Reading Response: In Cold Blood

I am re-reading the book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, which I read last year in English 3. I am on Chapter "Persons Unkown: Part 1 of 2." A group  from The Clutter's church goes to clean up the house, considering it their "Christian duty." Alvin Dewey is put in charge of the case. They still have no clues, except for a footprint. 

           

  "And yes, he did think it a 'queer coincidence' that Mr. Clutter should have taken out a fourth-thousand-dollar life- insurance policy, with double idemnity, within eight hours of his death."

The KBI suspects that there was more than one murderer and  that the murderers were closes its  the Clutter family because they seem to have known the layout of the house.  There are deep descriptions of the killings of each of the family members and the funeral is held. 

Multi Genre Research Proposal

For my research topic, I will be researching the animal entertainment industry, including first hand accounts, environmental effects, and branching off into the use of animals for therapy use and research purposes. For references, I can use my dog's vet, Pat Ziegler at Park crest Vet and maybe an animal obedience trainer. There are many documentaries on Netflix such as Blackfish, Whale Wars and Lion Ark which are all full of information. I want to mainly focus on Japanese whale killings, circus training and dog fighting. I want to know more about this topic because I have such a love for animals and I want to know what measures are being taken to protect these animals forced into the entertainment industry.

Multigenre paper response

As I looked through the options of multigenre papers to read, I quickly decided my project will not be literature based. Seeing as the paper will be 4 to 5 pages long, I want to write about a personal experience or a passion of mine. The paper I read was titled "Two" which was about growing up as an identical twin and shortly turned into an autobiography of the authors life. The entire document is 11 pages. Through out the story, Brittany inserts notes to her sister Bethany and tells the tale of beginning their lives after high school without their sibling, and how it made helped them grow into stronger adults. The story of the sisterhood between Bethany and Brittany was amazing and heartfelt and Brittany truly believed her sister was irreplaceable until she met her husband. "Zack will become my husband this summer. As intimate as that relationship is, though, there is still one role that he will never be able to fulfill; that of my identical twin sister." This was definitely a cool paper with an inspiring relationship and the pros and cons of holding the same identity.

United Nations Millenium Goals

I decided to read more on Problem 7; to ensure enviornmental stability. Target 7.C: Halve, by 2015, the porportion of the population of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. There was a featured story about sanitation in India "nearly half of India's 1.2 billion don't have access to toilets" resulting in the death of 1 out of every 10 persons. Some key points in advancing towards this goal have been:

• The world has met the target of halving the proportion of people without access to improved sources of water, five years ahead of schedule.
• Between 1990 and 2012, 2.3 billion people gained access to improved drinking water sources.
• Over a quarter of the world’s population has gained access to improved sanitation since 1990, yet one billion people still resort to open defecation.
• The vast majority – 82 per cent – of people practicing open defecation now live in middle-income, populous countries. 

I felt passionate about this subject because I have always been more environmentally conscious than others I have been around. As a kid I would wake up early just to go downstairs and shut my sister's bedroom light off after she left for school, my friends are never allowed to litter, and I make sure to unplug anything I'm not using. I love being outside and want to keep the environment in top shape and it was nice to see the progress we have made in advancing the health of the environment.

Reading Response Makeup; Grammar

This article published in the Glendale News-Press summarizes the importance of the placement of prepositions and the intricate list of copular verbs. June Casagrande tells her story of being personally victimized for using the sentence "I feel bad" and ending her sentence with a preposition. Some may argue that the correct form of this sentence would be to say, "I feel badly." June sets the audience straight by informing them that in order to 'express remorse or sympathy, the grammatically correct form is “I feel bad”.

"Copular verbs convey being, seeming or the senses, including taste, feel and smell. Copular verbs don’t express action."

 
The other criticism she received regarding prepositions being a sign off to a sentence was counteracted by quotes from big time newsleaders.

"Not only is the preposition acceptable at the end, sometimes it is more effective in that spot than anywhere else.” — The Elements of Style

 This story seemed to be a defensive mechanism on June's part and all in all this just seemed to be another confirmation that English is the most confusing language ever. And maybe June has some insecurity issues she needs to talk to her doctor about. (Hopefully ending with a preposition didn't offend anyone)

Reading Response 2

1.) http://heropets.maker.good.is/projects/Walllythetouchdog
Wally is a Touch Therapy Dog and visits at Children's Hospital in St. Louis where he is a hero every week in the Oncology Unit. He helps kids receiving chemo treatment and is used as a distraction during the process. The proceeds would go to Support Dogs Inc. This story caught my attention because my dog is a trained therapy dog and I think it's incredible how healing animals can be.

2.) http://discovertheforest.maker.good.is/projects/Outdoor_App
The winner for the 'Get your community outdoors' challenge plans to 'host an event to promote unplugging from technology for a day while participating in enjoyable outdoor activities. There will be leaders for each of the activities to instruct, guide or help participants learn about nature & outdoor recreation'. I really like this idea because teenager, myself included, spend too much time glued to their phone which results in a higher obesity rate, if more people were in touch with nature, I think there would be more mentally and physically healthy young adults.

3.) http://travel2change.maker.good.is/projects/Happiness?position=39&sort=popular
I liked this story about Traveling because, even though it didn;t win, it was a unique story that planned to capture the positive shots of Africa. "Everytime you see a commercial about children in Africa you most likely see starvation and poor living. You only get to see the bad side of things. If I were to film a third world country such as Africa, I would make sure to capture moments that some people would never know happens over there." It may seem heartless, but I get tired of seeing the videos of terrible conditions in Africa and I think this would be a refreshing point of view.