paper

Anna Clark
English 103
Video Evaluation

2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey was directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1968. The film is focused human evolution and the evolution of technology. The film has little dialogue and is filmed to take place in space. Because of the lack of dialogue, this film can be difficult to understand. This is done so viewers can use their own imagination to contemplate the meaning of the movie.
For the first several minutes of the film, it shows apes running around and interacting with one another. This is to symbolize the evolution of man. The first monolith appears in front of the apes and they all are hesitant about this large, tall, black, structure. The leader of the apes is the first to reach out and touch the structure. This is much like Adam and Eve eating the apple from the tree of knowledge. The ape touching the monolith is equivalent to Adam and Eve eating the apple. . Eventually, it shows an ape using a bone to smash the skull of an animal. This is the beginning of technology and the first form of technology displayed in the movie. The bone is thrown up into the air and the movie then jumps million of years and the bone dissolves into a satellite in space.
Once in space, in shows satellites orbiting around the earth. In the spaceship, it shows on of the passenger’s pen floating around. This is the next sign of technology. The movie continues on, and eventually HAL is born. HAL is a computer that is capable of almost everything a human brain is capable of. HAL expresses emotions just as a human would. HAL is the only “person” aware of the purpose of their mission to Jupiter. The other two astronauts on the spaceship are not aware of their mission.
HAL shows signs of concern about the mission, which is the first time HAL shows any signs of breaking down. Throughout the movie, more and more things happen that slowly show to imperfections of HAL. While the two astronauts are trying to talk in private without HAL hearing, HAL is able to read their lips and detect exactly what they are saying. The two men are talking about disconnecting HAL. While on of the astronauts was outside the spacecraft, HAL snaps his oxygen tube, thus murdering the man. The other living astronaut eventually disconnects HAL and kills him. The last spoken words in the film were spoken by HAL himself.
Once he kills HAL, he slowly starts aging and dying himself. This is to symbolize that he could not live without technology and the only way he was staying alive, was because of technology. Bowman eventually dies, but then is reborn as a space embryo. This child is reborn and travels through space without the help if technology.
This movie seemed very in depth and difficult to understand. It had many symbolic images of technology and how much humans rely on technology. I had to review many parts of the movie at least once in order to understand what Kubrick was trying to imply. I also was lost by the lack of dialogue in the film. I feel as if I would have understood the movie better if I were a little more aware of what was happening at each part.
However, The Internet Movie Database gave this movie 8.4 out of 10 stars. The movie reviewer said that it was one of the best if not the very best movie they had seen. They said that this movie had great special effects, and still to this day, over 40 years later, no movie has been made that has special effects like this. Another critic, Stephen Hunter said he was not fond of the movie. He said it was unrealistic and none of this ever actually happened in 2001.
2001: A Space Odyssey depicts the advancement in technology that our world has seen in the past millions of years. Some people are in awe of the film that Kubrick was able to create while others are simply not impressed by his work. Although it is not scientifically accurate, it shows how much the world of technology has improved.

Portfolio

I have never had to make a portfolio before. Actually, before reading this I had no idea how to even start a portfolio or what to put in it. I never knew that you could pretty much put anything you want in your own portfolio. Not only can you make a paper portfolio, but you can also create one online. For each thing you put in your portfolio, you need to provide a reflection on it and evaluate it. Creating a portfolio can be important for future jobs or positions.

criticing

For today, we were to read pages 120 through 126 in the Norton Field Guide to Writing. The reading opened up with a critic on the television show, Dawson's Creek. I thought this was a good way to start off the chapter because it was interesting for our age group but also portrayed to the topic. The reading talked about the proper way to evaluate text, or a movie, and so on. To me, this was very helpful because I have never known the proper way to evaluate. I think this chapter will come in handy when we are doing our movie evaluations because it breaks down everything you need to know about evaluations.

coming along great..

