Place Logic Assignment Here

Directions:

Post the answers to the following questions here. Place your response or questions to Olympia above the answers. (You are not required to comment on your peers’ response for this assignment).

Discussion Questions
1. Setting: the story’s location in time and space.
What details about setting do you find in “Logic”? In what ways does the setting contribute to the story?

Consider the following:
a. Details indicating the time period of the story—season, era. (One such detail is in chapter 32.)

b. A change of terrain occurs in Chapter 32? How does this change affect the characters? What are the differences between one world and the other?

c. What do you know about the place? Is this factor relevant?

d. Gender roles indicate setting.

e. Do you see any inconsistencies or violations in setting?

f. What is the atmosphere? That is, what is the overall environment like, mentally as well as physically?


2. Plot: What happens in the story?
Briefly state the line of development. Is this story a rough-and-tumble thriller? Or is the development more subtle? Which scenes would you call most important and why?

3. Characterization.
Who are the characters? Are any of the characters flat or round? Static or developing?

Terms:
Flat – one-dimensional
Round – fully described
Static – a character that undergoes no essential change
Developing – experiences some substantial change in personal outlook or philosophy.

Is there an antagonist, someone definitely at odds with the central character?
Or there any stock characters (characters in stereotyped roles; for instance, the strong, silent sheriff; the innocent and helpless young person)?

4. Conflict
What is the struggle?
What are the 3 classic struggles we learned in high school?

5. Language
What symbols are used? How do we know they are symbols? What do they symbolize? Consider images in passages that contribute to the sense of the story.

Does the language, diction (word choice) remind you of a “kind” of writing?

What are examples of imagery (language that appeals to your senses)?
Choose two of your favorite phrases or sections, or respond to why you could not “see” things because of the language—were you indifferent?

How is language “misused” and to what effect?


One reviewer described Vernon’s novel “Logic” as a blues song. What do you think he meant? To really answer this correctly you should do an internet search on “the blues aesthetic,” and “Albert Murray + blues”

Vernon refers to a blues singer Robert Johnson on page 60. Below is a song by Johnson.


Kindhearted Woman Blues (take 1)
I got a kindhearted woman
do anything in this world for me
I got a kindhearted woman
do anything in this world for me
But these evil-hearted women
man, they will not let me be
I love my baby
my baby don't love me
I love my baby, ooh
my baby don't love me
But I really love that woman
can't stand to leave her be
Ain't but the one thing
makes Mister Johnson drink
I's worried about how you treat me, baby
I begin to think
Oh babe, my life don't feel the same Yo breaks my heart
When you call Mister So-and-So's name
(Break with guitar solo)
She's a kindhearted woman
she studies evil all the time
She's a kindhearted woman
she studies evil all the time
You well's to kill me
As to have it on your mind


6. What is the significance of the Anne Frank quote “Go outside, Laugh, and take a breath of fresh air,” a voice cries within me”?

Sanavieai Brazeal
Corona (Discussion)

On the first mention of Corona, I automatically pictured a cold beverage meant for partying and having a good time. Imagine my surprise to know that Corona in context is meant as a halo of light shining down to give peace. In this featured piece, we encounter a man and a little girl who find out that they can help each other. They gain peace and a sense of understanding of how to deal with their pain. Music helps them both to do that. It helps to cope with whatever is going on in their lives. Music has an undercurrent of subliminal messages that translate beauty, peace, and justice. It helps us release what burdens may hinder us from healing our innermost wounds.
The main characters in the reading face different aspects of pain and find their own way of handling it. Music gives them a window of escape to erase the pain at that moment. Buddy is in the hospital with an injury and the little girl wants to kill herself. They face the conflict of unburdening each other’s pain and to make it better. They both have heard a Bryan Faust song and the little girl gives a very descriptive thought of the song. I especially enjoyed when she said, “I think Faust’s music is so alive! But with life the way it should be. Not without pain, but with pain contained, ordered, given form and meaning, so that it’s almost all right again.” This made me realize that sometimes music can take us away when we need to release heavy labors.
My mother always said that I was a different type of child. I was always singing and dancing to all types of music. Growing up around my grandparents, I was able to hear different types of music and to broaden my horizons. While I attended school, I was picked on for listening to “White People” music. One day after school, I asked my mother why were people so mean and hateful. She told me that people fear the unknown and things that are different. My mother explained to me that people in society want to stay a certain way and constantly resist change. As I grew older, I understood what she was trying to tell me. She prepared me for ignorant people who believe that if you are a certain color, you must listen to one type of music. Well the world met its match with me! I love jazz, rhythm and blues, rock, soul, reggae, opera, and sometimes a little rap.
Researchers Rentfrow and Gosling addressed music influence as very important in everyday lives. They stated that people experience music in everyday life giving aspect of all human cultures, and has been associated with particular emotion regulation and coping. They emphasize the fact that music, in any of its widely different forms and contents, can evoke powerful emotional reactions in people. (British Journal of Psychology May 2007)


