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What do you hope to get out of English Language Arts this year?

I want to improve my writing and note-taking skills over this year. I still need to get better at formatting my papers in MLA, especially when it comes to citations. I also want to get better at writing for film (creating half decent stories and characters, among other things). 

Journal 5/12

Describe the primary conflict in your novel. Who (or what) is the conflict between (think man vs. self, man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. machine, etc.)?

This book embodies the man vs. nature conflict type- each story is of a survivors' past experience during the apocalypse, chronicling their attempts to escape the zombies through one way or another. The fact that the stories take place in various locales around the world makes the zombies feel more like a natural disaster than a virus. They can't be contained, no one zombie is ever developed as a character, and the easiest way to escape from them is to run. The military is practically useless against them for most of the time, and unlike your run-of-the-mill deadly virus it doesn't kill all of the people in its vicinity. If a city becomes overrun, there are still thousands of survivors in it trying to stay alive after the evacuation. This reminds me of a hurricane, earthquake or other natural disaster. After they occur, there are still many people that need to be rescued in the danger zone but could prove to be a challenge to get to. There are hundreds of different areas full of rubble and water, which could take days or weeks to thoroughly search. The zombie-filled areas would be the same way- just replace the water, concrete, wood and various building materials with seas of reanimated corpses. When it first starts out there is widespread hysteria, with various governments trying to hide their citizens from the truth. As the virus starts to spread evacuations are attempted, and many die in the process. The militaries of the world launch cluttered and inexperienced campaigns to combat the threat, although to no avail- "shock and awe" tactics prove to be useless against the zombies, who can't be scared or intimidated. Non- infected humans are driven to the brink of extinction, and after colonies are established the wars to take back land start. The book ends on a positive note with the remaining population getting back up on its feet, each character in that part radiating with an optimistic outlook on their survival.  

Journal 5/5

3) Describe the mood of your novel so far. Use quotes from the novel to support your claim.

I want to provide an explanation for how the book works before I go into the details of its content. World War Z is an anthological book, a string of different, generally unrelated stories tied together by a host/ omnipresent figure who has the stories at his/her disposal. Anthologies aren't too popular- especially in film- and it isn't often that you see them in mainstream works (as an added note, Pulp Fiction isn't an anthology film just because it isn't in chronological order). In World War Z's case, it is the "published" collection of a journalist's interviews with veterans of a zombie apocalypse, complete with a foreword addressing the fictional fabrication of the book and how its contents came to be compiled into a single, cumulative piece. That being said, the mood of the book varies depending on the person telling it. Although this variability exists the book's interviewees all come across as frantic, scared and adrenaline-fueled at one time or another, emotions which should all be givens considering what the book is about. I mean, zombies are supposed to be scary. In what is undoubtably one of the best stories from the book, a former U.S. Army infantryman sums up a battle in which all of the New York City's zombies were led through a choke point along a freeway in Yonkers, NY:

"You think that after watching all the wonders of modern warfare fall on their high-tech hyper ass, that after already living through three months of the Great Panic and watching everything you knew as reality be eaten alive by an enemy that wasn't even supposed to exist that you're gonna keep a cool f*cking head and a steady f*cking trigger finger? Well, we did!"

Don't get the idea that the whole book is just different military campaigns, but I'd say that quote has the same emotions that each different story has somewhere within it. This especially rings true for some of the more intense parts, as the feeling of fear and the gravity of the situation can really be felt. There are parents, scientists, workers and more-  different stories with different personalities and tones to them. In the time that it would take you to watch the movie, which is around two hours, you could get through at least a third of the book. I highly recommend the latter.

Journal 4/28

The product I picked for this journal entry /analysis is the "My Pillow". It was an infomercial a while back which I'm pretty sure I've seen a couple of times. It uses an appeal to pathos with its guarantee to be "the most comfortable pillow you'll ever own", and infers feelings of comfort and coziness- especially from how the man holds the pillow in his hands. An appeal to authority is shown through the inventor on the front holding it. It's saying that if the inventor himself uses it and isn't just trying to make some cash then it must be a pretty great product. Another logical fallacy I saw was the genetic fallacy. The ad has a "made in the USA" tag in the bottom right corner, which attempts to validate the product by showing the source of its production. The product is made by My Pillow Inc., which is based in Minnesota. They seem to be targeting people who have had uncomfortable sleeping experiences or just don't want to pay for Tempur- Pedic pillows- we know this because the box promises the buyer that the My Pillow will be the most comfortable pillow they've had, and also because the My Pillow is inexpensive yet assures extreme comfort a la higher-price products. The subtext of this product is that only people who buy the pillow will experience comfort to its limit. The part of the story that isn't told is that of all the other people who have tried sleeping on other brands of special pillows. This ad doesn't empower or disempower a certain group of people, which you can tell immediately after looking at it. Look at the benevolent, well-meaning man with his pillow. No aggressive marketing strategies, no statistics. Just a man and his pillow.  

