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Sunday, June 1, 2014

Thesis in Pictures

ESSAY THESIS IN PICTURES


The Open Source Learning wasn't a choice, so I was supposed to adjust to the new style of learning.



I built my own blog where I can express my thoughts. Of course, homework as well. 



After creating my blog, I made connections with my peers where we learned to edit and help each other with assignments.


We were all utilizing the Internet.


Each of us set up goals for yourselves and focused on the target. 


From Open Source Learning, we collaborated and constructed. 











Masterpiece Final Essay

Miki Kagawa
Dr. Preston
AP Literature and Composition
June 1, 2014

                                             Achievements in Open Source Learning

It wasn’t a normal classroom with books and teachers lecturing on a topic. Instead we sat and stared at the projector screen looking at all the viable resources on one website. This eye-catching method was called, Open Source Learning. Imagine the trunk of an oak tree which represent the main blog, and the roots that spread out are the students’ blogs. As a student in AP Literature and Composition, I was required to create a personal blog where I can express my ideas, thoughts, and of course, homework. At the beginning, it was hard to adjust to this new idea of utilizing the internet to do work. But soon, it was a kickstart and I became more comfortable connecting with the teacher and my peers. My learning has been espoused because this new way of learning was intriguing and not traditional to the usual textbook and paper notes. 


The high level of trust is given to those who got their work done and post efficiently. The assignments that are given daily and they should be complete, but sometimes the ones that don’t do the work also are passed by. Many of us had to earn the trust of complete each individual assignments daily. It was the proper thing to do to check the students blogs weekly to see if the assignments are completed. Along with the trust, we are honored by the grades we received for each progress report and final grades. Colleagues helped each other finish assignments to receive credit, which was extremely important for open source learning because we are able to share our ideas or help each other when one is confused or off track. With the blogs, we are able to make up assignments by searching members or simply scrolling down the main blog.

First,  Brave New World by Huxley was the most traditional book and assignments we did in the course. We went by chapters discussing and analyzing both in class and online. This assignment I felt was traditional and most educational to the students in the course. Bernard from the book was more human than anyone else in the book, which made it feel like there was a connection to reader and Bernard. Bernard was a silent sufferer and often I feel that I am not able to say things I want to in class. Another classic literature we discussed in class was, Hamlet by Shakespeare. Memorizing the speech, “To be or not to be” was a common curriculum to for an AP Literature and Composition class. Hamlet, who possessed anger and hatred towards his uncle. Anger towards school work and college acceptance made it feel like Hamlet was with many of us during the time we discussed Hamlet. Finally, Macbeth by Shakespeare is another core curriculum for a typical high school student. Macbeth was one of the last literature the class discussed and the guilt that Macbeth had within was something many of us can relate to. The characters were all very relatable and have “followed” me in my journey throughout the course. These books are what made this class a typical high school course, which I enjoyed because one of my goals were to learn and read more world known classic literature. 

I would have never taught that this course would reconnect me with my passion. After shooting my other passion of science with dry ice and water, my masterpiece group decided to film me swinging fruits with golf clubs. It’s funny because golf is a sport where people don’t watch, it’s based off of the score. The masterpiece demonstrated my passion for golf which disappeared as soon as golf season ended back in November. After that, I supposed that I  would never pick up another golf club again. As soon as we started filming, I lined up against the apple and swung that club. It was a realization of how much I enjoyed golfing and that it was my true passion. Without the final masterpiece or the course itself, I would have never rekindled with golf which I truly love doing. After reconnecting with my passion, I will continue to play and with the course, I will find other passions that I have found taking the course such as science in literature. Brave New World was one of the few books that I fell in love with because it Huxley combined literature with science. 

There were many times in class when I had a laugh. In the beginning of the year, I had a laugh while different groups were presenting their Cantebury Tale. Each different group were to discuss what happened to the characters in the fictional story. I remember laughing at Daniel and Ashley’s group because the way they described the scene was so modern that it was hilarious to listen to. Another time laughing moment was the winter presentations. I loved Edmond, Shane, and Colter’s video where they built their catapult. The video was serious and intense that I had a good laugh. The final presentations were great and that was my favorite time out of the course. 

Passion was the most common theme in the masterpieces. First, personally in mine. Swinging fruits and water balloons are not the same as swinging a real golf ball, but it is truly my passion. Jason Limon’s wrestling powerpoint showed that he loved wrestling and he was very knowledgable about it, you can tell the way he was presenting his powerpoint that he enjoyed the sport. Allyson Brown’s genetics powerpoint showed obvious love and passion for the subject. She was very knowledgable and even got some hands on experiences with genetics where she showed to the class. Colter Knight’s presentation of traveling and story of becoming a life guard also was passion towards his love for traveling around the world and nature. Along with becoming a life guard because he enjoys swimming/surfing. Finally, Ashley and Bianca’s passion towards comics were shown on their tumblr page where they created a comic about psychological issues (Ashley’s passion to become a psychologist). Each individual listed had an aura and almost talked and talked about how much they loved or knew about the topic. There was excitement within because they are presenting to others what they are truly in love with. Whether if it was a sport or lesson of genetics, there were passion in each individual presentation. 


I believe that my hero’s journey has just begun. This adventure was just the introduction and the future is to see what I do with the knowledge I have obtained. My goals for the future are far, but the steps I need to take are precise and important. This adventure was finding what I wanted to do with my life and to see if I can do it. From the beginning, I was still unsure of my future outcome, but now that I have gotten in to my first choice college, it was an understanding to me that  I can achieve my goals. Getting accepted to the college of my choice made me realize that I’m not the invisible person in the classroom. I conquered my challenge and fear of being left behind for college. Throughout the journey I found that peers do want to help and get involved with your ideas. This network we created together will be used for the future, but my journey for the AP Literature and Composition course ends here. 