Reference: Can traits explain how people use music in everyday life?
British Journal of Psychology 98.2 (May 2007) Magazine/ Journal
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Adrian Furnham

Please Place "Essay Three" Here

Sanavieai Brazeal
Sept 21, 2007
Trance (Discussion)

In this featured story, it is set in a military type atmosphere and the individuals are discussing what the logical approach to making a situation better can be. There environment is ruled by their emotions and their democracy. The characters live in an underground community where they must answer to leadership if something goes wrong in situations. They enjoy knowledge of their history and in how to maintain it for future generations. Social values and a way of life is what they strive to keep and preserve. The rebels are facing slavery and are fighting to avoid it. They want to be a part of one vice and separate from what is unusual and unnatural.
A conflict occurs in which they face an elimination of their race and all that they hold dear to them. The history of there ancestors is at stake and that is why they must make certain mission jumps. These mission jumps unify and maintain history. They leave their bodies in a control center, but their souls travel around in history. An out of body experience occurs throughout the story.
Diversity and unity are separated when they should be combined. In the story Sheba says she wants Blackness to always exist. She is frustrated and just wants to be left alone and to be who they want to be. There are different forms of a struggle and the crew has to understand it can take over your world. But as people unite the struggles can be overcome and won. Dominance of a race has burdened our world thinking that one race is better than the other. The world is not pretty, but it is up to believers to see that we must live in unity. Without that we are in slavery of the mind and body.

Please Post Essay Two Here

Criteria for a Synthesis Essay and Essay Example

The following is taken from chapter 13: Analyzing and Synthesizing Ideas; The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing Fourth Edition; John D. Ramage


A Synthesis Essay:
1. Addresses a focusing question
2. Summarizes and analyzes the views of at least two writers on this question
3. Shows how you have wrestled with different perspectives on the question and have synthesized these ideas to arrive at your own new view of the question


Overview
In the introduction to your essay, present the focusing question to your readers so that they become interested in it, see its problematic nature, and appreciate its significance. Then present your own thesis that grows out of your analysis and synthesis of your readings. At appropriate places in your essay, summarize these readings briefly because you should assume that your audience has not read them.

In the body of your paper, you have two main goals: (1) through analysis, show how the pieces you have selected provide different perspectives on the focusing question based on differing values, assumptions, beliefs, or framing of the question; and (2) through synthesis, add your own perspective and independent thinking by making your own connections among the ideas in the readings. In other words, create a new view by combining ideas gathered from readings with your own ideas.


Essay Components (Place these components above the completed essay).

1. State the focusing question.

2. State the thesis.

3. Write a 200-250-word summary of each of the main texts you will use in your final paper. Please separate each summary.

4. Write a 500-word analysis of your texts. (Look at things such as the text’s purpose, audience, genre, appeal, the author’s point of view and similarities and differences of the main themes in the chosen texts.)

5. State the risky, surprising or new view.

Student Example of a Synthesis Essay
Note that Kate MacAulay begins by presenting the focusing question that connects the texts she is analyzing. She then summarizes these texts and presents her mapping thesis statement. She devotes more than half of the body of the essay to a close analysis of the texts before she moves on to present her own independent thinking in the synthesis section of the essay.

