Blog #19: Critique a professional example

1. What is the most successful element of this work sample? Why do you believe this?
having pictures, quotes, and a organized page because you can't get lost and you know where everything is.

2. What is the message of the work? How do you know?
its always good to have plenty of information because its a good way to inform people.

3. Who or what is the intended audience for this work? How do you know?
For people interested in the SD rivermouth spill because the title says so.

4. How do specific elements of the work sample come together to deliver the message?
They are displayed in a professional way that is both informative and presentable.
5. Describe one technique the creator of this work used. Why do you think this technique was used for this specific piece of work?

6. Why did you choose this work sample?
i thought this was a nice way to talk about an incident that most people would call boring.
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Honors Writing 2

I picked the scarlet letter, my first impressions of this book were dull because i thought this book was going to just be about some letter. Instead i get a book that talks about adultery. This surprised and almost shocked me because i had never read a book that talked about someone committing the act of adultery. This obviously is not a conventional way to write a book. Most books will never go into talking about adultery, they will usually just avoid anything that will sound familiar to it.

The book talks about A young woman, named Hester Prynne who has been led from her town prison with her infant daughter in her arms and on the breast of her gown a rag of scarlet cloth which assumed the shape of a letter. It was the uppercase letter of an A. The Scarlet Letter A represents the act of adultery that she has committed and it is a symbol of her sin. a badge of shame for all to see and know the crime that she had committed. Most books would just talk about a young woman being led from the prison to maybe a boat or to her house but, it would never talk about the fact that she had committed the act of adultery and had a child because of it.

Hester meets a man named Dimmesdale who appears to be wasting away and suffers from mysterious heart trouble, seemingly caused by psychological distress. What hester doesn't know about him is that he has the letter A burned into his chest. Meaning that he has also committed the act of adultery. Most books won't talk about someone who has committed adultery let alone two people that have committed the foul sin.

Linking

HTHMA is a great school

News Paper and MSB

From this article i learned to be sure to include who, what, where, when, why. I also learned that these things should be in the first paragraph so that they can grab the readers attention quickly. I am usually pretty good at writing an article if i know what it is about and if i have a connection with it.

MSB, Groups, Organizations, People

Donna Wolf
she is the volunteer coordinator, so that means she would be the person to go to about volunteering to hep the clean beach and to ask what you can do to help.

Alicia Glassco, Marine Debris Coordinator
She would be the person to talk about what is found in the water and how harmful it is the the animals and wildlife.

San Diego Coast Keeper http://www.sdcoastkeeper.org/


Council:

Sherri Lightner

she is the council member for district 1 and she wants to to preserve and enhance our quality of life, to protect our coastline and other natural spaces which and by doing so we can prevent any more spills that pollute our water.
http://www.sandiego.gov/citycouncil/cd1/

Honors History writing 2

William McKinley
Brent Springer

The fundamental question that everyone is thinking is which presidential candidate would provide the essential change that a strong and prosperous America demands in the unsure years ahead?
In my opinion our next president should be William McKinley. Why because his main interests would be to secure the will and interest of the average working man. He has defended this interest in both domestic and foreign affairs. In domestic affairs, he proposed to reform the civil service system in the manner that employment opportunities would be given to most qualified people. McKinley argued that technical posts ought to be open to experience as well as education. Despite the fact that he agreed in principle with the Republican support of big business, McKinley gave priority to labor unions.

What is important is that his main concern was labor because he knew first hand of what it was like to be in poverty. This gave him the perfect understanding of the working class needs. He made sure that his policies were aimed at saving the safety of people, the civil rights and of course the well being of the working class and middle class. He favored civil service reform, the federal protection of voting rights, and regulation of business excesses and reflected the wishes and needs of an expanding middle and working class. During most of his political career, McKinley fought hard for the implementation of policies that would administratively regulate the power of trusts and monopolies. He supported the Anti-Sherman Act, which Congress had passed in 1890 to control monopolies and dissolve those that had already established themselves.
McKinley strongly believed in democratic system based on a respect of the public opinion. He developed a theory of democracy it was simply that the people were right. To McKinley, people have right to decent life, economic growth and political representation. His main view political thinking was a firm belief of a democratic representative government. McKinley believed in racial equality. He demonstrated a remarkable sense of courage and intellectual determination by being a strong defender of civil rights for African-Americans in the 1890s. He and many others favored enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment to give African Americans citizenship and the freedom to vote by reducing Southern representation in Congress.
The most important aspect of William McKinley's political ideal was his goal to expand the American national frontier. McKinley's view on expanding was a mixture of religious humanitarianism, economic internationalism and imperialism which later developed through time and political practice. In his inaugural address McKinley assured Americans, "We want no wars of conquest; we must avoid the temptation of territorial aggression." However, as time went on McKinley's ideal of expansion slowly increased as his goal of a dominant American world started to surface he moved towards endorsing internationalism and imperialism. Eventually he made the historic declaration, "Isolation is no longer possible or desirable"

