Assignment #12

1.     What tone will you take with your essay? I will use both a melancholy and a joyous tone. 

2.    What narrative perspective will you use?  First-person? Second-person?  Third-person?  Will you switch between perspectives?  Why or why not? I plan on using first person and second person because I think it would make my essay flow better.

3.    What point-of-view will you use in your essay? I will use my point of view for this essay.

4.    How much psychic distance will you create between you and your subject? I’m not exactly sure what this means.

5.    How will you weave story and idea?  In other words, how will you shift between summary and dramatic narrative? I’m not sure yet. However, I hope to have a couple transitional sentences that will make me catch the reader’s attention.

6.    How will you begin your essay? I will give a description of the characters and in small detail how I encounter the problem of finding myself.

7.    How will you structure your essay's middle? I will describe in more detail how and the times I encounter this problem.

8.    How will you end your essay? I will also describe how I found myself and everything I had to overcome.

Assignment #11

Assignment 11 is to list the rhetorical modes you plan on using in your "Lost" essay and provide a brief explanation as to how you will develop those modes.

In my "Lost" essay I plan to use these rhetorical modes..

Description: I would use literal descriptions and visual details to make my essay flow, to make it more understanding and better.

Exemplification: This rhetorical mode will help better and make more vivid my description.

Compare/Contrast: Describing the difference between being lost and being found.

Narration: I would narrate my story in order to get my point across.

I'm not sure if I would be using more rhetorical modes or if I'm going to take some away. I'm still debating if I should write about being lost and then finding myself, or about a specific place that makes me loose myself.

Assignment #10

I choose to answer this question..
 4.  What does it mean to say "I once was lost but now am found"?

I believe it means that a person didn't know himself. He didn't know what he wanted or what he believed in. But after soul searching he found himself. This is common with religion. A person seeks religion to find themselves, to be able to know what is there meaning in life. With the help of religion, people find themselves and know what is there purpose in life. They find a reason to why they should be here, a reason to why God put them in this world.

Assignment #9

For Assignment 9, I choose this metaphor..

“You were the wind and I the sea.” (From “After Love” by Sara Teasdale)

I believe Sara Teasdale was trying to compare herself with someone else. After reading the whole poem, it seems like the author is talking about a person and not about the sea and the wind itself. The wind represents a significant other and as she states it, she represents the sea. She states that they are close to each other but yet far. She was probably in love with a person but her love faded away and now she sees him as any other person.

Assignment 8

The best sentence out of my Profile Essay I think was...
"It was late at night, the blinds on the window were opened and you could see people coming in and out of the hospital."

Assignment #7

1.  What will be the subject of your profile essay?  What place will you profile?

I will profile Tulare Regional Medical Center (TRMC).

2.  What will be the dominant impression your essay will evoke?

It will describe how they treated my mom and me at the hospital.

3.  What narrative perspective will you choose?  
First-person ("I" or "we")? The first-person perspective provides a sense of intimacy. 

4.  What will be your "Beginning"?

The beginning will say why my mom and me where at TRMC

5.  How will you structure your "Middle"?
The middle will just go in order. I will just describe her stay and describe everything that happened to her.

6.  What will you use in your "Conclusion"?

The conclusion will be just a summary of my stay.

7.  How will you use dialogue?

8.  What "Characters" will your essay feature?
This essay’s characters will be my mom, dad, sister, baby brother and I.

9.  What "Illuminating Details and Anecdotes" will you use?

10.  How will you use all (or most of) the senses?  What visual images will you use?  What auditory images?  What tactile images?  What gustatory images (tastes)?  What olfactory images (smells)?
I will be using visual, auditory, tactile images.

11. What verb tense will you use? 

I will be using past tense.

Assignment #6

Streets of Sorrow (about Hollywood)
by David Rakoff 


For this blog, I read Streets of Sorrow (about Hollywood) written by David Rakoff. By just reading the title of this essay, I knew that it was going to be a negative article. As I read it, I was right. Author Rakoff did an excellent job in describing the city of Hollywood. This author main descriptions were very well done. As you read it, it seemed like you were right next to him. The way he would describe the other tourist was in a negative way. He also mentioned how several stars were forgotten even after they had their spot in the Walk of Fame. He also described his stay in the Hollywood Roosevelt wasn't that great. The hotel had been portrayed quite different than how it was. He didn't know if the hotel had half of the stuff it said it had. He described how he felt that many of the hotel attendants were more focused on more important, younger guest. Rakoff was a guest that didn't receive the attention that was suppose to be provided to him.  

Blog Assignment # 4

 Kracauer’s "Photography"

“Memories are retained because of their significance for that person.” (425)

This quote is right. Most of us hold memories because they are important to us. We may encounter several different things but in reality the ones that mean the most to us is what we hold dear in our heart and head. The memories that we keep may be of a special someone or simply of an important event that we were a part of.  Many times when we encounter a photograph of a special someone, all memories start to come to us. We begin to remember almost everything that meant something to us.  However, a photograph to someone that has no ties to it doesn’t experience anything. 

