Columnist Unit: Thoughts after reading the columns

Hey guys I am here today to do another blogpost :). Anyway, this week I am going to be talking about some columns I had to read for English. One stood out to me though of all of them. This column was the story about the Boston Marathon bombings and its connection to things you will always remember in your life. I think the reason why this connected to me though was because it has some key things that I like, sports, and a modern event. Since this bombing only happened a couple of years ago when I was old enough to comprehend what was going in, it seemed to connect to me. Also the images coming out of the tragedy are horrifying but also humanizing.

I dont want to post the more graphic images but this itself shows what this event did and so thats why this colmun was my favorite.

My least favorite column we had to read? I really didn't have a least favorite to be honest but if I had to choose it was the Kate Middleton dress story. It was a decent story but I never really liked fashion and this story falls under that category. Plus when reading through it, it wasn't really about the dress and more of fashion in general. to pull a quote from it,"Royal fashion was not much kinder to Sarah Ferguson when she married Prince Andrew in 1986. Her dress was designed by Lindka Cierach and featured a 17-foot train. But really, the most striking aspects were the enormous puff sleeves that spoke so eloquently and unquestionably of 1980s style." The author,Robin Givhan, seems to go on a tangent about royal fashion and its past. Thats just my opinions though. What do you guys think?

Theme Assignment

Theme Statement:

Censorship causes diminished individual thought

By:Morgan Register, Abigail Gunter, Sudarsana Addepalli, Brianna Smith, and Megan Hernandez

Timeline:

• In the beginning, Montag burns books because as a fireman he thinks that it is best for society.
• Montag meets Clarisse and finds her peculiar due to her deep insights on society and how she spends lots of time thinking.
• After Montag sees a lady go down with her books, he begins to question his beliefs on censorship.
• Montag goes and talks to Faber.  He thinks Faber is interesting because Faber is not affected by the censorship surrounding them in society.
• Montag tries to shed some light for Mildred and her friends by reading them a poem, but the plan backfires.
• Montag returns to the firehouse to continue the “book burnings” but finds that their next assignment is his house.
• Montag runs from the government and escapes to the woods and joins Granger and the book people to continue his growth of individual thought and knowledge.

Quotes:

1. “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed”(Bradbury 1).
2. “The Captain belongs to the most dangerous enemy to truth and freedom” (Bradbury 122)
3. “So long as the vast population doesn’t wander about quoting the Magna Carta and The Constitution, it’s all right,” (Bradbury 147).

Theme to story importance: This theme is crucial to understanding the book because, the premise of the story is based upon the censorship of books and knowledge.

Theme to society connection: This theme is relevant to our society today because censorship plays a major role in how economical information is presented and how it is designed to sway opinions.  It is important for us to study this theme because it helps us to remain aware of the freedom of having individual thoughts and the ability to gain knowledge.

So I started another book...

Hey guys, I am back with a new blog post here today. So its been a while since i have last talked to you all. I did some reading over the "winter break 2" but not much. I started a book called Kite Runner which I have to say was pretty interesting. It is about a boy and his life growing up in Afghanistan before the Russians invaded it. I want to pull a quote from the book saying,"It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime...". What made this stand out to me was the fact that its a direct reference to when the Russians attacked and later on the Taliban. There were a lot of these eye opening quotes scattered through out the book.

 Another thing I wanted to talk about referring to the book was that it goes into and talks about the traits that make human a human. Traits like love, hatred, anger, betrayal etc... All these are present int he book. For example in the book, it deeply goes into racism. "It also said some things I did know , like that people called Hazaras mice-eating, flat-nosed, load-carrying donkeys. I had heard some of the kids in the neighborhood yell these names to Hassan." To flat out talk about racism without any sugarcoating is rare and what makes this book unique  to others. The only thing I really didn't like in the story so far is trying to keep up with all the characters in the book. You are hit with so many different thoughts and ideas in the book making it hard to comprehend.