TECHNOLOGY'S PERIL AND POTENTIAL
Kate MacAulay (student)
Recently in English class, we have been focusing on the question, What effect is technology having on humanity and the quality of life in the twenty-first century? We have had heated discussions about the use of cell phones, palm pilots, beepers, e-mail, chat rooms, and the Web. As part of my investigation of this question, I read two texts: a chapter from George Ritzer’s book The McDonaldization of Society, entitled “The Irrationality of Rationality: Traffic Jams on Those ‘Happy Trails,’ and an article published in the magazine Wired entitled “Who Am We?” by Sherry Turkle. In his chapter, Ritzer, a sociology professor, explains how technology has rationalized businesses and many facets of society following the McDonald’s model. He argues that modern technology is causing loss of quality products, time, and relationships. In the McDonaldized system, where everything is designed logically for economy and convenience, things have become more artificial, and our relationships have become more superficial. In her article “Who Am We?” Sherry Turkle, a psychology professor at MIT, shows how computers and the Internet are transforming our views of ourselves and the way we interact socially. Focusing on computers’ capacities for simulation and promoting interaction, Turkle has explored MUDs (multi-user domains), which allow people to create virtual identities. MUDs, Turkle believes, contribute to the formation of postmodern multiple selves and raise new questions about personal identity and morality. Although both Turkle and Ritzer identify problems in technology’s influence and in society’s responses to it, Turkle sees more potential and gain where Ritzer sees mostly peril and loss. Both articles made me question how we define our values and morality in this postmodern, technologically advanced world and persuaded me of the need for caution in embracing technology.

Although Ritzer and Turkle both see technology as having some negative effects on human relations and the quality of life, they disagree about exactly where the most interesting and serious problems lie. Ritzer believes that the problems caused by technology are not problems within the individual, but problems imposed on the individual by McDonaldized systems. For example, Ritzer claims that fast-food restaurants encourage us to eat unhealthy food quickly and also contribute to “the disintegration of the family” (141) by taking away family time. He also believes that rationalized systems create illusions of fun, reality, and friendliness. He talks about the “scripted interactions” (138) that employees are supposed to have with customers, where they are told exactly what to say to every customer, making interactions less real. Further, rationalized systems are dehumanizing in the kinds of jobs they create that “don’t offer much in the way of satisfaction or stability” (137), benefiting only stockholders, owners, and employers.

In contrast, Turkle responds to technology’s threat by focusing inward on technology’s effect on the self and on relationships. While she is clearly intrigued by such Internet capabilities as multi-user domains, she acknowledges that this potential for multiple simultaneous identities threatens the wholeness of individuals, possibly damaging our emotional and psychological selves. Her concern is that people become addicted to these games because in the virtual world it is easy to create better “selves,” to be what you wish you were. Turkle shows that people can lose themselves between the real world and the virtual world and be “imprisoned by the screens” (199). Although the virtual world is exciting and fun, she notes that “[o]ur experiences there are serious play” (199). She also examines cases of virtual characters who get into relationships with other characters, including cyber-sex relationships. She ponders the issue of cyber-sex immorality and adultery.

Despite Turkle and Ritzer’s agreement that technology can damage us as a society, they disagree on their overall outlook and on our power to respond positively to technology’s influence. I find Ritzer’s views almost entirely negative. He believes that we are irreversibly damaged by technological advances because we are completely caught up in the McDonaldized system, with few parts of society left unchanged. Almost all of the family-owned neighborhood restaurants or mom-and-pop grocery stores have been taken over by franchises like Red Robin or Safeway. The costs of these rationalized systems, he says, are “inefficiency, illusions of various types, disenchantment, dehumanization, and homogenization” (124). In this chapter of his book, Ritzer doesn’t mention any ways that our lives could be improved by these systems; he gives only examples of the way we are misled and damaged by them.

Turkle’s approach strikes me as much more positive and balanced than Ritzer’s.Optimistically, she explains that MUDs can give people self-knowledge that they can apply to real life: “[t]he anonymity of MUDs gives people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and to try out new ones” (152). Turkle sees an opportunity for us to grow as individuals and to learn to use technology in a positive way: “If we can cultivate awareness of what stands behind our screen personae, we are more likely to succeed in using virtual experience for personal transformation” (199). Turkle’s views are more complex than Ritzer’s. She believes that we have to take responsibility for our own habits and psychological responses to technology. She encourages us to be aware of how we interact with technology and believes that we can grow as individuals using this technology.