MSB Comments

Shanna McCue
Shanna's idea was to have a large painting, that depicted acidification and pollution affecting the marine life. i learned that in the picture you could have a depiction of how animals are being affected by pollution to give the author more to think about.
http://somethingthatshannawrote.blogspot.com/

Daniel Mahmud
Daniel's idea was to have a slideshow, The slideshow consists of photography from different points of the beach. This can be really cool because it takes a perspective from all points so that you can really make people think.
http://dannyfletcherharchesterunited.blogspot.com/

Marcus Alexander
Marcus's idea would be a documentary. this would be fast and easy to understand but keep the audience entertained as well. i learned if i make a documentary to remember to always keep the audience informed but also keeping them entertained.
http://maalexander.blogspot.com/

Possible MSB Products

1.I could do a web site that talks about pros and cons on the sewage spill.

2.http://www.surfermag.com/features/onlineexclusives/sf-oil-spill/

3. From this website i have learned to use plenty of info
include pictures to add more of a feeling to the website


1.I could do a documentary on the effects that the sewage spill has on the environment and community.

2.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLdkgZlEBQI

3.Show what people are doing to help
get the opinion of people who regularly visit the area or work there
talk about what will happen to hake sure this doesn't happen again.

MSB Questions and Resourses

1. What is being done about the pollution at the bay?

2. What are people doing to help?
What are people doing to slow down the process of the pollution?
Why do people continue to let a sewage pipe so close to the bay where people and animals go.

3.http://obrag.org/?p=9459
http://obrag.org/?p=9397
http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2009-06-29/news/local-county-news/san-diego-coastal/ocean-beach-sewage-spill-prompts-pollution-alert

4. i can use this info to talk about what people did as soon as they saw the sewage spill. I can also talk about how it affected the people and community when they set up they sign saying that the water was contaminated.

Industerizalition and Costal Environment

"In a striking change of direction, the California Coastal Commission yesterday voted 8-4 to give San Diego its third exemption from pollution standards set by the federal Clean Water Act.
Just two months ago, commissioners voted overwhelmingly to deny the five-year waiver from secondary treatment levels at the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant. The facility processes sewage from more than 2.2 million people in and outside the city's limits.
The commission's reversal saves San Diego from having to retrofit the facility at a price of up to $1.5 billion. The last major step is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which already has granted a preliminary waiver.
San Diego is the only city in California that hasn't committed to meet the secondary treatment level for discharges to the ocean."

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/oct/08/wastewater-plant-gets-exemption/?metro&zIndex=179167

This article talked about how San Diego has been exempt from the pollution standards for the third time in a row. The votes were 8-4 so according to this they still want San Diego to not have to follow some of the rules to ensure that it's bays are pollution free. The article states that San Diego is the only city in California that hasn't agreed to these standards.

The article needed to have more opinions from such as maybe a local resident and what they taught about this being the third exemption. They also could have written more about what they intend to do to ensure that San Diego's bays don't end up being full of nasty pollution.

My next steps would be to ask the reasons for why they changed their minds and if they were going to have a vote again about this issue. At the end of the article it said that they might change it so that San Diego wont be exempt from those standards. A good thing would be to add the opinions from the opposing side as well as some quotes to.

Huckleberry Finn

Huckleberry Finn
Brent Springer

In Huckleberry Finn there is a huge clash between cultures for the main character Huckleberry Finn. From the very moment when he meets Jim you could tell that he was going to have a culture difference.

Huck is a kid who lives in southern Missouri he doesn’t like school and has a drunk, abusive father. Huck has been placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas, who because of his fathers threats to get Tom’s money. Although Huck is successful in preventing his Pap from acquiring his fortune, Pap forcibly gains custody of Huck and the two move to the backwoods where Huck is kept locked inside his father's cabin. Equally dissatisfied with life with his father, Huck escapes from the cabin, elaborately fakes his own death, and sets off down the Mississippi River.
While living in the wilderness along the Mississippi, Huck encounters a slave named Jim on an island called Jackson's Island, Huck learns that he is a runaway slave, his first instinct was to turn him in the fist moment he got. They started talking and after a while Huck decides not to turn Jim in. After talking with Huck he wondered why white people saw African Americans as lower forms of life.
Along their travels they pick up two shady drifters. One day when Huck is away in the when the two drifters turn in Jim in as a runaway slave and claim their $40 reward. Huck felt betrayed and had to choose either to save Jim or let him rot away while Huck ran to freedom. Unfortunately for Huck his conscious had gotten the better of him so he decided to go save Jim. This right here is another conflict because no white southerner would ever risk his or her life to save a slave.
Huck soon finds out that the family that bought Jim is his best friend tom’s aunt and uncle. As he approaches the house he is mistaken for Tom who is apparently supposed to arrive there some time soon. So Huck plays along and pretends to be Tom while he develops a plan to free Jim but while he is planning this great escape Tom arrives. Luckily Tom is happy to help Huck but later in a bizarre turn of events Tom is shot in the leg and Jim refuses to escape unless Tom is attended so he bosses Huck and tells him to go find a doctor. Huck finds this so weird because he has never been ordered to do anything by an African American.
After getting to the doctors office to have Tom fixed up they are caught by the doctor and taken back to Tom’s uncle’s house where their plan is revealed and so are their true identities. It is there that Tom tells everyone that Jim’s owner died and stated in her will that Jim would be set free.
This is a major cultural collision because he is not used living with a slave because since he was an African American he was looked down upon. Also He ended up saving a slave from captivity which if you would have asked anyone from that time period if they would have done the same every single answer would be the same and stay the same which is no.