Monday, May 26, 2014

Masterpiece: Destructive Therapy

Link to our video ----->    Destructive Therapy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9r71MNxc1s


Created by: Lindsey Wong, Amara Sharp, Jake Hoffman, Min Kim, and myself.

Project Update

We just made our preview for the class. Watermelons and rubber bands! More destructions to come. Hopefully we get some other ideas from students to add into our videos. So far our plans are: 
- dry ice on surface/ in water
- tennis with fruits 
-frozen waterballons
-golf? 
- coke and mento

Look at my Brains

I just realized I was missing a few post.. and here's one of them.

As a child, I alway thought that intelligence is determined by test scores and how well someone is able to preform educationally. Brenna's big question really changed my view on intelligence. People can be artistically intelligent and book smart. What you specialize in make you smart. A neurosurgeon is not going to be well informed about dentistry because he or she didn't get the entire knowledge a dentist did about teeth. It doesn't mean either of them are not smart or one smarter than the other. It just means that they are specialized in two different concepts. Both are intelligent, I mean.. how can they get into medical school without intelligence?

Poetry Boot Camp: Gridlock

I'm doing the theme in my group.
 (Notes) 
Emily Dickinson's Hope
Theme: I think the theme of this poem is that there is no hope. Irony to the title. 
John Keat's Bright Star
Theme: The bright star represents life itself.
Gerard Manely Hopkins's Pied Beauty 
Theme: Beauty is nature. I wasn't sure what he was saying about the "pied beauty," not sure if there's a relation to the title and the content. 

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Poetry Boot Camp : Seventh Reading

3 Poems I chose..

Hope by Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me

Bright Star by John Keats 

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
         Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike tas
  Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
 Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.


Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins 
GLORY be to God for dappled things—
  For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
    For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
  Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;        5
    And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
 
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
    With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:        10
                  Praise him.


Destructive Therapy Preview


Watermelon

The Crossroads Should and Must

The article makes great points about the "should" and the "must." It states that we have been taught to do the "should" so we are not trained to think of the must. I kind of disagree with that because I felt that we have to do the should to do the must. I have to take all these difficult AP classes, to do the must which is to get in to college for a degree. I don't think we are trained to do the "should" I just believe that I personally have to do the "should" to do the "must." The article does make sense though, we are at school trying to bubble in answers and get the grade. For some what it is true, but not exactly because some people are passionate or try hard to get good grades. It's better to do the should in the long run. The article definitely is for students who wish time to just go by. I don't know if it really matters to me about the difference between "should" and "must" because I would end up doing both anyway. It's more of a personal thing, when it comes to how we perceive our educational value.

Literature Analysis #6

The Run Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

1. Jake Barnes is working in Paris as a journalist post WWI, who is friends with American expatriate, Robert Cohn and his girlfriend Frances Clyne. In reality, they are more “frenemies” than actual friends, yet they continue to party and socialize with one another. One night at a club, Jake runs into Lady Brett Ashley, an English socialite whom he is madly in love with (but is more a selfish ditz) since he met her during WWI when she treated him.  Brett hints at loving him, but her lifestyle is far too free and independent for her to want to ever give it up (plus she can’t have sex with him). Even Cohn begins to fall for Brett; although he is not to found of the idea that she has plans to marry a Scottish war veteran Mike Campbell.  Brett makes plans to leave for San Sebastian, and claims distance from Jake will be good for both of them.
Weeks later, while Cohn and Brett are off traveling, another American war veteran friend, Bill Gorton, comes to Paris. Bill and Jake then make plans to go fishing in Spain and then meet Cohn on the way to a fiesta in Pamplona. On his way, he runs into Brett and Mike, who join them in Spain. Brett tells Jake that she and Cohn were in San Sebastian together.
Once in Spain, and Brett and Mike fail to show up, Bill and Jake leave to go fishing while Cohn stays behind. After a few days they hear from them and return to Pamplona to meet them. There a series of events occur where Mike gets jealous of Brett, and Brett leaves him for a young Spanish bull fighter. Cohn and Mike fight, then Cohn also fights with Jake and Mike (knocking them out), but after Jake finds him in bed, a crying mess, he forgives him. However, Romero could not forgive Cohn for also beating him up.
In the end, Brett leaves with the bull fighter, only to call Jake to her rescue yet again in Madrid. He goes to her, and Brett says that they could have had a wonderful time together, while Jake responds that its “pretty to think so”. 

2. The theme of the novel is the idea of excess, and disillusionment with the world. All the characters seem to aimlessly wander around, uncaring about each other, yet caring too much at the same time. They act happy, but actually aren’t. They surround themselves with people who are equally as strange and disregard each others emotions. They float around to great places but discontent seems to follow. The ending of the novel fits this idea, because while Brett says they could be happy together, Jake realizes it’s “pretty to think so”. Similar to how it would be nice to think about how “happy” they are in real life, but it’s all a facade. 

3. The tone is somber and nostalgic of what could have been. 
“Oh Jake,” Brett said, “We could have had such a damned good time together.”
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.
Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” 
They are all searching for something aimlessly, and they don’t even know what they are looking for. 
“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
“I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.” 