Today, my group and I met to work on our project. We worked on it for a couple of hours and made great progress. We just have a few finishing touches and we need to add the song. Our video is turning out much better than I expected. The pictures fit together great and we also added some other pictures in with facts about going green. This week we were able to have a nice break from class and therefore it gives us more time to work on our projects. Instead of going to class we worked on our project during class time. On Thursday we meet with Tess to go over what we have done so far and get her opinion on how our project is coming along so far.

progress

So, the progress on our group project is moving along nicely. At first we thought we were a little bit behind but I think were on track now. We have almost all of our pictures taken and we are going to finish up the rest today. Next week we are going to work on the actual video part and edit it and add words. My group has been working really well together and I think were all really excited to see how it turns out :))) I can't wait to see all the other groups videos too!

group project

So far I feel like our project is going really well. We have a good topic and a good idea of how we want to portray our topic. GROUP: Tess gave me some links of other groups that have done a going green type theme.
http://goinggreeninformation.weebly.com/
http://environmenta.weebly.com/
http://environmentissues1234.weebly.com/
I haven't had time to look through them all really well but I'll do that this weekend. If everyone else wants to browse through them too I'm sure we could get some good ideas or hints for our project. Let me know what you guys think!

from start to finish

In part 4 of the Norton Field Guide to Writing it talks about how to begin and end your writing. When beginning your writing, you need to have something catchy that makes your reader want to read further. Otherwise, your reader is going to loss interest immediately. Also, towards the beginning you need to state your thesis so your reader knows exactly what your writing about. Make sure you provide background information on your topic so your reader isn't immediately lost. Your ending needs to be well written since it is the last thing the reader reads and most likely this is what they will remember. The reader needs to know what to expect next while reading. So, it is helpful to provide them with the information that will be covered in each paragraph in the beginning of the paragraph. So, in order to make sure your reader wants to read your writing and to make sure your reader remembers your writing, you need to have a solid and catchy beginning and ending.

strategies

We often never take the time to think about cause and effect. It's funny to think that every cause has an effect. The reading was helpful because it told you how to identify causes from effects. Ever since kindergarten I've been doing cause and effect exercises but I was never actually taught how to correctly do it by branching out from the subject. The next part of the reading was about classifying and dividing. It's interesting to think about how many different ways there are to divide things. There are endless possibilities for separating categories. The last part of the reading was about comparing and contrasting, yet another topic I've worked on since kindergarten. In life, we compare everything, whether its jobs, people, or places. It's hard to not compare everything to something else. We aren't always comparing for a purpose such as a school project, sometimes we just simply do it without even realizing.

reading!

The reading for Thursday was ironically about reading. It talked about how to read and strategies to help you read and retain the information. I definately got a lot out of the reading. I have a hard time understanding what I read sometimes especially if it's tough information. However, I thought some of the things said in the book were not helpful. For instance, I don't think it's necessary to count the words or syllables in a word in order to understand what your reading. I think annotating is very helpful to understand reading. It helps you to break down the text and look at things individually rather than as a whole. Many of the things talked about are not necessary for all the reading you do such as summarizing or identifying patterns. These are especially not needed for pleasure reading or for readings that you understand. These tips could however be useful in reading for a class or a report.

who knew?

Proofreading and editing are not the same thing. I'm sure many people, as well as myself were not aware of this. I always figured they were one in the same. When editing, it's necessary to read through every word, sentence, and paragraph to make sure they all fit together nicely. When proofreading, you need to make sure you spelled everything correctly and used the right words in the right places. I was stressing about getting everything perfect for my first paper and how hard it was going to be. Then, I read these few pages about editing and proofreading and it put me at ease by providing many helpful tips. After reading this, I definately think I will have an easier time revising papers from now on.

assessing and revising

The first part of today's reading was about assessing your writing. If your writing just for yourself, for example in a journal, just let your thoughts wander. Don't worry about your writing being sloppy or unorganized. When writing for others, we need to make sure to get our points across because we often won't be there to clarify it with the reader. Make sure your writing reflects the point your trying to get across to your reader. Also, make sure you give the reader enough background in your writing so that they understand your points.
Before turning in your complete finished product, make sure you get a response from an outside source. A well trusted source will help you improve your writing. When revising your paper, start with the biggest topics or errors and move your way to the smaller ones. The smaller errors will usually work themselves out once the bigger ones have been dealt with. Sometimes it's helpful to just completely rewrite your rough draft to get a fresh start. The reading for today was definitely very helpful. It had good advice on how to edit and revise your paper.