After reading these articles, I have realized how the continuing advancement oftechnology raises new moral questions. In a McDonaldized system, where everything is designed for convenience, there seem to be many places for morals to be left out of the picture. For example, is it okay for us to exchange real human interaction for convenience and saving time? Is there something wrong with our ethics when interesting and fulfilling jobs are eliminated by machines or replaced by dead-end, low-paying Mcjobs? Turkle too shows us how virtual worlds pose new moral questions for us. In MUDs, people can form virtual relationships, even cyber-sex relationships. The people behind the characters are real people, even if they are acting as someone else. If a married person has a cyber-sex relationship on a MUD, is he or she cheating? If a person commits a virtual assault or other crime that has no real-world, physical effects, should he or she feel guilty or sinful for the intention? Ritzer and Turkle have made me see how important these questions are.

Reading the articles made me strongly believe that we must use this technology inmoderation in order to preserve individual qualities and our relationships. From our class discussions, I remember what Scott said about the way that the Internet connects people. He said that people like his uncle, who was severely injured on the job, use the Internet as a way of “getting out” to meet people and socialize. He pointed out how the Microsoft Gaming Zone has brought his uncle into an ongoing backgammon tournament through which he has made friends. Meanwhile his aunt has gotten a lot of pleasure out of playing and problem solving in the world of MUDs.
But my own experience has left me concerned about the danger we face as emotional, social beings in the face of technology. The other night at a family gathering, one of my cousins, after discussing car buying with some of the relatives, got the urge to research new car prices. He left the room, logged onto the Internet, and spent the rest of the evening looking at cars and prices. We saw him only once the whole evening when he came out to get a slice of pie. My cousin's withdrawal from the conversation made me think about Ritzer’s and Turkle’s concerns that technology decreases real interactions among people.

Ritzer and Turkle offer us a warning that technology can be damaging if we don’trecognize and overcome its dangers. I would encourage us not to let ourselves become dominated by technology, not to let it take our full attention just because it is there, and not to overlook the complex moral questions that technology poses. The convenience that technology offers—our e-mail, cell phones, and debit cards—should help us save time that can be spent in nurturing our relationships with other people. The real challenge is to find ways to become even better people because of technology.

Works Cited

Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge, 2000.

Turkle, Sherry. “Who Am We?” Wired Jan. 1996: 148+.

Components Shown
Introduces focusing questions and context
Recently in English class, we have been focusing on the question, What effect is technology having on humanity and the quality of life in the twenty-first century? We have had heated discussions about the use of cell phones, palm pilots, beepers, e-mail, chat rooms, and the Web.

Introduces the texts to be analyzed
As part of my investigation of this question, I read two texts: a chapter from George Ritzer’s book The McDonaldization of Society, entitled “The Irrationality of Rationality: Traffic Jams on Those ‘Happy Trails,’ and an article published in the magazine Wired entitled “Who Am We?” by Sherry Turkle.

Brief summary of Ritzer’s text
In his chapter, Ritzer, a sociology professor, explains how technology has rationalized businesses and many facets of society following the McDonald’s model. He argues that modern technology is causing loss of quality products, time, and relationships. In the McDonaldized system, where everything is designed logically for economy and convenience, things have become more artificial, and our relationships have become more superficial.

Brief summary of Turkle’s text
In her article “Who Am We?” Sherry Turkle, a psychology professor at MIT, shows how computers and the Internet are transforming our views of ourselves and the way we interact socially. Focusing on computers’ capacities for simulation and promoting interaction, Turkle has explored MUDs (multi-user domains), which allow people to create virtual identities. MUDs, Turkle believes, contribute to the formation of postmodern multiple selves and raise new questions about personal identity and morality.

Thesis statement with analytical points and synthesis points
Although both Turkle and Ritzer identify problems in technology’s influence and in society’s responses to it, Turkle sees more potential and gain where Ritzer sees mostly peril and loss. Both articles made me question how we define our values and morality in this postmodern, technologically advanced world and persuaded me of the need for caution in embracing technology.

