Letter to the Caulfields

Dear Mrs. and Mr. Caulfield,

Your son, Holden Caulfield, has been placed under my car in the rest home he is currently staying in. That biggest thing that I have noticed about your son is his failure to interact with piers in the home. So far we have diagnosed this as Avoidant Personality Disorder or APD. While talking with Holden in our on-on-one sessions, I have noticed a trend with his sister, Pheobe. he loves his sister very much, but he can only spend a short amount of time with her, otherwise it is not as enjoyable. He may also have Compulsive Lying Disorder (CLD) which basically explains his habitual lying to himself or others. He is addicted to the thrill of lying. He loves it. His vital signs shoot up when he tells a lie, but he has perfected it. He has almost no tell when he lies and almost everyone  believes him.

 He could also be diagnosed with being a compulsive liar because he believes himself most of the time. When he tells me about a girl named Sally, he tells me how he didn't scream at her and never hurt her feelings, but when I contacted Sally about Holden, she got very upset and said she would rather not talk to about him. I am not saying the girl is telling the truth, because teenagers lie, but given the evidence, it is more likely it is Holden.

He may also have bipolar disorder or depression. My best recommended advice is to socialize him. The depression and APD may just be because he is lonely. The CLD could be caused by minimal social interaction and the bipolar disorder may just be because of the depression. The influx of hormones and what-not. However, I will keep and eye on him and try to socialize him. Depending on how he starts doing within the next week, expect him home within the month. I will keep you updated and he may be able to speak with you all soon.

Sincerely,
Director of the Cincinnati Rest Home

Mark Tobey- Abstract Expressionism

1) Mark Tobey was born in Wisconsin into a family of carpenters and painters. He wanted to do something more than paint walls though. He wanted to paint a canvas. He was introduced to [ainting in 1918 when he was asked to pose for a famous artist. Then his wife divorced him and he needed a change. He met a young Chinese woman and started painting abstract art and Chiese symbols.

2) His work makes him appear confused at first. The more I look at it though, the more uniform it appears. One of his paintings looks like a chalk board with a drawing on it of a child with some sort of aminal. It could symbolize innocence. Honestly, it could symbolize anything. I don't really know anything about art.

3) The colors are dark so I feel like it's almost a storm instead of a rainbow. It kind of makes me nervous or anxious.

4) I react pretty negatively to the artist. I think, however, that this was how he wanted who ever viewed his art to react this way. I thinnk he wanted people to be curious about his art and he wnated poeple to think about it.

5) Yes, I think abstract painting has flourished because before WWII almost no one did any abstract art from the United States.Afterwards, though, we surpassed all other art  capitals of the worlf in New York City and became THE art capital of the world.

Poetry Unit

"Bridges" by jquill89 on authspot.com
It is too easy for me because the meaning isn't really concealed or hidden at all throughout the poem.
This poem is about someone who tries to cross a bridge on their path and something always gets in their way so they have to keep starting over.

"Annabelle Lee" is my favorite poem by Edgar Allen Poe. I thought that the meaning was hard to understand at first but the more time I read it the more it made sense to me. "Annabelle Lee" is about a girl he loved when he was younger. Then Annabelle got sick and she died and he just wants to lay there with her in her coffin and die with her. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/annabel-lee/

  "Elegy in a Spider's Web" Laura Jackson
I'm pretty sure this poem it about killing a spider or something. The poem didn't make sense because they words weren't supposed to go in the order. For example, "Does does dies does it not." http://graywyvern.blogspot.com/2003_12_07_archive.html

Dystopian Novel

I chose the book The Host because it looked the most interesting out of the books that were left when I got to class and I had already read the book Delirium. The book is pretty good thus far but I don't really know what's going to happen. Melanie hasn't really come out yet and Wanderer is still trying to silence Melanie. I am only on chapter three. Again, it looks like it is going to be pretty good.

The book takes place in the future. It seems like a hierarchical society will come into play as I read more into the book. I feel strict conformity has started to come into play because the souls are not allowed to lie to eachother. They are not afriad of or discusted by the humans, they feel bad for us because we're a violent race with raging wars. It's not really a familiarity that connects us with this dystopian novel, more like fear. We are afraid that aliens might come and attack us because we would be totally defensless, even though it might not be an out right fear.

Huckleberry Finn debate on the "N-word"

In my opinion, saying the "N-word" in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not a racist word and it is not prejudice at all. For the time the book was set in, pre-Civil War, the "N-word" was commonly used. In his book, Twain wanted to get the attention of the readers by drawing attention to something that we don't like hearing. In the article it said that when the "N-word" is replaced with the word slave people tend to ignore it or be less bothered by the word. The word reflects a history that most would like to ignore, but in my opinion if you ignore it, it will only repeat itself. Sure, the teach tolerance, but if they don't teach the way it used to be then we'll never know what we're avoiding. I know it seems like a small issue but I think it impacts a lot of people.
 We have the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. They shouldn't be able to take that away from someone who wrote the book anti-slavery. They shouldn't be able to take it away from anyone. If you don't like the word, don't say it. I would never say it in public or even in my own home, but that doesn't mean it should be taken out of a classic story because of it's frequency and offensiveness. People listen to this word everyday in a song, but as soon as they see it written it's all of a sudden racist.
In my school, if we read it, I hope it isn't censored. It will be a pretty big deal for me if it is, but by high school we should be mature enough to handle a word.

Satire in Shrek

 We recently watched the movie Shrek looking for examples of satire. The type of satire I saw the most was probably exageration or reversal. Satire is a literary composition in veerse or prose in which human folly and vice are held  to scorn, derision or ridicule. There are four types of satire.Exageration is to enlarge and increase or represent something beyond normal bounds so that it's faults can be seen. Reversal is to present something the opposite of normal order. There are four types of satire. Incongruity is to present thigns that are out of place or absurd in relationship to it's surroundings. Lastly, parody is to immitate the techniques and/or style of some person, place, thing or idea.
When Donkey starts to talk it is incongruity. It's out of place in normal order because normally donkeys don't talk. I thought Dulac was an exageration of order and hiearchys of the past. I thought that because it made fun of Dulac when the children start singing about how everythings perfect and if you follow orders you'll be perfect, too. Fiona saving Shrek is reversal because normally it's the damsal in distress that gets rescued by her "kinght-in-shinning-armor." When Fiona split kicks Robin Hood's Merry Men it's exageration because it's beyond normal bounds. It's beyond normal bounds because she was suspended in mid-air for a few seconds and everything paused. I think the whole movie was reversal, though. Shrek being the "kinght-in-shinning-armor" and being and ogre or Fiona being so competent. Those thing make it reversal because in the time frame this is technically supposed to be in, ogres didn't save anyone and princesses were always being rescued instead of rescuing.