A little of Everything

It was ironic that part of the reading due for class today was about drafting because our first draft of our first paper is due today. I actually wrote my paper before reading the material, but looking back, I wish I would have read this because it may have helped me a bit. I tried to sit down and write my paper all at once and expected it to be perfect. However, writing takes time and it's not going to be perfect on the first try.
The next part of the reading talks about adding detail to make the reader feel as if they were there. While reading the story by Scott Sanders about him working with dad, I felt as if I was there the way he described his feelings and the smells. After reading this, I realized that I need to add onto my story to make the reader more interested and feel as if they were there.
When writing my story, I used chronological order, I started from the earliest event, and worked my way to the latest event. Flashbacks can help add life to a story. The flashback told in the story by Williams, added detail and imagination to the story. But, you also have to be careful not to add too much detail. Too much detail can take away from the main idea of the story.
Dialogue can also help add interest to your story. It can also help the reader feel more involved in the story if they hear the conversations that were going on. When adding dialogue, you have to make sure to use the correct punctuation for the type of dialogue being used. You also need to consider what kind of purpose you want the dialogue to have. Don't just add it for no reason, make sure it has a reason for being there.

The first story by Tanya Barrientos caught my attention. I liked how she talked about her struggles to fit into a group. She wasn't american looking so she didn't fit into the "americans" but yet she wasn't spanish speaking so she didn't fit into the "latinos". However, the next story titled "Learning to Read" was not as easy to read as the first. It was an interesting story but the writing was not as well written and easy to read as the first. I thought it was interesting that Douglas said he was jealous of the fellow slaves that did not know how to read because the reading made him aware of how awful his life as a slave was. When reading the exerts from Malcolm X's autobiography, I was in awe that someone could have that much curiosity to copy the whole dictionary. The story "Mother Tongue" written by Amy Tan really shows the stuggles that foreigners face when coming to America only knowing how to speak "broken" English. It shows the disrespect and unequal treatment they receive. In the story written by Rose, he talks about how he had no desire to learn until he found something that he thought was worth learning about, chemistry. I think many people feel this way. Unless it's something they have a desire to learn about or something they feel will be used in everyday life, they don't care about learning.
Until class on Thursday, I had never done anything like freewriting where you write nonstop for a certain amount of time. After reading about it in the assigned reading, I learned how it can be helpful. It can help you get all your thoughts and ideas about a topic out onto paper. Looping, helps you gather your thoughts and seems like it might keep your thoughts a little more organized. Listing helps you brainstorm a topic or topics that interest you to write about. I think clustering is too complicated to generate your ideas. Questioning helps you think about the basic ideas of the topic that your going to write about. Most papers written in high school or college require an outline to be written. So I think outlining is very helpful because if you start off with an outline, it makes it easier to write the paper. I liked what the book said about draft writing. It's supposed to be simple and quick and doesn't have to be perfect or neat. This will be very helpful advice for writing.

The Golden Rule

In the reading, it talks about why your writing, who your writing for, what type of writing is necessary, and what type of presentation your writing should have. Your attitude is conveyed through the tone of writing. The voice of the writing needs to suite the purpose of the writing. Writing is judged differently by different people. For example, in the story "Proficiency", used in the book, the people grading Shannon's writing didn't like the way she wrote. On the other hand, her teachers thought she was a great writer. This shows that everyone judges writing in different ways.
One quote used in the reading stated,"Do unto audiences as you would have the do unto you." This quote is saying that if you want to be respected by your audience, then you need to be respectful and considerate when addressing them. It is helpful to bring people to life with you dialogue. Give examples of as many senses as you can to make the reader or listener feel as if they were really there. When writing, keep in mind your purpose, and who your trying to get your idea across to.