Analytical point: compares and contrasts Ritzer’s and Turkle’s ideas
Although Ritzer and Turkle both see technology as having some negative effects on human relations and the quality of life, they disagree about exactly where the most interesting and serious problems lie. Ritzer believes that the problems caused by technology are not problems within the individual, but problems imposed on the individual by McDonaldized systems.

Analyzes and elaborates on Ritzer’s ideas
For example, Ritzer claims that fast-food restaurants encourage us to eat unhealthy food quickly and also contribute to “the disintegration of the family” (141) by taking away family time. He also believes that rationalized systems create illusions of fun, reality, and friendliness. He talks about the “scripted interactions” (138) that employees are supposed to have with customers, where they are told exactly what to say to every customer, making interactions less real. Further, rationalized systems are dehumanizing in the kinds of jobs they create that “don’t offer much in the way of satisfaction or stability” (137), benefiting only stockholders, owners, and employers.

Analyzes, contrasts, and elaborates on Turkle’s ideas
In contrast, Turkle responds to technology’s threat by focusing inward on technology’s effect on the self and on relationships. While she is clearly intrigued by such Internet capabilities as multi-user domains, she acknowledges that this potential for multiple simultaneous identities threatens the wholeness of individuals, possibly damaging our emotional and psychological selves. Her concern is that people become addicted to these games because in the virtual world it is easy to create better “selves,” to be what you wish you were. Turkle shows that people can lose themselves between the real world and the virtual world and be “imprisoned by the screens” (199). Although the virtual world is exciting and fun, she notes that “[o]urexperiences there are serious play” (199). She also examines cases of virtual characters who get into relationships with other characters, including cyber-sex relationships. She ponders the issue of cyber-sex immorality and adultery.

Analytical points: compares and contrasts Ritzer’s and Turkle’s ideas
Despite Turkle and Ritzer’s agreement that technology can damage us as a society, they disagree on their overall outlook and on our power to respond positively to technology’s influence. I find Ritzer’s views almost entirely negative. He believes that we are irreversibly damaged by technological advances because we are completely caught up in the McDonaldized system, with few parts of society left unchanged.

Analyzes and elaborates on Ritzer’ ideas
Almost all of the family-owned neighborhood restaurants or mom-and-pop grocery stores have been taken over by franchises like Red Robin or Safeway. The costs of these rationalized systems, he says, are “inefficiency, illusions of various types, disenchantment, dehumanization, and homogenization” (124).

Presents writer’s independent thinking
In this chapter of his book, Ritzer doesn’t mention any ways that our lives could be improved by these systems; he gives only examples of the way we are misled and damaged by them.

Analyzes, contrasts, and elaborates on Turkle’s ideas
Turkle’s approach strikes me as much more positive and balanced than Ritzer’s.Optimistically, she explains that MUDs can give people self-knowledge that they can apply to real life: “[t]he anonymity of MUDs gives people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and to try out new ones” (152). Turkle sees an opportunity for us to grow as individuals and to learn to use technology in a positive way: “If we can cultivate awareness of what stands behind our screen personae, we are more likely to succeed in using virtual experience for personal transformation” (199).

Presents writer’s independent thinking
Turkle’s views are more complex than Ritzer’s. She believes that we have to take responsibility for our own habits and psychological responses to technology. She encourages us to be aware of how we interact with technology and believes that we can grow as individuals using this technology.

Transition to writer’s synthesis. Synthesis point discusses writer’s own view
After reading these articles, I have realized how the continuing advancement oftechnology raises new moral questions. In a McDonaldized system, where everything is designed for convenience, there seem to be many places for morals to be left out of the picture. For example, is it okay for us to exchange real human interaction for convenience and saving time?

Elaborates on the connections the writer is making
Is there something wrong with our ethics when interesting and fulfilling jobs are eliminated by machines or replaced by dead-end, low-paying Mcjobs? Turkle too shows us how virtual worlds pose new moral questions for us. In MUDs, people can form virtual relationships, even cyber-sex relationships. The people behind the characters are real people, even if they are acting as someone else. If a married person has a cyber-sex relationship on a MUD, is he or she cheating? If a person commits a virtual assault or other crime that has no real-world, physical effects, should he or she feel guilty or sinful for the intention? Ritzer and Turkle have made me see how important these questions are.

