culling song (used to kill) which people increasingly take advantage of through the course of the book. I might then go on to explain main characters in the book (briefly) and the overall plot of the book, I would then give a closure to the paper and in doing so have briefly described the beginning middle and end of the story.

            On the other hand, an analysis “examines the summary elements described above in order to look for their meaning in the following contexts,” an analysis looks more intensely at  

“relationships, roles of people, consequences or results of events, causes and their effects advantages and disadvantages/ gains and losses, as well as strengths and weaknesses,” and will delve deeper into the plot of a story and the characters involved. Back to the example of Chuck Palahniuk’s Lullaby, if I was to use analysis instead of summary in a paper I would cite individual characters more frequently and put more of my own personal opinion in the paper. An analysis is more personal, I might refer to the characters personal life and death of his family as a sort or rebirth of the main character, Mr. Streator. I might also show the impact of the character Helen Hoover Boyle as a whole.

I think the main difference is that a summary is more fact based and an analysis is more personal and a deeper interpretation.

http://comptalk.fiu.edu/analysis_v.htm