4. Literary Techniques
Characterization: “She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else’s eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things.” Hemingway’s characters are all described to be eccentric of beautiful, but there is something inherently wrong in them because of what the war. It adds to the somber mood of the novel. 
Conflict: “I know you’re right. I’m just low, and when I’m low I talk like a fool.” Brett acts as the central point of drama, but the deeper conflict is internal. They want to be happy, but cannot be because they merely are a shell of a person.
Deus ex Machina: "Romero had the old thing, the holding of his purity of line through the maximum of exposure, while he dominated the bull by making him realize he was unattainable, while he prepared him for the killing.”Romero is key because he wraps up the end of the story by “taking” Brett away, so yet again, Jake can save her. 
Diction: “The road to hell is paved with unbought stuffed animals” Hemingway chooses many words which create a nostalgic and somber tone. 
Allusion: “You are all a lost generation.” This alludes to Gertrude Steins famous words, which pretty much sums up the novel. 
Foil: “It was not brilliant bull-fighting. It was only perfect bull-fighting.”Romero is opposite to all the characters, perfect and put together. Bringing to light how lost the characters are in their lives. 
Irony: “Romero never made any contortions, always it was straight and pure and natural in line. The others twisted themselves like cork-screws, their elbows raised, and leaned against the flanks of the bull after his horns had passed, to give a faked look of danger. Afterward, all that was faked turned bad and gave an unpleasant feeling. Romero’s bull-fighting gave real emotion, because he kept the absolute purity of line in his movements and always quietly and calmly let the horns pass him close each time. He did not have to emphasize their closeness.”It’s ironic that Brett chooses to go back to her dysfunctional life when the “perfect” man is in front of her.
Negative Capability: “Isn’t it pretty to think so.”  We aren’t exactly sure what happens to all the characters in the end, and if Brett really goes back to Mike. Or what happens to Jake. It adds to the aimlessness of the novel. 
Setting: “Cheer up,’ I said. ‘All countries look just like the moving pictures.”
“The grain-fields went up the hillsides. Now as we went higher there was a wind blowing the grain.” Even in the most beautiful of places, people are vastly unhappy. 
Foreshadowing: “The bulls are my best friends.”
I translated to Brett.
"You kill your friends?" she asked.
"Always," he said in English, and laughed. "So they don’t kill me.”  Hinting at the idea that the characters ruin their relationships before they themselves can be hurt. 

Characterization - 
1. Direct: "Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slip-over jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that."
"She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.” 
Direct characterization is used to emphasize the materialistic attitudes the characters have, since they only like to look at what is on the surface. 
Indirect: “Everybody behaves badly,” I said. “Give them the proper chance.” 
“This is a hell of dull talk…How about some of that champagne?”
Indirect characterization is used to imply how the characters seem to always avoid their problems by turning from serious conversations often and showing how they either don’t care, or are lost and unwillingly to try and change the way they think. 

2. The author’s syntax does change, and when looking back on the quotes I have already posted, we can see a difference in the way characters like Brett and Romero are described. Romero is more put together and clean; “perfect” with the concise way he is written, and Brett is more unique and spontaneous sounding based on the way she is written. 

3. Jake is most definitely static. By the end of the novel he is still falling back into routine with Brett, and not moving on with his life.

4. I feel like I did not meet any of these characters because in all honesty, there are superficial and fake individuals who all have problems they are unwilling to face. They are upset but keep finding themselves in situations where they know the outcome, and yet still seem surprised when it happens. Frustrating and annoying. Everything happens quickly and you don’t get the chance to even know any of the characters on a deeper level, aside from brief moments of clarity. 

Literature Analysis #5

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro 

1) Summary: The novel itself is broken up into three parts, mirroring the elements of plot by doing so. Although the events of this novel are not in chronological order, they still follow these trends. The story follows the lives of a three young children through adulthood, Kathy (main character), Ruth, and Tommy. All three attend a school known as Hailsham, a boarding school in 1990’s England, which essentially raises children to become Donors; as in people who will donate their organs to those in need in the future, which will lead to their “completion” eventually. The first part of the novel introduces the audience to the relationships between our three main characters. Kathy and Ruth have a strange and somewhat competitive relationship, which then goes a bit sour when Ruth begins dating Tommy since Kathy harbors strong feelings for Tommy.
As the plot begins to pick up we see this tension grow, and in part two, they are now teenagers who have finally begun to feel the weight of their future. While up to this point the novel has only presented a bleak and sad future for Donors, there is now hope. With the possibility of deferrals (students can defer donations for three years if they are truly in love), there is a chance for happiness. However, this whole time the relationship between Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy begin to falter as they grow up. This leads to part three, where Kathy becomes a Carer upon request, a person who cares for the Donors. We are further in the future now; Ruth’s health is deteriorating after a poor response to her first donation, and Kathy had chosen to become her Carer. Their relationship begins to heal when they go out on a trip, bringing Tommy along as well. Old wounds are opened up when Ruth admits to keeping the two apart, and in hopes of redeeming herself she gives them the address to Madame, and urges them to try and defer. Shortly after she completes after her final donation.
When Tommy and Kathy go to see Madame, they also meet Miss Emily, but they are devastatingly told that deferrals do not exist. But they also explain why they were raised the way they were at Hailsham, and why there was such a stress on the arts. The whole time they were only meant to prove to society that these “clones” were real children, who deserved a more “humane” treatment before reaching the ends of their lives. Society ultimately opted against this, and Hailsham was closed. After such a shocking discovery, hope is really all gone. The novel ends with Tommy’s completion, as well as Kathy beginning her own donations soon, where she will complete as well. 

2) In my opinion, the theme of the novel is deception; about how we grow up being deceived and it is our choice to either accept it or question it. We watch the transformation of three characters that essentially spend their whole lives being raised in a world that treated them like human’s on the outside, while in reality they are literally walking donations for the “normal” people.They are fooled into thinking they were actually cared about by most people, which in some ways is good and bad. No one really wants to be told that people only care about them for their vital organs, or that eventually you will die from this. By being fooled they are being sheltered; but on the other hand, the impact of realizing the truth is far harsher. Which is what we see when Kathy and Tommy are told that deferrals do not exist. “All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.” This quote illustrates the main argument for lying essentially, but what most people fail to recognize is that you are only prolonging the pain. This novel’s controversial theme portrays both sides to this argument of lying for “protection” by showing the effects directly upon those who are deceived. 