“Photography is bound to time in precisely the same way as fashion.” (430)

When a photo is recently taken, everyone wants to look at it. However, over time the same photo is left to get old and no one wants to look at it. The comparison between a photograph and fashion is interesting. When a piece of clothing goes out of style, the piece of clothing goes to the bottom of the list and it’s not worn by anyone anymore because it’s out of fashion. The same thing happens to a photograph. After years have passed the photo seems a bit old fashioned and then another photograph is taken.

These two quotes are very interesting and true. A memory is kept in someone’s heart because it means to someone. A photograph is also retained because it has some importance to it. On the other hand, when time passes a photograph is left and thrown to the side because a better photograph has taken its place. This happens to everyone. Once we see a photo we no longer like we decide to take a better and more modern photograph. 

 

This picture was taken in the Allensworth Historical Park. 

This is a picture of an old barbershop owned by Frank Milner. 

This barbershop was constructed in 1911 and it closed down in 1922.

Blog Assignment # 3

 As I started to read Roland Barthes's "Rhetoric of the Image," I didn't quite understand it. I had to re-read it several times. Yet, I’m still a little confused. However, I managed to find two quotes that I found interesting.

“Today, at the level of mass communications, it appears that the linguistic message is indeed present in every image: as title, caption, accompanying press article, film dialogue, comic strip balloon.” (274)

I liked this quote because it’s true, we do live in a society where every image has some caption to it. Whenever we see a picture, there is always some writing in the image. Author Barthes states that this country still continues to be a “civilization of writing.” We need words to be able to understand the message the image is trying to tell us.   While reading a billboard, we first read the caption and then proceed to look at the picture because we want to better understand what the billboard is trying to tell us.

While reading a newspaper comic strip, we not only like to see images but we also like the caption that comes with the image. The image might have some humor to it but it’s probably going to be funnier with the some caption added to it. Most of us if not all would prefer to read books with words on it, instead of just having to look at a book with pure images. 

“As will be seen more clearly in a moment, all images are polysemous; they imply, underlying their signifiers, a ‘floating chain’ of signifides, the reader able to choose some and ignore others. “ (274)

This second quote relates to the above quote. All images can be interpreted differently. They can have different meanings and the person reading it can choose to go with a certain meaning and disregard the rest. This could be problematic because in reality the image was meant to have the meaning that people disregarded. This is probably the reason why many images have some caption to it.

I like this quote because I have seen several images and thought of several different meanings that image could have. Yet, I didn’t know exactly what it was they were trying to tell everyone.

 These two quotes I found really interesting and easy to understand. After reading the article and focusing on that Linguistic message, I found myself relating more and more to this section. Author Barthes stated that were a society of writing and therefore, Images should be accompanied by caption. If the advertisers want us to get the right message, then they need to have some sort of words, captions to better help us understand the message they are trying to tell us. 

 

This photo was taken at the Santa Monica Pier. 

This is what I saw when I rode the fairest wheel. 

 

 

Two Intriguing Quotes..

While reading "The Image World" by Susan Sontag, I found a lot of interesting quotes. However, there were two that really stood out.

"Photographic images are pieces of evidence in an ongoing biography or history."

I found this quote quite intriguing because it’s true. Many individuals take photographs to have something to show their friends or family members. They believe that pictures speak louder than words. Since in photographic images, people can see "exactly" what happened or how someone looks like. It's also true that people take photos to have visual memories of someone. 

This quote was also interesting because today's history is surrounded by not only stories but as well as images. For example, photographic images of all the Presidents of the US are part of an "ongoing biography or history." We know how each president looked like because of the images that were taken. 

What is being said in this quote can also be helpful to many people. For instance, there is always someone taking photos for someone else can have the ability to see how something looks like without actually seeing it in person.

"Possession of a camera does not license intrusion, as it does in this society whether people like it or not."

This quote was interesting because it's true. Anyone with a camera has the ability to take photographs of anything they desire, without asking for someone's consent. However everyone expects to be asked if they want themselves photographed, but now a day’s people just take the photo a person and go onto the next. They continue to do this several times. They see it as taking photographs of something they like. I'm even at fault for this.

This quote is also intriguing because many individual's life revolves around taking photos of anything, even to things that do not belong to them. For example, many people don't like the things they've accomplished to be photographed because they don't want someone else to copy their idea.

Both of these quotes were really intriguing because they are true. We take photographic images to add to our history and without realizing it we are invading certain people's privacy or accomplishments. 

This photo was taken in a trip I did to Mexico.  This is a very famous national park in Uruapan, Michoacán.

Introduction

Hi,
My name is Alma Chavez. I'm 22 years old. I'm currently working on obtaining my BA in Criminal Justice. I will be graduating on the Fall of 2012. I like to write, but at times I'm not a very good one. I want to improve in my writing and I hope English 305 will help me.