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http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/21/tech/mobile/iphone-5-release/index.html?hpt=hp_inthenews

IPhone 5: The wait is over

By: Doug Gross

A quick summary of the article - as you can gather from the title the long awaited IPhone 5 is out and many people have waited all night to get it.  Some people have showed genuine excitement while others are less thrilled with the new product.

• Details

                        This article is supposed to be very objective but there are some quips, and details in here that show some biases on the subject of the new IPhone.  While talking about the new phone Gross says, "the new phone has had a few problems, as tech innovations sometimes tend to do."  I believe this statement has a sarcastic undertone, and Gross is trying to say all new products have the new and improved features, but people are just going crazy over the IPhone because Apple is a well known name and they have the "pretty packaging".  Details like that make me as a reader feel like Gross is not a huge fan of the new phone and it fells like he's convincing us not to get hooked with Apple's scheme.  The other detail that caught my eye was the people Gross chose to interview, interestingly they had a negative tone towards the phone as well, "you've got to be patient with Apple, and they'll get it right" said Justin Henderson.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he has a similar opinion as Gross, because Henderson believes Apple products don't function very well, instead people just by their products for the brand name that comes with it.  These details definitely push a reader to have a negative opinion of Apple and the new phone.

• Diction

                        Since this isn't a novel or poem the diction isn't very symbolic or have many layers, but it's still important to the article.  The first thing that caught my eye was that the people who were waiting in line all night for the new phone were called "fanboys" and "fangirls".  Normally when talking about a fan you think of people who love pop stars and the people who know the lyrics to all their songs, but there is also the negative connotation on the extreme side.  Sometimes fans are thought of as crazy, obsessed, stalkers who are so in love with somebody it's borderline crazy and over the top.  I believe the negative connotation is being used in this article because they talk about how people waited in line all night in awful weather, without food, and without sleep.  This diction made me realize that this article was probably not going to shed the best light on this new technological innovation.

•  Syntax

                        This article is more of a telling/reporting piece than an influencial piece, although Gross definitely gets his opinion across, because of this we don't see many small fragments or strong repetition.  Instead we see longer sentences, which are easy to read and they flow well, and this is a good thing for an article because it appeals to all audiences since it's and easy read.  Gross also manages to slip in countless quotes and moves around talking about multiple countries while still maintaining a smooth sound.  Even though the article is simple to read, Gross adds captivating information and puts in regular people's views so it pulls in the average people since they feel like part of the story. 

Open Prompt Blog

Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary.

            Everything in a novel down to the names of the characters seems to have an underlying importance or they act as symbols.  This idea has been applied to classic pieces of literature, as well as modern works like the novel The Last Song.  In the book The Last Song the conflict between Ronnie and her father sets the stage for the whole novel and it leads to the symbolic conflict between Ronnie and her music, the theme of forgiveness, and a dramatic conflict.

            Ronnie and her father used to be close, but after her parents messy divorce she felt as if her father had abandoned her and that led to Ronnie hating him.  Nicholas Sparks shows the reader the spiteful attitude Ronnie feels towards her father; “’I don’t want to talk to him’ Ronnie said.  ‘Just try to make the best of it, okay?  Your father is a good man and he loves you.’  ‘Is that why he walked out on us?’” (Sparks pg. 11).  In this passage Ronnie’s mother is trying to convince her that going to visit her father for the summer is good for her.  After a week or so into the summer Ronnie and her father started to mend their relationship and this was an important detail to the novel.  Without this father daughter conflict the main theme of forgiveness would not have been established.

The conflict between Ronnie and her father also led Ronnie to stop playing the piano because that was an activity she did with her father; “’…it makes me feel sick.  Don’t you get that?  I hate the piano, I hate that I had to play every single day!’” (Sparks pg. 108).  This is important to the story because music and playing the piano is symbolic, it represents Ronnie’s father and the strong bond they use to have.   This symbolism is present at the end of the novel when her father dies and when Ronnie wants to feel like he’s still there she plays the piano, and when she does the light shines through the window and Ronnie knows he’s still with her.  Without the conflict between Ronnie and her father the music wouldn’t be symbolic, because she would have never stopped playing.

This conflict made the climax of the novel have a bigger impact on the readers and on Ronnie.  The climax is when Ronnie finds out her father has cancer and only has a few weeks to live.  The conflict adds to this because Ronnie and her father have been out of touch for three years so that adds guilt and pulls the reader in to feel sorrow for Ronnie.  When he does pass away Ronnie finishes the song he was writing, and plays it at his funeral.  This pulls back the idea of the music being a symbol for her father and their bond.

            The conflict in the Last Song went a lot deeper than a teenage girl hating her dad for leaving home, it was an important detail put in the novel by Sparks.  The conflict led to a more dramatic climax, introduced the major theme of forgiveness, and led the readers to realize that the music was a symbol.

             

           

Response to Course Materials

During the summer while I was reading Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor I never thought that the book could teach me so much, and not just information relevant to the AP literature class, but even with modern day literature and film.  When I first started reading it I thought it was just going to be the same old reading tips I've learned my whole life, but as I started getting into it I realized that there's a whole new way to look at literature.  For example when watching one of my favorite movies; The Proposal I never thought anything of the scence when Margaret falls off the boat into the water, but after I read Foster's book I can see that she fell into the water as an act of rebirth.  After Margaret is brought back onto the boat her whole personality changes and she becomes a new person.  Doing my Foster powerpoint was a lot more enjoyable than I thought because I was able to see things like Margaret's rebirth in a lot of my favorite movies and I thought being able to see the same works in a new light was really interesting.  Imagine what I'll be able to find in the books we read this year!

In addition Harvey's book The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing not only helped me critique pieces of literature, like the Seadris essay, but it helped me write my college essays.  The timing was perfect because I was writing some of my college essays at the time and the tips in this book led me to take out a lot of unnecessary information. It also led me to taking out a lot of long complex sentences with long fancy sounding words, but after taking those out the essay sounded a lot more like me and that would have never happened if I hadn't read Harvey's book.  The summer homework helped me not only understand literature better, but now I can read books with a new point of view, and I have a lot of handy tips for writing a great paper.