3) I found the tone of this novel to be somewhat imbalanced, because our narrator Kathy is looking back on her life in a mature and realistic way, while also capturing the innocence of her youth. The tone comes off as a more somber realism since from the beginning we understand that they will all most likely die, or “complete”. So right from the get go we understand that their lives will not be long. “It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you’ve made, and there’s this panic because you don’t know yet the scale of disaster you’ve left yourself open to.” There is a certain sadness in understanding what is happening to you, and what your future looks like.“Your life must now run the course that’s been set for it.” The ironically gentle bluntness of Kazuo Ishiguro’s writing allows the reader to ease into the ideas he presents his readers. “You need to remember that. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you.” There is a balance between truth, deception, and innocence in what Ishiguro writes, which captures the realistic tone of the novel. 
4) Literary Devices -
Point of View: The first person narrative of Kathy allows the reader to have insight on her perspective, especially since it is told from a future perspective as she looks back on her life. It is centered on events pertaining to Kathy, so we understand the events unfolding from her view only. “Because maybe, in a way, we didn’t leave it behind nearly as much as we might once have thought. Because somewhere underneath, a part of us stayed like that: fearful of the world around us, and no matter how much we despised ourselves for it—unable quite to let each other go.” 
Irony: The irony in the fact that they were raising these children “humanely” while knowing they would all die. They raised them to be “normal” or and to give them as much of a life as possible while they tried to hide the truth from them, and in the end society didn’t like this idea. Raising children to be “human” when all you really want is to eventually treat them like a temporary container for organs they need. “We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.” 
Flashback: Kathy spends a majority of the novel explaining events that have happened in the past, and even when she reconnects with Ruth and Tommy she flashes back to moments growing up. This is central to showing where they are now, and where they used to be in life. How much has really changed, and also how much of their lives have really stayed the same. Also, in such a short life, you really only have your memories to think of when you know you won’t have a future.  “Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory…” 
Setting: The setting of Hailsham, a perfectly nice and beautiful school, is quite opposite to the future of these children. It is almost a picturesque place you’d imagine for boarding school, yet these students are there for a whole different purpose. It also represents a major part of Kathy’s life, and she often sees things which remind of Hailsham. “Driving around the country now, I still see things that will remind me of Hailsham. I might pass a corner of a misty field, or see part of a large house in the distance as I come down the side of a valley…I’ll think: ‘Maybe that’s it! I’ve found it! This actually is Hailsham.’ Then I see it’s impossible and I go on driving, my thoughts drifting elsewhere.”
Tragedy: Not only is it a tragedy that all of these characters face a certain death, we also watch a relationship pass and go twice. Kathy and Tommy had a chance to be happy had Ruth not kept them apart, and when they finally do reconnect, it’s too late and far too much time has been wasted.“That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was Norfolk after all, and it was only a couple of weeks since I’d lost him. I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I’d ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I’d see it was Tommy, and he’d wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that —I didn’t let it— and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn’t sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.” 
Symbolism: In a way the deferrals for donations represented more than just three years to be in love, it also represented the last shred of hope for our characters’ fairly bleak lives. It is the one thing that could bring them some final happiness before completion, but in the end it only creates greater pain. In our world we often hope for things that will never come, but still do because we feel it’s better to have hope than to not. The deferrals symbolize this idea of how we falsely cling to things that we shouldn’t. “I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. “A few minutes later, he said suddenly: ‘Kath, can we stop? I’m sorry, I need to get out a minute.’
…I could make out in the mid-distance, near where the field began to fall away, Tommy’s figure, raging, shouting, flinging his fists and kicking out. I caught a glimpse of his face in the moonlight, caked in mud and distorted with fury, then I reached for his failing arms and held on tight. He tried to shake me off, but I kept holding on, until he stopped shouting and I felt the fight go out of him. Then I realized he too had his arms around me. And so we stood together like that, at the top of the field, for what seemed like ages, not saying anything, just holding each other, while the wind kept blowing and blowing at us, tugging our clothes, and for a moment, it seemed like we were holding onto each other because that was the only way to stop us being swept away into the night.” 

Conflict: The conflict between Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy often highlights the fractured childhood they had. It also creates a sense of reality that despite the reasons they exist, they are human beings who have the same emotions as everyone else. Even the teasing and bullying inflicted upon Tommy shows us just how real they were. “Then there were rumours almost every day of pranks that had been played on him. … I thought sooner or later someone would start saying it had gone too far, but it just kept on, and no one said anything.”
Indirect Characterization: We often understand the way the other characters are based on the responses by the others. We understand Ruth’s character as a somewhat selfish and self conscience person in the beginning because of the way she treated Kathy and the way she spoke, but at the end we see how much she regrets some of her choices as she desperately tries to fix them. “I’d like you to forgive me, but I don’t expect you to…The main thing is, I kept you and Tommy a part.”
Mood: The mood of this novel helps convey the somber tone; it takes on a serious and reflective mood as Kathy looks back on her life and what happened. “Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.”
Connotation/Diction: “We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we’ve lived through, or feel we’ve had enough time.” Certain words are often chosen with different connotations in order to soften the blow of their true meaning. Like how “complete” is used instead of “dead”. Complete insinuates an accomplished ending, like you finished with a productive product. While “dead” is obviously a bit morbid. The choice of words 


