Spellbound

Words I didn’t know how to spell before watching Spellbound :

1.     Feasible

2.     Bushido

3.     Iridescent

4.     Mayonnaise

5.     Dissent

6.     Heuristic

In my life I do have something similar to the National Spelling Bee. It is called school. Not only school but, your future. Everybody in life wants to be successful. Successful can mean a lot of things. For some people it is money, for others it is a family or happiness. At the end of the day we want all of it. If you don’t do good in school then doors to be successful might not be open. Even though we are all still 15/16 years old, all of the actions and discussions we make today will affect us in the later future. School puts a big pressure and responsibility on my shoulders. It is our only responsibility so, I want to do my best as possible in it. School isn’t something that you have to study a year for. School or at least high school is something we have to work and push ourselves at everyday for the next four years. 

Reflection NOV 2012

Reflection:                                                                                     Sophie Steckerl

In my Op-Ed article I had some positives in my rubric. After all the practice we have had this year about commas, compound-complex sentences, spelling, and capitalization in Mr. Ferrebee’s class, I got a 3.5 in that bench mark. I have improved my grammaticism extremely over the past couple of months. Now I understand why we spent so much time practicing our grammar. Thank you Mr. Ferrebee, I am greatly appreciative.

*An example of a plus in my article would be:

In my opinion a human rights group has all the “right” to go into countries like Russia, that haven’t had a good history with human rights and, try to change and observe what is going on in that country. 

I also had negatives in my Op-Ed article. I didn’t use pathos, ethos and logos as strongly as I should of. My title, structure, and arguments were also lacking strength. Sometime I was off topic, for example in my introduction: We have been learning and discussing topics like: women’s rights, fear, power, politics, religion, torture, revolution, capital punishment, human rights, government oppression, globalization, family, and education. With ever negative in life there is a lesson. I would like to raise my grade because I know I am capable of much more than a 2.5. 

PATHOS

Pathos, Pathos is feeling, emotion, and reliability. Weather it is being in a happy, bubbly and positive way; or in a heartbreaking, I-need-to-give-back kind of way. In the picture above you can see how the Nike logo is stamped on a child’s foot. He looks beat up, tired, and chained down. The caption is also impacting.  You feel sorrow, remorse and heartbreak by just looking at this ad. You also feel that you should never buy from Nike again. This is what pathos is, trying to make the audience feel an emotion in order to buy a product, believe in a cause, etc. 

LOGOS

The advertisement above shows Verizon and AT&T trying to show which companies has better 3G. You can see that this is logos, but it is not clear logos. Logos is the logic the fact. Verizon published an ad saying they had about 99% of the 3G in the United States, and AT&T had only 1%. Then AT&T published a picture showing they had about 65-70% of the 3G in the United States. The logic in these ads is simply not there. It makes no sense, either one is lying or both of them are. Which makes Verizon and AT&T both unreliable sources (ethos). 

ETHOS

You can see the use of ethos in this advertisement. This ad is telling you to obviously donate money. Sometimes donating money to organizations or charity can be “shady”. You might not now were your money is going or if it really is going to help people in need. That’s were ethos come in to play, a “credible source”.  UNICEF is known all around the world to help people in need. By donating to a reliable organization like UNICEF you know your money is going to a good cause. 

Op-Ed Article and Response

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/world/europe/human-rights-watch-says-its-moscow-researcher-threatened.html

For the last couple of weeks we have not only read Persepolis, but we have been learning and discussing topics like: women’s rights, fear, power, politics, religion, torture, revolution, capital punishment, human rights, government oppression, globalization, family, and education.

This last month a researcher in Human Rights Watch’s office in Moscow Russia was repeatedly threated because of her pregnancy. These threats were sent via cellphone. Investigators also say that the group threatening her has been eavesdropping on her telephone. They also knew things like where she lived, and what she was doing; which is a total violation of privacy. These threats were serious enough for the Human Rights organization to leave Russia as a whole. This is not the first time the organization has been threatened. For the last couple of decades Russia has suffered with this topic of human rights. The government of Russia was very strict, and heartless. They did innumerous counts of violent acts among their citizens. In my opinion a human rights group has all the “right” to go into countries like Russia, that haven’t had a good history with human rights, and try to change and observe what is going on in that country. Human Right’s group is calling this the latest example up rising pressure against rights and civic groups in Russia. 

The Passport

 The Passport:

When I first read the title: The Passport, I thought things were going to get better. When you think of passport, you think of freedom, but freedom is far from what this chapter is about. Uncle Taher has another heart attack. A passport is not given to his wife so he can be operated on overseas. So they went to a friend, Khosoro, and asked him to make them fake passports. While at his house an 18-year old girl comes out of the basement. She is in hiding because she is a communist. A couple days later Khosoro’s house was ransacked. The 18-year girl was arrested and killed. Khosoro fled on a horse to turkey. Three weeks later Uncle Taher passed away. That same day his real passport arrived.

 I believe that the picture below represents what Marjane and her family were feeling at that moment. They felt trapped. In the picture you can infer that the person can’t move, that their hands are handicapped. You can also see that the wood is in the shape of a word bubble. I believe this means that they don’t have the freedom of speech, which is what the Iranian people where going through.