Journal 4/21

 Free entry on Feed! Write about anything that you want in Feed. This is your chance to sound off about any subject in the book as well as whether you liked the book. Please write something substantial that will  encourage discussion among your peers.

One thing that really stood out to me in Feed was the peeling skin. At first I thought it was just something that went along with the book's "the environment is ruined because of the companies' complete disregard for things that aren't extremely profitable/ as efficient as possible" sort of theme, but the seminar that we had really gave me some more ideas about it. This journal will go over two possibilities and rule one of them out. First is that the degradation of society goes hand-in-hand with the degradation of the population's physical condition. This adds some symbolism to the mix, but doesn't really make sense. This book takes place over the course of about a year, and the dumbing-down of society has definitely been going on for longer than that. I mean,Titus mistakes Spanish- a language spoken by millions today- for Mayan. Also, this book wouldn't make correlations that deep. It's full of clever satire, but I wouldn't expect it to make such an unimportant part of the Feed universe serve that purpose. For those two reasons I'm taking symbolism out of the question. 

The second idea, one which I think fits into Feed better, is that the peeling skin is somehow related to the lesions. The lesions are quite influential in the story, going as far as helping to portray the personalities and motives of the characters. They are even addressed by the president in a speech,  further attaching them to the main interests of the book's population. I think that the lesions are the first stage of what soon becomes extensive skin loss, which is a sensical progression. This could be environmental or caused by the feed- I'm not really sure, and the book doesn't give many details regarding their source. This was just the idea that, in my opinion, made the most sense and fit the most snugly into Feed's world.  

Journal 4/7

NOTE (for Ms. Harrison): I accidentally blended the second and third journal possibilities together, so I hope that's ok.

I created this fake advertisement to satirize products that are meant to simplify the process of doing something and claim to make everyday life easier (or ads in general).

 

You're on your way to work. Today is an important day for you-there's a big meeting for a project that could get you promoted! As you go through your papers, making sure you've got all your important work-related documents, you notice that you have nothing to hold them together. In today's busy world, there's no room to fumble with gangly staplers- that's why your friends at Red Dog Co. created the Paperclip™. The Paperclip™ uses a strong, reliable steel that has been regarded by metallurgists and people who know things as high-quality. But, you may ask, how does the Paperclip hold up against competitors? The Paperclip™ beats out both Glue® and Tape ®, which are both regarded as inferior by statistics we're not going to list. When you buy the Paperclip™, you can say goodbye to unorganized papers and yes to your boss when he offers you that promotion.*

* The Red Dog Company is not to be held liable for meetings with superiors that do not end in promotions. 

Did our reluctance to share data frustrate or anger you? If so, buy the consumer pack! At a half-reasonable price of $199, you will be able to obtain that information quickly and easily on the go.

Analysis: rhetorical devices and three appeals 

-I used exaggeration with the "trademarked paperclip", which takes the name of a product to an extreme by it being an everyday item that, in reality, no one company holds the rights to. The same go for "Glue" and "Tape".

-I used irony while listing affirmations on the product's usefulness/reliability by credible sources, which also involves ethos. You would expect to see credible names and titles, but instead get vague descriptions. 

-I satirized the proof to back up a product by refusing to list the statistics gathered about it, also involving logos. Not showing the proof also satirizes the greed of companies, as I later mention that the viewer can pay an unrealistic amount of money to see those stats. That could, at the same time, anger the viewer at the companies' expectation that you would spend lots of money to see those stats; this ties in pathos.

Why does Shakespeare end TMoV in the way that he did? Is it fitting for a comedy?

2) Why do you think that Shakespeare ends this comedy with lover's spats between Jessica and Lorenzo, Portia and Bassanio, and Nerissa and Gratiano? Does this fit in with what we expect from a comedic ending?

I think that The Merchant of Venice had a fitting ending. Although there are some loose ends-such as how the relationships play out- it adheres to the rules of a comedy. The one thing I noticed that bugged people about this being a comedy is the lack of celebration at the end. What some didn't understand is that not every comedy has to have this, it's just a common occurrence in works of the genre. That makes it passable as a defining characteristic. The way the play ended definitely fit in comedically (it was pretty funny to see the short transition between an intense argument and the bedroom), and I don't think I could see it ending any better.