Characterization - 
1) Direct Characterization: “She had a squat, almost bulldoggy figure, and her odd black hair, when it grew; it grew upwards so it never covered her ears or chunky neck.” It was important for the reader to recognize along with the characters that Miss Emily, who is described in the quote, is different from the others. It is clear that Miss Emily isn’t like the rest of the guardians at Hailsham and the direct characterization allows us to see this.
“There was something about Tommy himself – the way he carried himself, the way he looked people in the face and talked in his open good natured way – that was different from before and which had in turn chanced the attitude of those around him.” This direct characterization allows the reader to visibly understand the change in Tommy, how he is no longer the temper – tantrum throwing young boy. Or that he simply managed to handle his emotions better.
 - Indirect Characterization: “I was so desperate for her to realize I wasn’t with the girls behind me, and had had no part in whatever it was that had made her cross.” This indirect characterization of Ruth shows how much influence she had other those around her. It proves her personality is almost contagious, making those around her want to be her friend. She was a leader, and this quote shows that because Kathy was so desperate to be seen as no associated with the girls who had angered Ruth.
“’What do you know about it? You just don’t know anything, because you’ve been out of it for ages now! If you knew everything we’d found out, you wouldn’t dare say anything so daft!” This quote by Kathy just shows how for a long time she just wanted to be a part of something. She stood up for Ruth as a loyal friend would despite being snubbed. So she was desperately clinging to what she could, afraid she would lose it, while also proving her connection to Ruth would always be loyal, which is seen at the end of Ruth’s life again. 

2) The diction from character to character does not change, but does change over time in the book as seen with the way Kathy describes her friends at the beginning of the novel and then at the end. For example, at the beginning of the novel Kathy looked down at Tommy, almost like she was a disappointed mother and the words chosen to describe Tommy were ones used to describe a temperamental toddler. By the end of the novel Tommy is more romantically and kindly regarded upon. So as the characters changed, so did the diction used to characterize them. 

3) The protagonist, Kathy, was a static character because she changed from the beginning of the novel to the end. She clearly gained more insight into her life as she grew older, which is only natural when growing up. She began to see things clearer, but at the same time she still had so many unanswered questions. Even though she was able to find answers to some (and change because of those answers) at the end of the novel we understand that there are many things that could of happened, but didn’t because of what occurred. 

4)  I feel like I have learned a lot about Kathy since I was able to read about her childhood, and into adulthood. I understood how relateable Kathy’s emotions, even though she lived in a completely different world. There was a sense of confusion in Kathy that I could relate to. She was always putting her friends above her, so it makes sense why she would chose to be a carer. I felt like she was telling me her story, as if I were a stranger, and she was at the end of her life explaining what it was really like to be a Donor, and how she was just one story among many. There was one quote in the novel that I particularly liked, which was “The problem, as I see it, is that you’ve been told and not told. You’ve been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way.”  It sums up the story as a whole, and how you feel after reading it. Like you just barely have begun to grasp something, yet feel like you missed something else as well. It also captures the essence of how I feel about Kathy. There are times where I wanted to know why she did the things she did, and just when I thought I understood, I really didn’t, and had to just settle for what I could. 

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Macbeth Active Reading Notes

Macbeth 
Act 1 Scene 1
- the three witches make an appearance. They agree to meet again. 
Act 1 Scene 2 
-Duncan, King of Scotland
-introduces Macbeth as a hero and Banquo (cousin of Macbeth) both fought in war
- Ross goes to see Macbeth at the end of scene 
Act 1 Scene 3 
- witches reappear, Banquo speaks to the witches. He asks if they a mortal
- witches hail to Macbeth & thane of Cawdor 
- they claim Macbeth will be king one day
- They turn to Banquo and say he will be lesser than Macbeth but greater. He will never be king but his children will. 
-Macbeth questions why he is thane of Cawdor but they exit 
- Ross and Angus appears, but Macbeth is still amazed about the prophecy 
Act 1 Scene 4 
- Malcom tells his father, Duncan about an execution 
- Duncan thanks Banquo and Macbeth and announced that Malcom is the new heir to the throne. 
- Macbeth realizes that he has to get passed Malcom to become king. 
- Duncan goes to Macbeth's castle for the evening. End scene. 

Meet Macbeth

  • How is Macbeth introduced through in/direct characterization?
  • What elements of foreshadowing do the witches provide?
  • How does Shakespeare's approach to exposition give the reader background information about the setting and characters and a sense of what's to come without spoiling the play?
  • How does Shakespeare's characterization of Macbeth reflect a sense of tone (i.e., the author's attitude toward the character/s, audience, and/or subject matter)?
  • What themes appear evident in Macbeth's character and conduct?  To what extent do you think these themes will drive the rest of the play? 
Macbeth is introduced by indirect characterization. Another character introduces Macbeth about his gore and glory. He is almost "blood thirsty" as they describe. The witches foreshadow Macbeth's killing and his future actions. He uses the witches as like a distraction to the play. The setting and the characters are having a normal conversations about Macbeth and the king. The tone of the characters are dark, especially when describing Macbeth. They say he is this glorious warrior (similar to Beowulf), he is seen as this man with a bloody sword, so it is reflected as a dark monotone tone. I think being the glorious "hero" will have a bad ending to Macbeth. 

Monday, March 10, 2014

Welcome



Benchmark Project

This blog post is going to be similar to my launch post, but I think that's okay. 
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So far, I have gotten into a group of friends who are willing to create a video of myself, Lindsey, Kelly, and Amara to blow shit up. Have we decided what we are going to blow up? Well, Lindsey has an idea. She likes to call this her "Destructive Therapy," we have been extremely stressed out, so I would like to have some excitement and fun doing this project. I copied and pasted Lindsey's videos/ideas she wants to do:
Resources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK8dsAeMmPk (watermelon vs. rubber bands)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVF9W99bL-Q (we will be hopefully using a catapult and colored water)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kOfRytCSdQ (tennis racquet vs. water balloon) 


------> By the way, this doesn't concern my major/future at all. I personally would like to do something in the medical field, but this video will be a once in a life time experiences with friends. 