Synthesis point discusses writer’s own view
Reading the articles made me strongly believe that we must use this technology inmoderation in order to preserve individual qualities and our relationships. From our class discussions, I remember what Scott said about the way that the Internet connects people. He said that people like his uncle, who was severely injured on the job, use the Internet as a way of “getting out” to meet people and socialize. He pointed out how the Microsoft Gaming Zone has brought his uncle into an ongoing backgammon tournament through which he has made friends. Meanwhile his aunt has gotten a lot of pleasure out of playing and problem solving in the world of MUDs.

Synthesis point discusses writer’s own view
But my own experience has left me concerned about the danger we face as emotional, social beings in the face of technology. The other night at a family gathering, one of my cousins, after discussing car buying with some of the relatives, got the urge to research new car prices. He left the room, logged onto the Internet, and spent the rest of the evening looking at cars and prices. We saw him only once the whole evening when he came out to get a slice of pie. My cousin's withdrawal from the conversation made me think about Ritzer’s and Turkle’s concerns that technology decreases real interactions among people.

Transition and final connections
Ritzer and Turkle offer us a warning that technology can be damaging if we don’trecognize and overcome its dangers. I would encourage us not to let ourselves become dominated by technology, not to let it take our full attention just because it is there, and not to overlook the complex moral questions that technology poses.

Conclusion
The convenience that technology offers—our e-mail, cell phones, and debit cards—should help us save time that can be spent in nurturing our relationships with other people. The real challenge is to find ways to become even better people because of technology.

Lauren Broussard
Fictional Writing on Trance

Kalamu ya Salaam’s Trance was extremely different from my usual reads. This story was a very futuristic view of what could happen if a total race and culture was wiped out of history completely. It was real wakeup call to see the process of time travel and underground governments evolving. This allowed the reader to have a more complex view of what our society could or couldn’t do with the role play of “God”. Could we eventually do these things with the continuation of massive technology discoveries?
I think time travel has always been a very outlandish fantasy. Movies such as Back to the Future have made this outlook to several people. That subject is something I for one never see happening. But the thought of an entire culture being wiped out is something that could very well happen. Some people say the south is starting to fade away. Such beautiful places on our coastal shores have been destroyed due to the destruction of continuous hurricanes and floods. Most of the culture and historical landmarks have been wiped out and no longer existing. What happen if this were to continue?
With the continuation of global warming, the eco system is being destroyed and losing its ability to protect us. With this being said, the continuation of naturalistic disasters is being heightened. 2006 ended with 10 named storms (one between Alberto and Beryl that was unnamed during the season and only identified in the post-season analysis). CSU had predicted 17 storms. Accu Weather predicted 6 tropical cyclones (3 major) will strike US coast (none did), with a total number “above average”NHC/NOAA predicted 13-16 named storms (hurricanes and tropical storms), 8-10 of which will become hurricanes, and 4-6 of which will be major hurricanes (category 3 or higher) (www.hurriicane)
When and how do you think the human race will be wiped out? The major things that could currently wipe out the human race would be some nuclear war, or a some type of space rock hitting earth. In about 100 year I think we would have the technology to stop a meteorite from impacting earth. Also be able to establish life on the moon or something if there was a nuclear war. If we could survive for 1000 years the population would be giant maybe in the 100's of billions and spread out over a few planets, then it would be harder for the human race to die out. 100,000 years by now we should have some type of close to speed of light travel, maybe half the speed of light. Then it would be even harder for something to kill the human race. There are theories out there that say that the Big Bang will slow down and start to comeback in on its self in trillions of years. I wonder if in trillions of years what would be going on in the universe and if we would have the technology to stop the big bang saving the universe.
The fact is, we can only hope for the best in all this to happen. We, contrary to our belifs, hope we can see the end of it all but none of us really know the answer. I just hope the way it ends is a quick and clean way of going!