Media Saves The Beach Questions

Why is PB Point not being taken being taken care of?
-When it rains you can see all the sewage pour out onto the sand.
-It's very unsanitary there
-people seem to ignore that fact that mabe 50 or 100 feet away from them is a pile of nasty bacteria filled waste waiting to get someone seriously ill.

How does the seals affect The Childerens Pool?
-It has become very unsanitary full of harmful bacteria to both humans and seals.
-they have made it so that no humans can go down there to the beach.
-It has brought people who want to get a first hand look at marine life to the area.

What are Californians doing to slow the size of the North Pacific Gyre?
-using reusable bottles and canvass bags.
-North Pacific Gyre has grown to twice the size of US in only 14 years
-Most of trash is all broken down into a trillion tiny microscopic plastic pieces.

Honors writing 1

America’s Second Revolution

Brent Springer

The Civil War is known as America’s second revolution because at the end of the war there was a major change in both the Northern states and Southern states but it also changed America as a country. The war was divided into two sides: the North who wanted to abolish slavery and the South who wanted to keep slavery. Economy, politics, and territories also played a role in the American Civil war.

When our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence, it stated that all men are created equal but that was intended just for white people, and excluded every non-white race. Soon because of the Declaration, there would be a war for the equality of all men. The war would last 4 years but not before both would see their share of deaths. The North lost about 360,000 men and the South lost about 250,000 men.

The North wanted slaves to be equal to whites and not to have to work against their will for someone else. The North wanted everyone to be equal no matter what their skin color or ethnicity was. The North felt that they were fighting to not only preserve the Union but to keep alive the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution. After the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on New Years' Day in 1862, many Union soldiers clearly saw an opportunity to eradicate slavery forever from the nation.

The south wanted to keep African Americans as slaves and not as equals. There are many reasons on why the South didn’t like the Northern states, there was a major economical difference between the two nations, the abolishment of slavery was a big one and the different territories of either slave states or Free states.

The South liked slavery for two reasons, one because they believed in white supremacy and also because slaves were the foundation of their whole economy because the South whole economical system were just large plantations that grew cotton, but the plantation owners needed slaves to pick the cotton. Plantation slaves in the 1800's were called field hands. Their jobs were to plant and pick cotton. Out of all the different kinds of slaves, field hands worked the longest. While in the North the main crop was wheat which was easily harvested by machines so there was not much need for workers or slaves.

The South were fighting not just to keep their slaves, they fought because they didn’t want the United States Government dictating how should live their lives. They felt that the US Government was not treating them fairly because they weren’t as industrialized as the Northern states. Congress taxed every product that the North made, the south wanted these items so every time that the South bought a product it would be taxed because of this the South’s economy really dropped. If congress hadn’t put so many taxes on the Northern states products the South wouldn’t have been so mad and willing to fight to make a change.

The South also wanted new territories to be known to the Union as slave states. The South wanted this because it was made to prevent any slaves from escaping into any free states. The North wanted the new territories to be free. Some people thought the new territories should have the right to vote whether they wanted to be free or slave. This was called State’s Rights. Later they both agreed to a compromise which was called the Compromise of 1850, which lasted for three years. In this compromise, fugitive slaves were ordered to return back to their owners.

The war began with the North fighting to free a race who was forced to work for people against their will. This was essentially a second Revolution because African Americans were starting standing up against their white oppressors and started to fight for their rights.

This is why I think that the Civil War was a second revolution. Thanks to the hard work, dedication and sacrifice of the north they were able to free African Americans from slavery. Still to this day the South thinks that they won the civil war. Thanks to that war the South’s economy has never fully recovered from their loss.

http://www.civilwarhome.com/casualties.htm

http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/slavery.htm

http://www.factasy.com/civil_war/node/2523