LEARNING [in a] BRAVE NEW WORLD

The discussions we had in class were very helpful because my table group were able to connect some significance and symbolism I wasn't able to get while I was reading. Although, the lectures were boring and I was almost falling asleep, they were helpful in a way of understanding what and why Huxley was writing this book. The essay was extremely difficult to write, but now that I have more information about Bernard I feel that I can go more in depth with my essay. Missing the four days of school definitely backed me up with the book, because I had to read the five chapters in a day and missed several of the discussion.

My Team

I was at science camp.. so I didn't get a chance to discuss with my table group! ):  But, while I was at camp.. I wrote journals about people who I look up to, people who I don't want to be like, the content they have, and the content they didn't have.

Launch

Lindsey, Amara, Kelly, and I wanted to do a series of exploding ... stuff.
Our idea is based off of the level of stress that we have experienced through out high school. Many advanced placement classes have made Lindsey and I guess myself insane. This senior project will be about exploding household goods, along with few scientific experiment, possibly constructing a slingshot. We are still planning what to do, but more information can be found here.

Monday, February 24, 2014

I, Jury

Summarize your findings in a post entitled I, JURY.  In the same post, please comment on how reading these essays gave you ideas of what to include and/or avoid in your next essay

I commented on about six blogs and it's amazing how since we used different essay topics, but we all still came up with similar topics. I read a lot of essays about Bernard, which is probably what Huxley wanted the book to be pointed towards Bernard. Reading helped me get ideas about phrasing and wording the essay. I often get comments about my grammar mistakes and sentence structures. (Possibly start reviewing my essay before I post it on to my blog?) Reading others essay helps me realize what I can improve on or even sometimes say, "why didn't I do that?" :)

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Brave New World Essay

Brave New World Essay 

2010 AP Literature and Composition Essay Prompt: Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from “home,” whether that home is the character’s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character’s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or one of comparable literary merit. Do not merely summarize the plot.
(The prompt asks for the meaning of the work as a whole, I haven't read the entire book.. so..) 

In a group of people each individuals are different and independent, but the book, Brave New World illustrates a community of informed and organized humans who are designed and programed to do a task. Within the community, scientists injected an overdose of alcohol into an infant causing it to be different from the rest. The alpha, Bernard is shorter among all the other alphas and mentally he is aware of the scientific experiment and the soma-consuming people. He is forced to act "normal" to fit in, but still often alienated by his appearance. Huxley uses Bernard's emotions and actions to show the alienation as the meaning of the work as a whole. 
Bernard is an outcast from all the other alphas, he shows a significances to the story line. He is able to emotionally connect with his inner feelings unlike other alphas, gammas, and betas. He can feels anger towards Henry Foster because he talks about Lenina like she is a piece of meat. Bernard realizes that he is different from the rest so, he chooses not to intake the soma pills which is a drug that is intended to keep people happy. Being isolated from the rest was merely difficult for Bernard to fit in to keep a disguise that he is one of the programed alphas, he chooses to pretend. He tries by excitedly mimic the after effect of soma. Huxley uses Bernard as a comparison to the robot-like human beings, but also chooses Bernard as an important character to make a connection with the readers. 
Bernard's actions of asking Lenina to go to the savage shows a human-like characteristic. Which is significant to the book, because Huxley shows the population as dehumanized qualities such as Gammas and Betas are shocked to work in machine factories everyday, because they are classified as "lower." Although Bernard is an alpha, he is alienated by the other alphas due to his height. Often his actions and inner thoughts are more humanistic, allowing him feel and also act different from the rest. 
Huxley's creation of the Brave New World is appeared to be a reference to humans just living and doing what society want us to do. The London facility shows a good representation of controlled and monitored human beings where they are forced to be shocked to do things. Often in a factory, even in a factory of producing people, there will be mistakes. Huxley includes Bernard, who was physically and mentally different from others. The Brave New World revolves around Bernard's alienation which are reflected upon his emotions and actions.  

Friday, February 21, 2014

Brave New World Essay

Bernard is criticized by the Director for not acting “infantile” enough. Discuss how and why the World State infantilizes its citizens.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

I Am Here

Have you begun thinking/working on your senior project, big question, collaborative working group, or other endeavor/venture that shows how you're putting this course to work for you? 

Yes, I've been thinking about my senior project a lot. My friends and I have decided to collaborate on a project. (Hint: blowing things up) I have to say, I am the same as last semester, I get all my work done. Do every assignment with thought and somewhat effort into the assignment. I have to admit my essay was not good. I really summarized, so I agree with the comments on my essay. I hope the course becomes a little more enjoyable as the year slowly ends. 

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Interdisciplinary

A few of us have been talking about out senior project, we wanted to make a video that describes our; I guess I can say, "our level of stress" we had over the past four years. Many of us look back and we don't think about what was amazing/inspirational, but we think about the blood, sweat, and tear (yes, I know very cliche´) we put in to high school. Anyway, the video will contain everything that has to do with blowning shit up. Few ideas we were thinking about: 
-Watermelons (*explosion) 
- Mentos and Coke (elaborated) 
-Slow motion cam 
- Launching things.. 
- more ideas later on. 

Lit. Terms #6

Simile: a figure of speech comparing two essentially unlike things throughout the use of a specific word of comparison.

Soliloquy: an extended speech, usually in a drama, delivered by a character alone on stage.

Spiritual: a folk song, usually on a religious theme.

Speaker: a narrator, the one speaking.

Stereotype: cliche, a simplified, standardized conception with a special meaning and appeal for members of a group; a formula story.

Steam of Consciousness: the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reelections, memories, and mental images, as the character experiences them.

Structure: the planned framework of a literary selection; its apparent organization.

Style: the manner of putting thoughts into words; a characteristic way of writing or speaking.

Subordination: the couching of less important ideas in less important structures of language.

Surrealism: a style in literature and painting that stresses the subconscious or the non rational aspects of man’s existence characterized by the juxtaposition of the bizarre and the banal.

Suspension of disbelief: suspend not believing in order to enjoy it.

Symbol: something which stands for something else, yet has a meaning of its own.

Synesthesia: the use of one sense to convey the experience of another sense.

Synecdoche: another form of name changing, in which a part stands for the whole.

Syntax: the arrangement and grammatical relations of words in a sentence.

Theme: main idea or the story; it’s message(s).

Thesis: a proposition for consideration, especially one to be discussed and proved or disproved; the main idea.

Tone: the deices used to create the mood and atmosphere of a literary work; the author’s perceived point of view.

Tongue in cheek: a type of humor in which the speaker feigns seriousness.

Tragedy: in literature: any composition with a somber theme carried to a disastrous conclusion; a fatal event; protagonist usually is heroic but tragically (fatally) flawed.

Understatement: opposite of hyperbole; saying less than you mean for emphasis.

Vernacular: everyday speech.

Voice: the textual features, such as diction and sentence structures, that convey a writer’s or speaker’s persona.

Zeitgeist: the feeling of a particular era in history 

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Hafta/Wanna

In a blog post entitled HAFTA/WANNA explain similarities/differences you see between your life during high school and life after high school.  Is there a significant difference?  Will people somehow magically transform the day after graduation, or will they take their current habits of mind/word/deed into their next set of daily activities?  How do you balance the things you want to do and the things you have to do, and what are your expectations of yourself and the world around you as you move on?

I want to be myself first things first. Just because I'm going to be in a whole another environment, I hope to always be true to myself. I don't want anything to get in my way of suceess. Something different I hope to see is that I will use my time more efficently and hope to see another new level of me. Overall there's no significant difference during my transformation. I prefer things to be the same as always. Yes, many people change in college. It must be because we are under no supervision and it's up to only our decision to make good/smart choices. Taking someone out of their routine is hard, but when it an be out of control. Organization is the best way to sort and priortize our list of things we want and have to do. Keeping a list will help me balance my things. I hope to see myself achieve my goals and just become a greater person. As for the world, to be consistantly getting better such as no war, lowering poverty, and overall helping countries in need. 

Monday, February 10, 2014

the Nose

Quiz: The Nose
1. What does Ivan Yakovlevich do for a living? 
- Ivan is a barber.

2. What does Ivan find in a loaf of bread? 
- He finds a nose inside of a bread. 

3. How does his wife respond to Ivan's discovery? 
- His wife wants him to dispose it. 

4. What does Ivan set out to accomplish? 
- He throws it in the river. 

5. When Ivan tosses the "package" in the river, for a brief moment he is happy; then he is arrested. What does this scene suggest about the role of happiness in Ivan's life/community/society? 
- That happiness only lasts for a short time in many cases, Ivan was arrested as soon as he got rid of the nose that was holding him back from freedom. 

6. Where does the title object belong, and how does it finally get there?
The play is called, "The Nose," it plays in a part of Ivan's life because he accidentally found a nose by chance, but it led him to another trouble, causing him to be involved in this missing nose. 

Literary Terms #5

Parallelism: In grammar, parallelism, also known as parallel structure or parallel construction, is a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure.

Parody: Parody is an imitation of a particular writer, artist or a genre exaggerating it deliberately to produce a comic effect.

Pathos: a quality that causes people to feel sympathy and sadness.

Pedantry:  excessive concern with minor details and rules.

Personification: the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

Plot: the main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.

Poignant: evoking a keen sense of sadness or regret.

Point of view: or narrative mode, the perspective of the narrative voice; 

Postmodernism: literature characterized by experimentation, irony, nontraditional forms, multiple meanings, playfulness and a blurred boundary between real and imaginary

Prose: the ordinary form of spoke and written language; language that does not have a regular rhyme pattern

Protagonist: the central character in a work of fiction; opposed antagonist

Pun: play on words; the humorous use of a word emphasizing different meanings or applications

Purpose: the intended result wished by an author

Realism: writing about the ordinary aspects of life in a straightforward manner to reflect life as it actually is

Refrain: a phrase or verse recurring at internals in a poem or song; chorus

Requiem: any chant, dirge, hymn, or musical service for the dead

Resolution: point in a literary work at which the chief dramatic complication is worked out; denouement 

Restatement: idea repeated for emphasis

Rhetoric: use of language, both written and verbal in order to persuade

Rhetorical question: question suggesting its own answer or not requiring and answer; used in argument or persuasion

Rising action: plot build up, caused by conflict and complications, advancement towards climax

Romanticism: movement in western culture beginning in the eighteenth and peaking in the nineteenth century as a revolt against Classicism; imagination was valued over reason and fact

Ratire: ridicules or condemns the weakness and wrong doings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general

Rcansion:the analysis of verse in terms of meter

Retting: the time and place in which events in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem occur

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Literature Analysis #4

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 
1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read according to the elements of plot you've learned in past courses (exposition, inciting incident, etc.).  Explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).
- Billy Pilgrim attended Ilium School of Optometry before being drafted into the army during World War II. Billy’s father dies in a hunting accident shortly before Billy ships overseas Luxembourg. Billy is thrown into the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium and is immediately taken prisoner behind German lines. Billy experiences the death of people first hand. Billy is transported in a crowded railway boxcar to a POW camp in Germany. Upon his arrival, he and the other privates are treated to a feast by a group of fellow prisoners, who are English officers who were captured earlier in the war. One night, Allied forces carpet bomb the city, then drop incendiary bombs to create a firestorm that sucks most of the oxygen into the blaze, asphyxiating or incinerating roughly 130,000 people. Billy and his fellow POWs survive in an airtight meat locker. They emerge to find a moonscape of destruction, where they are forced to excavate corpses from the rubble. Several days later, Russian forces capture the city, and Billy’s involvement in the war ends. Billy returns to Ilium and finishes optometry school. He gets engaged to Valencia Merble, the obese daughter of the school’s founder. After a nervous breakdown, Billy commits himself to a veterans’ hospital and receives shock treatments. Later years later, Valencia dies from carbon monoxide poisoning.  Billy makes a tape recording of his account of his death, which he predicts will occur in 1976 after Chicago has been hydrogen-bombed by the Chinese.
2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. 
- Sight; Billy attends optometry school before and after, the war. The author purposely chose the school of optometry as a theme of Slaughterhouse-Five. The slight is important because he experiences the war first hand. He believes after the war, he has become insane from the hallucination about alien kidnapping and taking him away from earth. 
3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
- The tone is mysterious and daunting. Vonnegut uses the words, “So it goes” every time a character someone personal or irrelevant dies. The way the author describes the characters and the setting shows that the author’s dark tone.
4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.) 
a. Foreshadowing: The book foreshadows Billy’s visions and hallucination when he gets drafted to the military while he was in optometr y school.
b. Tragic Flaw: The tragic flaw is that Billy becomes insane and that his wife dies, he did nothing wrong, but after the war, it changed Billy, and at the end he is all alone. 
c. Mood:The mood of the book is haunting almost depressing because it takes about the war and how he was locked up with other people. Billy watched many of the men die during the time e served, and every time someone died, “So it goes” is written. 
d. Symbolism: The optometry school obviously symoblizes the  eye sight in the book. Billy, invisions things because he terrorized by the war. Another symbolism is that “so it goes”  represents death passing, even if someone dies, life goes on. 
e. Narrative: The narrative is in third person. Billy is the main character, the readers are aware of what Billy is thinking. The narrative explains his hallucinations. 
f. Irony:What’s ironic about Slaugtherhouse – five is that Billy who was a normal military man ends up getting hallucination about alien adubction. I am confused about the point of the aliens, but it’s ironic because it contridicts the book’s meaning about death and war. 
g. Imagery: The imagery used when Billy has his alien invisions is vividly detailed. He describes them as taking Billy from the earth. 
h. Allusion: Many allusions are made throught out the book, biblicial and references from other books like the three muskateers, greek mythology, and etc. 
i. Diction: The diction is simple, understandable. The author does not use  hard vocabulary, more readable and common. Use in every day language. 
j. Foil: Billy’s wife is a foil character because she is described horribly. She is the opposite of a fictional character which makes Billy seem like a better character. The author intended his wife to be a foil. 
CHARACTERIZATION 
1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization.  Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression 
of the character as a result)? 
- The author only uses indirect characterization, he doesn’t formly describe Billy. Billy is created based on his actions. Valencia is described as “obese” which is the only form of direct characterization the author uses. The author uses both direct and indirect to the importance of the character. Indirect is a build up of characteristics and forming a connection with audience. Direct characterization is for characters who are breifly described, not important to the story. 
2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character?  How?  Example(s)?
-  No, the author’s syntax or diction doesn’t change, when the author describes the characters, the sentence (diction) flows throughly, although he focuses on the characters. Slaughter house five mostly focuses on Billy’s action than the story line and events that are happening around Billy. For example, when Billy marries Valencia, she is breifly described then at the end, Valencia dies. 
3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic?  Flat or round?  Explain.
-The protagonist is round because Billy  begins as a simple man in optometry school, from there he elavates to a soldier fighting in the army. Billy changes drastically after the events he experienced at war. Finally, near the end Billy diagonises himself as mental unstable because he experiences hallucination. 
4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character?  Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.
- It’s hard to tell. Billy from my point of view was very closed about his life. He was reserved and never the one to speak. There was an emotional connection during the time he was in war, but afterwards he was distanced because his hallucination was so vivid. 

Monday, January 27, 2014

Literary Terms #4

interior monologue: a piece of writing expressing a character's inner thoughts.

inversion: the action of inverting something or the state of being inverted.

juxtaposition: the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect.

lyric:(of poetry) expressing the writer's emotions, usually briefly and in stanzas or recognized forms.

magic(al) realism:a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy.

metaphor (extended, controlling, & mixed): a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

metonymy: the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing.

modernism: modern character or quality of thought, expression, or technique.
"when he waxes philosophical, he comes across as a strange mix of nostalgia and modernism"

monologue: long speech by one actor in a play or movie, or as part of a theatrical or broadcast program.

mood: (esp. of music) inducing or suggestive of a particular feeling or state of mind.
"mood music"

motif: design or pattern

myth:a traditional story, esp. one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

narrative: a spoken or written account of connected events; a story.

narrator: a person who is telling the story

naturalism: a philosophical viewpoint according to which everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted.

novelette/novella: a short novel or long story

omniscient point of view: the reading is seeing and all knowing 

onomatopoeia: sounds ex. crack, boom, pop

oxymoron: contradicting things in a conjunction

pacing: going back and forth on a idea, theme, etc 

parable: simple story illustrating a moral or value 

paradox: contradicting statements